Genesis 19:15-26. 15As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16But 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 and set him outside the city. 17And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” 18And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. 19Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. 20Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” 21He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
23The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. 24Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. 25And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
I’ve read more than once in commentaries about this passage this idea: You can take Lot out of Sodom, but you can’t take the Sodom out of Lot. Or Lot’s wife.
“Love not the world,” the Apostle John warns us. If Sodom, the city life, represents the world in this section of scripture, as opposed to Abraham’s pilgrim life of tent living, then it is clear that for Lot and his wife their love of the world was in strong contention with the love of the Father. John continues, “for all that is in the world, the desires of the eyes, the desires of the flesh, and the pride of life, are not from the Father, but from the world.”
Of course, the world here is not the physical world, it is the worldly system of the cosmos. The system that Satan himself controls as the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31). Ever since Genesis 3 the world’s system stands in opposition to God and simple faith in him. When we chose the devil’s lie that we could run things ourselves through our own knowledge of good and evil, we chose what Paul calls the elemental (basic) system of cause and effect that offers us our security. I know what is best for me. I know what I need. I know I can change this place before it changes me. If I just do A I will get B and live happily ever after.
The text makes it clear that Lot is having a very hard time leaving Sodom, a city he should have never moved into in the first place. When told to flee, Lot lingered. He tried to bide his time. Just make it to daylight, he thought.
Where do you find yourself lingering in the world and its self-righteous system? Where are you struggling to admit you need God’s rescue? Where are you still holding on to your pride, your victimhood, your entitlement? What addiction is still your friend rather than your enemy? As St. Augustine prayed concerning his own sexual addiction, “Lord make me pure, but not yet.”
The world of Sodom is so deeply entrenched in Lot and his wife that they simply cannot let go. Lot himself (the anti-Abraham) bargains with God so that he can escape to a new city, Zoar, the little one. I can’t make it to the hills, he claims. And Zoar is such a small city, surely it can’t be as evil as Sodom, he reasons. Lot is counting on God’s kindness to allow him to continue in his sinful lifestyle. God in his mercy, will spare Zoar for the sake of righteous Lot.
Lot’s wife doesn’t just linger, and she doesn’t make it to Zoar. She turns back longingly toward Sodom and gets caught up in the hailstorm of God’s wrath, buried in the salt of divine judgment. Hers is a tragic reminder of what it means to have divided loyalty, to cling to the world’s treasures instead of the treasure of Christ. Jesus himself warned us, “Remember Lot’s wife.” You cannot serve two masters. You cannot love God and mammon. The love of the Father cannot dwell in the lover of the world.
But how did Lot and Mrs. Lot get here? What made it so difficult for them to flee? Why did they linger? Why did they look back? To answer this, we might want to think about why Lot moved to Sodom in the first place.
When Abraham and Lot left Egypt they each had considerable wealth. Abraham was content with his share, refusing even more from the King of Sodom. Lot however, saw that the valley of the five cities, including Sodom and Zoar, was like Egypt and Eden the text told us. The desires of the eyes, the desires of the flesh, the pride of life. Lot had tasted the wealth of Egypt and he wanted more.
What’s the sin beneath Lot’s sin? Well pride for sure. But was it not also greed? A lust for wealth, power, position, influence. To the point where he simply cannot imagine his life without these things.
We may never know the deep reasons why Lot was drawn to this greedy lifestyle. Was it purely insecurity? Was it fear of living in want? If Egypt protected him from famine once before and left him with great wealth in the process, can’t Sodom, the new Egypt, do the same? It’s not hard to see how from there the Lots go so caught up in the lifestyle of Sodom, the world’s system, that they could not find a way to fully let go. Isn’t this still the story of so many Christians today?
There is no doubt that the world and its system offers us security. Slavery always offers a twisted security. The slave knows where their next meal is coming from. They know how to get along in that system. They may even have a master that appears to be treating them well. But at the end of the day this is still slavery. Slavery to a master that doesn’t care about you at all. A master that would beat you, kill you, sell you. A master that steals your dignity and your soul. You love your idols, but they will never love you back.
Security is a powerful drug. Just think about all that you will do, how far you will go in order to feel more secure. How little you share because to share threatens your security. How little you risk for Christ because risk threatens your security. How much you try to control the people you love with unspoken expectations because if you get what you want from people you will never feel insecure. How worried you are about your finances, your retirement, your upward mobility, because you don’t know the future (nor should you).
I’m not saying there should be no financial planning, no saving, no risk aversion. I’m asking about your heart. Where does your heart dwell? In the city of Sodom, with it false security, where your fellow citizens will destroy you, or in a tent? Are you a pilgrim following Jesus, or are you a pillar of salt, frozen by your need to feel safe all the time? Is mammon your master, or is Christ? Is security your goal in life, or is sanctification? Is greed everybody else’s problem, or is it your problem too?
Why not flee your Sodom today? And not to a lesser version, a Zoar if you will. Some of us don’t need any more baby steps, we need to run. Full speed. We need to flee to the hills. Flee to the mountains of Christ Jesus and his true security. Everlasting life. Everlasting joy and peace. Everlasting inheritance. Everlasting love. Flee to Jesus today and experience a hope so real that everything this world offers just melts away.
To live is Christ frees us from a love of the world with its pride of life, and it brings us into the love of the Father. A love so powerful that nothing can compare. A freedom so true that no slave master can convince us to return to our former bondage of our many insecurities. A security so strong that no power of hell or scheme of man can ever make us look back.
You: In what ways has the world’s system gripped your heart?
You in Christ: How does union with Christ offer us everlasting security?
Christ in you: What Sodom or Zoar (little Sodom) do you need to flee from today with Christ’s help?
Prayer: Father, I don’t want to linger or look back. I choose to run to the hills of your love in Christ my mountain fortress of love. Amen.
To Live is Christ 