Genesis 18:16-21

THE DOOM OF SODOM.  Sounds like the title of a black and white horror movie from the 1950’s.

As Abraham’s special guests get up to leave, they looked off into the distance to the city of Sodom.  What were they thinking, knowing what is about to happen? Perhaps they were feeling like a parent sitting in a courtroom where their wayward son is about to be sentenced for a foolish, impulsive crime.  “He had so much potential.  He was such a nice little boy.  This is very sad, for all families involved.”

Abraham, being a gracious host, walked with them to the street corner (sort of).  The Lord then says to himself, “I wonder if I should share my plans for Sodom with my friend Abraham?  Does he have a need to know?  Does he have a top-secret security clearance? Can he keep a secret, or would he warn the people of Sodom via Twitter?”  God did have a special relationship with Abraham.  In James 2:23, “And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.” And this was years before FACEBOOK.  Did Jesus have someone who we might think of as a special friend?  Was there one person who Jesus was closest to? The Apostle John is called the disciple who Jesus loved in John 20:2. John 13:23 we see Jesus sitting (or reclining) beside John during the Passover meal. In John 19:26-27 He entrusts the care of Mary to John, not to any other disciple or his half- brothers. And in John 21:20 Jesus hints that John might not die the same way as Peter will die. Being the Messiah’s best friend has its advantages.

The next raises a few questions. The Lord says that Abraham will become a great nation, etc. Why is he repeating the promise here? He then explains why He is going to share his plan with Abraham. What He is saying is, I will tell Abraham my plan of judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah in the hope that his descendants will remember what happened to Sodom and live an upright life.  That’s a nice thought, as long as the schools or parents teach their kids history.

God speaks to Abraham and says in verse 20, that He has heard so many horrible things about Sodom, that He is going there to do a little undercover investigation on his own.  Why would He do that?  Isn’t God all knowing?  Does He really need to go down there to see for himself?  Did He come to earth on an inspection tour in the time of Noah before He brought on the flood?  Did He appear to Noah as He did to Abraham?  Perhaps He did.  He doesn’t have to record everything He did.   Maybe He is visiting us now and not telling anyone about it?  Turn your head slowly. Look around.  Do you see anyone?  He might be here on an inspection tour so look busy. God then visits the city so that no one could say to Him, with their dying breath, “You don’t even know what is going on here.  This is unfair.  I’m going to call my lawyer.”

In verse 22 we find the angels heading off and Abraham is alone with God for a few minutes.  Abraham askes, “Will you destroy the righteous along with the wicked?”

Here comes one of my digressions.  When you watch a movie about Basic Military Training School (BTMS) you see the recruits doing a lot of marching, physical training, firing of weapons, struggling through the obstacle course and drill instructors screaming like psychopaths.  But what you don’t see is all the time spent in a classroom. There you learn about customs and courtesies, the military pay system, the personnel system and your 201 file, communications security, and the rules of war.  Yes, just like a late-night game of cards in the dining room of IOP, there are RULES in war. You see, our leaders have recognized that we aren’t very good at preventing wars. And, we do know that in time, wars come to an end and we need to be able to live in peace.  So, let’s do what we can to reduce unnecessary destruction and suffering.  This is especially important in recent wars where more civilians died than military personnel in WW II.  So, the rules of war were adopted and say that you can’t destroy non-military targets such as hospitals, schools, orphanages, historical structures, museums, etc.  And you can’t torture or kill prisoners of war.  If you do, you might end up in a place like Nuremburg, Germany where Nazi war criminals were tried for war crimes and many were hanged.

Back to Abraham.  Abraham asks, “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?”  In other words, “Are you going to become a war criminal?”  This would be so out of character for a just and loving God. “Far be it from you to do such a thing.”

But God never said that He was going to kill every living person.  Abraham just assumed this. The Lord said, “If I find fifty people, I will spare the whole place.”  This isn’t a change in plans, based on the conversation he had with Abraham. But a clarification of the plan He had in place, to reassure Abraham.

