And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
Lot went out of his house to face the men of Sodom who demanded his guests, shutting the door behind him to protect the strangers sheltered inside. He called the crowd brethren to conciliate them and turn them from their wicked purpose, but they threatened him and rushed upon him until the angels drew him inside and struck the mob with blindness so they could not find the door. The stand at the door belonged to the angels' mission to rescue righteous Lot from the fiery destruction of the city, showing that God's angels can deliver His people from danger. His peril there grew out of his unwise choice of a home for beauty, prosperity and worldly honor without regard to its moral influences, for he meant to keep himself and his household free yet his faith was weakened and his children were bound to Sodom by association and temptation. Sodom's corrupt and licentious condition, which ripened for judgment by fire from heaven, exemplifies the corruption of the last days when cities grow increasingly depraved through indulged appetite and passion.
Doorway Confrontation Described
Lot went out of his house to face the men of Sodom who demanded that his guests be brought out, while the strangers he had sheltered remained inside, and he shut the door behind him to protect them from the mob. He called the crowd brethren in the sense of neighbors, hoping by conciliation to make them ashamed and to persuade them to stop their wickedness. They answered with threats and rushed at him, and the angels rescued him by pulling him inside and shutting the door.
The angels protected him from the violent crowd by striking them with blindness so that they could not find the door. His courteous spirit, formed through association with Abraham, helped preserve him in that danger. Apart from placing him at the door in Sodom, in a city corrupt with many kinds of crime where his choice of natural advantages without regard to morals and religion brought danger, flight, warning to family, rejection by sons-in-law and destruction, and as an example of bringing family into an ungodly environment and a warning that indulgence in appetite and passion displaces reason and regard for God unto destruction, the detail of going out and shutting the door carries no separate lesson.
Sodom's Sin and Judgment
Sodom was corrupt with many kinds of crime and notorious for corruption, teaching its evil practices to others until the earth was defiled by its inhabitants. It was ruled by destructive lust, depraved and polluted, licentious and shameless in extreme moral corruption and bold wickedness. Its inhabitants destroyed themselves through iniquity and could not distinguish good from evil. Their morals stand as a warning to guard against corrupt society, dangerous companions, and corrupting influences.
Its destruction followed pride, fullness of abundance, idleness, and failure to help the poor, for idleness weakened the mind, degraded the soul, and distorted judgment. Its corrupt condition also appeared where the universal and unmistakable distinction in dress between man and woman is discarded. Garments serve as a guard set over the wearer and a perpetual restraining monitor wherever she goes, acting as preventive police, so casting the distinction aside evidences guilty intent and to practice or palliate or tolerate any departure from it betrays the virtue of both sexes.
Its abomination was the same crime found among the Canaanites, abominations associated with communion with evil spirits. It was practiced in bold, defiant licentiousness, as the inhabitants walked in the imaginations of their own hearts in headstrong, independent wickedness. Its sins reached heaven and passed the limits of divine forbearance, so God ended His patience and destroyed the city and its beauty. He destroyed it by bolts of fire from heaven, proving God means what He says. His mercy does not leave transgression unpunished, and in mercy He cut off lives He could not let continue. The destruction stands with the fall of Adam and Eve, the flood that saved only Noah and his sons, and the threatened destruction of Nineveh as proof that sin has steadily increased since Eden opened the floodgates of woe, with the world fast becoming as it was before the flood.
Lot Rescued by Angels
Angels came to Sodom to rescue righteous Lot from its fiery destruction, and the going out to meet the men at the door belongs to that rescue, when they protected him at the entrance and then led him safely out of the city. Their protecting and leading him shows that God's angels can deliver His people from danger. Lot was a righteous person living in Sodom, showing that even in a deeply sinful society there are faithful people who can serve as reformers. Even in cities and towns steeped in sin there are people like Lot, for whom God calls reformers to defend His laws and uphold right training of the mind and culture of the heart.
God had a Lot in wicked Sodom, meaning even a great and wicked city contains people of God. As Sodom had Lot, so New York has a people panting after the pure waters of truth as the hart pants after the water brooks, and their thirst shows the city is ready to be worked with the power of God. Cities and towns today are the same as Sodom, where the poison of sin works at the heart of society and moral corruption prevails. There are Lots in every Sodom, people like Lot dwelling amid that corruption. God calls for reformers to labor for them in defense of the law He established to govern the physical system, trained to battle disease and show the value of nature's remedies while maintaining an elevated standard in training of the mind and culture of the heart, so that the Great Physician can cooperate with the human helping hand in merciful relief of suffering.
