The Escape from Sodom

Gen 19:1-22

Connection/Tension

As we walk through these stories in Genesis week after week, I have found them impactful. Has anyone else had this experience? And some weeks, we come across a story that just blows me away, that I find particularly arresting. This was one of those. I didn’t know it when I first pulled it open, but this story has rocked me.

Be advised, there is mature content in this story- things that little ears may not be ready for. If you would like, there is still a chance to go to the childcare rooms. I’m not going to go into any unnecessary detail- but am still not going to shy away from the text.

I think it’s the rawness of this story that makes the mercy of God shine so tremendously bright. And it’s when we see the mercy of God as bright and beautiful as it is that we are most inclined to flee to it. So, let’s hear this story with that goal in mind:

Context

In our sermons from the last two weeks, the Lord had shown up to visit Abraham. He came in the form of a human, with two angels accompanying him- also taking the forms of men. Abraham shows welcome and hospitality to the Lord and the Lord in turn reveals his plan to Abraham to destroy the city of Sodom.

We learn that God was sharing his plan with Abraham, as an invitation for Abraham to intercede on behalf of the city, which he rises to the occasion to do. His prayer leaves off asking God not to destroy the city for the sake of ten righteous. Now, we will see God’s miraculous answer to Abraham’s prayer in our story-[1] it won’t be to rescue the city since it seems to lack any who are righteous, but there will be a miraculous rescue nonetheless.

Revelation

19 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth 2 and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” 3 But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

The Lord has finished visiting the household of Abraham and now his presence comes to the city of Sodom. He has brought blessing to the household of Abraham, what will he bring to this city?

In these first few verses, we should feel a sense of foreboding growing. Moses writes that they arrived “in the evening” – night is falling in this city. In the ancient world night was a time of danger (as it is now), and these men were presumably arriving to this city to seek refuge.

Lot meets them in the gate, a place of business and commerce in an ancient city.[2] This is immediately a concerning detail about Lot- that he’s occupying a place of prominence in the city that the story has negatively portrayed. It shows that he is progressing more and more on his path toward belonging to the city of Sodom. Before, he moved his tent close to the city and away from Abraham and Abraham’s God; now he’s in the city and a prominent member of it.

His first response to these men is encouraging: he offers to show them the same hospitality Abraham did. Even when they offer to stay in the city square, he urges them to stay with him. It’s like he knows something is wrong with the city and seeks to protect his guests. His guests accept and make their way to his home, and he serves them a feast.

Now night has fallen on the city, and its true character shows forth:

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.”

Without much delay, the men of the city have surrounded Lot’s dwelling. They make a sickening demand: bring out these guests so that we may sexually abuse them.

The word that Moses paraphrases them as saying is so full of meaning. They say, that we may “know” them. Earlier in Genesis, that word refers to the sexual relationship between a man and his wife (4:1).

Yet, even earlier, it’s a word that comes from “the tree of knowing good and evil” (2:5). This story is portraying these men as failing in the same way as their first parents. Instead of allowing God to be God and define what’s right and wrong, they take that matter into their own hands and define it for themselves.

I think what this incident does is illustrate for us how ugly it is when humans try to take the place of God and determine right from wrong. These men try to take the reigns from God and decide how they should use power and use sex on their own, with horrifying results.

Regarding power, they embrace that might makes right and decide to use their advantage in numbers and strength to force their will on guests to their city, guests to whom they should have offered their protection instead.

Regarding sex, they embrace fallen desires for sexual activity with others of the same sex. Whenever we use sex outside of God’s good design of a husband and a wife, we’ve crossed a boundary and started defining what’s good and evil for ourselves.

Both things disregard and distort God’s plan from the beginning, yet when we put them together, it’s unthinkable where these men of Sodom are willing to go, homosexual gang rape.

I think one thing this story is doing is pulling the hood off our sin to show us how ugly it really is. Not every sin is the same in degree- what these men are doing is a sin that’s worse than most. However, this is just a vivid example of the root of unbelief and rebellion that all sin shares.

These men’s actions and desires repulse us, and rightfully so! But so should all our sin. As we go on in the story, we are going to see that the men of Sodom are spiritually blind to the grotesqueness of their sin, and I think what we find, is that we are too. May God use this extreme example of sin to convince us of the ugliness of all of our sin that we may turn from it!

And may we also see that our sin will lead us into places and actions we never imagined we would be when we started. In other words, sin corrupts us further and further until we do things we find unthinkable at the start. Maybe some of us are on a path in that direction right now. Maybe some of us are nearing that point today. What a call to not make peace with your sin but kill it before it corrupts and degrades you any further!  

