Genesis 18:16-19:38

For years, Lori and I have had three ongoing prayer requests for our children. Now, we pray the same things for our grandchildren. First, we pray that each one would have a deep faith in Jesus that results in their lives honoring him. Second, we pray for good friends who will sharpen their faith. Finally, we pray for their future spouses and families to carry the good news into the next generation. Faith, friends, and family—those three components have been the basis of our prayers. In today’s passage, we see why these three areas are so important.

After God appeared to Abraham and Sarah to renew the promise of a child and give a timeline (Genesis 18:14), God decided to share with Abraham what was going to happen to Sodom and Gomorrah (probably located around the Dead Sea area). God was about to demonstrate his righteousness and mercy. Abraham would need to teach these essential truths to his descendants.

God explains to Abraham that the “outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave” (Genesis 18:20). We have already been told in Genesis 13:13 that the “men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.” Ezekiel said the people of Sodom were prosperous, filled with pride, and did not care for the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:49-50). In Isaiah, we are told that they paraded these sins before God (Isaiah 3:9). In the New Testament, Peter noted their “depraved conduct” and “lawless deeds” (2 Peter 2:7-8). Jude records that they “gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion” (Jude 1:7 NIV). Using anthropomorphic terms, God says that he is going to see for himself just how great the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah are and, in his justice, destroy them due to their continued bent to sin. The two angels leave to survey the city, but God continues to converse with Abraham for a time.

In Genesis 18:22-33, there is compelling dialogue between God and Abraham. Remember, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, is living in Sodom, so Abraham pleads his case for those living right before God by calling on God’s great mercy. The basis for Abraham’s argument is that God will surely not destroy the righteous people in Sodom along with the wicked.

Genesis 18:25
“Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

In the next verses, Abraham intercedes on behalf of the righteous people living in Sodom. He reasons that if there are fifty righteous people in Sodom, God surely would not punish the righteous for the sins of the wicked. Abraham uses the same reasoning for forty-five righteous people in Sodom, then forty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten righteous people.

Genesis 18:32
Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”

The two angels who were previously with God and Abraham traveled to Sodom and found Lot sitting at the city gate in the evening. Lot convinced the angels—whom he thought were men—not to spend the night in the town square and, instead, enjoy the hospitality of his home.

Genesis 19:4-7
But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.” 

Let me cover the rest of this story by listing several lessons we learn from this account of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah.

1. Lot lived a life of dangerous compromise.
   Lot’s journey to Sodom began when he saw the well-watered, fertile land and wanted to settle there (Genesis 13:10-12). Lot was willing to place his family in an area known to be populated with “wicked, great sinners” (Genesis13:13). Lot was willing to compromise his walk with God and endanger his family for prosperity.
2. Lot lived in a state of contradiction.
   Lot had been in close proximity to sin for so long that he lost perspective and lived a hypocritical life. To save his visitors from the depraved men of Sodom, he gives an appalling offer.

Genesis 19:8
“Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

Unbelievable! Unthinkable! Hypocritical! Lot stood firm for his visitors’ safety but was willing to give up his own daughters! That’s what happens when we don’t tend to our spiritual walk. We get worked up over one sin and lack discernment over other sins. As Jesus said, we are blind guides “straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Matthew 23:24).

3. Lot lived a life of irrelevance.
   The angels told Lot that they were going to destroy the city. They instructed him to get his family away from the danger. When Lot told his future sons-in law of the impending destruction, they thought he was joking with them (Genesis 19:14). Lot wasn’t taken seriously due to his lifestyle of hypocrisy.
4. Lot’s life of comfort was costly.
   Lot had become so comfortable in Sodom that even when he knew disaster was imminent, he wasn’t ready to leave.

Genesis 19:16
But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

Lot’s wife certainly wasn’t ready to leave. Even though she was told to run and not look back, she turned back longingly; she glanced back with the desire to return, “and she became a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26). Jesus said, “Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it” (Luke 17:32-33 NIV).

5. Lot left a sad legacy.
   Lot’s future sons-in-law didn’t take him seriously. He lost his wife, who wanted to stay in Sodom. And remember his daughters, the ones Lot had offered to the men of Sodom to “do to them as you please” (Genesis 19:8). They devised an immoral scheme.

Genesis 19:30-32
Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.”

Both daughters became pregnant by their father. The oldest daughter named her son, Moab, father of the Moabites. The youngest daughter named her son, Ben-ammi, the father of the Ammonites. Lot’s descendants became sworn enemies of Israel. We will read about them throughout the Old Testament.

PERSONAL TIME WITH GOD
Read Genesis 18:16-19:38. As you read today’s passage, ask God to show you if you are living with spiritual compromise, contradiction, irrelevance, or costly comfort. What legacy will you leave based on the life you are living today?

Prayer and Application
Talk to God about what he showed you as you interacted with this passage. Deal with any compromise, contradiction, irrelevance, or desire for comfort that takes the place of  God. What will you begin to do today to build a godly legacy for those who follow you?

Have Questions?
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