Genesis 19:1-38

I believe that this is one of the most sobering passages in all of Scripture.  It demonstrates God’s hatred of and the consequences of sin.  It gives us a startling example of how low men can sink into sin.  It also shows us how dangerous it is for those who fear God to associate with men who have no fear of or respect for God.  These are sobering words for sobering times that today’s society desperately needs to visit.

THE DEPRAVITY OF SODOM: It appears that between the visit to Abraham and the visit to Sodom Christ leaves the company of angles, presumably because He could not stand to be in the company of such depravity.  When the two remaining angles enter the city of Sodom, Lot immediately recognizes them as messengers form God and he bows before them and insists on taking them into his home for their own protection.  Lot lives in a depraved society and he knows it.  He has somehow managed to keep his daughters pure and does not participate in the sins of Sodom, but he was surely foolish to stick around for so long.  All the men of Sodom hear of Lot’s guests and they come to take them by force to abuse them sexually.  Lot begs with them not to do this evil and even offers his virgin daughters in an attempt to appease them.  I cannot imagine what was in his mind at this time.  The men want nothing to do with his daughters and decide to take Lot out of the way and then break down the door to get these men that were the objects of their lust.  The angles pull Lot into the house and strike the men with blindness.  To me the most amazing thing in this passage is that even after all the men are blind they are still trying to find the door.  I would think that after they were struck blind that having their sight restored would have been their first priority.  Sin has enslaved them so deeply that they do not even care about their own eyesight.  It is appropriate that they are just as blind physically as they are spiritually.  We must ever beware of the dangers of the plague of sin.  It can grip our hearts and pull us down so deep that we become blind to the depravity of our own hearts.  The judgment of blindness should have woken them up to the power of God and the dangerous consequences of sin.  They should have repented on Lot’s front porch and begged for forgiveness.  Instead they continue to insist on satisfying their own sinful lusts and they end up not being able to see the fire falling from the sky that consumed them and their families.

THE DELIVERANCE OF LOT: The angles told Lot to get out of town with his family.  He was told to leave, not look back and go into the mountains.  Lot begged to be able to move to a small neighboring village and is granted this request.  Lot asks his future sons-in-law to flee with him and warns them of the great danger that they face.  They make fun of him and refuse to leave.  Lot and his family delay so long that they angles have to take them by the hand a lead them to safety.  All of this was done because of God’s love of Abraham and His desire to protect his family.  Unfortunately Lot’s wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt.  We see that Lot’s family was greatly influenced by the depravity of Sodom but that Lot had no influence on the people around him.  We live in a very wicked society that in many ways parallels the depravity of Sodom.  Unfortunately, it seems that many believers are influenced by the world’s sinfulness to a much greater extent than which they influence the world through their holiness.  If we are going to maintain our testimonies and preserve our families from the destruction of the world around us, we must remain distinct from the world and fearlessly and uncompromisingly call the men of all nations everywhere to repent.  Lot’s priority in life became his own comfort instead of the glory of God.  Because of his lack of godly priorities he lost his testimony and his family.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM: The logical and inevitable consequence of depravity apart from repentance and faith in Christ is destruction.  God’s wrath on the sin of these cities spilled over and fire fell from heaven to consume every man, woman and child in these wicked cities.  They mistakenly believed that they could ignore God and His many warnings without consequences.  They were wrong.  We must never mistake God’s patience for passivity.  He longs for men everywhere to repent and be restored to Himself.  He gives multiple chances and extends His grace beyond our ability to imagine, but He will not leave sin unpunished.  When men’s sin exceeds the limits of His patience His justice washes over the walls of His grace and sinful men are obliterated from the face of the earth.  It is a huge mistake to think that God is only love and grace.  He is above all holy and His justice requires Him to bring down destruction upon sinful men.  Repentance and faith in Christ is the only means by which men can escape this destruction.  The destruction of Sodom will look like a picnic in comparison to God’s eternal judgment of sin.  We must warn others of this coming destruction and call all men to stand in awe of God, bow in worship of Him and fall on our faces before Him.

THE DISOBEDIENCE OF LOT: When Lot saw the destruction of Sodom, he apparently decides that the city of Zoar to which he had fled, is too close to these cities and so he follows the angles original instructions and flees to the mountains.  I think in his place I would have gone crawling back to Abraham and begged for his help.  Instead Lot is in a cave with his two daughters and they hatch a plan to bear children by their own fathers.  They get him drunk on consecutive nights and then go and have relations with him and they both conceive and give birth to children who become the fathers of wicked nations that have no fear of God and become thorns in the flesh of Abraham’s future descendents.  I refuse to believe in Lot’s innocence in this mess.  He should not have gotten drunk in the first place, but he would have had to have been at least somewhat aware of what was going on.  I have never been drunk so don’t know how capable he was.  However, had he been the father that he should have been, his daughters would have never considered such a disgraceful plan.  Once again we see the dreadful consequences of tolerating sin in the world around us and allowing ourselves to be influenced by it.  Sooner or later, the toleration of sin will always rear its ugly head in our own lives and in the lives of our families.  The dreadful consequences of sin far outweigh the comforts that sin professes to offer.