Lot's words begin his plea against the command to flee to the mountains, asking instead to be allowed to escape to a nearby place because he feared he could not reach the mountains before evil overtook him and he died. The plea reveals faith weakened by long living in a wicked city, distrusting God and refusing full obedience by pressing God to come to his own terms instead of yielding himself unreservedly. Yet God mercifully granted the request and spared Zoar in answer to his petition, showing mercy even to weak faith. The place Lot chose proved unsafe, showing the angels knew better where he should go, and his unbelief and lingering delay cost him the life of his wife, who would not have become a pillar of salt had he hastened as God desired. His course warns against choosing a home by outward advantage and fertile prosperity without regard to moral and spiritual associations, and against delayed obedience when God calls people to leave danger.
Verse Setting and Plea
The cry opens Lot's plea against the command to flee to the mountains, saying he cannot reach them lest evil overtake him and he die, and asking to be allowed to escape to a nearby place instead. It belongs also to his persistent pressing of the heavenly strangers to accept shelter in his house to protect them from the danger of remaining in Sodom's streets. His request was granted and Zoar was mercifully spared in answer to his petition, but the place he chose proved unsafe, showing the angels knew better where he should go. The escape was marked by lingering and reluctance to leave despite urgent angelic warning, warning against delayed obedience when God calls people to leave danger.
Lot's Weak Faith
Long dwelling in the wicked city had weakened faith and confidence in God's justice, blunted the sensibilities so that God's works and purposes could not be discerned, and left no power to trust oneself in God's hands to do His bidding. In the verse there is distrust of God and refusal to obey fully, a keeping on pleading for self to bring God to one's own terms instead of yielding oneself unreservedly. The plea shows weak faith, yet it was mercifully answered and Zoar was spared in answer to the petition. This unbelief and lingering delay cost the life of the wife, for had there been hastening as God desired she would not have become a pillar of salt, warning against delayed obedience when God calls to leave danger.
Even after fleeing, the habits and customs acquired in Sodom could cling afterward, showing that a person can become more shaped by harmful surroundings than is realized. The outcome was to barely save his own soul and to escape only so as by fire, losing possessions, riches, married children, some of the children and the wife, so that the life-work was lost and the life became a sad failure. Choosing the residence by outward appearance for temporal advantage, fertile land, flourishing city, greater prosperity, worldly wealth and honor, without first reference to moral and religious influences, bound up interest with Sodom's inhabitants through the children's connections and surrounded them with temptation, unfavorable associations and attachments to infidels and unbelievers that hindered piety and right character and ruined them. Voluntarily placing oneself in such an atmosphere of worldliness, unbelief, lax morality, indifference to religious things, and rebellion against parental and divine authority displeases God, drives holy angels from the home and counteracts parental influence, though those placed by duty in trying positions will be enabled to stand uncorrupted if they watch and pray trusting in Christ's grace.
Choosing Home Wisely
Lot entered Sodom intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he failed signally. He chose his residence by outward appearance for temporal advantage, for fertile land and attractive setting, for beautiful country and flourishing city, for greater prosperity and worldly wealth and honor, without reference to moral and spiritual conditions and associations. He went into Sodom rich and was led out by an angel's hand with nothing, 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, leaving bleak and bare a place God had once made very beautiful. Beautiful surroundings and worldly wealth do not make a place safe or desirable when its people are corrupt.
In choosing a home moral and religious influences must be considered first, above beautiful and fertile country, flourishing city, greater prosperity, worldly wealth and honor. Voluntarily placing oneself in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief, lax morality and indifference to religious things, rebellion against parental and divine authority, extravagance and irreligious worldly influences displeases God, drives holy angels from the home, counteracts parental influence, molds minds, hedges up the Lord's work, and undermines piety and devotion. His children's connection with the inhabitants of Sodom bound up his interest with theirs, surrounding them with temptation, unfavorable associations, and attachments to infidels and unbelievers that hindered piety and right character. The result was the ruin of his children while he barely saved his own soul, making his life-work lost and his life a sad failure, for securing worldly wealth and honor at the expense of eternal interests proved in the end a terrible loss, and with true wisdom his children might have had less worldly prosperity but would have made sure of title to the immortal inheritance.
