In this engaging episode, uncover the compelling story of Lot’s escape from Sodom and Gomorrah and the aftermath that shaped his lineage. From the poignant moments of escape to the controversial legacy left behind, we explore the intricate layers of this biblical saga. As we reflect on the formative stories of our past, we are reminded once again of God’s unyielding grace and the lessons that continue to resonate through the ages.
00:00:03 Introduction and the Story of Sodom and Gomorrah
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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When God told Abraham that he was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham nearly talked him out of it. He succeeded in getting God to agree that if he found ten righteous men in Sodom, he would not destroy the city for the ten’s sake. He didn’t find them. He found one. And Sodom and Gomorrah were left in smoking ruins. Actually, I’m not sure there were any ruins left to smoke. I thought about that for a while, and I think that you and I should offer a prayer of thanksgiving every day for the ten righteous people that are keeping the rest of us alive. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where they live. But God could easily look at our land and decide that we really weren’t worth the time and the effort. We resemble Sodom and Gomorrah, it seems to me, more than is comfortable. but I assume that we must still have the ten righteous souls somewhere here and there in the land, and God has overlooked us for the time being. Abraham quit reasoning with God after he got him to agree to spare the city for ten people. I think Abraham felt there were ten people there. He was wrong, of course. Only Lot was there. But why did God, do you suppose, agree to save the city for ten people? We know the story. We know he found one righteous man there, and instead of sparing the city, he got the man and his family out of Sodom. Why did he do that? And, of course, if there had been ten righteous people there, he could have gotten them out and still destroyed the city. Why did he respond to Abraham the way he did? I think the answer is very simple. God agreed to spare the city because he is gracious. He got the one righteous man out of the city. Not because the man was righteous, but because he, God, is gracious. He saved the man’s wife and offered to save his two sons. They were not righteous. But God is still gracious, whether we’re righteous or not. Now, you must know this. Grace is an Old Testament doctrine. you’ve probably heard a lot about grace. Your preacher probably speaks about grace from time to time, and they read lots of scriptures out of the New Testament about grace. And there seems to be an assumption among many people that while Paul and the other New Testament writers talk a lot about grace, well, that’s a New Testament doctrine. In the Old Testament, the doctrine was law, New Testament, grace. Where do you think Paul and the other New Testament writers got the knowledge of grace? Well, from the scriptures, of course. Apparently, Jesus himself never used the word. I think that’s fascinating. You’ve got four gospel accounts there. You read all the way through them, and you never once find Jesus using the word grace, which is probably the most dominant theological term in Protestant Christianity. Grace. In fact, I think the only one of the four Gospels that even uses the word is John, and it’s John’s words, not Christ’s, where the word grace is found. So, Jesus was, of course, a walking example of grace. They never talked about it as a doctrine. He just lived it. Noah, in fact, is the first man recorded to find grace in the eyes of Almighty God. God just felt sorry for him and let him build a boat and save himself and his family and a bunch of animals at the same time. One suspects that God may have really felt sorry for the animals, and Noah owes his life to the fact that God wanted to save some critters, but that may be going too far. Grace is a simple idea. Grace says that the Almighty God feels sorry for us and lets us off the hook, even though we don’t deserve it. And it shows up again and again and again in the Old Testament. Why is this so? Well, because God is gracious. And God was gracious in the Old Testament, and He’s gracious in the New Testament. He has always been gracious, and He always will be gracious. And graciousness is the state of grace. It’s the kind of person who shows grace. So grace is not merely a New Testament idea. Abraham was a good man, but that didn’t mean Abraham had earned a special relationship with God. He wasn’t that good. No man is. But Abraham trusted God, and that formed the basis of a relationship. God liked Abraham and wanted him as his friend. Yes, I know, God loved Abraham. But the word love has been used so much, it conveys less than it should. It says far less than it should ever say. God loves everyone, right? So to say that God loved Abraham doesn’t say much. But if I tell you that he liked Abraham, I have said more. Apparently, God liked him so much that he went by for a visit from time to time. We not only have the account of this visit where he came by and visited with Abraham on the way to Sodom and Gomorrah, he said, I’ll be back here next year about the same time, and we’ll talk, and by that time, Sarah will have a baby. Well, all this brings us to a city called Sodom. And the story is found in Genesis 19, and it begins in verse 1. And there came two angels to Sodom at even, and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. And Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them, and bowed himself with his face toward the ground. There’s nothing particularly significant about this. Men sat in the gate of a city because they were prominent people, sometimes judges within a city. But it was a gathering place, the place where people came to visit and talk. And, of course, one of the reasons people liked to be there was because the breezes came through the gate, and so did the strangers. And that was one of the interesting things, is visitors who come to our town. And Lot bowing down to meet them is simply a matter of oriental