Lot's Family Flees Sodom as His Wife Looks Backby Jeff
19:26Genesis 19:26
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Commanded to escape for life without looking behind or staying in the plain, Lot's wife turned from behind her husband to look toward the doomed city and by divine judgment became a pillar of salt, a monument of retribution. Her backward look was disobedience, unbelief and rebellion, for her body was on the plain but her heart still clung regretfully to home, possessions and the life that had rejected warning. She murmured against God's dealings and grieved the wealth left to destruction instead of thankfully accepting deliverance, showing long association with corrupting influences had weakened faith and left habits that endangered her even in flight. She stands as a terrible warning that God means what He says and will punish persistent disregard of His mercy, for while mercy bears long there is a limit beyond which offers are withdrawn and judgment begins. Her fate therefore warns those in danger not to linger, hesitate or cast one lingering look, but to separate promptly and entirely from evil whatever the cost.
Setting and Destruction
The command given in flight was to escape for life, to hasten without looking behind and without staying anywhere in the plain. From behind her husband, while on the way out upon the plain, Lot's wife turned to look toward the doomed city because of what she had left there, and by God's curse she became a pillar of salt. That fate made her a monument of retribution and of God's judgment. Her looking back in disregard of the command took place on the way from Sodom as she fled.
The looking back happened in the morning after the sun was risen and Lot had entered Zoar. At that hour bright rays seemed to promise only prosperity and peace, streets were stirring with active life and business and pleasure, and Lot's sons-in-law were making merry at the warning. Then suddenly and unexpectedly, like thunder from an unclouded sky, the Lord rained brimstone and fire out of heaven upon the cities and the fruitful plain. Palaces and temples, costly dwellings, gardens and vineyards, and the pleasure-seeking throngs were consumed, with smoke going up like the smoke of a great furnace, after mercy had ceased to plead with the guilty inhabitants. Everything in that most beautiful country was consumed except Lot, his wife, and two daughters.
The fair vale of Siddim became a desolation never to be built up or inhabited, a witness to all generations of the certainty of judgment upon transgression. The surrounding region became a desolate waste and part of the wilderness of Judea. The account of Sodom's destruction by fire is also used without explaining the wife's act separately, to show that only a few were saved despite having been warned. In that same remembrance Lot was not forgotten when judgment came upon the cities of the plain.
The same account shows that God can have faithful people even in a profoundly wicked city. Lot living in wicked Sodom supplies that example, for he did not corrupt his way before God and was saved while the wicked inhabitants were destroyed by fire from heaven.
Meaning of Backward Look
Her backward look was disobedience to the solemn charge to hurry away, to flee for life without looking behind and without staying in the plain. It was rebellion against God, unbelief, ingratitude for deliverance, and presumptuous disregard of solemn warning that treated faith with contempt and ignored instruction. She was made a monument of judgment for that unbelief and presumptuous rebellion, showing the grave consequence of disregarding the command.
Her body was on the plain but her heart still clung to Sodom, and she turned her eyes toward the city because of what she had left there. She looked back regretfully with longing for home, its comforts, attractions and possessions, and desired to remain even after wrath had fallen. She presumptuously desired the life of those who had rejected the divine warning and perished with what she clung to. The habits and customs absorbed in that corrupt place remained a danger even during flight, so that escape from a corrupt environment did not itself guarantee freedom from its influence or from attachment to worldly ways that must be obeyed against at any sacrifice. She left mournfully and regretfully, clinging to what was left behind rather than giving up self joyfully for what is right.
She murmured against God's dealings while looking back, feeling severely dealt with though greatly favored to be called out of the wicked city. She resented judgments sweeping away her possessions and children, and grieved the wealth gathered over years left to destruction instead of thankfully accepting deliverance. That sin showed her unworthy of the life for which she felt so little gratitude. Long association with corrupting influences had blunted spiritual discernment and weakened faith and confidence in God's justice. That long association with evil weakened ability to recognize peril, left habits and customs as a continuing danger, and made lingering, distrust and pleading to remain instead of trusting fully.
Lot's lingering, hesitancy, delay and self-pleading instead of promptly fleeing earnestly toward the mountains led her to regard the warning lightly and kept her from escaping, costing her life. If his example had been obedient without pleading, it would have saved her from the sin that sealed her doom and she would have escaped. Her turning back toward what she left contrasts with merely remembering home while remaining willing to give up its comforts and put God's work first. Hers was a worried, unwilling, clinging look that put what she owned above God's cause, opposite to valuing His work as of greater consequence, refusing to worry about home, and returning only when appointed work is done.