The call to flee Sodom means to separate entirely from a place of dangerous moral atmosphere and corrupting associations. One who is weak in moral power and carries unsubdued appetite and passions cannot live in such a place without being corrupted, and cannot prosper and be blessed by God unless he repents, confesses and forsakes sin, and leaves that company. Those placed by duty in trying positions will be enabled to stand uncorrupted if they watch and pray trusting in the grace of Christ. Young people should be kept as far from Sodom as possible, for its corrupt practices can stain the soul, so their surroundings, associations, and work should be chosen with care, their eyes and ears guarded, and placing them among worldly influences puts them at risk. Choosing Battle Creek for the youth's education is like taking a family into Sodom with its endangering worldly influence, and setting a religious institution amid corrupting surroundings is like Lot going into Sodom, exposing its workers to harmful influences and threatening their ability to serve faithfully.
Sodom's Sin and Judgment
Sodom's sins began with polluted practices that spread as inhabitants taught them to others, and its conduct degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins. Those sins included licentiousness, impurity, adultery and sexual corruption, communion with evil spirits and the corrupt practices associated with it, as well as depravity, cruelty, violence and crime. The inhabitants hated God, followed the imaginations of their own corrupt minds and dishonored God by wicked inventions. They became steeped in licentiousness through indulgence until they did not discern pure affections given by God from destructive lusts, becoming as sinful as those before the Flood, a corruption of the way before God now repeated by whole families.
Self was their god, and inclination and passion bore sway over reason while the knowledge of the Most High was nearly obliterated through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. They ate, drank, bought, sold, planted and built, allowing gratification of appetite to occupy thoughts and time at the neglect of eternal interests. That course abused the body, destroyed health, unbalanced the mind and strengthened animal propensities, with want of strict purity and carnality even among men and women professing godliness who were sold unto sin and practiced adultery. The present world is a second Sodom and Gomorrah by repeating that same impurity.
When the city's corruption reached heaven, mercy ceased to plead and warnings could no longer be rejected with impunity. God destroyed it with fire and brimstone and bolts of fire from heaven to rid the earth of the curse of its contaminating influence. All but Lot with his wife and two daughters were consumed by fire sent down from heaven, and only two or three were saved despite receiving warning, showing the majority may reject warning and few remain faithful. The destruction shows that unchecked sin brings divine judgment and that God means what He says, a lesson men have not learned as sin has steadily increased from Eden through the Flood to Sodom and beyond.
The account proves that obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life and that transgression brings final penalty, for the Sodomites were punished with fire from heaven for disobedience while just Lot was saved. God's mercy does not excuse continued transgression or bring transgressors into glory with the obedient, but salvation depends on ceasing to transgress and keeping all the commandments with perfect obedience without hesitancy or doubt. No one can presume to sin and still be pardoned while refusing obedience, but must constantly ask what the Lord requires rather than what is pleasing or convenient. The destruction was both mercy and vengeance by a compassionate, pardoning God who abundantly blesses, meets the returning prodigal and heals the bruised, yet could not perpetuate the lives of headstrong, independent, persistent despisers of grace who walked in the imaginations of their own hearts. Rejection causes God's Spirit to be withdrawn and leaves sinners to destruction, as in the Flood, in the desolation of the Jews who rejected Christ, and in the last days for those who receive not the love of the truth.
Sodom and Gomorrah picture what large cities are becoming in dissipation, moral corruption, licentiousness and crime. The cities are growing worse and worse and are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah. Therefore God's people should not settle and build large plants and business interests in them without God's counsel, and doing so blinds them to the signs of the times.
Angels Rescue God's People
Holy angels came to the gates of Sodom to rescue righteous Lot from its fiery doom and led him safely out. That rescue shows that God's angels protect and deliver His people from danger. Lot's deliverance is one instance of how holy angels in all ages are sent on missions of mercy to minister to God's people.
