Or, The Ruins of Moral Corruption and Compromise
Scripture: Genesis 19:1-38
Date: July 10, 2016
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Genesis 19 might be the most famous catastrophe in the Bible beside the flood. Sodom and Gomorrah become a byword about judgment in the prophets and in Jesus’ own teaching. Though their sins were more than one, sodomy became a noun because of the perverted men in the city of Sodom; there are ‘sodomites’ today by behavior though none by address.
“No other twenty-four hour period in Abraham’s life is related more fully than that described in Genesis 18-19” (Wenham). The LORD revealed to Abraham His plans to punish the city in chapter 18. He visited Abraham along with two angels whom Abraham hosted for the afternoon. The last we saw, Abraham interceded on behalf of any righteous men in Sodom and the LORD agreed that if merely ten could be found, He would spare the city.
In chapter 19 the angels arrive in Sodom without the LORD. Lot greeted them, even fed and hosted them, but they end up doing more for him than he does for them. By verse 30 the only ones left are Lot and his two daughters, but their behavior is barely, if at all, better than where they left.
There are two scenes of ruin in the chapter. The first scene is deep, rapid, public disaster. The second scene is deep in a different way, drawn out, more private, and still dreadful. One rains like a storm of depravity and destruction, the other runs like a small stream but is no less sickening. Judgment falls on both moral corruption and moral compromise.
The LORD told Abraham that He was going to “go down to see” those in Sodom “because the outcry against [them] is great and their sin is very grave” (18:20). The angels find it to be so.
The two angels came to Sodom in the evening of the same day and, since it was 20-40 miles from Mamre to Sodom, they probably covered the distance not by walking the whole way. Lot was sitting in the gate of the city, the place for local politics and business affairs and community announcements, so he had some standing among the men. He saw the visitors—not realizing their full identity—and invited them to his house for the night. Like his uncle, he was eager to show hospitality.
The angels rejected his offer at first, intending to spend the night in the town square. This would give them firsthand acquaintance with the people and their night life. Lot wouldn’t take No for an answer, and we soon learn why. He pressed them strongly, “twisted their arm” (Denham), so they agreed and went to his house for dinner.
But before they lay down there came more than a knock at the door, and it wasn’t the City Welcoming Committee. The fourfold description raises the ante of tension, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, were there and surrounded the house. What size group would make this less ominous? It had to be at least fifty because Abraham asked about fifty. Was it 100? 500?
The crowd called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. They know where the men are; that’s why they’re at Lot’s house. They want to know the men, and the context makes clear that they aren’t interested in making new friends.
In an attempt to be a good host, Lot went outside and shut the door, putting himself, at least initially, between his neighbors and his guests. He tried to pacify them: I beg you brothers, do not act so wickedly. It sounds like Lot is drawing a line. But he doesn’t fight for righteousness, he offers a different way to satisfy the lusts of the mob. His desire to fulfill the responsibility of the host caused him to fail to fulfill the responsibility of a father. Behold, I have two daughters who are virgins… let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Lot is willing to sacrifice his daughters to gang rape if that will stop the men from homosexually raping the visitors. Lot’s plan is to fight unnatural immorality with “natural” immorality?
Lot miscalculated the corruption. He knew of their pride and selfishness (Ezekiel 16:49), their failure to do justice for the fatherless and widows (Isaiah 1:17), and their lying and adultery (Jeremiah 23:14). He knew it would be bad for the visitors to stay in the square, but he must have thought that the men of the city would leave him alone at home. But lusts like these have no more shame brakes. These men had wives, they had daughters, perhaps fathers and sons were together outside Lot’s house. They weren’t uncivilized, they were unprincipled.
They said, “Stand back!” And then, ”This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” In other words, “Who died and made you king?” Lot is now the hater, keeping them from their pleasures. “If you won’t get out of the way, we will hurt you.”
The angels had their evidence and intervene. Stage 1: they reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. Stage 2: they struck with blindness the aggressors, perhaps with a blinding light, though they were relentless and wore themselves out groping or the door.
Not only is this a sign of their depravity, it is a sign that depravity is only at best slowed down by external judgment. Corruption can’t be corrected by discipline any more than a rust spot can be fixed with by hammering on it. The lust of the flesh isn’t teachable, and the original Sodomites were slaves to it.
Inside the house, the angels announce their purpose to deliver Lot and his family before destroying the city.
Somehow Lot was able to get out to his future sons-in-law and he urged them to escape. Up! Get out of this place for the LORD is about to destroy the city. But this had no meaning to the two men, two, since there were two daughters.