courtesy. But he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house and tarry all night and wash your feet, and you shall rise up early and go on your way. And they said, No, we’ll stay in the street all night. That was unthinkable. Not only is it a Middle Eastern custom to extend hospitality, it’s a Middle Eastern custom to accept it. But these two men… which he calls here angels, are there for a purpose. They’re very serious about that purpose. But Lot kept pressing them, and they turned into his house and entered into his house, and he made them a big meal and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. Now, these are the two men that ate with Abraham along with God. This is the first time they are identified as angels, and that poses a small problem. The problem is… Our idea of angels is all wrong. I’m going to see if I can explain that. Angel is actually a Greek word. Angelos, it means simply messenger. So you could be a messenger. If somebody sends you to somebody else’s house with a message in Greek, you’re an angel. So that doesn’t really mean anything, does it? Messenger is the word. But messenger, angel, comes from the Greek. We’re reading here an English translation of a Hebrew text. And the word is not Greek. It is a Hebrew word for messenger, malak. But the idea of angels is so strong in our culture that the Greek idea of angels has even permeated the translations of the Hebrew scriptures. And so you keep coming up against angels in the Old Testament, which are Greek creatures. Now, you’ll understand your Bible better if you constantly substitute the word messenger every time you see the word angel in the Bible. The translators use angel to draw the distinction between a heavenly messenger and an earthly messenger because you’ll see them use the word messenger elsewhere. It’s just when they think the messenger in question is heavenly that they slip over and use the word angel. But if you’ll just stick to messenger and look at the context to see what it’s talking about, you’ll do fine. Actually, the distinction between an earthly messenger and a heavenly messenger can actually be misleading. There are various classes of heavenly beings. There’s God, of course, but there are also messengers, and messengers fall into classes. They’re called, in one case, cherubim, in another place, seraphim, and there are others. Then there is a class of elders. There are 24 of them that sit in a circle around the throne of God, and we don’t know exactly what they are. They do not seem to be messengers because they aren’t sent anywhere with a message, but they could easily be precisely the same kind of being that that the messengers are. It’s extremely rare for a human being to encounter a heavenly messenger in heavenly form. In other words, looking like the Bible describes cherubim or seraphim, having wings and all that stuff. Usually when a heavenly messenger is encountered by a man, he is indistinguishable from a man. As far as we know, they never appear as women, and I don’t know why. So the Bible says that two messengers approach Sodom at evening. Lot spots them and offers them hospitality. But I think he knew who and what they were. He just didn’t know why they were there. We’ll talk about why they were there when I come back.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
By the time Lot and his guests were getting ready for bed, the word had spread throughout Sodom that these men were there. And the whole town, young and old, all the people from every quarter, surrounded Lot’s house. I don’t think Sodom was a huge city, but apparently everyone was there. And they called in to Lot and said, Where are the men that came to you this night? Bring them out that we may know them. Now, This is not a request for an interview. They didn’t want him to bring these men out so they could find out who they were. The Hebrew writer had a sense of delicacy that kept him from saying what the men outside this house were really saying in their vernacular. It was their intent to know these men sexually. They intended to sodomize them. This was a mob bent on homosexual rape. And the whole town… was there to witness it. It’s from this incident that the word sodomy enters our language. And Lot went outside the door and shut it behind him and said, Look, I pray you, brethren, don’t do so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters which are virgins. Let me bring them out to you, and you do to them what’s good in your eyes. But to these men don’t do anything, because they have come under the shadow of my roof. In the Middle East, Tradition of hospitality was you had to protect your guests at whatever the cost might have been. It’s really hard to justify Lot for this, and I don’t think I should even try. It may be that he knew the men outside would not take his daughters. They had no interest in his daughters. They were homosexuals. It may be that Lot knew who these men who were staying with him were and was trying to save the whole city because he may have realized that if these men outside try to fool around with the two messengers that came to his house, it’s all over for everybody. Nuclear disaster. Well, whatever it was, it would have been very hard for any of us to even think about making the sacrifice that Lot offered. The situation must have been truly extreme. But in a way, it didn’t matter. The crowd said, Stand back! And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he’s going to judge all of us. We’ll deal worse with you than with them. Get out of the way! And they pressed sore upon Lot, and were getting ready to break the door down. You know, they must teach what these men said a lot in mob school. They must go to a school somewhere to know what to say when you’re in a mob. Because it’s always the same. Who do you think you are? Who does this fellow think he is? We brought him in here. We made him the sheriff. Get out of the way. It’s the same old story. You’ve seen it in a hundred westerns, haven’t you? The mob is gathered around the jail. An innocent man is inside. They’re going to hang him. And one man stands between them trying to stop him. And they say, who does this