Even cities steeped in sin have people like Lot living among them. God had Lot as His own in wicked Sodom. Lot serves as an example of a person living amid widespread wickedness, and his name represents people who live amid deeply sinful society, even in places steeped in moral corruption. Even a great and wicked city holds people who belong to God and pant after pure truth. Such a city is therefore ready to be worked with God's power and must not be left untouched.
Warning and Call Today
Sodom stands as a warning of what may happen when moral restraint and purity are abandoned, for society may become like Sodom. Satan seeks to make the world as licentious as its inhabitants were, so hearts and affections must be guarded and strength to resist temptation must be sought in prayer. Their conduct degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins that called forth the wrath of God in most dreadful destruction by fire and brimstone to rid the earth of the curse of their contaminating influence. Inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self was their god, and the knowledge of the Most High was nearly obliterated through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built, allowing gratification of appetite to occupy thoughts and time to the neglect of eternal interests, abusing the body, destroying health, unbalancing the mind, and strengthening animal propensities until the sword of justice was awakened against them the same day Lot went out of Sodom. As it was in the days of Lot so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, so followers of Christ must be temperate in eating and drinking and seek those things which are above rather than indulge appetite at the expense of health and spiritual growth.
The corruption of Sodom warns of the danger of corrupt companions. It was destroyed for communion with evil spirits and the corrupt practices associated with it, the same crime found in Canaan. The message of Genesis 18-19 calls hearers to seek the Lord most earnestly and take a more decided stand for the Lord. They are to be not merely professed believers in the truth but obedient to all of God's requirements, making heartfelt confession and praying earnestly. God hears such prayer, and His Spirit touches, softens and subdues hearts.
The destruction of Sodom shows God's judgment on licentiousness, impurity, crime, and walking in the imaginations of their own hearts. The wickedness of the Sodomites was headstrong, independent, persistent despising of grace, so that God could not perpetuate their lives. Their destruction was both mercy and vengeance by a compassionate, pardoning God who abundantly blesses, meets the returning prodigal, and heals the bruised, yet punishes persistent despisers. Those now on the borders of the heavenly Canaan, with all light and advantages of truth, are warned that failure to purify the soul by living up to that light brings the same guilt as Sodom and the antediluvian world.
Lot's words begin his plea against the command to flee to the mountains, asking instead to be allowed to escape to a nearby place because he feared he could not reach the mountains before evil overtook him and he died. The plea reveals faith weakened by long living in a wicked city, distrusting God and refusing full obedience by pressing God to come to his own terms instead of yielding himself unreservedly. Yet God mercifully granted the request and spared Zoar in answer to his petition, showing mercy even to weak faith. The place Lot chose proved unsafe, showing the angels knew better where he should go, and his unbelief and lingering delay cost him the life of his wife, who would not have become a pillar of salt had he hastened as God desired. His course warns against choosing a home by outward advantage and fertile prosperity without regard to moral and spiritual associations, and against delayed obedience when God calls people to leave danger.
Verse Setting and Plea
The cry opens Lot's plea against the command to flee to the mountains, saying he cannot reach them lest evil overtake him and he die, and asking to be allowed to escape to a nearby place instead. It belongs also to his persistent pressing of the heavenly strangers to accept shelter in his house to protect them from the danger of remaining in Sodom's streets. His request was granted and Zoar was mercifully spared in answer to his petition, but the place he chose proved unsafe, showing the angels knew better where he should go. The escape was marked by lingering and reluctance to leave despite urgent angelic warning, warning against delayed obedience when God calls people to leave danger.
Lot's Weak Faith
Long dwelling in the wicked city had weakened faith and confidence in God's justice, blunted the sensibilities so that God's works and purposes could not be discerned, and left no power to trust oneself in God's hands to do His bidding. In the verse there is distrust of God and refusal to obey fully, a keeping on pleading for self to bring God to one's own terms instead of yielding oneself unreservedly. The plea shows weak faith, yet it was mercifully answered and Zoar was spared in answer to the petition. This unbelief and lingering delay cost the life of the wife, for had there been hastening as God desired she would not have become a pillar of salt, warning against delayed obedience when God calls to leave danger.
