CHAPTER 19

(1898 B.C.)

TWO ANGELS

¹And there came two Angels (referred to previously as two men) to Sodom at evening; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom (Lot sitting at the gate probably denoted position and authority; he may have even been the mayor of Sodom): and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground (from this action, it is possible that the two Angels revealed themselves and their mission to Lot at this time);

²And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servants house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and you shall rise up early, and go on your ways (as it regards Abraham and Lot, the Lord remained to commune with the Patriarch, while he merely sent His two Angels to Sodom as it regards Lot). And they said, No; but we will abide in the street all night (in fact, the Angels, as we see here, didnt even desire to enter into the house of Lot; what a rebuke!).

³And he (Lot) pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house (the Angels, on their part, had to be pressed to accept hospitality from the nephew which they at once accepted from the uncle; fellowship with the world hinders and limits communion and makes the soul lethargic); and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat (the unleavened Bread speaks of Christ).

THE MOB

⁴But before they lay down (retired for the night), the men of the city, even the men of Sodom (homosexuals), compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: (The principle of evil, which the Bible calls sin, and which has wrought such ruin in human nature, painfully appears in this Chapter. Sodomy is the end result of the reprobate mind [Rom. 1:24-28].)

⁵And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men who came in to you this night? (the sin of homosexuality was the primary sin which occasioned the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah [Jude, Vss. 6-7]) bring them out unto us, that we may know them (the words know them pertained to the loathsomeness of the homosexual act).

⁶And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him (locked the door to his house, so these depraved men could not enter),

⁷And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly (the Text marks this sin as unspeakably vile, by telling us that they commanded Lot to bring out his guests so that they could seduce them publicly and in the sight of the whole population; they had lost all sense of shame and decency, for they make no attempt at perpetrating this shameful vice in secret).

⁸Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do you to them as is good in your eyes (wisdom from the lukewarm Believer is always flawed, as is evidenced here): only unto these Men do nothing; for therefore came They under the shadow of my roof (we cannot profit by the world and, at the same time, bear effectual testimony against its wickedness).

⁹And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge (it seems that Lot, however, had spoken out against these things so often that the men of Sodom accused him of wanting to play the judge): now will we deal worse with you, than with Them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door. (Due to Abraham having rescued many Sodomites from Chedorlaomer, evidently these homosexuals had declared Lot, the nephew of Abraham, off limits. But now, due to Lots protection of the two Angels, they are breaking their commitment to him.)

THE ANGELS

¹⁰But the Men (the two Angels) put forth Their hand (opened the door and grabbed Lot), and pulled Lot into the house to Them, and shut to the door (little did these perverts know as to who these men actually were).

¹¹And they smote the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door (the word in the Hebrew actually means that they were not totally blind, but that they would not see properly).

LOT

¹²And the Men (the Angels) said unto Lot, Have you here any besides? son in law, and your sons, and your daughters, and whatsoever you have in the city, bring them out of this place (to attempt to reprove the worlds ways, while we profit by association with it, is vanity; thus it was too with Lots testimony to his sons-in-law):

¹³For We will destroy this place (has happened, no doubt, many times in many places in history past), because the cry of them is waxen great before the Face of the LORD (all sin is in Gods Face, which will ultimately, if not repented of, end in judgment); and the LORD has sent Us to destroy it.

THE SONS-IN-LAW

¹⁴And Lot went out, and spoke unto his sons in law, which married his daughters (which were to marry), and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one who mocked unto his sons in law (the nearer the world approaches the end, the more it laughs at the Divine threats pronounced upon the wicked).

LOT DELIVERED

¹⁵And when the morning arose, then the Angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take your wife, and your two daughters, which are here; lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city (as the Angels hastened Lot, likewise the Holy Spirit is hastening the modern Church, as it regards the Rapture).

¹⁶And while he (Lot) lingered, the Men (the two Angels) 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 (the loving patience of the Angels with this unhappy procrastinator was most touching; its cause is revealed in the words, the LORD being merciful unto him).

¹⁷And it came to pass, when They (the two Angels) had brought them forth abroad, that he (one of the Angels) said, Escape for your life; look not behind you, neither stay you in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed (God demanded of them a total abandonment in heart and will of the condemned cities).

