Genesis 18 tells of a visit by three ‘men’ to Abraham. After they confirmed to him God’s promises, one of them (“the LORD,” a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ) decided to reveal what He was about to do concerning Sodom where Abraham’s nephew Lot lived. He said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”
When the angels came to deliver Lot from Sodom, they told him he needed to get out of this place, “For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
This startled me. Someone was crying out against the evil in Sodom and Gomorrah. There is no indication who it was. After he was told about the plan of God, Abraham interceded, asking if by chance there were any righteous people there, would He not destroy the city.
Instead, God sent two angels to rescue Lot. After Lot and his daughters were safe (his wife looked back and was destroyed), Genesis 19:29 says, “And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.”
Part of Lot’s rescue was due to his uncle’s prayer, but the “great outcry” against the sin of that city happened before Abraham knew about the coming destruction. Who was calling out to God about the wickedness of this sinful place?
Lot was not known for making godly choices. When his uncle offered him a choice of the land where he would live, Lot took the very best, leaving Abraham with leftovers. Then Lot moved into Sodom. When the angels came to talk to him, the citizens of that city wanted them for sex. Lot did protect the angels but offered his daughters instead. Their insistence became violent and the angels struck them with blindness.
However, the New Testament says this about Lot. “God . . . turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds) . . .”
Lot was righteous, not because of his behavior because that is not how God measures righteousness, but because he did believe God. However, he was weak in his faith. After the angels rescued him, he asked that he be allowed to live in another nearby city. Apparently he was afraid to stay in the mountains where they took him. Later he was “afraid to dwell in Zoar” and he lived in a cave with his daughters.
They were also fearful that God would not take care of them. They got him drunk so they could sleep with him to “preserve the lineage of our father.” Lot failed to teach them about the Lord that he apparently believed in enough to be considered righteous and to hate the sin in Sodom, but not enough to step away from running his own life and simply leaving that evil place on his own.
Yet I wonder if it was Lot’s “great outcry” that God heard? I would not be surprised. Anyone who actually believes God and is considered ‘righteous’ in His eyes, hates sin. A change of attitude about evil is part of the package. Overcoming it in one’s own life takes time, determination, and a deep commitment of faith. Lot didn’t like the sinful things going on around him, but he didn’t apply that inner revulsion to his own life.
Lot’s story says many things to me. I know there will be people in heaven that I didn’t expect to see there, people like Lot who were weak in their sin-fighting abilities. However, a more important lesson is to not be like him. It is far too easy to cry out to God about the sin I see around me and ignore the sin that is in me. Instead of waiting for angels to pull me away from anything I am tolerating, I need to remember that Jesus died to give me victory over my own sin.
Another lesson from Lot is that when I pray, I also need to be willing to put shoe leather to my prayers. While Lot alone couldn’t do much about the evil in Sodom, Lot (if he was the one who cried against it) could trust God to take action.
Yet Lot seemed oblivious to his role in fighting evil. He was willing to protect the angels but offered them daughters, and could not resist their incestuous behavior later. Also, he had to be dragged away from this city that tormented him, almost as if he didn’t recognize the opportunity to get away from this wickedness.
Hating evil means far more than complaining about it. I’m supposed to fight against and abandon my own sin, and if God asks me, in faith do something that expresses the heart of God against the sin of others.
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