Slices
Prepare
I have a friend who is a refugee. He is a dentist, but he had to flee his country, leaving everything behind. Imagine what his life is like.
Bible passage
15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.’
16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, ‘Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!’
18 But Lot said to them, ‘No, my lords, please! 19 Your servant has found favour in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it – it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.’
21 He said to him, ‘Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.’ (That is why the town was called Zoar.)
23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the Lord rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah – from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities – and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 He looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah, towards all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
Explore
God is gracious to Lot and his family, and his messengers lead them away from the impending disaster. The family is given dire warnings of the devastation to come. Even as they run, Lot finds a way of arguing his case for a halfway house (vs 18–20). Perhaps Lot's wife might have survived if he hadn't tried to improve on God's clear instruction (vs 26).
The text is clear about the source of the fire which destroyed the cities (vs 24). God did this - a terrifying picture of the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). The gospel allows us to face this, knowing that Jesus has paid the price in full. Be thankful that Jesus dies in your place!
Lot's family story continues to unfold – and not with great merit as (in the rest of chapter 19) his daughters struggle to follow God, making a series of bad choices along the way. Perhaps they were damaged by their awful experiences in Sodom? God's grace is amazing, but we can carry the trauma of the past with us, and the journey to healing and wholeness can be long.
Respond
'Lord God, I pray for the traumatised victims of terrible events – especially children and young people. I pray for their healing – and for those who seek to bring the love of God into their damaged lives. Amen.'
Deeper Bible study
As we read of Lot and his compromises, help us, Lord, to examine our hearts and renew our consecration of our whole being to you.
The main focus of this passage is less on the destruction of the cities of the plain than upon Lot as a tragic example of a compromised faith and what the Bible will describe later as the love of ‘this present world’ (see below).1 The chapter opened with Lot ‘sitting in the gateway of the city’ (v 1), which indicates that he had attained a position of authority in Sodom and exercised a degree of power. That being so, given what we have already noticed concerning the moral corruption of the city, Lot appears as a pathetic figure from the beginning. Every detail of the following narrative serves to confirm this impression, from his hopeless appeal to the baying mob, addressed as ‘my friends’ (v 7), to his willingness to sacrifice his daughters (v 8), the failure to convince his sons-in-law, who ‘thought he was joking’ (v 14) and the telltale hesitation when leaving the city (v 16). Finally, there is the revealing request to be allowed to take up residence in a small town (v 20), which suggests a deeply embedded attraction towards the kind of urban culture of which Sodom and Gomorrah are examples. Derek Kidner’s verdict is apt: ‘Not even brimstone will make a pilgrim of him: he must have his little Sodom again if life is to be supportable’.2
The seductive power of a world organised without reference to God, often in direct and explicit rebellion against him, is a theme that recurs throughout the New Testament, which warns that professing Christians will be unable to resist its attractions apart from a radical faith in Christ and the fellowship of a believing community which models an alternative way of being a human family. Lot’s tragic compromise has its analogue in Demas, of whom Paul wrote with sadness, that ‘he loved this world’ and had ‘gone to Thessalonica’.3
Do you recognise within yourself the attractive power of the world? What must you do to guard against that power without becoming a social outcast or oddball?
1 2 Tim 4:10, AV 2 Derek Kidner, Genesis (Tyndale OT Commentary), IVP, 2008, p135 3 2 Tim 4:10
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Numbers 34,35; Matthew 25
Pray for Scripture Union
Thank God for all those who faithfully support us financially through their donations and through their prayers. Pray for those working on SU’s fundraising activities over the next year, asking that supporters would catch the vision and generously support the work.