¹⁸And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my LORD (it seems that now Jehovah Himself, though not mentioned, has now appeared upon the scene):

¹⁹Behold now, Your Servant has found grace in Your sight, and You have magnified Your Mercy, which You have showed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die (the folly of Lot in lingering, and further in preferring his own place of safety to that proposed by the Angels, illustrate the deep unbelief of the heart):

²⁰Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live (people do not do stupid things when they are in the Will of God; its when they are attempting to function in the realm of disobedience that they become foolish in their direction).

²¹And He (the Lord) said unto him, See, I have accepted you concerning this thing also (his request to go into this little city instead of the mountain), that I will not overthrow this city, for the which you have spoken (it was a prayer that Lot would have wished had never been answered in a positive way; the Believer must always be careful to ask in the Will of God).

²²Make haste, escape quickly; for I cannot do anything till you come out of Sodom. (The Lord had promised Abraham that Lot would be spared; therefore, destruction could not come to Sodom and Gomorrah until Lot was safely removed; in a sense, this typifies the coming Rapture of the Church; the Judgment of God, which is coming on this world, in fact, cannot come, until the Believers are removed [I Thess. 5:9].) Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar (the city which the Lord allowed Lot to enter into).

DESTRUCTION

²³The sun was risen upon the Earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

²⁴Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven (the Lord, Whom we now know as God the Son, called judgment from the Lord out of heaven, Whom we now know as God the Father; considering that the Holy Spirit inspired the writing of this, we have here the Trinity);

²⁵And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground (all the cities of the plain were destroyed, except Zoar; the cause was supernatural, not natural; therefore, this wasnt an earthquake, as some have claimed).

LOTS WIFE

²⁶But his wife looked back from behind him (disobeying the Word of the Lord [Vs. 17]; the Hebrew means that she kept looking back steadily, wistfully, and with desire; her heart was in Sodom, so her soul was in Sodom, as well; regrettably and sadly, it is now in Hell), and she became a pillar of salt (Jesus reminded the world of this episode by pointedly saying, Remember Lots wife [Lk. 17:32]).

ABRAHAM

²⁷And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD (indicates that he was in prayer):

²⁸And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace (these cities were situated at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea; the word furnace indicates that this was no ordinary fire, but that the heat was so intense that everything melted, which means there was nothing left).

²⁹And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt (the words, God remembered Abraham, proclaim the fact that Abrahams intercessory petition did not go unanswered; in this case, Abraham was a Type of Christ, serving as a mediator between God and Lot).

MOAB AND BEN-AMMI

³⁰And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar (having disobeyed the Lord, Lot now lives in fear; he is fearful that God will destroy Zoar as well, so he moves to a nearby mountain): and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters (his wealth had once been so great that he and Abraham could not dwell together because of the size of their herds; but now he is living in a cave, with this being his miserable home; wealth or no wealth, there is no profit in going in the direction of Satan).

³¹And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the Earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the Earth (the preservation of the family line was important in ancient times; since Lot was old, and now poor, with all his belongings destroyed along with Sodom, his daughters saw no prospect for marriage; so now, they will commit a monstrous sin):

³²Come, let us make our father drink wine (the second occasion in the Bible that the word wine is used indicating intoxicating beverage, the first occasion being that of Noah [9:20-22]; the only course for the Child of God is total abstinence as it regards any and all intoxicating beverage), and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. (His own daughters make him drunk, and in his drunkenness, he becomes the instrument of bringing into existence the Ammonites and the Moabites the determined enemies of the people of God. What a volume of solemn instruction is here!)

³³And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose (this was no drunken orgy, but still, it was a revolting sin; the cause was a lack of faith, as the cause of all sin is a lack of faith).

³⁴And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and you go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father (the details of this account clearly show that Lot, when he went to the mountain cave, endeavored to escape from his problems, not by carrying them to the Throne of God, where all Believers should carry them, but by drowning them in dissipation).

³⁵And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose (considering that these girls had been raised in Sodom, at least for a good part of their lives, it is not strange that the older daughter suggested incest as the only way they could preserve the family line; they had been greatly influenced by the low moral standards of their environment).

³⁶Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father (after this, Lot disappears from sacred history, not even his death being recorded; even though there is no Biblical record, it is believed that Abraham took Lot and his daughters into his home and supported them).

³⁷And the firstborn bore a son, and called his name Moab (means from my father): the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.

³⁸And the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi (means son of my people): the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day (despite their ignoble beginnings, the Lord showed a concern for them as descendants of Lot [Deut. 2:9, 19], but regrettably, they later became enemies of Israel [I Sam. 14:47; II Ki. 3:5; II Chron. 20:1, 22]).