Judgment and Warning
Lot's wife stands as a terrible retribution and a monument of God's judgment, showing that He regards unbelief and presumptuous rebellion as serious, means what He says, will not be trifled with, and will punish persistent disregard of His light and patience. Sodom was destroyed by bolts of fire from heaven because of sin, and with the loss of Eden through eating the forbidden fruit and the destruction of the world by the flood when only Noah and his sons were saved, and with the threatened destruction of Nineveh, it stands as successive witnesses that God means what He says and that sin steadily increases when warnings are not learned. That destruction warns the present world, which is fast becoming as it was before the flood, with Satan enthroned and the law of God trampled underfoot in the discarding of the seventh-day Sabbath. The account of Sodom is invoked as a warning about corrupt conduct and the terrible judgments that follow persistent disregard, without explaining separately the detail about Lot's wife.
While God's mercy bears long with transgressors, there is a limit beyond which men may not go on in sin, and when that limit is reached the offers of mercy are withdrawn and the ministration of judgment begins. Mercy ceased to plead with the guilty inhabitants of Sodom and fire was sent down from heaven consuming all but Lot with his wife and two daughters, proving men cannot reject the warnings God in mercy sends without punishment, with salvation depending on how the warning is treated. The same pattern appears in the flood in Noah's day, in desolation upon the unbelieving Jews in Christ's day, and in strong delusion and damnation upon those in the last days who receive not the love of the truth, for as they reject the teachings of His word God withdraws His Spirit and leaves them to the deceptions they love.
Her fate warns all who disregard God's special mercies and providences and His gracious provisions for salvation, and warns against treating faith in God with contempt, ignoring instruction, and refusing offered mercy because companion and children reject it. No one with a right conception of relation to God will turn away from the Saviour's pleading love because friends do, for all are bound by the strongest ties of love and honor and loyalty to serve Creator and Redeemer, the redemption of the soul is precious at the infinite price Christ paid, and the fact that others ignore God's just claims should arouse greater diligence to honor Him and lead all possible to accept His love. The destruction proclaimed Sodom incorrigible and incurable in sin, just as judgment on the antediluvian world after rejecting Noah's message declared it incurable, when fire and brimstone from heaven consumed everything in the most beautiful country in the world except Lot, his wife, and two daughters. Its corrupt practices spread until its sins reached heaven and God destroyed it.
Sodom's ruin was caused by pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness, and failure to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy, for idleness enfeebles the mind, debases the soul, and perverts the understanding. Its inhabitants were as sinful as those before the flood, steeped in licentiousness and giving themselves to destructive lusts by indulgence and wicked inventions, not discerning the difference between the pure affections and attributes of human nature given by God and corrupt lust, corrupting their way before God. The cities of the plain degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions, where inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self became their god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated, until the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence and all flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth. Their contaminating influence called forth the wrath of God in most dreadful destruction by fire from heaven the same day Lot left Sodom, to rid the earth of their curse, while Lot was saved because he did not corrupt his way before God. Their eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting and building illustrate how allowing gratification of appetite to occupy thought and time at the neglect of eternal interests is sin that God will punish, because it abuses the body, destroys health, unbalances the mind, strengthens animal propensities, and leads men under Satan to do the things that awaken divine justice, while Christ's followers will be temperate and seek heavenly things.
God's mercy does not set aside the final penalty for transgressing His law, for the inhabitants of Sodom were punished with fire from heaven for disobedience of God's requirements and were not winged straight into glory, while Lot was saved. That destruction proves that obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life, and no one can get to heaven transgressing the law as well as obeying it, so when God has commanded, obedience must be without hesitation and without seeking another way to be saved without obedience. The account of Sodom's destruction serves as a warning of the moral ruin the world could face when corrupt teaching removes safeguards of virtue and self-restraint. It stands as a warning for those now on the borders of the heavenly Canaan, for the Sodomites walked in the imaginations of their own hearts in headstrong, independent, wicked lives, and their wickedness was such that God could not perpetuate their lives. In mercy He proved Himself a God of vengeance in destroying them, and the same God who abundantly blesses, who is full of compassion and ready to pardon and to meet the returning prodigal and heal the bruised, will show Himself strong to punish persistent, independent despisers of His grace, so that those who with all advantages, light, and evidences of truth fail to purify their souls by living up to them stand like the inhabitants of Sodom and the Noahic world, with great guilt resting upon that choice. The destruction connected with the verse consumed Sodom for the same crime found among the Canaanites.
