THE TENDER HEART OF GOD — THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH — HARMONIZED

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

How many times have you heard it said that what is impossible with man is completely possible with God? The implication of the title of this blog contemplates just that. As Michael says,

 

 “Don’t think that God is powerful in any human dimension of the word ‘power.’ He is so much more complicated than that.”

 

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the passages of Scripture that comprise this week’s blog.

 

“Wait a minute!” You may be thinking. Didn’t we, last week, leave the story where Abraham and God had just bargained, in an iconic negotiation, that Sodom could be saved. The condition was that only ten righteous people needed to be found within the city. Surely, in all of Sodom, such a number could have been located! This was, clearly, what Abraham had thought.

 

You recall that in his negotiating with God, Abraham had an agenda. None of us believe for a single second that Abraham’s heart was breaking over the possible loss of Sodom itself. Abraham had rejected the King of Sodom and all for which the city stood when he turned down the King of Sodom’s offer of lavish riches.

 

The truth was that Abraham had long since evolved away from the worldliness of Sodom. Yet, he bargained long and hard with God, inching very close to the line, in so doing. Why? Of course, you are right. In a word…Lot!

 

While Abraham had distanced himself from Sodom, his heart was still so strongly attached to his nephew, his own flesh and blood, his surrogate son, Lot.

 

God, who knows everything, was of course, no stranger to Abraham’s actual concern when He announced that, based on many complaints being lodged about the wickedness of Sodom, He was contemplating its destruction. God knew, from start to finish, that Abraham was advancing what we all agree was an excellent negotiation, one with the intention of saving Lot.

 

Thus, we address today’s blog title and the abiding theme of God doing what, for mankind, was impossible, i.e. maintaining a tender heart AND destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

The bottom line is that there were not ten righteous people in very wicked Sodom. So, it was bound for destruction. However, we see so clearly the tender heart of God, in that, as Abraham so deeply desired, He would save Lot out of His great love for His hand-picked Patriarch, Abraham.

 

Michael so wisely reminds us that,

 

“Particularly, with Scripture, we must not add hats to ideas. We need not further interpret God or an angel. What it says, is what was divinely intended.”

 

Looking through this lens, what was the reason for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by God? What does the Bible actually say about this?

 

As He often does in the Bible, the LORD puts the answer to this important question in narrative form. He tells us a story.

 

This story begins in Genesis 19 and, essentially, takes the whole chapter to tell. It is a remarkable story, one, once heard, is very difficult to ever forget. It chronicles the kind of depravity that stays in our minds long after we wish to bid it farewell. We’re about to see that God doesn’t just go destroying cities without a reason that we would never hesitate in fully affirming and, if need be, defending.

 

The story begins with two emissaries of God, two angels, arriving in Sodom and being greeted by Lot who was sitting in the city gateway. We can picture that, perhaps, Lot was looking out toward Canaan, this, maybe, indicating a burgeoning longing for a more Canaan way of life than that offered in Sodom. If so, such a feeling was greatly in his favor. Realistically, Lot was a man with a conflict of the heart. Generally, every great story has such a person.

 

This disenchantment with Sodom is corroborated by his first statements to the two angels, wherein he warns them to stay with him that night, implying that their plan to spend the night in the streets would be an unsafe one.

 

The angels agree to this after Lot, “insisted so strongly.” (Genesis 19:3) NIV, that they do this. We, the reader, sense the extreme fear of Lot on the behalf of anyone outside a secure shelter at night in Sodom.

 

We soon see why. After Lot graciously prepares a meal for the angels, a clear insight into the cultural hospitality of the day, the unthinkable evil of Sodom presents itself outside Lot’s house:

 

“Before they had gone to bed, ALL the men from EVERY PART of the city of Sodom – BOTH YOUNG AND OLD, SURROUNDED THE HOUSE.”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 19:4) NIV

 

This was a MOB of unparalleled numbers! And why were they there? We don’t have to wait long for an answer. The next words are:

 

“They called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? BRING THEM OUT TO US…

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 19:5) NIV

 

The Torah says, so that they might have “intimate relations,” with them.

 

This was a situation that today would be referred to as attempted gang rape or sexual assault. Can you picture the terror of this scene? It was mob rule awash in sexual savagery, with every man in Sodom!

 

Lot, in a show of remarkable courage, then left the sanctuary of his house and attempted to reason with them:

 

“No, my friends. Don’t do this WICKED thing.”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 19:7) NIV

 

He then does something that we can hardly believe. He offers the mob complete discretion to do as they will with his TWO VIRGIN DAUGHTERS, saying that the two angels are off-limits to them as they “have come under the protection of my roof.”

(Genesis 19:8) NIV

 

We, of course, are shocked beyond words that he would do this. Part of the explanation is cultural and has to do with the strong bent toward uncompromising hospitality to the angels. The other part is practical, in that he probably knew that their sexual violence would not be satisfied unless perpetrated against another man.

 

The mob rejects the offer:

 

“Get out of our way,’ they replied. This fellow (Lot) 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.”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 19:8-9) NIV

 

The men inside literally pulled Lot into the house and shut the door. The angels then struck the mob blind so they could not find the door. This, alone, averted disaster!

 

Now, the angels spoke to Lot:

 

“Do you have anyone else here – sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belong to you? Get them out of here 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.”

(emphasis added)

(Genesis 18:10-11) NIV

 

Can you imagine why the outcry to the LORD had been so horrific? The clear inference is that this outcry was from people whom themselves or whose loved ones had been sexually assaulted by such mob rule!

 

Michael points out that,

 

“The world of Sodom and Gomorrah had gotten out of the hand of God. As in the time of Noah, these cities was 100% violent. And God hates violence.”

 

Why did God destroy these cities? Was it because of a peaceful sexual preference? There is simply no evidence in these verses for this. The narrative is not an indictment of sexual preference; it is an anti-rape, anti-violence story, one of several in the Bible. Because of Sodom’s violent proclivities, Lot had warned the angels that it wasn’t safe to be on the streets at night. THIS WAS NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT. Sexual violence was a pattern of behavior in Sodom.

 

The people who cried out to God had apparently left the cities long ago. However, their outcry had found its audience with God, Himself.

 

In the end, amazingly, Lot actually had to be urged to leave this horrible place.

 

“When he HESITATED, 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…’Flee for your lives! DON’T LOOK BACK and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains…”

 

Notably, Lot argues with the angels about going to the mountains and a compromise is reached as they go to a town named Zoar.

 

Famously,

 

“Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”

 

As Michael says,

 

“She didn’t want to leave and salt is a cleanser of spirituality.”

 

The next morning, Abraham arose to see smoke rising from the destroyed cities. But he did not fear:

 

“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.”

(Genesis 19:20) NIV

 

And, thus, God’s tender heart toward Abraham and, in the same breath, His judgment on a culture of violence that was beyond redemption, are brought into sync. The complexity of God, as Michael reminds us, is harmonized. Revealed is a kind but just Heavenly Father, champion of goodness in all.

 

POSTSCRIPT:

Next week, Michael and. I will deliver on the promised theme of mankind continuing to be allowed by God to negotiate with Him. Is Lot out of the picture in this? He is not! In fact, he is front row and center in a dichotomous scene that both shocks and, ultimately, finds understanding with its telling.

May God bless us all mightily as we study His Word.