After leaving Abraham, the angels of the Lord went to Sodom to see first hand, the outcry of their sin against the Lord. At first thought you would ask yourself, “Can’t they see without going there? Why do they have to show up to see?”
This is our humanistic point of view. Most of the time, we don’t see all the motivations of the Lord.
The Lord knew that Abraham’s brother, Lot, resided in Sodom and that he loved his brother very much. Lot was well acquainted with the city. He wasn’t a godly man, like Abraham. Lot was more like a church-goer who attends church every weekend, but during the week his mindset doesn’t permeate God in all that he does. In fact, he is caught up into the ways of this world. You can see this when he approached his sons-in-law to tell them to get out because the city will be destroyed, but his sons-in-law thought he was joking. How can you take a man serious about God when his life doesn’t express it in all that he does? After all, Lot offered up his daughters to be raped by the city men to protect the angels in his home. But the angels don’t need his protection. Does Lot sound like a guy worth saving?
Sodom and Gomorrah was so gravely sinful that they wanted to rape the angels of the Lord. Sometimes God cannot let this course of mindset continue and it is more merciful to destroy them than to allow them to continue to destroy themselves.
Before the sun rose, the angels instructed them to leave and don’t look back. When God calls us out of something that is unrighteous, we need to look forward and not long for what we once had. Lot’s wife began to look back towards the city as it was being destroyed, disobeying the instructions of the angels. So she turned into a pillar of salt.
Lot was not faithful to God, but God was faithful to Abraham to spare his brother and family. But still, the family has choices to make for themselves. God can only go so far and in many ways He is interceding for His faithful followers.
However, He doesn’t force people into decisions and not all of Lot’s family made it out. But He did show Lot that He can save if a person so chooses to be saved. God did not make us robots without free will. God can choose us, but we must also choose Him… just like all relationships to work well.
God uses His faithful to intercede in the lives of others, not just for the others… but to also build up our faith that He is a God who saves. In this way, it is important to pray for those you love, that God will intervene and show them His presence still exists if they choose to see it.
#genesis