Echoes in Other Scriptures
Sodom consumed by fire from heaven stands joined with the flood that swept away Noah's generation as twin examples of coming ruin. The destruction came when wickedness was great and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually, when the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence and all flesh had corrupted His way, so that the Lord destroys man from the earth. Only Lot with his wife and two daughters was spared from Sodom because he did not corrupt his way, just as mercy ceased to plead with the guilty inhabitants before fire was sent down. That destruction stands with the loss of Eden through eating the forbidden fruit, the flood in which only Noah and his sons were saved, and the threatened destruction of Nineveh as successive witnesses that God means what He says and that sin steadily increases when warnings are not learned. The same pattern appears in desolation upon the unbelieving Jews in Christ's day and in strong delusion and damnation upon those in the last days who receive not the love of the truth, for as they reject His word God withdraws His Spirit and leaves them to the deceptions they love, proving men cannot reject the warnings God in mercy sends without punishment and salvation depends on how the warning is treated.
Large cities becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah will suffer under the judgments of God in wrath not long hence. San Francisco and Oakland are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah and the Lord will visit them in wrath, so well-equipped tent meetings should be held in large cities such as San Francisco to warn them. Calamity falls on wicked cities when God withdraws His Spirit and punishes those who reject His commandments and warnings, and cities steeped in sin face destruction by fire. The present world is a second Sodom in the same moral debasement, and those who look for the coming of the Son of Man stand right upon the borders of the eternal world and must set an example in harmony with that faith, for those who do not maintain purity and holiness are not accepted.
The corruption and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah warn of the terrible results of sin in a world given over to evil, when depravity had become widespread. Cities and even country towns are becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah and like the world in the days of Noah, growing worse and worse, and this likeness is a sign of the times that God's people must discern. That condition was one of idleness and holiday love of ease believed to bring health and happiness but full of evil, with youth not trained to diligent habits but trained to love excitement, to glorify themselves, and to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts, producing depravity, cruelty, violence, and crime. It is marked by licentiousness, carnality, want of strict purity and adultery even among professed godliness, through casting aside the restraint of God's law, which brings only moral wretchedness with no rest. God destroyed the sinful cities by fire when their sin provoked His wrath, after Satan had controlled those cities and nations by his power and led them to ruin through indulged appetite and corrupt passions, defacing and almost obliterating the image of God in man, and their end by fire stands with ends by water, earthquake, sword, famine, and pestilence upon multitudes of all ages led to ruin.
Satan seeks through spiritualism, appetite, corrupt passions, amusements and dissipation to make the world as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah, while the present world fast becoming as it was before the flood has Satan enthroned and the law of God trampled underfoot in the discarding of the seventh-day Sabbath. For that reason large plants and business interests should not be established in cities such as Melbourne without God's counsel, nor should moves be made without it. Judah's corruption made it seem the nation would suffer a fate like Sodom and Gomorrah, warning of judgment upon a rebellious people. The same fate will come on the land of boasted liberty and advantages if winebibbing blasphemers whose god is money give tone to public opinion and take the lead in the highest circles of society in the cities.
Choosing Home Wisely
Lot chose where to live by what his eyes saw, a beautiful and fertile country and a flourishing city that promised greater prosperity through wealth, attractions and loveliness, without reference to his associations or to the moral and religious influences around his family. He went in rich intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he signally failed. Fire consumed all his gains and he went out empty-handed, for Sodom did not make him richer.
The corrupting influences weakened his own faith, and his children's connections with the inhabitants bound up his interests with theirs, exposing the whole family to corruption and ending in ruin. He entered wealthy and left with nothing, led out by an angel's hand while messengers of wrath waited to pour forth fiery blasts to consume the inhabitants and blot out the entrancing beauty of that highly favored city and its suburbs, leaving bleak and bare a place once made very beautiful. His choice cost him his possessions, his riches, his married children, and his wife bereaved by her looking back on the way out, so that he fled for his life and was saved himself only as through fire, with life-work lost and life a sad failure. The account of departure with nothing belongs to the danger of choosing a home without regard to its spiritual influences.
God would have moral and religious influences considered first in choosing a home, rather than temporal advantage, a beautiful and fertile country, a flourishing city for greater prosperity, or greatest financial advantage in settling when selling out and moving. Voluntarily placing oneself in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief displeases God and drives holy angels from the home. There children are surrounded by temptation, lax morality, unbelief, indifference to religious things, examples of rebellion against parental and divine authority, and attachments to infidels and enemies of God that counteract parental influence, hinder piety and right character, and ruin them, while parents securing worldly wealth and honor at the expense of eternal interests barely save their own souls. Wherever duty calls, watchfulness, prayer and trust in the grace of Christ will enable a stand uncorrupted, but true wisdom accepts less worldly prosperity to make sure of the immortal inheritance.
