Genesis 19:27-29

2007.Sep.01 15:37

Saved for another’s sake

Read Genesis 19:27-29 | Full Chapter

Second Peter has the following to say about our friend, Lot:

Lot lived right and was greatly troubled by the terrible way those wicked people were living. He was a good man, and day after day he suffered because of the evil things he saw and heard. So the Lord rescued him. This shows that the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their sufferings and to punish evil people while they wait for the day of judgment.
(2 Peter 2:7-9, CEV)

It’s probably quite clear that I am not impressed by Lot. So, I’m trying to reconcile this statement with what I see from Lot’s life. I suppose Lot did live right, at least from the legalistic standpoint, although I think his actions and attitudes belie (surprise, surprise) the sinfulness of his flesh. Still, I have trouble with actually saying someone lived right when he tried to hand over his daughters to be raped. He was certainly troubled by the wickedness of his fellow Sodom folks, but that trouble seems to be more actual trouble rather than that he was “spiritually bothered” by it.

Well, since 2nd Peter is generally considered canonical, and since I hope that I have no pretensions of my writing being such, I figure I have yet more to understand from the story of Lot. Regardless of Lot’s level of righteousness, how much better could his life have been if he had made different choices. God had not called Lot to be an apostle to the people of Sodom, and so, in my opinion, he left far too late. More thoughts.

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.
(Genesis 19:27-29, ESV)

What is Abraham thinking now? I’m not going to try to guess, but what a powerful and heart-wrenching moment this must have been. The might of Jehovah so clearly displayed, and yet how God must have wished not to display it. God loves me, but he doesn’t require me. Unrighteousness separates us from God; the people of Sodom and Gomorrah had already removed themselves from the Lord’s presence, and in judgment, he destroyed them. How pointless the revelries of the people of Sodom the night before. They gained frustration, then destruction. How pointless.

But there’s more to this story. Abraham had asked for the lives of those ten hypothetical righteous. And God would have saved the city for those. And even though, in the end, he only found four (apparently; anyway, he led four out), Jehovah still remembered Abraham and their discussion and saved those four, although Lot’s wife’s salvation was rather abbreviated. So, I’ll return to Second Peter. “This shows that the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their sufferings.” And if the godliness of Lot is sufficient, how much wonderful hope I can have in Jehovah’s saving power. And I ought to be humble when I receive it. Because, on the scale, am I living better than Lot? I hope so, but, then, I know I have faults; I am disobedient to God far too often, even knowing how good he is.