Genesis 19:9
And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
The mob answered Lot's rebuke by mocking him as a mere newcomer and sojourner who had come to live among them yet presumed to act as their judge, and threatened to deal worse with him than with his guests. They pressed hard upon Lot himself and came near to break the door in order to seize and abuse his visitors. Their words and assault show lawless hostility to correction and to moral restraint, answering reproof with threatened violence. Holy angels on a mission of mercy met that violence by protecting righteous Lot, striking his assailants with blindness so they could not find the door and leading him safely out. Lot's peril there exposes the ruin of his choice to dwell in Sodom for worldly advantage without regard to its moral influences, entering to keep himself free from iniquity yet finding vexation, danger and threats to himself and his household.
Mob's Words and Attack
The men rejected Lot's rebuke when he opposed them, mocking him as a newcomer and sojourner, an outsider who had come in to live among them yet presumed to set himself up as their judge. They turned his interference back upon him with contempt for his standing among them and threatened to deal worse with him himself than with his guests. That threat was directed against Lot for resisting them and for daring to judge their course.
They pressed sore upon Lot himself, gathering around his dwelling and pressing toward violence against him and his house. They came near to break the door in order to reach and abuse his visitors. Their words and assault exposed a lawless hostility to correction and to moral restraint, answering reproof with threatened violence against the one who opposed them. In this they showed what follows when people are taught that desire is the highest law and that they are answerable to no one for their actions.
They pressed their evil upon others and sought to draw newcomers into their practices. Their corruption spread as they taught one another forbidden practices until it reached heaven and brought judgment that destroyed the city and its beauty.
Sodom's Corruption and Judgment
Sodom was a place of extreme, steeped corruption, impurity and licentiousness, marked by grave sexual impurity that stained purity of soul and corrupted body, soul and spirit. Its inhabitants corrupted their way by indulgence and wicked inventions until they could no longer discern between the pure affections given by God as attributes of human nature and destructive lusts, confusing God-given affection with lust and degrading women. The time of Lot was an age when such social wickedness had spread over all the cities of the plain, and the world is compared to Sodom because the same sexual immorality and moral degradation are widespread. Because its practices stain the soul's purity, youth are to be guarded from seeing or hearing them and kept as far from Sodom and such harmful places and associations as possible.
Its ruin was caused by idleness, which enfeebles the mind, debases the soul and perverts the understanding, with vice and crime following in its train because Satan finds greatest success in tempting unguarded men in their idle hours. The cities of the plain degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins where inclination, passion and appetite bore sway over reason and conscience, self became god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. Lawful eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting and building became sin when gratification of appetite occupied thought and time to the neglect of eternal interests, abusing the body, destroying health, unbalancing the mind and strengthening animal propensities.
Its public tone was bold, public contempt for the Son of God, drunken revelry, winebibbing and blasphemy giving tone to public opinion and leading even the highest circles of society where money is god. Men gathering around Lot's dwelling and pressing toward violence illustrates how selfish indulgence and failed home education foster such grave iniquity, and a land of liberty and advantages that allows such men to lead will become as Sodom, with youth endangered by their example. Its people were not educated to diligent habits but trained to love excitement, to glorify self and to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts rather than duty, and that training produces depravity, cruelty, violence and crime. Excitement and pleasure still draw people away from duty into dissipation, marking cities and even country towns as like Sodom and Gomorrah and like the world in the days of Noah.
Its corruption had become so deep that its people had passed the limits of divine forbearance and faced God's judgment, so angels came to see whether there was any hope of the city's redemption. Sodom was destroyed despite warning and only a few were saved, teaching that the majority's course is not a safe guide. Corruption and disregard for God's law prevailed there until depravity and violence brought the city under divine judgment. Sin kept increasing until bolts of fire and brimstone from heaven destroyed the city the same day Lot went out, to rid the earth of contaminating influence and awaken the sword of justice, proving God means what He says when threatened judgment is pronounced. The same is seen in Adam and Eve losing Eden, the world destroyed by the Flood with only Noah and his sons saved, and Nineveh first spared by repentance and later destroyed after returning to idolatry.
Angels Rescue Righteous Lot
Holy angels came to the gates of Sodom on a mission of mercy to rescue righteous Lot from its violence and fiery doom. Their coming belongs to the rescue of Lot from Sodom's destruction and shows how holy angels in all ages minister to God's people.
Angels protected Lot in the midst of wicked Sodom when its inhabitants threatened him and pressed against his door to abuse his visitors. They struck his assailants with blindness so that they could not find the door. They then led him safely out of the city. Even when the confederacy of evil is arrayed against those who would overcome, the armies of heaven are encamped about all who love God to deliver them. In all ages angels are near to Christ's faithful followers, preserving them from dangers seen and unseen by interposition from day to day, a care that will only be fully known in the light of eternity when it is seen that the whole family of heaven was interested in the family here below.
Lot's Choice and Ruin
Lot chose his home in Sodom for temporal, natural and worldly advantages without examining the character, religion and moral influences surrounding himself and his family. He entered intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he signally failed, for the corrupting influences about him weakened his own faith and his children's connections with Sodom's inhabitants bound up his interests with theirs. His choice placed him and his household among irreligious people whose molding influence and evil associations brought vexation, danger and threats, hedged up the way, undermined principles approved by God, and were detrimental to piety and devotion.
