Reading… and Thinking

When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the LORD was upon him; and they brought him out, and put him outside the city.

– Genesis 19:15-16 (NASB)

Lot progressed from choosing the well-watered valley, to pitching his tent toward Sodom, to living within Sodom, and finally to “sitting in the gate”, indicating a position of prestige. He paid a heavy price for choosing the comfort and prosperity of this evil place. He lost all his possessions. He lost his wife. Though they didn't die, he lost his daughters in any lasting sense – and by them he fathered two nations who would be bitter enemies of the people of God.

Yet, the Lord had compassion on him. And for his sake, the Lord extended His compassion to the wife and daughters whose hearts stayed in Sodom even if they physically left it.

Why did God save Lot? Hadn't he made every choice to go farther from God?

Peter says this: “He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds).” (2 Peter 2:7-8, NASB) Three times in one sentence Peter calls Lot “righteous”. So we have to be careful not to judge Lot too harshly.

Lot may have made some bad choices, but the Lord didn't give up on him. Lot had not rejected God's standards, and the immorality of Sodom grieved him.

In the previous chapter, the angels told Abraham that they were going to check out Sodom because of the “outcry” that had come up to heaven. Who was crying out to God about the wickedness? It seems clear that it was Lot.

As long as a person hangs onto God, He will not desert him or her. He will hear and respond to their prayers. The answer to the prayer may not be what the person intended – I doubt that Lot had in mind to lose everything. But his life was saved, God's righteousness was vindicated in the judgment that fell on those who had utterly rejected God, and a chance was provided to start over.

Lot lived in Sodom a long time. But on the crisis evening, the people of the city called him an “alien”. The bottom line is that Lot never became one of them.

In many ways, the North American culture we live in is modern Sodom. We live right in it, just like Lot did. It's dangerous, and those close to us could be lost to the corruption of the culture. One might say that Lot should have left, and one might make the same case for us. For many, however, that's not a real option.

So here we are, in a very dangerous place. Not danger of robbery or violence. Danger of complacency, sensuality, materialism. The corruption of this place should grieve us – we should never get comfortable with it, never become “one of them”. The people around us should think of us as alien, foreign, weird. While we are here, we should be crying out against the corruption. And, living in hope that the Lord will intervene as He has promised, saving those who are His, and utterly destroying what is beyond saving.