Genesis 19

Genesis chapter 19

To start of the chapter we see the angels coming to Sodom. The good hospitality that Abraham had seems to run in the family. Lot, once seeing the angels, runs to greet them and give them a place to stay and refresh themselves. After some insisting, the angels agree to stay with Lot, but this scene takes place in front of others in the city. After going indoors to eat the people outside gain up courage and knock on the door of Lot's house. You can argue what they wanted with the angels until the eighth verse where Lot, evidently knowing their intentions, offers his daughters to the assailants. Offering his daughters doesn't make this situation in any way better. Although there is a place in judges where a similar incident happens, at no time does the bible ever instruct or give us permission to offer anyone else up to assuage evil. We may offer our own lives to save another, but we can never give another for sacrifice to sin, that is evil. The mob from Sodom will have none of this, so the angels pull Lot back inside and blind the people outside. What is even more disturbing about this is the fact that is appears the people outside, even though they were blinded, still tried to get in. That is the definition of Evil.

The angels insist that Lot gather his family and go because they are going to destroy the city. There are not five righteous and it is time for them to leave if they want to spare their own lives. This is the example for all of us, leave sin now while you can before judgment comes and there is no more escaping. Lot lingers, either from paralyzed fear or procrastination and the angel must take him and his family by the hand and remove them from the city. They are warned to not look back on the city for fear of being turned into a pillar of salt. Before the journey is completed Lot begs that they may enter into the city of Zoar because they are tired from the journey. On the way, Lot's wife looks back on the city and is turned to a pillar of salt just as they are warned.  After God has purged us from our sins there is nothing to go back to or nothing to look back upon. Nothing good can come from us looking longingly back on the life that we no longer have a part of. Also, God will not give us a journey that he will also not supply the grace to travel completely. Lot was tired, disheartened and afraid, but he should have taken the full journey with the angels and not stopped short.

So God sends his judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah. They were not without hope or opportunities to come clean. Christianity is not about what God is going to do to us, but about what we decide to do with our lives with our own free will. We make the choice, the consequences are very clear and the warning has been given. Abraham wakes up in the morning and sees the smoke coming from Sodom. You know his first thoughts were of Lot and his family. He also knows that God was not able to find five righteous. Lot is spared, and God does hear our prayers and pleas.

Lot and his family are dwelling in a cave in a mountain by Zoar. Isolation is not for a servant of God. Lot discovers this too late even with the warning of Sodom before him. His daughters imagine an evil thing and Lot gets too drunk to know or do anything about it. What a sad state that we would get so far from God we don't remember our actions. No doubt, when we get in a situation like this, nothing good is going to come of it. So the 'righteous' that was saved from Sodom will give birth to a people that will be a thorn in the side of Israel forever.