Perhaps Lot was a judge and had great influence. When the angels got to the gate they might have heard of the Honorable Judge Lot. It sounded pretty well. He might have owned many corner lots. He might have owned many buildings with “Lot” printed all over them, and on account of his property he might have been a very high man in Sodom. That is the way the world looks at it. No doubt the dispositions of those people were exactly as they are today. Human nature has been pretty much the same always.
But time rolls on, and Lot, while sitting at the gate one evening, saw two strangers upon the highway. They are coming toward Sodom. Likely these Sodomites did not know them, but twenty years before Lot had been in the company of Abraham, and he had seen these men at his uncle’s house--had seen them sitting at his uncle’s table. So he knew these angels when they approached, and he bowed down and worshiped them; he bowed down to the ground, and then invited them into his residence. But it was a sink of iniquity, and they would not enter in. Lot pressed his invitation upon them, and finally they accepted.
The news was soon noised around the streets that he had two strangers there, and it was not long before a crowd was around the door, and wanted to know whom he had inside.
Lot came out and endeavored to pacify them, but he was met with the derisive query: “Who made this fellow a judge over us?” He was dragged back into the house, and the door was shut against the mob. His influence was gone. He had been in the city twenty years and had not made a convert.
I suppose Lot lived in a marble front house there, and his heart was away from God. Then these men said to Lot: “Whom have you got here beside yourself? What is your family? Have you got any others beside yourself in this town?”
Well, the father and mother had to own up that they had married their children to some of the Sodomites. That was the result of his going into the city. You go into the world and live like the world, and see what the result will be. How many fathers and mothers are now mourning on account of marrying their sons and daughters to Sodomites! Marrying them to death and ruin!
These angels said to Lot: “If you have got any, get them out of this place, for God is determined to burn it up. Tell them this, and if they will not come, escape for your lives and leave them, for He will surely destroy the city.”
Now, all these twenty years we do not know that Lot ever had a family altar. He could not call his children around him and pray to his God. They had all become identified with Sodom and its people.
Look at that scene. There are the men at the outside of the door, groping about to find it, and the door opens and Lot starts out to tell his son-in-law of the coming destruction. I can see the old man, head bowed down, passing through the streets of Sodom at midnight.
He goes to a house and knocks. No sound; all are asleep. He knocks again, and likely shouts at the top of his voice; and the man gets up and opens the window. He puts his head out and asks:
“Who’s there?”
“Lot, your father-in-law.”
“What has brought you out of bed at this hour? What’s up?”
“Why, two angels are at my house, who say that God is going to destroy Sodom and every one who shall remain here.”
“You go home and get to bed.”
They mock Lot. He has lost his testimony. They all think he is deluded.
I can see him now, going off to another daughter’s house. I know not how many daughters Lot had. He might have had as many daughters as Job. He goes to them, and they mock him, too.
There is that old man, in that midnight hour, plodding along those streets of Sodom to urge them to flee from the city, and they mock him. He had been long enough with Abraham to know that every thing that came from God could be relied upon.
Now he starts back home. You can see him--his head bowed down, his long white hair flowing over his bosom and tears flowing from those aged eyes! The world calls him a successful man; but what a miserable end is his! Look at him tonight! He had achieved his ambition, and was wealthy. He obtained what he longed for, but with it came leanness of soul.
Next morning the angels take him by the hand. He and his wife and two daughters are led out of the city. And they lingered. How could they do otherwise than linger, when they had left their sons and daughters in the city and knew they would be destroyed?
Yes, they linger. I do not blame them. They had, probably, a faint hope that the threatened storm might be stayed, and they could get their children out. But the angels took them by the hand and hastened them out of the city.
Poor mother! Ah, how sad when God came in judgment! I can see that mother hesitating, but God orders her not to look back. “Flee for your life; escape or you will be destroyed.” “No man having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”