MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 19:18-22
THE INFIRMITIES OF THE HEIRS OF SALVATION
Lot was a representative of the heirs of salvation, inasmuch as it was God’s gracious purpose to save him from the judgments coming upon the ungodly; and he worked with that purpose—was obedient to the voice which called him to flee from destruction and make for safe shelter. His efforts betrayed human weakness.
I. These infirmities are seen during the progress of their deliverance. Lot did not obey the command to escape at once to the mountain, but craved the indulgence of resting by the way in a place of his own choice. It was while he was being saved that he showed this weakness. And seekers after salvation are marked more or less by the like infirmities. In the case of Lot, these were—
1. The infirmity of fear. “I cannot escape to the mountain lest some evil take me, and I die” (Genesis 19:19). He was afraid lest the fiery stream should overtake him before he reached the mountain. Had his faith been strong, he would have had courage to obey in the face of all the suggestions of sense.
2. Wilfulness. He sets his desire upon a city lying in the course of his flight, where he imagines he shall be safe (Genesis 19:20). His request appeared most reasonable to himself, for this city was quite unimportant, and surely it might be spared. “Is it not a little one?” he said (Genesis 19:20). He committed the folly of attempting to improve upon God’s appointed way of deliverance. He sought to interfere with God’s plan by some expedients of his own. Such is the wilfulness of many who are seeking the salvation of their souls. They stop short of the end to which they should attain without delay, and adopt some shelter of their own choosing. The subjugation of our will entirely to the will of God is the result of long training.
3. Forgetfulness of past mercies. God had shown great and marvellous mercy to Lot. We should expect that his sense of those marked favours would have been so fresh and strong that he would have been ready to go wherever God commanded him. But his character was too weak to realise properly both past and present blessings. It takes some time to rise to a sense of what God is doing for us.
4. A lingering selfishness. This characteristic clave to Lot to the last. He was selfish when he chose Sodom for a dwelling-place, and he is selfish now when he asks that this city may be spared merely for his own convenience. He lacked that largeness of soul which inspired Abraham when he prayed for Sodom and Gomorrah. So, many who have taken steps to obey the call of God yet allow their selfishness to stand in their way.
II. God is gracious towards such infirmities. God accepted Zoar as the temporary place of retreat for His servant (Genesis 19:21). He bears with the infirmity of His people. Where they have a desire and a firm purpose to flee to the refuge of His salvation, He pardons their many shortcomings in the effort. His charity covers the multitude of their sins. Such are the concessions of the Divine goodness towards human weakness. God “knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust” (Psalms 103:14). In the worst desolation there is some bright spot where we may rest and be refreshed, lest the strength of our souls should be tried above measure. But such an indulgence can be only temporary. Lot soon found that Zoar was not safe, and he was glad at last to escape to the mountain (Genesis 19:30). We must not rest in what is intended to be merely a provisional shelter, but be ready to quit it soon. God indulges our weakness that He might lead us to higher things.
III. There are certain conditions which fit them for such merciful indulgence.
1. When they have already commenced the flight from danger. Lot believed that destruction was coming upon Sodom, and was now in the act of fleeing from the threatened danger. He had taken steps to secure his salvation, otherwise this favour would have been denied. God must see some desires towards Himself, some acceptance of His message, or He will not grant His great favours. We must break off with our sins, and fly from the danger to which they expose us, or else we cannot expect salvation. Those who remain in Sodom can only look for Sodom’s doom.
2. When, though they have not reached it, they are still seeking a sure refuge. Lot had not yet reached the mountain, but his purpose was still set towards it He desired to obey the command of God. His will was accepted for the deed. If we are still seeking salvation, though we may not have attained to all that Christ has purchased for us, He will pity our weakness. He graciously encourages the first beginnings of a new life. Though there be much smoke and ashes, yet if He discovers a single spark of a better desire and hope in us, He will fan it to a flame. Mercy begins the distribution of her gifts as soon as we set out for Christ.
3. When they are satisfied not to rest in anything short of God’s command. Lot’s better desire was to obey God to the end, by escaping to the mountain. He was soon convinced that the place he had chosen was not intended to be his permanent refuge. Nothing short of Christ, whether it be the Church, the sacraments, or the ministry, can be our permanent resting-place. We are not safe until we have come to the Mountain, and laid hold upon the strength of our salvation. There is no other sure refuge for our souls but Christ.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 19:18-19. But who shall prescribe to the Almighty? or limit the Holy One of Israel? Are we wiser than He? Have we any contrivance by which we can surpass Him? He lets us sometimes have our way, but to our woe at last.—(Trapp).
It must certainly be set down to a weak and wavering faith in Lot that he now made this request. His duty was to have yielded simple obedience to the declared will of Heaven. He should have known that what God dictated was best; that if He had commanded him to go to the mountains, He would certainly enable him to get there, and that He could protect him there as anywhere else. But he pleads hard for permission to flee to the neighbouring city of Zoar, and hopes that he may be excused in this desire, seeing it was but a “little one.” The preferring of such a request in such circumstances we should suppose would have drawn forth some marked expression of the Divine displeasure. But God lends a gracious ear to his petition. His infimity is not rebuked; his request was granted; the city was spared for his sake. In this God designed at once to show how much the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails; and at the same time, by the result to teach his shortsighted servant how much wiser a part he would have acted had he confided in a childlike manner in God, and fled to the mountain in the first instance. (Genesis 19:30.) This instance should fix firmly in our minds the conviction that we can never gain anything by attempting to improve upon God’s appointments. He will choose infinitely better than we can for ourselves. Let us learn, moreover, another lesson from this incident. If a petition marked and marred with such faultiness as that of Lot on this occasion still met with a favourable hearing, what efficacy may we conceive to pertain to those prayers which are prompted by a yet more believing spirit, and framed more distinctly in accordance with the revealed will of Heaven?—(Bush.)