Let’s see how Lot responds to this outrageous situation,

6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

Lot does his second, and maybe his last, virtuous act in this story. He steps out and faces the mob. Yet, how he tries to appease them is so appalling, we immediately lose all respect for him. He rightly sees these guests as under his protection and feels a sense of obligation to defend them. Yet, it’s how he goes about it that’s so wrong.

This confirms something for us that we saw coming: Lot has been absorbing the culture in Sodom too long- Sodom has corrupted his value system, and he’s living and acting as a citizen of that city. He offers up his two daughters to appease the mob. Lot’s also in the sad place of determining what’s right and wrong for himself, and his sin has brought him to an unthinkable place also. Calvin put it well,

“he should rather have endured a thousand deaths, than have resorted to such a measure.”[3]

What’s the heart of Sodom does (this is the case with both the men of the city and with Lot) is sacrifice others in the way of achieving their goals. The men of the city are willing to sacrifice these visitors to satisfy their own lusts. Lot is willing to sacrifice his daughters to achieve his goal of being a good host in the ancient world. Sin always leads us to sacrifice others to achieve our ends and it’s always ugly!

Oh, how sweet that we have the example of Christ who sacrificed himself for the good of others and leads us in that same path. He alone saves us from the path and spirit of Sodom by giving us a better way.

Now, let’s see how the wicked men of the city respond:

9 But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down.

At even this slight opposition from Lot, the men of the city feel judged. It enflames their anger, and their malice turns against Lot.

In our time and place as well, the residents of our city feel judged if anyone speaks against their sin or even refuses to endorse it.

Our culture will mostly endure (and even agree with us) when we speak against the use of power of the strong against the week. Yet, when we oppose, or simply won’t support and endorse, the sexual ethic of our city, they likewise respond with a sense of anger and increasingly there is a move towards violence.

Ironically, the world will misuse its power against those who won’t endorse its sexual ethic as an attempt to silence the voice of God on these matters. And my friends, we must not comply and allow fear to keep us from standing on the truth of God. Later in the Bible Paul writes that, “love rejoices with the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). And love looks like standing up for truth amid a hostile city so that they at least have a chance to turn from their sin and find the rescue and restoration God offers.

And now we see a stunning picture of the rescue of God as the men of the city move towards Lot to tear him apart:

10 But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. 11 And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.

At the very last moment, God rescues an unrighteous man in an unrighteous city, whose there of his own making, in response to the prayers of his righteous friend. It’s amazing, and it sounds a lot like what Jesus did for many of us, doesn’t it?

Lot is now beyond his own power as he faces a violent mob, but he’s not beyond the power of God. God’s angels, with greater strength than the mob, reach out and pull him to safety. Then, they stretch out their hands against their enemies and strike them with blindness.

It seems like this act of judgement is not random; rather, God has brought their outer state to reflect their inner state. Inwardly, they were blind to the greatness of God and to the grotesqueness of their sin, and now their outward state of not being to see testifies to this. It shows us a picture of the path toward the destruction of the person that sin leads people on. It starts off by corrupting the inner person, yet, in the end, it will lead to complete destruction- both inside and out.

Yet, God mercifully offers a pathway out of sin for those who will take it. We see this now with Lot:

12 Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. 13 For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” 14 So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.

The Lord is not only merciful with Lot yet extends that mercy to his family also. It seems like their connection with Lot affords them an opportunity to live and Lot’s connection with Abraham is what ultimately spares Lot’s life (19:29). There seems to be a picture here of how not our own righteousness but our connection to Jesus is our only hope of escaping judgement.[4]

The angels again clarify reality so that Lot can respond rightly: the evil of the city is outrageous and the right response of the judge of all the world is to destroy it. A just judge rightly responds to evil (for example, we hate it when a corrupt justice system lets powerful criminals go free to continue to  take advantage of weak or vulnerable people), and God’s response to Sodom here is right. And it’s also exceedingly merciful, as we will see.

Lot goes to his sons-in-law in Sodom (It’s discouraging Lot has gone so far as to attach himself to Sodom through a marriage). He warns them to flee. And…they thought he was joking. That phrase, “jesting” is translated even more fully, “it was as laughter to them.” And it’s the same word from the chapters before where both Abraham and Sarah laugh at the promises of God. One of the severest consequences of our fallen condition is that it blinds us to what’s most real, until it even seems ridiculous. Lot’s sons-in-law are as blind in their spirits as the mob that was groping about Lot’s house. Be not be discouraged when other find your utter allegiance to God and his truth ridiculous. It’s the most sensible thing in the world.  

