Genesis 19:12, commentary and pictures

Holy angels were sent in mercy to rescue righteous Lot from Sodom's coming fiery doom and lead him safely out. They asked whether he had anyone else in the city, and offered escape to his whole household, bidding him gather wife and sons and daughters and sons-in-law and whatsoever he had and bring them out before the overthrow. Lot warned his daughters and sons-in-law and other relatives to leave, but they mocked his warning as raving enthusiasm and perished unprepared in the destruction. Long dwelling among evil had blunted his faith and made his children partakers of Sodom's sins, so he could save only himself and two daughters and barely saved his own soul. The command to bring the family out is the pattern for the last days, when God calls His people to come out of Babylon before its destruction with marked separation from sin and sinners and no turning back.

Angelic Rescue Offer

Holy angels were sent on a mission of mercy to the children of God, coming to the gates of Sodom to rescue righteous Lot from its fiery doom and destruction. They protected Lot and led him safely out of Sodom and away from the city. They asked him whether he had anyone else besides himself in the city, relatives or others, whom he could bring out before its destruction.

Mercy sent them to bring Lot out before the overthrow and extended the rescue to his whole household and to everyone belonging to him and all he had in the city. The command bade him gather his wife and sons and daughters and sons-in-law who had married among wicked Sodom and whatsoever he had and bring them out of the place and flee. The offer required complete separation from corrupt Sodom, yet long dwelling among evil had blunted his faith and made his children partakers of Sodom's sins through extensive family ties by intermarriage with the Sodomites and through association that perverted their morals until they were like the wicked people around them. He had chosen his residence without reference to his associations, going into Sodom rich for temporal advantage and prosperity rather than for the moral and religious influences surrounding himself and his family. His children had formed associations unfavorable to piety and right character amid lax morality, unbelief, indifference to religious things, and rebellion against parental and divine authority, and were ruined, so that he was able to save only himself and two daughters and barely saved his own soul. When deliverance and judgment came he left with nothing, led by an angel's hand, while messengers of wrath waited to pour forth fiery blasts to consume all the inhabitants and blot out the entrancing beauty of that highly favored city and its suburbs, making bleak and bare a place God had once made very beautiful. His life-work was lost and his life a sad failure, proving that securing worldly wealth and honor for children at the expense of eternal interests is a terrible loss, and that voluntarily placing oneself in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief displeases God and drives holy angels from the home. The city was corrupted by defiling practices that spread as people taught them to others until its sins brought divine judgment, in which its disobedient inhabitants were punished while Lot was saved. His presence there still shows that there are people in sinful cities who can stand for what is right.

Lot was allowed to warn his daughters and sons-in-law and other relatives that the city would be destroyed and that they must flee and leave the corrupt city. They mocked his faith and warning and would not leave. They perished in its destruction, showing that a family's choice of home and surroundings has serious moral and spiritual consequences and that worldly advantages lead toward ruin when the character of a place is ignored. He called to son-in-law, sons, daughters and all they had to bring them out of the place, but they would not heed the message and counted him as a raving enthusiast. They remained unprepared and destruction came upon them. This is the pattern for when the Son of man is revealed, when farmers, merchants, lawyers and tradesmen wholly engrossed in business and men at ease absorbed in buying, selling and amusement will likewise reject warning and the day of the Lord will come upon them as a snare.

Sodom's Sin and Judgment

Sodom was a city highly favored by God, entrancing in its beauty in itself and in its suburbs, yet its corruption had gone so far that its people had passed the limits of divine forbearance. The angels' visit to which Genesis 19:12 belongs came to see whether there was still hope of the city's redemption, while warning that a desirable location can bring harmful associations and that beauty could not protect it from judgment. When deliverance and judgment came, messengers of wrath waited to pour forth fiery blasts to consume all the inhabitants and blot out that beauty, making bleak and bare a place God had once made very beautiful.

The verse sits within the account of a city corrupted by defiling practices that spread as people taught them to others, until its sins brought divine judgment. That ruin is presented as the result of pride and abundance and idleness and failure to help the poor and needy. The cities of the plain had degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins where inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self was god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated by selfish indulgence of corrupt passions.