Choosing Home Unwisely
Lot chose his dwelling for natural advantages and beautiful country, for greater prosperity and worldly wealth and honor, without first weighing the moral and religious influences, surroundings and associations that would shape his family. He entered Sodom rich and left it with nothing, led away by an angel while messengers of wrath waited to destroy the city. His choice shows the danger of selecting a home for temporal advantage and worldly prosperity rather than for the influences surrounding the household.
He went in 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 inhabitants of Sodom bound up his interests with theirs. They were surrounded by temptation and lax morality, by unbelief and indifference and rebellion, and by evil associations and unfavorable attachments to infidels and unbelievers until they cast in their lot with the enemies of God. The corruption so shaped them that they could not distinguish good from evil or sin from righteousness, his sons-in-law rejected the warning and perished in the destruction, and the ruin of his children left him barely saving his own soul.
Voluntarily placing the family in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief displeases God and drives holy angels from the home. Those whom duty places in trying positions God will enable to stand uncorrupted if they watch and pray in trust in Christ and His grace, but needless exposure to such an atmosphere is disobedience. Gaining the world at the expense of eternal interests makes the life-work lost and life a sad failure, ruins the children and barely saves the soul, whereas true wisdom with less of worldly prosperity secures title to the immortal inheritance.
Lot stood uncorrupted amid moral pollution, yet a corrupt place with dangerous moral atmosphere and associations must be fled as from Sodom. This is especially urgent for one weak in moral power with unsubdued appetite and passions, requiring entire separation from corrupting associates with repentance and confession and forsaking of sin, and arousing the will in reliance on Jesus to overcome. Taking the family into Sodom is like calling promising young men and women to Battle Creek for the nurses' course to associate with worldly people of all grades, high and low, among the many Sanitarium guests, exposing them contrary to God's design, so it is for the interest of youth to be educated elsewhere. Placing God's institutions amid wicked surroundings is likewise like Lot going into Sodom. The wickedness practiced around Lot's dwelling reflected the corruption of Sodom and Gomorrah and shows how selfish indulgence and neglected home education foster iniquitous behavior, and its depraved practices threatening purity warn to keep young people as far from Sodom and its corrupting influences as possible.
Warning for Today
Sodom's impurity and licentiousness mark an age of corruption set against the moral corruption of the last days, and its days of great moral corruption are compared with the world's condition in its own day. Its wickedness is the measure for cities becoming increasingly corrupt, and the wickedness shown in Genesis 19:4-9 is returning in cities and even country towns. Lack of diligent habits and love of idle, lazy days ruins the country, and the training of youth then was after the same order as now, educating children to love excitement, to glorify themselves, and to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts. Now as then, and as in the world in the days of Noah, the result is depravity, cruelty, violence, and crime.
Teachings that encourage unrestrained desire and reject self-restraint make the world like Sodom. Indulgence in appetite and passion displaces reason and regard for God and leads to destruction, and unchecked lust with lack of vigilance brings ruin as shown by the extreme licentiousness and wickedness of its inhabitants. Carnality and want of strict purity, being sold unto sin and practicing adultery, make the world like a second Sodom and Gomorrah, even when men and women professing godliness follow the same conduct.
Its extreme moral corruption warns young people to guard themselves against corrupt society, dangerous companions, and corrupting influences. Its bold, defiant licentiousness and crime, when its inhabitants walked in the imaginations of their own hearts in headstrong, independent wickedness, brought guilt so great that God in mercy cut their lives short as a God of vengeance, and its shameless immoral conduct shows such behavior provokes God's judgment. The same guilt rests on those on the borders of the heavenly Canaan who with all light, advantages, and evidences of truth refuse to purify their souls by living up to them. The God who abundantly blesses and is full of compassion to pardon and to meet the returning prodigal and to heal the bruised and smitten will show Himself strong to punish persistent, independent despisers of His grace.
Its history shows what a land of liberty and advantages becomes when winebibbers and blasphemers give tone to public opinion and take the lead in the highest circles of society where money is god.