Families are not to be taken into Sodom, nor youth placed among worldly influences as at Battle Creek, but young people are to guard what they see and hear and keep as far from Sodom and its associations as possible, since its corrupt practices stain the soul's purity. All who would escape the doom that came for pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness and failure to strengthen the poor and needy must shun crowded city life chosen for worldly livelihood, ease and associations unfriendly to religious life, which exposes children to temptation, vice and Satan's control, and must cut off every influence, break every habit and sunder every tie that hinders free committal of self and family to God. They are to seek instead a retired situation where children can be shielded from temptation and trained for usefulness. Outward attractiveness does not make a place suitable, for Sodom itself was like the garden of Eden yet unfit, as the lack of space and natural beauty showed the Hill Street property unfit for an institution lest it repeat going into Sodom, and large plants or business interests are not to be established in cities such as Melbourne without God's counsel while large cities grow worse and worse like Sodom and Gomorrah as a sign of the times.
The same selfish, avaricious spirit that takes all it can get for labor and gathers from any source without regard to justice repeats the choice, turns from plain counsel and light, and ends in total loss. Parents are not to choose a place for the most beautiful surroundings and the most fertile land, for worldly treasure will not save one soul. Human beings taint and corrupt the earth made lovely, and if dwellers in beautiful places do not reveal purity and virtue nor love truth and righteousness, after a time of test and trial wrath breaks forth upon them because they corrupt themselves.
Leaving Evil Promptly
To cast one lingering look upon the doomed city, to tarry for one moment, would have cost life, and the verse warns families in danger not to linger, hesitate or delay in leaving corrupt surroundings and seeking safety, but to act promptly to separate from evil and protect the household. Lot lingered instead of leaving promptly as commanded, long association with evil had weakened his ability to recognize his peril, and his tardiness and delay kept his wife from escaping. It took place in the morning when the sun was risen and Lot had entered Zoar, when bright rays seemed to promise only prosperity and peace, streets were stirring with active life and business and pleasure, and his sons-in-law were making merry at the warning. Then suddenly and unexpectedly, like thunder from an unclouded sky, the Lord rained brimstone and fire out of heaven upon the cities and the fruitful plain, consuming palaces and temples, costly dwellings, gardens and vineyards, and the pleasure-seeking throngs, with smoke going up like the smoke of a great furnace. The fair vale of Siddim became a desolation never to be built up or inhabited, a witness to all generations of the certainty of judgment upon transgression, and the flames shed warning light down even to the present time, teaching that while mercy bears long with the transgressor there is a limit beyond which men may not go on in sin, and when that limit is reached the offers of mercy are withdrawn and the ministration of judgment begins.
Like Sodom was fled in obedience to the voice of God, places of moral pollution dangerous to one weak in moral power, such as Brookfield, must be fled. Carrying unsubdued appetite and passions out of Sodom prevents prospering and blessing, and going back to make a home there without standing, like Lot, uncorrupted amid its moral pollution keeps a person in dangerous association. That destruction came because of pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness, and because she did not strengthen the hands of the poor and needy, and the same course is followed when families choose crowded city life for worldly livelihood, ease, and associations unfriendly to religious life, exposing children to temptation, vice, and Satan's control. All who would escape the doom of Sodom must shun that course and seek instead a retired situation where children can be shielded from temptation and trained for usefulness. The call is to repent, confess sins and forsake them, arouse the will relying wholly on the strength of Jesus to become an overcomer, and separate entirely from the class associated with, whatever the consequences, cutting off every influence, breaking up every habit, and sundering every tie that keeps from free, open, and hearty committal of self and family to God.
Lot's wife left Sodom mournfully and regretfully, clinging to imaginary wants, cherished wants and idols, and her attachment to what she left behind ended in judgment. Her leaving is the opposite of right self-denial, which gives up self joyfully for Christ's sake and because it is the right thing to do. When God's people stop binding about imaginary wants and deny self joyfully instead of with her regret and sorrow, the work goes forward with power.
The verse warns against treating lightly gracious provisions for salvation and refusing offered mercy because companion and children reject it. No one with a right conception of relation to God will turn away from the Saviour's pleading love because friends do. All are bound by the strongest ties of love and honor and loyalty to serve Creator and Redeemer, the redemption of the soul is precious, and Christ paid an infinite price for salvation. The fact that others ignore just claims should arouse greater diligence to honor God and lead all possible to accept His love.
