In Genesis 18
the Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre. Abraham was sitting by his tent when he looked up and saw three men standing nearby, He hurried over to meet them and bowed low to the ground. Later we learn that two of them were angels, and one of them was the Lord. Scripture says two of the men left for Sodom, and one stayed behind to talk to Abraham. Scripture says, “The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot (Abraham’s nephew) was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My Lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” But Lot insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. Lot prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” If you didn’t know where the name sodomy came from, now you do! These men acted like dogs - wanting to hump every single one. Scripture says, “Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “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, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” Can your imagine offering your own children, Your daughters who are still virgins, to be raped by sick and demented men? The thought of this just makes me cringe! “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” The men of Sodom were super angry - Highly emotionally dysregulated! They did not want to be told what do by Lot - a foreigner who had entered their land and would not bend to their social customs. All of the men of Sodom were wicked! The whole lot of them hard hearts towards God. Not one of them were righteous in God's eyes. “They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. But the men (angels) inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.” I wonder if this is what God does with us, when we are being approached, attacked and influenced by demons? “Then the angels struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.” Man - these angels had great power! They were able to confuse the wicked by making them blind! Thank you Father for your great love! The two men (angels) said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here - sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” Once again we see the power of God's covering through mercy and grace! The same thing happened to Noah, when his wife, his sons and their wives were allowed to live. It’s seems back then, if a man was found guilty of sin, his whole household was destroyed, and if a man found favor in the eyes of God, then everyone in his household was allowed to live. “So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.” The Lord was going to allow the wicked men to live, all because they were betrothed to Lot's daughters. The wicked men who did not put up a fight to protect the young girls they were betrothed to marry. Sounds much like the wicked today - who read these poems and think it's all in my head. They don't believe the Lord is coming back - as the Lion of Judah with scepter in hand. They don't believe the Lord is going to destroy every living being that he granted breath. They don't believe that God has a divine plan to restore Eden by making a new earth and a new heaven. Some believe if they say they believe in Christ, they will be saved from experiencing eternal death. But what they don't realize is that Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Matthew 7:21-23 “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. 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.” Did you hear that? Lot hesitated - so the angels of the Lord grabbed all of their hands and led them to a safer land. Lot was not seen as good by God. He did many things that were morally wrong. Nor was his wife or his daughters good, and the men they were betrothed to were very wicked! They lived (and had the chance to live) because the Lord showed grace and was merciful to them! “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!” But Lot said to them, “No, my Lords, please! Your servant has found favor 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.” “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.” One of the angels said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.)” Zoar in Hebrew means insignificant. The actual name of the city was called Bela - and my guess is the Lord was planning to destroy it. The insignificant city was an extension of Sodom and Gomorrah, my guess - along with Admah and Zeboiim. Do you remember Genesis Chapter 14 when the five kings of the Jordan plains formed an alliance and joined forces in the Siddim Valley, known as the Dead Sea, to fight against the four kings of Babylonia, Ellasar, Elam, and Goiim - the kings of Mesopotamia? The angel said, "I will not overthrow the town you speak of. But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” To me, this means Bela was going to be destroyed, but because favor was extended to Lot once again, Bela would become a land of refuge instead. However, the blessing was attached to Lot, which meant that Lot would have to beat the fire's path. Lot bent. Lot hesitated. Lot complained. Lot was a lot like us! God's wrath is coming to earth? Will we beat the fire's path? “By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah - from the Lord out of the heavens." “Look, he is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him”; and all tribes on earth “will mourn because of him.” Revelation 1:7 "Thus He overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” Imagine that! Dust of the earth that has breath, seeing the wrath of the Lord’s godliness- turned back into the salt of the land. In my opinion, this is evidence of the truth that we currently live in the valley of the shadow of death! “Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. 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.” Genesis 19:1-29 And there you have it. Lot got to live because he was connected to Abraham. And all because the Lord chose Abram and brought him out of Babylon to Canaan; to take back possession of the promised land and to give him a son so that he could father many nations. This was all part of God’s divine plan. To offer redemption to the people he favored, the morally just and the wicked - and this is how our faith is won - understanding that God is good and we are not. Amen.
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