Then Abraham said, “Let not the Lord be
angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?”
And the Lord said, “I will not destroy it for
the sake of ten.” So the Lord went His way as soon as He had finished speaking
with Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.
Now the two angels came to Sodom in the
evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose
to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. (Genesis 18:32 - 19:1)
Like his uncle
Abraham, Lot was spiritually sensitive enough to recognize a pair of angels in
human form, walking along in the Bronze Age, so he paid his respects and
offered them hospitality for the night. But the angels, if
you recall from chapter 18, weren’t in town to rest. They were charged with assessing the
sinfulness of the population by seeing if there were 10 righteous men in Sodom. So far, they’d met one. So they said, “No, but we will spend the night in the open square,” because the central city square was an ideal vantage point for observing the citizenry.
But Lot wouldn’t
hear of angels sleeping outside when he had a warm home. He convinced them to come to his house, where
he hurriedly put together a grand dinner.
He didn’t have time to wait for the bread to rise, so it was served
unleavened. Still, it was probably a
good meal.
As the evening wore down and the family started preparing for bed, a
crowd assembled outside Lot’s house. According to verse 4, the crowd was
representative of the men of Sodom, including all ages and neighborhoods, and
since neighborhoods were included, all socioeconomic classes were
represented. For the angels’ purposes,
this was an awfully convenient chance to assess the moral qualities of the city's populace as a whole. Convenient. Awful.
The men --- all
ages, areas, and classes --- had seen the angels, and they wanted to rape them
(verse 5).
No. You need to let that point marinate for a
moment.
The culture of the
city, across every male demographic, was so totally and violently perverted
that their unanimous response to overnight guests was gang-rape.
The angels had seen
all they needed to see. They didn’t have
to wait until morning and search the city for 10 good men. There weren’t 10 good men. The whole town was as bad as they’d
thought. God’s death warrant was in
effective.
Lot was a
righteous man; he really was, so he faced the mob and tried to protect his angelic guests. But, genuinely good people can be wrong and
short-sighted about the depth and complexity of the brokenness around
them. Sometimes good, God-fearing folks
get so focused on the one sin that others commit they can’t see the other sins
they are enabling and normalizing.
Homosexuality is a sin, but it's not the only sin. Righteous Lot thought that homosexuality was the only sin in Sodom. If only men didn’t want to have sex with men,
then everything would be alright. That’s why
Lot, the legit most righteous man in the valley, begged the gang of rapists to
assault his daughters instead. He even
lied to sweeten the deal, claiming that his daughters were still virgins
(Genesis 19:8).
Fortunately for the
young women, the angels intervened. They
blinded the would-be attackers and told Lot to get anybody he liked out of town,
because this place was done.
“Have you anyone else here? Son-in-law, your
sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city—take them out of this
place!” (Genesis 19:12)
But no one else would
come. Even Lot’s sons-in-law laughed at
the frenzied old man when he told them a story about angels and “God”
destroying the greatest city in the valley (verse 14).
Cause when you’ve
normalized sin, talk of judgment sound
crazy.
At dawn, Lot, his
wife, and their 2 soon-to-be-widowed daughters fled. As the sun rose they reached the city of Zoar. Once inside the walls, the sky grew dark and bright at the same
time. The ground and air shook with
shock waves. Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities of the valley were dying.
That was their home.
Those were their friends, their in-laws for God’s sake. She had to see if anything was left. So she looked over the wall, and in a wave of
heat, she was gone, her flesh burned away. The ashes were salty in her
husband’s open, screaming mouth (Genesis 19:26).
Far away, Abraham
knew that the angels had not found 10 good men.
And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood
before the Lord. Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the
land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up
like the smoke of a furnace
(Genesis 19: 27, 28).
How many people are
left in your community, congregation, or home who don’t think sin is O.K.? How many are left who don’t think THEIR sin
is O.K.? What sins have we normalized
for ourselves, both old and young, all
the people from every quarter?
Unlike Lot and his fellow Sodomites, we
have the New Testament, in which Peter assures us that Lot was a righteous man (2 Peter
2:2). And if we believe his assessment
of Lot, we must also accept Peter’s assessment of us.
For the time has come for judgment to begin
at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of
those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17)
We know the grace of God more perfectly than Lot did because we have the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lot was a righteous man, but his righteousness was imperfect and short-sighted. Jesus is perfectly righteous in every way, and Jesus told us to be better than the self-righteous religious group of the day.
For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the
kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)
Jesus who, unlike Lot, was perfectly righteous said we should
stop normalizing sin.
Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of
these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of
heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the
kingdom of heaven. (Matthew
5:19)
Jesus said we should
stop first stop normalizing OUR sins.
And why do you look at the speck in your
brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let
me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from
your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your
brother’s eye. (Matthew
7:3-5)
Sodom fell because there weren't 10 people who looked at their own sin honestly enough to change themselves so they could change their culture. Because there weren't 10 righteous men? Nah, actually, Sodom was destroyed for lack of 10 REPENTANT men.
Like those old
school preacher say, “I wish I could get 10 people to believe!”
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant
for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T.
Graves II is pastor of
Miles Chapel CME Church in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth
Networking Organization
(SAYNO); and director of rural leadership
development for the National Institute for Human Development (
NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Support by check or
money order may be mailed to
Miles Chapel CME
Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
