Genesis 19:14-26

¹⁴ So Lot went out and warned his bridegrooms, who were going to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his bridegrooms to be joking.

¹⁵ As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, so you are not swept away as the city is punished for its sin.”

¹⁶ But he dawdled. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

¹⁷ And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your soul. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, so you will not be swept away.”

¹⁸ But Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords.

¹⁹ See, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my soul. But I cannot escape to the hills, or the disaster will overtake me and I will die.

²⁰ See, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there- is it not a little one?- and my soul will be saved!”

²¹ He said to him, “See, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city to which you have referred.

²² Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.[1]

²³ The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

²⁴ Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of the sky.

²⁵ And he overthrew[2] those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what had grown on the ground there.

²⁶ But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a standing pile of salt.

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Taking judgment seriously

Lot and his wife and daughters were recipients of grace, but they had grown so used to godlessness that they failed to take the angels’ warning seriously. The LORD had determined to rescue Lot, so the angels put up with his procrastination and bargaining. Lot’s wife was a casualty of her own refusal to take judgment seriously. His daughters’ fiancés were so used to Lot’s indifference to his God, that they could not believe him when he warned them. That is a sad commentary on Lot’s witness.

This generation is where Lot was in Sodom. We know of God’s impending judgment upon our cities, but we are puttering around in our living room, gathering belongings and watching videos. We may have warned our loved ones about something called hell, but they did not take us seriously, because we hardly took ourselves seriously.

LORD, heal our dawdling when it comes to rescuing those around us doomed for destruction. Impress on those we share the gospel with through the urgency of our appeals. May they not be tempted to think that we see you and your judgment as anything else but a serious, urgent matter.

[1] The Hebrew word Tsoar means insignificance.

[2] The Hebrew word Hafal implies destruction, a transformation of the city into a heap of rubble, and its inhabitants and vegetation into a pile of ashes.