Lot went out of his house to face the men of Sodom who demanded his guests, shutting the door behind him to protect the strangers sheltered inside. He called the crowd brethren to conciliate them and turn them from their wicked purpose, but they threatened him and rushed upon him until the angels drew him inside and struck the mob with blindness so they could not find the door. The stand at the door belonged to the angels' mission to rescue righteous Lot from the fiery destruction of the city, showing that God's angels can deliver His people from danger. His peril there grew out of his unwise choice of a home for beauty, prosperity and worldly honor without regard to its moral influences, for he meant to keep himself and his household free yet his faith was weakened and his children were bound to Sodom by association and temptation. Sodom's corrupt and licentious condition, which ripened for judgment by fire from heaven, exemplifies the corruption of the last days when cities grow increasingly depraved through indulged appetite and passion.
Doorway Confrontation Described
Lot went out of his house to face the men of Sodom who demanded that his guests be brought out, while the strangers he had sheltered remained inside, and he shut the door behind him to protect them from the mob. He called the crowd brethren in the sense of neighbors, hoping by conciliation to make them ashamed and to persuade them to stop their wickedness. They answered with threats and rushed at him, and the angels rescued him by pulling him inside and shutting the door.
The angels protected him from the violent crowd by striking them with blindness so that they could not find the door. His courteous spirit, formed through association with Abraham, helped preserve him in that danger. Apart from placing him at the door in Sodom, in a city corrupt with many kinds of crime where his choice of natural advantages without regard to morals and religion brought danger, flight, warning to family, rejection by sons-in-law and destruction, and as an example of bringing family into an ungodly environment and a warning that indulgence in appetite and passion displaces reason and regard for God unto destruction, the detail of going out and shutting the door carries no separate lesson.
Sodom's Sin and Judgment
Sodom was corrupt with many kinds of crime and notorious for corruption, teaching its evil practices to others until the earth was defiled by its inhabitants. It was ruled by destructive lust, depraved and polluted, licentious and shameless in extreme moral corruption and bold wickedness. Its inhabitants destroyed themselves through iniquity and could not distinguish good from evil. Their morals stand as a warning to guard against corrupt society, dangerous companions, and corrupting influences.
Its destruction followed pride, fullness of abundance, idleness, and failure to help the poor, for idleness weakened the mind, degraded the soul, and distorted judgment. Its corrupt condition also appeared where the universal and unmistakable distinction in dress between man and woman is discarded. Garments serve as a guard set over the wearer and a perpetual restraining monitor wherever she goes, acting as preventive police, so casting the distinction aside evidences guilty intent and to practice or palliate or tolerate any departure from it betrays the virtue of both sexes.
Its abomination was the same crime found among the Canaanites, abominations associated with communion with evil spirits. It was practiced in bold, defiant licentiousness, as the inhabitants walked in the imaginations of their own hearts in headstrong, independent wickedness. Its sins reached heaven and passed the limits of divine forbearance, so God ended His patience and destroyed the city and its beauty. He destroyed it by bolts of fire from heaven, proving God means what He says. His mercy does not leave transgression unpunished, and in mercy He cut off lives He could not let continue. The destruction stands with the fall of Adam and Eve, the flood that saved only Noah and his sons, and the threatened destruction of Nineveh as proof that sin has steadily increased since Eden opened the floodgates of woe, with the world fast becoming as it was before the flood.
Lot Rescued by Angels
Angels came to Sodom to rescue righteous Lot from its fiery destruction, and the going out to meet the men at the door belongs to that rescue, when they protected him at the entrance and then led him safely out of the city. Their protecting and leading him shows that God's angels can deliver His people from danger. Lot was a righteous person living in Sodom, showing that even in a deeply sinful society there are faithful people who can serve as reformers. Even in cities and towns steeped in sin there are people like Lot, for whom God calls reformers to defend His laws and uphold right training of the mind and culture of the heart.
God had a Lot in wicked Sodom, meaning even a great and wicked city contains people of God. As Sodom had Lot, so New York has a people panting after the pure waters of truth as the hart pants after the water brooks, and their thirst shows the city is ready to be worked with the power of God. Cities and towns today are the same as Sodom, where the poison of sin works at the heart of society and moral corruption prevails. There are Lots in every Sodom, people like Lot dwelling amid that corruption. God calls for reformers to labor for them in defense of the law He established to govern the physical system, trained to battle disease and show the value of nature's remedies while maintaining an elevated standard in training of the mind and culture of the heart, so that the Great Physician can cooperate with the human helping hand in merciful relief of suffering.