Its wickedness included extreme sexual immorality and licentiousness of the kind Satan seeks to bring back upon the world. It included the same sin that later existed in Canaan, communion with evil spirits, and the corruption produced when people cast aside God's law. It included corrupt desires and wicked practices that made its people sinful and brought destruction as a warning to families corrupted by lust, and carnality and want of strict purity and adultery even among men and women professing godliness yet sold unto sin, by which the present world is becoming a second Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom means forward, immodest conduct between young men and women in flirting, advances, common cheap talk and ways, and breaking down all barriers of reserve and true decorum, which is offensive to God and destitute of Christlike humility. Those who profess to be Christians yet practice it while having great light, opportunities and privileges yet not living up to them are fast becoming like the Sodomites, left destitute of the Spirit of God through misapplied powers and perverted privileges, with nothing remaining for them but close judgments and terrible things in righteousness, reaping a harvest they will not be pleased to garner.

Sodom serves as a warning of what the world may become when moral restraint and purity are lost. Its wickedness and destruction illustrate what follows when society is given over to sin. A society which lets wealthy, influential people set its tone through drunkenness, blasphemy, and disregard for God can become like Sodom.

God brought dreadful destruction by fire and brimstone from heaven the same day Lot went out of Sodom in order to rid the earth of its contaminating influence. He destroyed Sodom by bolts of fire from heaven, as He had destroyed the world by a flood saving only Noah and his sons, and as He later destroyed unrepentant Nineveh, showing that He means what He says about sin after sin opened the floodgates of woe and grew steadily worse. Only a few were saved from Sodom's destruction, though they had been warned. Its inhabitants were punished for disobedience while Lot was saved, and because they were so wicked God did not allow their lives to continue, showing His punishment of those who persistently reject His grace even though He is compassionate and ready to pardon.

Lot's Choice and Loss

Lot chose his dwelling without regard to its associations, going into Sodom rich for temporal advantage and greater prosperity, drawn by beautiful country and fertile land and a flourishing city. He entered fully intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he signally failed, and the corrupting influences around him weakened his own faith. His family ties became extensive through intermarriage with the Sodomites and his interests became bound up with theirs. His children formed associations unfavorable to piety and right character amid lax morality and unbelief and indifference to religious things and rebellion against parental and divine authority. Association perverted their morals and made them like the wicked people around them, so that they could not distinguish good from evil or sin from righteousness.

Long dwelling among evil had blunted his faith and made his children partakers of Sodom's sins, so when the call came to bring his family out he was able to save only himself and two daughters and barely saved his own soul. Sodom's destruction cost him his possessions and some of his children and his wife. When deliverance and judgment came he left with nothing, led by an angel's hand, in contrast to the destruction that overtook Sodom and its suburbs. His life-work was lost and his life a sad failure, proving that securing worldly wealth and honor for children at the expense of their eternal interests is a terrible loss.

He could have spared his family many evils by living at a distance from the city, since the work he and his family did there did not require them to live in it. Enoch's walk with God shows that faithfulness did not require living amid violence and wickedness.

Last-Day Warning Pattern

The command to bring the family out of Sodom is the pattern for the last days, when God calls His people to come out of Babylon before its destruction, requiring a marked separation from sin and sinners as in the days of Noah, with no compromise between God and the world and no turning back to secure earthly treasures. Lot warned son-in-law, sons, daughters and all they had to bring them out of the place before the destruction of Sodom, but they would not heed the message, counted him as a raving enthusiast, remained unprepared, and destruction came upon them. This is the pattern for when the Son of man is revealed, when farmers, merchants, lawyers and tradesmen wholly engrossed in business and men at ease absorbed in buying, selling and amusement will likewise reject warning and the day of the Lord will come upon them as a snare.

The cities of the plain degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins where inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self was god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated by selfish indulgence of corrupt passions, so God brought dreadful destruction by fire and brimstone from heaven the same day Lot went out of Sodom in order to rid the earth of their contaminating influence. As it was in the days of Lot so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, for the eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, and building of Lot's day include necessary acts that become sin for which God punishes when gratification of appetite occupies thoughts and time at the neglect of eternal interests. Such indulgence abuses the body, destroys health, unbalances the mind, and strengthens animal propensities until the sword of justice is awakened, calling Christ's followers to temperance in eating and drinking and to seek those things which are above.

The account of Sodom and Gomorrah serves as a comparison for modern cities whose growing focus on excitement and pleasure draws people from duty and leads to moral and spiritual decline. That condition is now repeating in cities and even country towns, where youth then were trained as children are now trained, to love excitement, to glorify themselves, and to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts, with the result then as now in depravity, cruelty, violence, and crime. By carnality, want of strict purity, and adultery among men and women professing godliness yet sold unto sin, the present world is becoming a second Sodom and Gomorrah. Its corrupt morals serve as a warning about the danger of companions whose influence undermines faith and corrupts conduct.

