Genesis 18

v1-8: “Those whom God has blessed with plenty should be generous and openhearted in showing hospitality.” This was a way Abraham’s faith showed itself, and it is one way that our faith makes itself known.

v9-15: God’s promises “were often repeated in the Old Testament to strengthen the faith of God’s people.” We also need to be regularly reminded of them because “we are slow of heart to believe.”

v16-33: Our “fellowship with God is maintained by the word and by prayer. In the word, God speaks to us; in prayer we speak to him.” We find “God’s word does us good when it provides us with matter for prayer and stirs us to it.” So, “when God has spoken to us, we must consider what we have to say to him about it.”

Genesis 19

v1-14: The tragedy is that many people “who are warned of the misery and danger they are in because of sin make light of it,” and don’t take it seriously. Yet that must not stop us from doing everything we can “for the salvation of those around” us.

v15-23: We are saved by grace. “If God had not grasped us, laid hold of us, seized us, we would never have come to him.”

v24-25: Do you see what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God?

v26: Lot’s wife is a warning to us not to turn “back from our Christian profession.” When she looked back, she “revealed an inclination to go back.” If we do, “we risk losing everything.”

v27-38: Not for the first time, we are shown the danger of drunkenness. “People may do something with no hesitation at all when they are drunk, which, when they are sober, they would not think of without horror.”

Genesis 20

v1-2: Sadly, it is often the case that God’s people “not only fall into sin,” but “lapse into the same sin” because of “the weakness of the flesh,” and the power of the temptation. Don’t think that it won’t ever happen to you.

v3-18: People are not as sinful as they could because of God’s restraining hand. “It is not because of him that there is sin, but it is because of him that there is not more sin, either by his influence on the human mind, restraining our inclinations to sin, or by his providence, taking away the opportunity to sin.”