Commanded to escape for life without looking behind or staying in the plain, Lot's wife turned from behind her husband to look toward the doomed city and by divine judgment became a pillar of salt, a monument of retribution. Her backward look was disobedience, unbelief and rebellion, for her body was on the plain but her heart still clung regretfully to home, possessions and the life that had rejected warning. She murmured against God's dealings and grieved the wealth left to destruction instead of thankfully accepting deliverance, showing long association with corrupting influences had weakened faith and left habits that endangered her even in flight. She stands as a terrible warning that God means what He says and will punish persistent disregard of His mercy, for while mercy bears long there is a limit beyond which offers are withdrawn and judgment begins. Her fate therefore warns those in danger not to linger, hesitate or cast one lingering look, but to separate promptly and entirely from evil whatever the cost.
Setting and Destruction
The command given in flight was to escape for life, to hasten without looking behind and without staying anywhere in the plain. From behind her husband, while on the way out upon the plain, Lot's wife turned to look toward the doomed city because of what she had left there, and by God's curse she became a pillar of salt. That fate made her a monument of retribution and of God's judgment. Her looking back in disregard of the command took place on the way from Sodom as she fled.
The looking back happened in the morning after the sun was risen and Lot had entered Zoar. At that hour bright rays seemed to promise only prosperity and peace, streets were stirring with active life and business and pleasure, and Lot's sons-in-law were making merry at the warning. Then suddenly and unexpectedly, like thunder from an unclouded sky, the Lord rained brimstone and fire out of heaven upon the cities and the fruitful plain. Palaces and temples, costly dwellings, gardens and vineyards, and the pleasure-seeking throngs were consumed, with smoke going up like the smoke of a great furnace, after mercy had ceased to plead with the guilty inhabitants. Everything in that most beautiful country was consumed except Lot, his wife, and two daughters.
The fair vale of Siddim became a desolation never to be built up or inhabited, a witness to all generations of the certainty of judgment upon transgression. The surrounding region became a desolate waste and part of the wilderness of Judea. The account of Sodom's destruction by fire is also used without explaining the wife's act separately, to show that only a few were saved despite having been warned. In that same remembrance Lot was not forgotten when judgment came upon the cities of the plain.
The same account shows that God can have faithful people even in a profoundly wicked city. Lot living in wicked Sodom supplies that example, for he did not corrupt his way before God and was saved while the wicked inhabitants were destroyed by fire from heaven.
Meaning of Backward Look
Her backward look was disobedience to the solemn charge to hurry away, to flee for life without looking behind and without staying in the plain. It was rebellion against God, unbelief, ingratitude for deliverance, and presumptuous disregard of solemn warning that treated faith with contempt and ignored instruction. She was made a monument of judgment for that unbelief and presumptuous rebellion, showing the grave consequence of disregarding the command.
Her body was on the plain but her heart still clung to Sodom, and she turned her eyes toward the city because of what she had left there. She looked back regretfully with longing for home, its comforts, attractions and possessions, and desired to remain even after wrath had fallen. She presumptuously desired the life of those who had rejected the divine warning and perished with what she clung to. The habits and customs absorbed in that corrupt place remained a danger even during flight, so that escape from a corrupt environment did not itself guarantee freedom from its influence or from attachment to worldly ways that must be obeyed against at any sacrifice. She left mournfully and regretfully, clinging to what was left behind rather than giving up self joyfully for what is right.
She murmured against God's dealings while looking back, feeling severely dealt with though greatly favored to be called out of the wicked city. She resented judgments sweeping away her possessions and children, and grieved the wealth gathered over years left to destruction instead of thankfully accepting deliverance. That sin showed her unworthy of the life for which she felt so little gratitude. Long association with corrupting influences had blunted spiritual discernment and weakened faith and confidence in God's justice. That long association with evil weakened ability to recognize peril, left habits and customs as a continuing danger, and made lingering, distrust and pleading to remain instead of trusting fully.
Lot's lingering, hesitancy, delay and self-pleading instead of promptly fleeing earnestly toward the mountains led her to regard the warning lightly and kept her from escaping, costing her life. If his example had been obedient without pleading, it would have saved her from the sin that sealed her doom and she would have escaped. Her turning back toward what she left contrasts with merely remembering home while remaining willing to give up its comforts and put God's work first. Hers was a worried, unwilling, clinging look that put what she owned above God's cause, opposite to valuing His work as of greater consequence, refusing to worry about home, and returning only when appointed work is done.