fellow think he is? Who made him a judge? Get out of the way. The same old story. Well, the two messengers put their hand outside the door and grabbed Lot by the scholar and pulled him back in the house and slammed the door. At the same time, they smote the men outside the house with blindness, small and great, all of them. The whole crowd went blind. And they tried to find the door, but they couldn’t find it. Now, that’s what I call a simple solution. You just blind everybody, and they become a harmless collection of nuts. Well, the messenger said to Lot, Do you have any family here besides these, son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, whatever you have in this city? Get them out of here. We’re going to destroy this place because the cry of them is waxed great before the face of Jehovah, and Jehovah has sent us to destroy it. Now, God was not with the messengers at this time. There were only two of them. Remember, there were three that came to Abraham before he came down there. But we can presume that God has had his look at the city and has seen all he needs to see. And the decision is made. Sodom will burn. Well, Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law that had married his daughters. And he said, look, get up. Get out of this place. God’s going to destroy this city. But he seemed like one that mocked to his sons-in-law. They thought he was crazy. They thought he was acting like a Saturday night stand-up comic in a club. It’s a pity they couldn’t at least decide to humor poor Lot and go on a family picnic for a day or so. It could have saved everyone’s lives. But they were a part of Sodom. But what’s interesting is even though they were a part of Sodom, God was willing to let them go. Why? Well, I’ve told you. God is gracious. He’s giving. He doesn’t like to hurt people. He’d really prefer to let everybody off. And when the morning arose… The messengers hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take your wife, your two daughters that are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold on his hand and the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and took him out and set him outside the city. I guess Lot had other daughters because he had sons-in-law, and these two daughters, I gather, had never been married. You know, these two messengers could have left Lot dithering in the doorway. They could have said, get out of here, and then they left and left him there. The chances are he might well have still been there when the city fell. Why was he waiting around? What was the matter with him? Well, I think he was hoping that any moment his daughters, his other daughters, and his sons-in-law would show up and they would all leave. Well, I know he didn’t stay for love of Sodom. And it was purely the grace of God that saved Lot and his daughters because they just took hold of them and got them out of there. It came to pass when they brought them forth abroad that he said, Look for your life. Escape. Don’t look behind you. Don’t stay in the plain. Escape to the mountain lest you be consumed. And Lot was terrified by that. He said, Oh, no. Oh, no, my Lord. I don’t want to go to the mountains. He’s afraid to go to the mountains. He didn’t want to be up there in those desolate mountains where there was desert and scorpions and all kinds of insects and nothing to live in but caves. I don’t want to go up there. Look, I have found grace in your sight, and you have magnified your mercy which you have showed to me in saving my life, and I cannot escape to the mountain lest some evil take me and I die up there. Behold, now this city is near to flee to, and it’s just a little one. Oh, let me escape there. Is it not just a little one? And my soul shall live. You can hear this, and you can almost hear Lot’s voice. It rings so true. Oh, please don’t make me go to the mountains. Let me go to the city. It’s a little one, just a little one, and I’ll be alive. And the messenger said, Okay. I have accepted you concerning this thing also. No, they keep on giving to Lot. They keep opening doors for him, keep making concessions to him. Why? Because God is gracious. I’ve accepted it. I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Little town was called Zoar, and if it hadn’t been for Lot, Zoar would have been turned to ashes like Sodom and Gomorrah. The only reason it survived was because Lot wanted to escape there. He said, Get out of here. Escape there, for I cannot do anything until you’re out of here. So the name of the city was called Zoar. And we have another example of grace in the face of human weakness. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven. This is painful. There were children in that town. There’s no point in papering over it. God is gracious, but he is also just. And while I think he hates to punish, things can get so bad that he has to act. As for the children, well, growing up in Sodom, they had no hope. They would have been corrupted. From all indications, they probably already were. All the indications are that the children were right out there with the old people in the crowd around Lot’s house, and that they would have been witnesses too, if not participants in the sodomizing of these two visitors to the town. No, God is gracious, but He is just. And God is not finished with the children of Sodom. There’s an interesting little passage in Matthew where Jesus, when he is up into the northern part of Israel, had visited the town of Capernaum and had preached there and had been rejected. He makes this statement in Matthew 11, 23, And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, shall be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in Sodom, Sodom might have remained to this day. But I say to you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. Well, I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain what the judgment is actually going to be like. We have hints here and there in the Bible, but I do seem to gather one thing. There is some level of toleration for Sodom in the judgment day. Maybe that has something to do with the children. Because after all, God is the only one who can kill and make alive.
