LOT IN SODOM

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Dean Thompson with a word of hope. Lot rescued from Sodom, dragged to safety by mercy. And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him, and they brought him forth and set him without the city. Genesis chapter nineteen verse sixteen. Mercy that will not let go. Sometimes you are so entangled in a sinking situation that you hesitate even when the exit is right in front of you, and grace has to take you by the hand. Lot had chosen Sodom. Years earlier, giving first pick of the land, he had looked toward the well watered Jordan plain and pitched his tent toward the city. Genesis thirteen verses ten through twelve. By the time we get to Genesis nineteen, he is sitting in the gate, the seat of civic authority. Fully woven into our society, the narrative describes as violent and wicked to the Lord exceedingly. When two angelic visitors arrive, the men of the city surrounded the house demanding to abuse them, and the depth of the corruption becomes horrifyingly clear. Lot's compromised position is exposed. He has power in Sodom, but no moral leverage over it, and even his own family barely takes his warnings seriously. His sons in law think he is joking when he tells them judgment is coming. The desperation of this scene is the desperation of a person who has become so acclimated to a toxic environment that he can no longer see the danger clearly. Sodom sat in a fertile but doomed region near the Dead Sea, a landscape that would soon be reduced, reduced to sulphur and salt. Dawn is breaking, the clock is running out, and the astonishing thing is that Lot, standing at the threshold of destruction, lingers. The Hebrew says he hesitated, he dawdled, even as fire hangs over the city. He knows he should go, and he cannot make his feet move. The most tender line in the whole grim chapter is Genesis nineteen verse sixteen. But he lingered, 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. Derek Kidna observes that Lot is not so much a hero of faith as a man salvaged almost against his own inertia, saved not by the strength of his resolve, but by the strength of God's grip. Victor Hamilton notes that the verb translated seized is forceful. The angels essentially take hold of the whole family and physically pull them out. This is not a gentle invitation. It is rescue by the wrist. The text pointedly attributes the reason the Lord being merciful to him. Nahum Sarna and other commentators connect this rescue back to Genesis nineteen verse twenty nine, which says that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out. Lot is feared in part because of another man's intercession. Abraham's bold bargaining with God in chapter eighteen. The New Testament, Second Peter chapter two, verse seven will later call Lot righteous, a startling verdict, and so compromised a figure. Underscoring that his deliverance rests not. His deliverance rests on mercy, not merit. Grace here is not a polite offer left at the door. It is a hand that reaches in and drags a hesitating man out of the fire. Maybe you are stuck somewhere you know you need to live. A relationship that is destroying you, a habit that has its hooks in you, a situation you have justified for so long that you can no longer feel how much it is costing you. And even now, with the exit visible you linger. You understand the danger intellectually, but cannot seem to move your feet. Lot's story is strangely hopeful. God's mercy is strong enough to save even the person who hesitates, who half wants to be saved, and half want to stay, who has to be taken by the hand and dragged out. Notice too that Lot was remembered because Abraham prayed. Your rescue may be bound up with someone who is interceding for you right now, refusing to give up on you before God. And if you are if you are that praying person, exhausted over a loved one who keeps lingering near destruction, keep praying. Mercy has hands and it knows how to pull. Our merciful Lord and Father, we confess how often we linger when we should flee. Please take us by the hand as you took lot and pull us out of what is destroying us. We thank you for your mercy. We are happy, Lord, that your mercy is stronger than our hesitation. Please let your grace abound towards every one of us and save us. Amen. God bless you, my brothers and sisters.