The Wrong Place. What A Tragedy! 6/6/2016

Good Morning,

The day has begun and it won't wait to start. I tried, but that like many things is an exercise in futility.
My mug will be filled with Door County Cinnamon Sugar Biscotti Coffee soon.

To keep up with us this morning  you might have to go back a day at www.martyschutte.blogspot.com and look up  The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time.

We will begin with lot rescuing the two angels sent to get him out of Sodom before God destroys the city. It is a tense scene and quite ugly.  We left off with verse 5 of Genesis chapter 19. We take up with the men of the city pursuing the angels to have sex with them and promising to do worse to Lot if he does not turn them over. Remember this is where Lot decided to live and he raised his family there. I have added comments within the verses to help make this point,

⁵ They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
⁶ Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him ⁷ and said, “No, my friends. (Lot calls them friends. Poor choice of friends) Don’t do this wicked thing. ⁸ Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. (No regards for his daughters. Who brought them to Sodom?)  But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
⁹ “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
¹⁰ But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. ¹¹ Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door. (Obviously this was a miracle. Lot seemed to not have a suitable plan. But God did)
¹² The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, ¹³ because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”
¹⁴ So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry^[a] his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. ( The son-in laws, did not see Lot as a Godly leader. No one to take serious)
¹⁵ With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”
¹⁶ When he hesitated,( Really? He hesitated to leave that place? Sin had more than a foothold in his life.)  the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. ¹⁷ As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
¹⁸ But Lot said to them, “No, my lords,^[b] please! ¹⁹ Your^[c] servant has found favor in your^[d] eyes, and you^[e] have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. ²⁰ Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.” ( Lot had a better idea than God? we will see how that works out.)
²¹ He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. ²² But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.^[f])

²³ By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. ²⁴ Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. ²⁵ Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. ²⁶ But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. ( Lot did not take charge over his family. His wife wasn't used to following Godly commands.)
²⁷ Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. ²⁸ He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
²⁹ So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Lot and His Daughters

³⁰ Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. ³¹ One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. ³² Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
³³ That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
³⁴ The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” ³⁵ So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
³⁶ So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. ³⁷ The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab^[g]; he is the father of the Moabites of today. ³⁸ The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi^[h]; he is the father of the Ammonites^[i] of today. ( Lot was willing to offer his daughters to an orgy. They had little regards for their own bodies. Sex to them was a tool to obtain what they needed or wanted.)

Our choices can have a huge impact on our families. Our leadership or lack of will take a toll. To me this passage is one of the saddest in Scripture. We see a warning here. will we take heed and take stock of our own homes?

God bless,

Marty