THE RUINED
CITY
Lot was a man whose life
strongly resembled the characteristics of the city he lived in.
Sodom was not known for being a strong city. In fact, one time
the men of Sodom tried to get away with not paying tribute to
their master. It wasn't long before invaders came, scattering
the weak men of Sodom and taking away anything they wanted in
the city. When God sent Abraham to the rescue it is interesting
to note that the only thing the king of Sodom cared about was
that Abraham return any hostages to him. This reveals that the
devil was keenly interested in keeping ahold of all the people
who lived in sin in Sodom. The people of Sodom never thought about
how they were injuring each other in this life and in the next
by the way they lived.
It was the same with the
way Lot looked at his family. He didn't teach them the ways of
God that he had learned while traveling with Abraham. He felt
that the power of sin in the city was too strong to be able to
hope to make a dent in it. So it was that Lot and his wife clung
to Sodom as an alcoholic clings to his bottle, too weak to delight
in it and too afraid to leave it.
Lot was to weak to defend
himself against the situation that he had gotten himself into.
He could not think of a solution to his problems, and so he watched
his family becoming drawn into the lifestyle of Sodom without
a complaint. His sense of right and wrong became twisted. He had
no defense against temptation except to try to call one evil better
than another evil.
When God sent his angels
to destroy Sodom there was nothing that could defend the city.
In the same way, God knew that Lot was so weak that the only way
to rescue Lot was to have his angels do for him what he couldn't
do for himself. The angels sent Lot and his family outside the
city and kept him safe from the fiery destruction, but there was
nothing anyone could do to stop the spiritual destruction that
Lot had allowed in his own life.
Taken from Genesis 14,
18, 19 |