The history of Sodom means forward, immodest conduct between young men and women, flirting, advances, common cheap talk and ways, and breaking down all barriers of reserve and true decorum, which is offensive to God and destitute of Christlike humility. Those who profess to be Christians yet practice it are fast becoming like the Sodomites, and having great light, opportunities and privileges yet not living up to them, they are left destitute of the Spirit of God through misapplied powers and perverted privileges. For them nothing remains but close judgments and terrible things in righteousness, reaping a harvest they will not be pleased to garner.

Separation and Faithful Homes

Genesis 19:12 carries the call of Genesis 18-19 to seek the Lord most earnestly and to take a more decided stand for Him. It calls for being not only professing believers in the truth but obedient to all of God's requirements. This seeking comes with confession and prayer and the softening and subduing of hearts by the Spirit of the Lord.

The offer of escape in the verse required complete separation from corrupt Sodom. God's voice still commands flight from Sodom and complete separation from all connected with it. Obedience means repenting, confessing and forsaking sins, relying wholly on the strength of Jesus to overcome, and separating entirely from former associates whatever the consequences. A place with Sodom's moral atmosphere and associations is dangerous, especially to one weak in moral power, and one who disobeys the call to flee and carries unsubdued appetite and passions cannot be prospered and blessed by God, though Lot himself stood uncorrupted amid moral pollution.

God would have the moral and religious influences surrounding the family considered first in choosing a home. Choosing a home for temporal advantage, beautiful country, fertile land, flourishing city, and greater prosperity, while surrounding children with temptation, lax morality, unbelief, indifference to religious things, rebellion against parental and divine authority, and associations with infidels and enemies of God, counteracts parental influence and destroys piety and right character. A family's choice of home and surroundings has serious moral and spiritual consequences, and worldly advantages can lead toward ruin when the character of a place is ignored. Lot entered Sodom fully intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he signally failed, the corrupting influences around him weakened his own faith, and his children's connection with the people of Sodom bound up his interests with theirs, so when the call came to bring his family out of the city his children were ruined and he barely saved his own soul.

A desirable location can bring harmful associations, and Sodom's beauty could not protect it from judgment when Lot was urged to bring his family and all he had out of the place and was led out by an angel as the city faced destruction with loss of his possessions. The verse is connected with the danger of Sodom's corrupt practices and the need to keep young people as far from that environment and its associations as possible, guarding what they see and hear. God would have no one be like Lot in choosing where to live, for Lot had chosen his residence without reference to his associations, going into Sodom rich, and when deliverance and judgment came he left with nothing, led by an angel's hand, while messengers of wrath waited to pour forth fiery blasts to consume all the inhabitants and blot out the entrancing beauty of that highly favored city and its suburbs, making bleak and bare a place God had once made very beautiful. Taking his family into Sodom is compared to sending youth to Battle Creek and to placing young people in Battle Creek among worldly people of every kind in a harmful setting. The comparison with Sodom and Gomorrah presents wicked cities as places facing destruction and warns people not to settle their families or business interests in them, and establishing an institution in a wicked setting is like Lot's move into the city.

Where duty calls in trying positions God will enable watchfulness, prayer, and trust in the grace of Christ to stand uncorrupted, but voluntarily placing the family in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief displeases God and drives holy angels from the home. Securing worldly wealth and honor for children at the expense of their eternal interests is a terrible loss, a lost life work and sad failure, while true wisdom would accept less worldly prosperity to make sure of the immortal inheritance.

Lot's presence in Sodom supplies the image of faithful people living amid widespread sin and moral corruption. It provides an example for the idea that there are people in sinful cities who can stand for what is right. As God had a Lot in wicked Sodom, He has a people in wicked New York who pant after pure truth as the hart panteth after the water brooks and are ready to be worked, so God's power must carry the truth into that city through self-denying labor rather than leaving it untouched. Even cities steeped in sin contain people like Lot, and God calls reformers to work amid that corruption. Cities and towns are steeped in sin and moral corruption with the poison of sin at work at the heart of society, yet there are Lots in every Sodom who must be brought out, and God calls for reformers who defend His physical law and maintain an elevated standard of mind and heart to labor for their relief and rescue in cooperation with the Great Physician.