Even after fleeing, the habits and customs acquired in Sodom could cling afterward, showing that a person can become more shaped by harmful surroundings than is realized. The outcome was to barely save his own soul and to escape only so as by fire, losing possessions, riches, married children, some of the children and the wife, so that the life-work was lost and the life became a sad failure. Choosing the residence by outward appearance for temporal advantage, fertile land, flourishing city, greater prosperity, worldly wealth and honor, without first reference to moral and religious influences, bound up interest with Sodom's inhabitants through the children's connections and surrounded them with temptation, unfavorable associations and attachments to infidels and unbelievers that hindered piety and right character and ruined them. Voluntarily placing oneself in such an atmosphere of worldliness, unbelief, lax morality, indifference to religious things, and rebellion against parental and divine authority displeases God, drives holy angels from the home and counteracts parental influence, though those placed by duty in trying positions will be enabled to stand uncorrupted if they watch and pray trusting in Christ's grace.
Choosing Home Wisely
Lot entered Sodom intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he failed signally. He chose his residence by outward appearance for temporal advantage, for fertile land and attractive setting, for beautiful country and flourishing city, for greater prosperity and worldly wealth and honor, without reference to moral and spiritual conditions and associations. He went into Sodom rich and was led out by an angel's hand with nothing, 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, leaving bleak and bare a place God had once made very beautiful. Beautiful surroundings and worldly wealth do not make a place safe or desirable when its people are corrupt.
In choosing a home moral and religious influences must be considered first, above beautiful and fertile country, flourishing city, greater prosperity, worldly wealth and honor. Voluntarily placing oneself in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief, lax morality and indifference to religious things, rebellion against parental and divine authority, extravagance and irreligious worldly influences displeases God, drives holy angels from the home, counteracts parental influence, molds minds, hedges up the Lord's work, and undermines piety and devotion. His children's connection with the inhabitants of Sodom bound up his interest with theirs, surrounding them with temptation, unfavorable associations, and attachments to infidels and unbelievers that hindered piety and right character. The result was the ruin of his children while he barely saved his own soul, making his life-work lost and his life a sad failure, for securing worldly wealth and honor at the expense of eternal interests proved in the end a terrible loss, and with true wisdom his children might have had less worldly prosperity but would have made sure of title to the immortal inheritance.
The call to flee Sodom means to separate entirely from a place of dangerous moral atmosphere and corrupting associations. One who is weak in moral power and carries unsubdued appetite and passions cannot live in such a place without being corrupted, and cannot prosper and be blessed by God unless he repents, confesses and forsakes sin, and leaves that company. Those placed by duty in trying positions will be enabled to stand uncorrupted if they watch and pray trusting in the grace of Christ. Young people should be kept as far from Sodom as possible, for its corrupt practices can stain the soul, so their surroundings, associations, and work should be chosen with care, their eyes and ears guarded, and placing them among worldly influences puts them at risk. Choosing Battle Creek for the youth's education is like taking a family into Sodom with its endangering worldly influence, and setting a religious institution amid corrupting surroundings is like Lot going into Sodom, exposing its workers to harmful influences and threatening their ability to serve faithfully.
Sodom's Sin and Judgment
Sodom's sins began with polluted practices that spread as inhabitants taught them to others, and its conduct degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins. Those sins included licentiousness, impurity, adultery and sexual corruption, communion with evil spirits and the corrupt practices associated with it, as well as depravity, cruelty, violence and crime. The inhabitants hated God, followed the imaginations of their own corrupt minds and dishonored God by wicked inventions. They became steeped in licentiousness through indulgence until they did not discern pure affections given by God from destructive lusts, becoming as sinful as those before the Flood, a corruption of the way before God now repeated by whole families.
Self was their god, and inclination and passion bore sway over reason while the knowledge of the Most High was nearly obliterated through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. They ate, drank, bought, sold, planted and built, allowing gratification of appetite to occupy thoughts and time at the neglect of eternal interests. That course abused the body, destroyed health, unbalanced the mind and strengthened animal propensities, with want of strict purity and carnality even among men and women professing godliness who were sold unto sin and practiced adultery. The present world is a second Sodom and Gomorrah by repeating that same impurity.