SPEAKER 01 :
I’ll be back after these words. And please tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 02 :
God overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and that which grew upon the ground. I mean, all the trees and everything else were gone. But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him. Remember the angel said, don’t look back? Well, she looked back and she turned into a pillar of salt. There’s actually a rock formation down there near the Dead Sea that people call Lot’s wife. It isn’t, of course. If he was turned into a pillar of salt, the salt has long since dissolved away in the rains. Well, Abraham got up early in the morning and he looked over towards Sodom and he saw smoke. The whole side of the country going up as the smoke of a furnace. It’s really hard to imagine what went through Abraham’s mind when he saw that. because I really think he probably thought he had saved the cities. And when he saw all the smoke, he must have looked and said, Good grief, there were not even ten. I wonder what happened to Lot and Lot’s children. Well, it came to pass, when God destroys the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, And because he remembered Abraham, he sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he took the cities down. And Lot went up even out of Zoar. He went to Zoar at first. But then finally he left Zoar and dwelt in the mountain after all and his two daughters with him. For he was afraid of Zoar. I guess having seen what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah and having seen the same kind of a city in Zoar, he said, I just… I’m afraid it’s going to happen to this place just like it happened to that place. I can understand that. When you have been so traumatized by what has just happened and your children have gone up in smoke and you’re scared to death that maybe something like that might happen again, I can understand why Lot and his daughters headed for the hills. You know, the area where they dwelt in a cave is the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Caves were common places of dwelling, actually, in this miserably hot land. I said earlier that he didn’t want to be in them, but the fact of the matter is, down here in this area, you can be quite cool. They’re air-conditioned. They’re not so cold in the winter, and they are cool in the summertime. So it isn’t quite as primitive as it sounds. But what is true is that they were alone where they were. And that aloneness led to tragic results. Lot’s oldest daughter said, Look, our father is old and there’s not a man in the earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth. So let’s make our father drink wine and we will lie with him so we can preserve seed of our father. These two girls plotted to commit incest with their father. Now, in all fairness, it was a hard life and they could see a hard life ahead. And it was really important that they have sons coming up in the family to do the work and to be able to protect them in their old age. There was no other way for them as they grew up. And life expectancy for these young ladies would not have been 80 or even 70 or probably not even 60. And they were afraid of growing old without children. So they made their father drink wine that night, got him drunk, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He didn’t even know when she laid down or when she got up. So to Lot’s credit, he at least didn’t know what he was doing. It came to pass the very next day, the firstborn said to the younger one, Look, I did it last night. We’re going to do it again tonight. And this is your turn. So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger one arose and lay down with him. And he didn’t know when she came or when she went. And thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. And out of this incestuous relationship were born two sons. One’s name was Moab, and he is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger, she also bare a son and called his name Ben-Ami, and the same is the father of the children of Ammon, the Ammonites, unto this day. These are the Moabites and the Ammonites, with whom the Israelites have had nothing but trouble throughout their entire history. They are the people who lived on the east bank of the Jordan, And there are those who believe that today’s Jordanians, and possibly even the Palestinians, are the descendants of Moab and Ammon. And all the old conflicts, all the old curses, all the old literature, if you will, that actually forms the barrier between these people goes all the way back to Abraham and Lot and the generations that followed. You know, it wasn’t Moab and Ammon’s fault that they were born out of an incestuous relationship. But that type of thing creates a losing situation. Abraham and his wife and his children were the winners. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart, and don’t forget…
SPEAKER 01 :
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