And now we see it’s not even just Lot’s family that’s blind to what’s real, Lot himself is in desperate danger- and his greatest threat is his own self:

15 As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

The story has been grim so far, and we see the first occasion for hope in a while, morning dawns. For some crazy reason, Lot’s still in the city. Yet, the Lord withholds his judgement for the sake of this undeserving, sinful man (v. 22). The angels again command him to depart, offering him the hope of life. Finally, now, he can go forth and live! And… “he lingered.” Man, when I was meditating on this story, this hit hard. How insane! And, how true a picture of me and you.

You know you’re really reading the Bible when you get the sense that you are no longer reading it as much as its reading you. We can know in our heads all the lessons in this story, and yet we can still linger in the mire of our sin because our hearts love fallen things. When we live in our sin, we grow to love it more and more until we lose our ability to turn from it. Lot, probably without intending to be, has become so much of a Sodomite that he can’t leave on his own power even when his own life is in the balance. He needs power beyond himself to separate and flee from his sin.

And though he could not deserve it less in this moment, that’s exactly what he gets from God. His angels seize him and his wife and pulls them out of destruction and death despite themselves! Why does God do this? It says it right here, he’s “merciful!” You could wrongly get the sense from this story that God is only righteous and brings judgement against sin. While he does, he’s also more merciful than we could dream. Again, here’s a picture of what Jesus did for you and me- he came to us with power beyond ourselves to rescue us from what we could never save ourselves from. Our God is great! There are a lot of shocking things in this story, and I think this detail is supposed to be the most shocking of all: we serve a God who shows unfathomable mercy to those who deserve it the least.

And though God is so kind to Lot, this story ends on a sour note as Lot reveals that though God has brought him out of Sodom, Sodom’s values still live with him,

17 And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” 18 And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. 19 Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. 20 Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” 21 He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22 Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

At the moment of escape, and of God offering him a miraculous way out, Lot responds with… more defiance. The way out that God provides doesn’t seem good to Lot. He’s governed by fear, since he thinks destruction will find him out there (though before he came to Sodom he lived in the fields beyond, and God provided for him plentifully!)[5]

Lot has a Sodom-sized view of God (that God’s provision is small and what humans can provide is large). So, going to the mountains is not good enough for Lot- he asks for another city. And at this moment of unbelief and defiance, God’s merciful again! Not only does he allow Lot to flee to this city, but he spares it on Lot’s behalf.

It reflects poorly on Lot’s heart that he needs a city like Sodom as the answer to his fear (rather than the promises of God). And while God is merciful to bring him here; it’s also going to lead to his demise as we will see in another story in the future. 

Christ and His Church

So church, what should be gather from this story?

We need to flee from our sin today. Not tomorrow; not next week- today! Sin is never idle- it’s hold on us is always growing and it reveals itself in increasingly corrupt ways until we put it to death. The easiest day to kill your sin is today- it will be harder tomorrow if you linger in Sodom. And you may find yourself trapped in it and not able to escape. I don’t want that for any of us!

Instead, we should look for the off-ramps from our sin that our God in his mercy often provides. By “off ramp” I mean a path or a way out of our sin. Like for instance, when you feel temptation coming on you to fall into a habitual sin, and the thought enters your mind that you should text your DNA, take it! It’s the way-out God is providing. Just as God provided a way out for Lot, God loves to provide ways out to all his people.

In fact, if you are listening to this sermon, God is providing you an off ramp right now. By bringing this story to us afresh this morning, God is saying, there is a way out, but you need to take it now. Don’t linger like Lot. Maybe you’re not yet a follower of Jesus, if you’re hearing this story, God is inviting you to escape from your sin through trusting in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

As Christians, we love the paths God provides out of sin and death- out of Sodom. Ultimately, that’s what the gospel is! Later in the Bible, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Trusting in him and his life, death, and resurrection is the only way out of Sodom for hopeless sinners. He first forgives us and then leads us on a path of righteousness that leads away from the death we would otherwise choose.

And if you are here and not yet a follower of Jesus. I have good news. He’s the way out of Sodom for you, if you will take it- and we pray that you do.

Please pray with me.

[1] John H. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative: A Biblical-Theological Commentary, ed. Gary Lee (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 172.

[2] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Ge 19:1.

[3] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries on Genesis, trans. Henry Beveridge (BakerBooks, 2009), 500.

[4] Pastor Sam pointed this out as we were discussing this passage.

[5] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries on Genesis, trans. Henry Beveridge (BakerBooks, 2009), 509.