Choosing Home Unwisely
Lot chose his dwelling for natural advantages and beautiful country, for greater prosperity and worldly wealth and honor, without first weighing the moral and religious influences, surroundings and associations that would shape his family. He entered Sodom rich and left it with nothing, led away by an angel while messengers of wrath waited to destroy the city. His choice shows the danger of selecting a home for temporal advantage and worldly prosperity rather than for the influences surrounding the household.
He went in 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 inhabitants of Sodom bound up his interests with theirs. They were surrounded by temptation and lax morality, by unbelief and indifference and rebellion, and by evil associations and unfavorable attachments to infidels and unbelievers until they cast in their lot with the enemies of God. The corruption so shaped them that they could not distinguish good from evil or sin from righteousness, his sons-in-law rejected the warning and perished in the destruction, and the ruin of his children left him barely saving his own soul.
Voluntarily placing the family in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief displeases God and drives holy angels from the home. Those whom duty places in trying positions God will enable to stand uncorrupted if they watch and pray in trust in Christ and His grace, but needless exposure to such an atmosphere is disobedience. Gaining the world at the expense of eternal interests makes the life-work lost and life a sad failure, ruins the children and barely saves the soul, whereas true wisdom with less of worldly prosperity secures title to the immortal inheritance.
Lot stood uncorrupted amid moral pollution, yet a corrupt place with dangerous moral atmosphere and associations must be fled as from Sodom. This is especially urgent for one weak in moral power with unsubdued appetite and passions, requiring entire separation from corrupting associates with repentance and confession and forsaking of sin, and arousing the will in reliance on Jesus to overcome. Taking the family into Sodom is like calling promising young men and women to Battle Creek for the nurses' course to associate with worldly people of all grades, high and low, among the many Sanitarium guests, exposing them contrary to God's design, so it is for the interest of youth to be educated elsewhere. Placing God's institutions amid wicked surroundings is likewise like Lot going into Sodom. The wickedness practiced around Lot's dwelling reflected the corruption of Sodom and Gomorrah and shows how selfish indulgence and neglected home education foster iniquitous behavior, and its depraved practices threatening purity warn to keep young people as far from Sodom and its corrupting influences as possible.
Warning for Today
Sodom's impurity and licentiousness mark an age of corruption set against the moral corruption of the last days, and its days of great moral corruption are compared with the world's condition in its own day. Its wickedness is the measure for cities becoming increasingly corrupt, and the wickedness shown in Genesis 19:4-9 is returning in cities and even country towns. Lack of diligent habits and love of idle, lazy days ruins the country, and the training of youth then was after the same order as now, educating children to love excitement, to glorify themselves, and to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts. Now as then, and as in the world in the days of Noah, the result is depravity, cruelty, violence, and crime.
Teachings that encourage unrestrained desire and reject self-restraint make the world like Sodom. Indulgence in appetite and passion displaces reason and regard for God and leads to destruction, and unchecked lust with lack of vigilance brings ruin as shown by the extreme licentiousness and wickedness of its inhabitants. Carnality and want of strict purity, being sold unto sin and practicing adultery, make the world like a second Sodom and Gomorrah, even when men and women professing godliness follow the same conduct.
Its extreme moral corruption warns young people to guard themselves against corrupt society, dangerous companions, and corrupting influences. Its bold, defiant licentiousness and crime, when its inhabitants walked in the imaginations of their own hearts in headstrong, independent wickedness, brought guilt so great that God in mercy cut their lives short as a God of vengeance, and its shameless immoral conduct shows such behavior provokes God's judgment. The same guilt rests on those on the borders of the heavenly Canaan who with all light, advantages, and evidences of truth refuse to purify their souls by living up to them. The God who abundantly blesses and is full of compassion to pardon and to meet the returning prodigal and to heal the bruised and smitten will show Himself strong to punish persistent, independent despisers of His grace.
Its history shows what a land of liberty and advantages becomes when winebibbers and blasphemers give tone to public opinion and take the lead in the highest circles of society where money is god.