They took Lot to be jesting, joking, having a laugh, clowning around. For whatever reason, and there are legion, Lot had no status with them. It’s as if he’s imagining things. Lot may not have been as corrupt as others around him, but he was not credible either. He had, after all, just offered their future brides for the sexual fulfillment of all the men of the city.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone slept well that night, and who knows if and when the groping for the door stopped. As morning dawned the angels urged Lot to leave. Why hadn’t he left yet? This is part of the problem. He lingered. It seemed harder to leave than it should have been and he stalled. Had he forgotten what happened a few hours ago? So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand…and brought them out. He’s hesitating and the angels are hurrying. The angels physically grabbed and dragged; they are trying to throw the man overboard for his own good.
Once outside the city one said, “Escape for your life! Don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills lest you be swept away.” The Hebrew word “escape” is pronounced malot. It’s likely a word play on his name. “Lot, malot!”
Lot should have said, “Thank you!” or “Let’s get out of here!” His family has everything to gain. Instead, he haggles. Even the part about their kindness seems more manipulative than earnest. He wants to go to another city. He can’t imagine giving up what he had in Sodom. He wanted Sodom 2.0, Sodom with nicer men. Maybe since Zoar would small it would be less corrupt.
The angel agreed—not because it was a good idea—to get Lot going somewhere.
At sunrise, when Lot arrived at Zoar, the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. It’s emphatic: “The LORD…from the LORD.” There could have been an earthquake and lightening might have caused gas to ignite. But “burning sulfur” (NIV) came down, fire and brimstone not in alarming preaching but as actual punishment on the corruption. The cities of the valley, along with the people and the vegetation, were completely wiped out. This was more than a “natural” disaster.
But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. The angels said to not to! Presumably she was from Sodom; Lot wasn’t married last time he was mentioned. She disobeyed, lagging behind her turtle of a husband. She might not have thought that the corruption was really that bad after all. So she received the consequence. Pillar referred to something stationed, set in place; she became a different sort of pillar of the community. John Calvin thought it was a work of Satan to have Ovid write trifling stories of metamorphosis in order to throw “discredit on this most signal proof of Divine vengeance.”
Abraham may have heard the noise, and he saw the smoke of the land [that] went up like the smoke of a furnace. He doesn’t know about Lot. And note verse 29, the destruction of the cities and the deliverance of Lot came because God remembered Abraham. God remembered Noah when he saved Noah (Genesis 8:1). God remembered Abraham when He saved Lot.
The ruins aren’t over though the fire and brimstone stopped raining. The final section of the chapter is sinfully sick in its own way.
Lot didn’t last long in Zoar. Maybe he was nervous that they would recognize him and ask how he alone escaped. Maybe he recognized the early signs of depraved decay. So he went up…and lived in the hills, in a cave with his two daughters. This was not the city. He was losing all the things he longed for.
The fruit of Lot’s life of self-serving compromise came back to him. His oldest daughter came up with the idea, but the younger daughter had no moral objection. They feared that they would never have husbands, or children, and claimed that there is not a man on earth to come in to us, though they must have seen some men in Zoar. Nevertheless, they scheme to get their father drunk, which demonstrates that they knew it was wrong on some level, and get pregnant by him. They succeeded.
Earlier the father was willing to use his daughters for sexual purposes without their consent. Now they will use their father for sexual purposes without his consent. (Victor Hamilton)
It’s similar to Noah except we don’t know exactly what Ham did. Noah did. Lot gets so sloppy drunk that he didn’t know anything; he did not know when she lay down or when she arose, twice. He may not have known until the belly bumps started to show. It’s fitting. He was a laughed at, lingering almost leader. The only thing Lot had a lot of was compromise. His sons of incest, initiated by his daughters, Moab and Ben-ammi, went on to become two of Israel’s most abominable neighbors. We read no more about Lot in Genesis. He lives because of his connection to Abraham, but he does not live or die in peace.
Our word degenerate comes from combining the Latin de, “away from” and genus, “kind.” To degenerate is to move away from one’s kind. The Sodomites, including Lot’s wife and daughters were all rebelling against the image of God. Rot shows on a spectrum. Compromise might not be full corruption, but both are ruinous.
Lot had no way to put on the brakes. Cultural expectations, something such as hospitality, can’t contain lust. The wants of the flesh are too powerful. So for us, we can appeal to reason, we can appeal to generations, we can offer other substitute satisfactions for cultural lusts. The suggestion of a different way to satisfy lusts offends the corrupt because the biggest lust is to throw off confinement. Any recommendation to slow down, for example, that boys should use boys’ bathrooms, or to limit marriage to one man and one woman, will get us called haters, bigots, judges.
Our appeal must be based on God’s authority, His law, and His offer of salvation. Either repent and trust in Jesus as the substitute or face God’s wrath sooner or later. Sin ends in ruins.
if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. (2 Peter 2:6–10)
God knows what He’s doing with both the righteous and the unrighteous.