The Destruction of Sodom

Introduction

Tonight we are going to cover a large portion of scripture. This section goes all the way from Abraham interceding on behalf of the righteous after he is told what is going to happen, to the rescue of Lot and the destruction of the city, then to the children that Lot has with his daughters.

So as you can tell a lot is happening here in this section and we have got some teasers leading up to these events. Since this section is so long lets dive right in.

The Information

Genesis 18:16–21 ESV

Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”

So we are still in the previous scene where these visitors are with Abraham and he is being a good host to them. We know these visitors to be angels. They told him yet again that they will have a son and Sarah laughs when she overhears this. They are now setting out and Abraham the good host walks with them as they leave. There is then the question, do they disclose what they are about to do to Abraham or not. Because of his position of being chosen to be the patriarch they tell him that they are going to see whether or not it is really as bad in Sodom as the cries that they have heard.

Now God knows all things so what is really happening here is he is using this moment to instruct Abraham. Here the information is disclosed to him and the question is what will he do with it? Abraham knows that his nephew is down there in the city. That takes us to the intercession from Abraham.

The Intercession

Genesis 18:22–33 ESV

So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

Abraham knows who God is and he knows that God is just so he decides to ask if God will destroy them if there are fifty righteous people there and God says that he will not destroy the cities if there are fifty righteous. This goes all the way down until him asking what if there are ten. God being just will not destroy the cities for the sake of ten. God allows Abraham to speak in this way because he knows that there are no righteous people there. God has already resolved what he is going to do.

This gets at the importance of prayer. One of the biggest things that prayer does is it shapes us. I know that kind of sounds strange but through prayer we are conformed to God’s will. We cannot change Gods mind, he uses prayer as a way to let us participate in Gods will and as a way for us to be shaped according to that will. Here he is shaping Abraham and letting him see exactly who God is and exactly what is required of him. Abraham is confident that God will not kill the righteous in the cities but what he struggles to see is that there are none righteous.

At the end of this they both go their won ways until the event takes place.

The Intensification

Genesis 19:1–29 ESV

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 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.” 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. 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. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 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.” 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. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. 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. 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. 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.” 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. 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.” 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. 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.” And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. 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. 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!” He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.

So these men are in the city and a lot happens. They try to go stay in the city square but Lot does not want them to do that so he begs them until they finally stay with him. While with him all of the men of the city came out to know them which means that they want some form of sexual relations with them. The sinfulness and depravity of this place is obvious. The crazy part is that Lot knows this, you can see his actions reflecting this knowledge. Lot went from living with Abraham to here. He is like the inverse of the man in Psalm 1:1 “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;” Lot walked with these people when he moved to the valley, he then began to stand with them as he lived and did business, and before he knew it he was living in the city and sitting with them at the gate.

Lots sinfulness does not stop here though, he offers his daughters to the people of the city in place of the visitors! It is at this point that the visitors who are really angels act and tell Lot what is about to happen. Lot tries to convince his family to leave with him but many of them just think he is joking around. This goes all the way until he is led out of the city by his hand like a child. He goes with his wife and his daughters. They are told to not look back but the wife does and she dies. Lot convinces the angels to let him go to another town instead of the wilderness and then fire and sulfur rain down from heaven and wipe out the cities as Abraham watches from the place that he talked with God.

The final verse in this section is telling though. It does not say that Lot was rescued because he was righteous. It says that he was rescued because God remembered Abraham. We know from previous weeks that when God remembers it means that he is about to act on that persons behalf. God acted on behalf of Abraham and rescued Lot. It was not the righteousness of Lot but rather his relationship to the patriarch.

This leads us to the conclusion of this section.

The Incest

Genesis 19:30–38 ESV

Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. Then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.

This story ends in a strange way. Lot is scared to live in the city that he begged to go to so he goes to the place that the angels originally told him to go. While here his daughters realize that they have no husbands or children which is a pretty vulnerable spot for them to be. They devise a plan to sleep with their father so that they can have children. They do this and the children become nations that are enemies to the people of Israel who are Abraham’s descendants.

This ends with more sin in the family of Lot. This sin in their family leads to more issues down the line for the people of Israel.

Conclusion

So as we wrap up this long section of scripture what should we take away?

first we need to see God’s justice and his mercy. This story is a picture of this for us to see. He is just to punish sinners by unleashing his wrath but he is also merciful in the way he rescued Lot. In the same way today God is just and will punish sin. The glory of it all though is that he is merciful and offers forgiveness to all who will receive it. What a great God we serve.

The second thing that I want us to take home is that intercession matters. Abraham talked to God standing in the gap for those in these cities. It is a privlage that we can go to God in prayer and we should. Through it we can participate in his will and we can be shaped by his will. What a great God we serve that allows us to do this.

The last thing I want us to take away tonight is the danger of compromise. Lot compromised more and more throughout the story and it led him down a spiral of sin. If we do not compromise we will be better resistant to the same fate. Compromise leads to sin so we should never compromise and we should live in the way we are instructed to in the Bible.

There is a lot of truth in this story and there is a lot that happens but we should see this through it all, we serve a great God. Lets pray.