Judgment and Warning
Lot's wife stands as a terrible retribution and a monument of God's judgment, showing that He regards unbelief and presumptuous rebellion as serious, means what He says, will not be trifled with, and will punish persistent disregard of His light and patience. Sodom was destroyed by bolts of fire from heaven because of sin, and with the loss of Eden through eating the forbidden fruit and the destruction of the world by the flood when only Noah and his sons were saved, and with the threatened destruction of Nineveh, it stands as successive witnesses that God means what He says and that sin steadily increases when warnings are not learned. That destruction warns the present world, which is fast becoming as it was before the flood, with Satan enthroned and the law of God trampled underfoot in the discarding of the seventh-day Sabbath. The account of Sodom is invoked as a warning about corrupt conduct and the terrible judgments that follow persistent disregard, without explaining separately the detail about Lot's wife.
While God's mercy bears long with transgressors, there is a limit beyond which men may not go on in sin, and when that limit is reached the offers of mercy are withdrawn and the ministration of judgment begins. Mercy ceased to plead with the guilty inhabitants of Sodom and fire was sent down from heaven consuming all but Lot with his wife and two daughters, proving men cannot reject the warnings God in mercy sends without punishment, with salvation depending on how the warning is treated. The same pattern appears in the flood in Noah's day, in desolation upon the unbelieving Jews in Christ's day, and in strong delusion and damnation upon those in the last days who receive not the love of the truth, for as they reject the teachings of His word God withdraws His Spirit and leaves them to the deceptions they love.
Her fate warns all who disregard God's special mercies and providences and His gracious provisions for salvation, and warns against treating faith in God with contempt, ignoring instruction, and refusing offered mercy because companion and children reject it. No one with a right conception of relation to God will turn away from the Saviour's pleading love because friends do, for all are bound by the strongest ties of love and honor and loyalty to serve Creator and Redeemer, the redemption of the soul is precious at the infinite price Christ paid, and the fact that others ignore God's just claims should arouse greater diligence to honor Him and lead all possible to accept His love. The destruction proclaimed Sodom incorrigible and incurable in sin, just as judgment on the antediluvian world after rejecting Noah's message declared it incurable, when fire and brimstone from heaven consumed everything in the most beautiful country in the world except Lot, his wife, and two daughters. Its corrupt practices spread until its sins reached heaven and God destroyed it.
Sodom's ruin was caused by pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness, and failure to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy, for idleness enfeebles the mind, debases the soul, and perverts the understanding. Its inhabitants were as sinful as those before the flood, steeped in licentiousness and giving themselves to destructive lusts by indulgence and wicked inventions, not discerning the difference between the pure affections and attributes of human nature given by God and corrupt lust, corrupting their way before God. The cities of the plain degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions, where inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self became their god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated, until the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence and all flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth. Their contaminating influence called forth the wrath of God in most dreadful destruction by fire from heaven the same day Lot left Sodom, to rid the earth of their curse, while Lot was saved because he did not corrupt his way before God. Their eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting and building illustrate how allowing gratification of appetite to occupy thought and time at the neglect of eternal interests is sin that God will punish, because it abuses the body, destroys health, unbalances the mind, strengthens animal propensities, and leads men under Satan to do the things that awaken divine justice, while Christ's followers will be temperate and seek heavenly things.
God's mercy does not set aside the final penalty for transgressing His law, for the inhabitants of Sodom were punished with fire from heaven for disobedience of God's requirements and were not winged straight into glory, while Lot was saved. That destruction proves that obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life, and no one can get to heaven transgressing the law as well as obeying it, so when God has commanded, obedience must be without hesitation and without seeking another way to be saved without obedience. The account of Sodom's destruction serves as a warning of the moral ruin the world could face when corrupt teaching removes safeguards of virtue and self-restraint. It stands as a warning for those now on the borders of the heavenly Canaan, for the Sodomites walked in the imaginations of their own hearts in headstrong, independent, wicked lives, and their wickedness was such that God could not perpetuate their lives. In mercy He proved Himself a God of vengeance in destroying them, and the same God who abundantly blesses, who is full of compassion and ready to pardon and to meet the returning prodigal and heal the bruised, will show Himself strong to punish persistent, independent despisers of His grace, so that those who with all advantages, light, and evidences of truth fail to purify their souls by living up to them stand like the inhabitants of Sodom and the Noahic world, with great guilt resting upon that choice. The destruction connected with the verse consumed Sodom for the same crime found among the Canaanites.
