Tuesday July 23

Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw [the two angels], he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself … he said, “Hear now, my lords, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet” … [The men of Sodom] said, “This one came in to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge; now we will deal worse with you than with them” … But the [two angels] reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. Genesis 19:1-2, 9-10

Lot (4)—Judge in Sodom

Lot had been captured with the people of Sodom, had been rescued by Abraham, and had gone back to his house in Sodom. Now we find him sitting in the gate of that wicked city, an official. When two angels, looking like travelers, come, he immediately invites them to his home, intending to show them hospitality and give them protection from the men of the city. The angels reluctantly come to his home. He makes them a feast of unleavened bread.

That night the men of Sodom, young and old, come demanding Lot bring out his guests to them for their wicked perverted desire. Lot goes out to them, shutting the door behind him, and pleads, “Please, my brethren, do not so wickedly.” He even offers his daughters to them, but in vain. His effort to dissuade them only brings him into danger from which he is rescued by the angels.

All the efforts of this “righteous man” who “tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds” (2 Pet. 2:8) to improve the morals of Sodom were totally unsuccessful. They just brought him into the hatred of those he addressed as “brethren.” A Christian today faces the same hatred from a world that has largely overthrown God’s moral standards. The world protests loudly if Christians attempt to impose God’s standards by political means. God calls on Christians to separate from evil, not to fight it politically.

Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.