He went in rich and came out with nothing, led away by an angel's hand while messengers of wrath waited to pour fiery blasts to consume the inhabitants and blot out the entrancing beauty of that highly favored city and suburbs, leaving bleak and bare what God had made very beautiful. Voluntarily placing oneself in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief, lax morality and indifference to religious things displeases God, drives holy angels from the home, counteracts parental influence, surrounds children with temptation, evil associations and rebellion against parental and divine authority, corrupting their character until they join infidels and enemies of God. Securing worldly wealth, prosperity and honor at the expense of eternal interests is a terrible loss ending with ruined children, lost life-work and sad failure, with one's own soul barely saved, whereas true wisdom would accept less worldly prosperity to secure the immortal inheritance, and Lot's warning to his daughters and sons-in-law was mocked and they perished in the destruction.
Sodom as Last-Days Warning
The time of Lot was an age of impurity and licentiousness, when social wickedness had spread over all the cities of the plain. That condition pictures the last days, the antitypical days of Noah. It is now made real by social impurity, defilement of youth, corruption of age, licensed prostitution of the cities and worldwide trafficking. This proves the time for warning has come, because earth's desperate sorrow approaches while evil men wax worse and worse.
The men of Sodom rejected Lot's rebuke and threatened him because, though a newcomer, he had acted as their judge, and they pressed upon him and moved to break down his door. Their punishment for disobedience, with Lot saved, warns that persistent, defiant sin brings God's punishment. The cities of the plain degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins where inclination, passion and appetite bore sway over reason and conscience, self became god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated through selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. Lawful eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting and building became sin when gratification of appetite occupied thought and time to the neglect of eternal interests, abused the body, destroyed health, unbalanced the mind and strengthened animal propensities. That infatuation called forth the wrath of God in most dreadful destruction by fire and brimstone from heaven the same day Lot went out of Sodom, in order to rid the earth of contaminating influence and awaken the sword of justice, and the same infatuation of appetite now prevails and will bring the same destruction in the days of the Son of Man. Sodom's inhabitants, like the people before the Flood, chose their own desires despite the light and advantages they had, and their example warns those who refuse truth and do not let it purify their lives.
Cities and even country towns are becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah, and like the world in the days of Noah. Cities such as Melbourne are becoming like those cities as the world grows worse, threatening people's ability to discern the signs of the times. The youth are not educated to diligent habits but are trained to love excitement, to glorify themselves, and to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts. Now as then, that training produces depravity, cruelty, violence and crime. Sodom is corrupt and polluted, and want of strict purity, carnal living, and adultery practiced even by men and women professing godliness, being sold unto sin, shows that same condition is now making the world like a second Sodom and Gomorrah.
Sodom serves as an example of deeply corrupt morals against which the young are warned. Its practices stain the soul's purity, so young people should be guarded from seeing or hearing them. They should be kept as far from Sodom and such harmful places and associations as possible. Sodom's inhabitants were so licentious and hostile to restraint that they threatened Lot when he opposed their intended abuse of his guests, and Sodom's wickedness stands as a warning that Satan seeks to make the world equally corrupt.
Call to Separation and Faithfulness
The record in Genesis 18-19 calls for earnest seeking of the Lord, for a more decided stand for Him, and for obedience to all His requirements instead of a mere profession of belief in the truth. Lot dwelling in Sodom yet standing uncorrupted amid its moral pollution shows that the faithful can remain amid widespread wickedness, and there are Lots in every Sodom. Sodom was a great and wicked city steeped in sin and corruption, yet God had Lot there, which means He also has a people in the great wicked city of New York who pant after pure truth as the hart pants after water brooks and who must be reached because the field is ready for working by divine power. Modern cities and towns are the same as Sodom, with Lots still in every one and the poison of sin at work at the heart of society.
God's voice calls those in a dangerous moral atmosphere and association to flee such a place as from Sodom and not make home there again. That danger is greatest to one weak in moral power with unsubdued appetite and passions, where God cannot prosper and bless. The call is to repent and confess sins and forsake them, to arouse the will while relying wholly on the strength of Jesus to become an overcomer, and whatever the consequences to separate entirely from that class of associates.
Lot's choice to live in Sodom without regard for the character of the people around him warns against choosing a place for apparent advantages while ignoring its influence on piety and devotion, since its evil associations brought vexation and danger and he finally had to leave with nothing as destruction came. His bringing his family into that corrupt society placed him and his household among people whose influence and conduct threatened them. Taking youth to Battle Creek and associating them with people of every kind is the same as Lot taking his family into Sodom. Establishing a religious institution in wicked surroundings would expose its workers to harmful surroundings and pressure, and the warning is even stronger because Sodom's surroundings were like the garden of Eden while the Hill Street property had no spare land or natural beauty.
The cities of the plain degenerated until lawful eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting and building became sin through selfish indulgence, and in contrast Christ's followers will be temperate in eating and drinking and seek those things which are above. Reformers are called to stand in defense of God's law governing the physical system and to do a work of mercy and necessity in relief of suffering with an elevated standard of mind and heart in cooperation with the Great Physician.