Echoes in Other Scriptures
Sodom consumed by fire from heaven stands joined with the flood that swept away Noah's generation as twin examples of coming ruin. The destruction came when wickedness was great and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually, when the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence and all flesh had corrupted His way, so that the Lord destroys man from the earth. Only Lot with his wife and two daughters was spared from Sodom because he did not corrupt his way, just as mercy ceased to plead with the guilty inhabitants before fire was sent down. That destruction stands with the loss of Eden through eating the forbidden fruit, the flood in which only Noah and his sons were saved, and the threatened destruction of Nineveh as successive witnesses that God means what He says and that sin steadily increases when warnings are not learned. The same pattern appears in desolation upon the unbelieving Jews in Christ's day and in strong delusion and damnation upon those in the last days who receive not the love of the truth, for as they reject His word God withdraws His Spirit and leaves them to the deceptions they love, proving men cannot reject the warnings God in mercy sends without punishment and salvation depends on how the warning is treated.
Large cities becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah will suffer under the judgments of God in wrath not long hence. San Francisco and Oakland are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah and the Lord will visit them in wrath, so well-equipped tent meetings should be held in large cities such as San Francisco to warn them. Calamity falls on wicked cities when God withdraws His Spirit and punishes those who reject His commandments and warnings, and cities steeped in sin face destruction by fire. The present world is a second Sodom in the same moral debasement, and those who look for the coming of the Son of Man stand right upon the borders of the eternal world and must set an example in harmony with that faith, for those who do not maintain purity and holiness are not accepted.
The corruption and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah warn of the terrible results of sin in a world given over to evil, when depravity had become widespread. Cities and even country towns are becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah and like the world in the days of Noah, growing worse and worse, and this likeness is a sign of the times that God's people must discern. That condition was one of idleness and holiday love of ease believed to bring health and happiness but full of evil, with youth not trained to diligent habits but trained to love excitement, to glorify themselves, and to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts, producing depravity, cruelty, violence, and crime. It is marked by licentiousness, carnality, want of strict purity and adultery even among professed godliness, through casting aside the restraint of God's law, which brings only moral wretchedness with no rest. God destroyed the sinful cities by fire when their sin provoked His wrath, after Satan had controlled those cities and nations by his power and led them to ruin through indulged appetite and corrupt passions, defacing and almost obliterating the image of God in man, and their end by fire stands with ends by water, earthquake, sword, famine, and pestilence upon multitudes of all ages led to ruin.
Satan seeks through spiritualism, appetite, corrupt passions, amusements and dissipation to make the world as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah, while the present world fast becoming as it was before the flood has Satan enthroned and the law of God trampled underfoot in the discarding of the seventh-day Sabbath. For that reason large plants and business interests should not be established in cities such as Melbourne without God's counsel, nor should moves be made without it. Judah's corruption made it seem the nation would suffer a fate like Sodom and Gomorrah, warning of judgment upon a rebellious people. The same fate will come on the land of boasted liberty and advantages if winebibbing blasphemers whose god is money give tone to public opinion and take the lead in the highest circles of society in the cities.
Choosing Home Wisely
Lot chose where to live by what his eyes saw, a beautiful and fertile country and a flourishing city that promised greater prosperity through wealth, attractions and loveliness, without reference to his associations or to the moral and religious influences around his family. He went in rich intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he signally failed. Fire consumed all his gains and he went out empty-handed, for Sodom did not make him richer.
The corrupting influences weakened his own faith, and his children's connections with the inhabitants bound up his interests with theirs, exposing the whole family to corruption and ending in ruin. He entered wealthy and left with nothing, led out by an angel's hand while messengers of wrath waited to pour forth fiery blasts to consume the inhabitants and blot out the entrancing beauty of that highly favored city and its suburbs, leaving bleak and bare a place once made very beautiful. His choice cost him his possessions, his riches, his married children, and his wife bereaved by her looking back on the way out, so that he fled for his life and was saved himself only as through fire, with life-work lost and life a sad failure. The account of departure with nothing belongs to the danger of choosing a home without regard to its spiritual influences.
God would have moral and religious influences considered first in choosing a home, rather than temporal advantage, a beautiful and fertile country, a flourishing city for greater prosperity, or greatest financial advantage in settling when selling out and moving. Voluntarily placing oneself in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief displeases God and drives holy angels from the home. There children are surrounded by temptation, lax morality, unbelief, indifference to religious things, examples of rebellion against parental and divine authority, and attachments to infidels and enemies of God that counteract parental influence, hinder piety and right character, and ruin them, while parents securing worldly wealth and honor at the expense of eternal interests barely save their own souls. Wherever duty calls, watchfulness, prayer and trust in the grace of Christ will enable a stand uncorrupted, but true wisdom accepts less worldly prosperity to make sure of the immortal inheritance.