Why would Abraham be so concerned and why would he keep asking if God would destroy if there were as few as ten righteous people left in the city (verse 32)?  Why did he stop with ten, why not go down to 1? Abraham stopped at ten because the size of Lot’s family was ten.  There was Lot and his wife, Mrs. Lot, two sons, two married daughters and their husbands, and two single daughters.  That’s ten. Trust me or do the Math yourself.  These ten were the major concern of Abraham.  Do you think there might have been a few people he might have been glad to see destroyed?  “I can’t wait to see Old what’s his name get fried.  I never like that guy.  Besides, he cheated me in a business deal a few years ago.”

Abraham was concerned about the ten.  Did all of these ten people deserve to be saved?  Of these ten, not all of them were righteous.  In fact, perhaps only Lot was “worthy” of being saved, but the others were saved for his and Abraham’s sake.

The scene changes now to the city of Sodom and the front gate in chapter 19. The two angels arrive at the gate and Lot is sitting there.  You may not have noticed, but at one time Lot was living in a tent outside the city.  Then he moved into the city and lived in a house and now we find him sitting at the front gate.  This shows that he had some authority in the city.  The front gate was like our city hall in Jasper. This is where governmental business was transacted.  This was where the power players hanged out. How did Lot move up so quickly from a nobody to someone important enough to have a place at the city gate?  The reason may have been that Abraham rescued the city because of his relationship with Lot.  “We gotta take care of dat boy, his uncle Abraham saved our skin in the last war” (imagine that being said by a big bellied sheriff from Alabama with a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek).

Lot gets up to greet the guests and invites them to stay at his house.  It was getting late in the day and you really don’t want to be on the streets of Sodom after dark.  So, Lot prepares for them a meal which included unleavened bread.  This is the first-time unleavened bread is mentioned in the Scriptures.  At this the men looked at each other and thought, “Maybe we should have stayed at the Holiday Inn.”

Verse 4, as they were getting ready for bed, ALL the men of the city came and surrounded the house.  One of them shouted, “Where are the men you took home?  Bring them out so we can have sex with them.”  This had to be scary.  The house was surrounded, the mob screaming for the men to gang rape them.  Lot might be thinking, “Maybe my guests should have stayed at the Holiday Inn.”

Lot steps outside the front door, closes the door behind him and faces the crowd.  This took courage. He says, “No, my friends.  Don’t do this wicked thing.  Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man.  Let me bring them out to you, you can do what you like with them.”

I don’t think this was a real offer.  Can you imagine his daughters hearing this suggestion?  “Thanks a lot, dad. You’ll get nothing from us on Father’s Day.”  I think he was trying to reduce the hostility of the crowd.  He addresses them as “friends.”  Like saying, “Hey, how are you folks?  Good to see you. You don’t want to do this awful thing.  How about some girls, instead.”  Now, these boys had no interest in girls, so it was an empty offer.  This was probably a liquored up, angry mob and he wanted to lower the temperature a bit in the hope they lose interest and go search out an easier target. Wouldn’t this be a good time to have a snarling, angry, foaming at the mouth Doberman Pincher dog beside him?  Even better, a shotgun.

In verse 9 the crown turns on Lot, saying, in effect, this guy was a nobody, a nomad and now he wants to judge us? They get angrier and threaten to do worse to Lot than what they plan on doing to his guests. Maybe he should have stayed at a Holiday Inn, also.

At this point, a hand reaches from inside the door and grabs Lot by the shoulder and drags him into the house.  Then, the visitors struck the mob with blindness so they couldn’t even find the door. This is the second time Lot has been rescued.  The Hebrew word for blindness is not the usual word used.  It refers to partial blindness and mental confusion.  Yet even then, they continued to try to get through the door until they were just exhausted and went away.  Can you recall another time someone was blinded, and confused?  How about Paul on the road to Damascus?