When the city's corruption reached heaven, mercy ceased to plead and warnings could no longer be rejected with impunity. God destroyed it with fire and brimstone and bolts of fire from heaven to rid the earth of the curse of its contaminating influence. All but Lot with his wife and two daughters were consumed by fire sent down from heaven, and only two or three were saved despite receiving warning, showing the majority may reject warning and few remain faithful. The destruction shows that unchecked sin brings divine judgment and that God means what He says, a lesson men have not learned as sin has steadily increased from Eden through the Flood to Sodom and beyond.
The account proves that obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life and that transgression brings final penalty, for the Sodomites were punished with fire from heaven for disobedience while just Lot was saved. God's mercy does not excuse continued transgression or bring transgressors into glory with the obedient, but salvation depends on ceasing to transgress and keeping all the commandments with perfect obedience without hesitancy or doubt. No one can presume to sin and still be pardoned while refusing obedience, but must constantly ask what the Lord requires rather than what is pleasing or convenient. The destruction was both mercy and vengeance by a compassionate, pardoning God who abundantly blesses, meets the returning prodigal and heals the bruised, yet could not perpetuate the lives of headstrong, independent, persistent despisers of grace who walked in the imaginations of their own hearts. Rejection causes God's Spirit to be withdrawn and leaves sinners to destruction, as in the Flood, in the desolation of the Jews who rejected Christ, and in the last days for those who receive not the love of the truth.
Sodom and Gomorrah picture what large cities are becoming in dissipation, moral corruption, licentiousness and crime. The cities are growing worse and worse and are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah. Therefore God's people should not settle and build large plants and business interests in them without God's counsel, and doing so blinds them to the signs of the times.
Angels Rescue God's People
Holy angels came to the gates of Sodom to rescue righteous Lot from its fiery doom and led him safely out. That rescue shows that God's angels protect and deliver His people from danger. Lot's deliverance is one instance of how holy angels in all ages are sent on missions of mercy to minister to God's people.
Even cities steeped in sin have people like Lot living among them. God had Lot as His own in wicked Sodom. Lot serves as an example of a person living amid widespread wickedness, and his name represents people who live amid deeply sinful society, even in places steeped in moral corruption. Even a great and wicked city holds people who belong to God and pant after pure truth. Such a city is therefore ready to be worked with God's power and must not be left untouched.
Warning and Call Today
Sodom stands as a warning of what may happen when moral restraint and purity are abandoned, for society may become like Sodom. Satan seeks to make the world as licentious as its inhabitants were, so hearts and affections must be guarded and strength to resist temptation must be sought in prayer. Their conduct degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins that called forth the wrath of God in most dreadful destruction by fire and brimstone to rid the earth of the curse of their contaminating influence. Inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self was their god, and the knowledge of the Most High was nearly obliterated through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built, allowing gratification of appetite to occupy thoughts and time to the neglect of eternal interests, abusing the body, destroying health, unbalancing the mind, and strengthening animal propensities until the sword of justice was awakened against them the same day Lot went out of Sodom. As it was in the days of Lot so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, so followers of Christ must be temperate in eating and drinking and seek those things which are above rather than indulge appetite at the expense of health and spiritual growth.
The corruption of Sodom warns of the danger of corrupt companions. It was destroyed for communion with evil spirits and the corrupt practices associated with it, the same crime found in Canaan. The message of Genesis 18-19 calls hearers to seek the Lord most earnestly and take a more decided stand for the Lord. They are to be not merely professed believers in the truth but obedient to all of God's requirements, making heartfelt confession and praying earnestly. God hears such prayer, and His Spirit touches, softens and subdues hearts.
The destruction of Sodom shows God's judgment on licentiousness, impurity, crime, and walking in the imaginations of their own hearts. The wickedness of the Sodomites was headstrong, independent, persistent despising of grace, so that God could not perpetuate their lives. Their destruction was both mercy and vengeance by a compassionate, pardoning God who abundantly blesses, meets the returning prodigal, and heals the bruised, yet punishes persistent despisers. Those now on the borders of the heavenly Canaan, with all light and advantages of truth, are warned that failure to purify the soul by living up to that light brings the same guilt as Sodom and the antediluvian world.