Families are not to be taken into Sodom, nor youth placed among worldly influences as at Battle Creek, but young people are to guard what they see and hear and keep as far from Sodom and its associations as possible, since its corrupt practices stain the soul's purity. All who would escape the doom that came for pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness and failure to strengthen the poor and needy must shun crowded city life chosen for worldly livelihood, ease and associations unfriendly to religious life, which exposes children to temptation, vice and Satan's control, and must cut off every influence, break every habit and sunder every tie that hinders free committal of self and family to God. They are to seek instead a retired situation where children can be shielded from temptation and trained for usefulness. Outward attractiveness does not make a place suitable, for Sodom itself was like the garden of Eden yet unfit, as the lack of space and natural beauty showed the Hill Street property unfit for an institution lest it repeat going into Sodom, and large plants or business interests are not to be established in cities such as Melbourne without God's counsel while large cities grow worse and worse like Sodom and Gomorrah as a sign of the times.
The same selfish, avaricious spirit that takes all it can get for labor and gathers from any source without regard to justice repeats the choice, turns from plain counsel and light, and ends in total loss. Parents are not to choose a place for the most beautiful surroundings and the most fertile land, for worldly treasure will not save one soul. Human beings taint and corrupt the earth made lovely, and if dwellers in beautiful places do not reveal purity and virtue nor love truth and righteousness, after a time of test and trial wrath breaks forth upon them because they corrupt themselves.
Leaving Evil Promptly
To cast one lingering look upon the doomed city, to tarry for one moment, would have cost life, and the verse warns families in danger not to linger, hesitate or delay in leaving corrupt surroundings and seeking safety, but to act promptly to separate from evil and protect the household. Lot lingered instead of leaving promptly as commanded, long association with evil had weakened his ability to recognize his peril, and his tardiness and delay kept his wife from escaping. It took place in the morning when the sun was risen and Lot had entered Zoar, when bright rays seemed to promise only prosperity and peace, streets were stirring with active life and business and pleasure, and his sons-in-law were making merry at the warning. Then suddenly and unexpectedly, like thunder from an unclouded sky, the Lord rained brimstone and fire out of heaven upon the cities and the fruitful plain, consuming palaces and temples, costly dwellings, gardens and vineyards, and the pleasure-seeking throngs, with smoke going up like the smoke of a great furnace. The fair vale of Siddim became a desolation never to be built up or inhabited, a witness to all generations of the certainty of judgment upon transgression, and the flames shed warning light down even to the present time, teaching that while mercy bears long with the transgressor there is a limit beyond which men may not go on in sin, and when that limit is reached the offers of mercy are withdrawn and the ministration of judgment begins.
Like Sodom was fled in obedience to the voice of God, places of moral pollution dangerous to one weak in moral power, such as Brookfield, must be fled. Carrying unsubdued appetite and passions out of Sodom prevents prospering and blessing, and going back to make a home there without standing, like Lot, uncorrupted amid its moral pollution keeps a person in dangerous association. That destruction came because of pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness, and because she did not strengthen the hands of the poor and needy, and the same course is followed when families choose crowded city life for worldly livelihood, ease, and associations unfriendly to religious life, exposing children to temptation, vice, and Satan's control. All who would escape the doom of Sodom must shun that course and seek instead a retired situation where children can be shielded from temptation and trained for usefulness. The call is to repent, confess sins and forsake them, arouse the will relying wholly on the strength of Jesus to become an overcomer, and separate entirely from the class associated with, whatever the consequences, cutting off every influence, breaking up every habit, and sundering every tie that keeps from free, open, and hearty committal of self and family to God.
Lot's wife left Sodom mournfully and regretfully, clinging to imaginary wants, cherished wants and idols, and her attachment to what she left behind ended in judgment. Her leaving is the opposite of right self-denial, which gives up self joyfully for Christ's sake and because it is the right thing to do. When God's people stop binding about imaginary wants and deny self joyfully instead of with her regret and sorrow, the work goes forward with power.
The verse warns against treating lightly gracious provisions for salvation and refusing offered mercy because companion and children reject it. No one with a right conception of relation to God will turn away from the Saviour's pleading love because friends do. All are bound by the strongest ties of love and honor and loyalty to serve Creator and Redeemer, the redemption of the soul is precious, and Christ paid an infinite price for salvation. The fact that others ignore just claims should arouse greater diligence to honor God and lead all possible to accept His love.