Then the house guests say in verse 12, do you have any other relatives here?  We have to get out of town, quick.  This town is going to go up in flames.  In verse 14 Lot went to get his daughters and their husbands and urged them to leave town with them.  But they thought he was joking and ignored his plea. So, Lot lost his two married daughters and their husbands.  They were “left behind”, they missed the “rapture.”

In verse 16 it’s Lot himself who hesitates to leave. Would you hesitate?  Perhaps he was reluctant to leave without all his family members. Perhaps he was in a state of shock. Unable to move, standing there with his mouth hanging open. The men grasped his hand and the hands of others and dragged them out of town. They told them to flee, run, don’t walk and don’t look back, flee to the mountains.  Then Lot starts to argue with them.  He starts to whine like a 13-year-old, “I don’t want to go to the mountains. I might get altitude sickness.  I didn’t bring my inhaler.  There is no WIFI in the mountains, my phone needs charging.  Why can’t I just go to the nearby town of Zoar, please?”  OK, go to that small town.  Then, morning came.  Wow, what a night. “So, how did you sleep last night, Lot?”

With the morning sunrise, the fireworks began.  Verse 24, “the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah-from the Lord out of the heavens.  But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”

You’ve heard the term “fire and brimstone.”  Brimstone is an old term for burning sulfur. It says that it came down from heaven.  Perhaps it was something that originated in heaven, or it might have been some volcanic material, spewed into the air and then raining down upon them “from heaven.”

Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt. A pillar of salt was an expression which simply means that she died. Why did she die for simply turning around to see what has happened or to see if she was out of danger from the “fallout?” This suggests that she was not among the righteous and the only reason she was able to have the chance to escape was her relationship with Lot.   

The next morning Abraham wakes up and takes his coffee out to the porch and looked off into the distance and he saw huge clouds of smoke rising from the destroyed cities. He knew then that God hadn’t found ten righteous people in the city. Ten had an opportunity to escape, only three of the ten survived.

After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot did head for the mountains.  Perhaps he wasn’t welcomed in Zoar. The people may have thought that he would bring destruction to them, also. And why would he want to hang around this desolate area? It would be like staying in Chernobyl after the power plant blew up. Lot’s new home was a cave (verse 30).  He went from being a wealthy nomad, to a city dweller, to becoming a cave man.

Imagine the emotions experienced by Lot and his daughters.  No sleep.  Escaping the violent mob, death of family members, destruction of their town, now grieving and homeless, just Lot and his two unmarried daughters.  What’s next?  Lot’s firstborn daughter thought she had a good idea.  Verse 31, she says, “there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth.  Let’s get our father to drink wine (lots of wine) and lie with him and preserve our family line through our father.”  Now some commentators say that the daughter thought that all mankind was wiped out, like in the flood.  But there were men in Zoar, but none wanted anything to do with these women.  They must have been evil, coming from Sodom or just bad luck. This is the second calamity to hit Sodom and Lot and his family were involved.  These ladies couldn’t get a date to save their lives. This also suggests that although they were taken out of Sodom, Sodom was not taken out of the daughters.  So, both daughters got pregnant and had babies.  The descendants of these babies are Ammon, which is Northern Jordan and Moab, Central Jordan just east of Israel. Moses died in Moab as the Israelites were about to enter the promised land. Ruth was a Moabite. Throughout the Bible, the Ammonites and Israelites are portrayed as mutual antagonists. During the Exodus, the Israelites were prohibited by the Ammonites from passing through their lands.  And with this story, Lot disappears from the biblical record.

There are several references to Sodom in the New Testament.  In Matthew 11:23 Jesus said that it will be more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment than for Capernaum where they were confronted with spiritual truth and rejected it.  In II Peter 2:6-9 it mentions the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah for their ungodliness.  The last passage is in Jude 7 which says that the cities were destroyed because of their sexual immorality, having gone after “strange flesh.”  It was not for lack of hospitality that they were destroyed, as some people argue.