It is allowed to us to plead the privileges of our justification.
1. To ground our petition for mercies on what God has done for us already. His grace has saved us, and His mercy has been magnified towards us in many gifts of His love. We may use our experience of the past to encourage our hope for the future. “Because Thou has been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice.” (Psalms 63:7.)
2. To crave pardon for human infirmity in our prayers. Lot knew that it was human weakness which led him to make this request. He was quite overcome by his fears; yet he thought that he could rely upon a mercy which was so plentiful, and which was shown to him in so signal a manner. The mercy of God manifested towards us in our salvation is so great that we may venture to trust it to pardon the lapses of our infirmity. Infinite love will make it all right at last if our hearts are only true and faithful.
Genesis 19:20. The faith of Lot, simple and sincere as it was, could not be considered perfect. He had his misgivings and doubts. The distant mountain whither he had to flee filled him with anxiety and alarm. “I cannot escape to the mountain lest some evil take me and I die.” Might no nearer, no safer, no less dreary refuge be found? It is hard to be all at once cast out upon the solitary wild. Such thoughts vexed the rescued soul of Lot. But in the Lord he found relief. He did not nurse these melancholy musings sullenly and suspiciously in his own bosom. He poured them forth into the ears of the Lord. With humble and holy boldness he ventured to represent his case to a present God—to plead, to reason, to expostulate, with a touching and pathetic, a childlike earnestness, such as only the spirit of adoption, the spirit that cries Abba, Father, could inspire.—(Candlish.)
God is honoured by our using the liberty of taking all our doubts and fears to Him. He can detect what is true and real in us in the midst of all our infirmity.
“Is it not a little one?” Thus men use their reason to sustain requests which have but imperfect conformity to the will of God.
Here we perceive Lot’s constant appeal to self-interest; selfishness clung to that man’s very soul. We should expect that after all the marvellous mercy shown by God to Lot, that he would have been ready to go wherever He commanded. But no; Lot asks that Zoar may be saved. And God marvellously accepts this demand. Now this shows how God deals with the soul. We use large language; we talk of self-sacrifice, self-devotion, and yet there has always been a secret reservation of some small Zoar; still God accepts. He leaves us some human affection, something to remind us of our earthly home. He weans us by degrees, that so, step by step, leaving earth behind, we may ascend the mountain top, and want nothing but the lovely love of God.—(Robertson.)
Genesis 19:21. I have accepted thee. Heb. “I have lifted up thy face,” i.e., I have a compassionate respect to thee, and will gratify thee by granting this request. The expression probably arose from an Eastern custom. Persons there, in preferring a petition, instead of falling upon their knees, often prostrate themselves with their face to the ground. When the petition is accepted, the prince or potentate commands them to be raised from their lowly posture, which is expressed by “lifting up the face.” In common usage, therefore, the phrase is clearly synonymous with “showing favour.” Thus doth a gracious God, according to the words of the Psalmist (Psalms 145:19), “fulfil the desire of them that fear Him; He also will hear their cry and will save them.”—(Bush.)
Before we reach our final salvation we shall need many an indulgence by the way. The great mercy of God allows for the dangers and temptations of our pilgrimage.
You may see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living. In the most sweeping desolation, levelling the houses and cities of your habitation to the ground—in the wide waste beneath which all things bright and fair seem buried—some little Zoar is left, some haven of rest in which the weary spirit may recruit its strength. Such earthly refreshment may the redeemed child of God, who has turned his back on Sodom, lawfully ask—such green spot in the desert—such little city of refuge amid the storm—in the bosom of domestic peace, and the endearments of a quiet home—that he may not be tried above measure. Only let his request be moderate. “See, now, it is a little one.” So Lot pleads for this earthly boon. Let it also be a request preferred in faith as to a friend and father, with submission to His wisdom, and trust in His love. And if the request be granted—if the object of his fond regard, for which he speaks, be spared to him—if he get a little Zoar to flee to—let him not set his heart on it too much. For a brief space he may rejoice in it. But let him be ready to quit it soon, as Lot did, and, if need be, to dwell in the mountain and in the cave; for that in the end may be the Lord’s way of thoroughly humbling and proving him, to the saving of his soul.—(Candlish.)
Zoar, of all the five cities, was spared by Lot’s prayer. God suffers even His great judgments upon sinners to be modified in the range of their effect by the prayers of the righteous.
Genesis 19:22. God is pleased to bind Himself by what is necessary for the salvation of His people. Lot must be made safe before the fiery judgment comes down upon the cities of the plain. Hence learn:
1. God’s great favour towards the righteous.
2. The efficacy of their prayers and intercessions.
Even after the first step towards salvation has been taken, it is necessary that Divine warnings should be repeated that we might escape the snares coming upon the ungodly.
The inability here mentioned is, of course, wholly of the moral and not of the physical kind, similar in its nature, though arising from an opposite cause, to that affirmed of our Saviour (Mark 6:5): “He could there do no mighty work,” by reason of the unbelief of the people. He could not because he would not. There was a moral unfitness between such a state of mind and such a display of power, so that He determined not to put it forth. The Most High is pleased to represent His hands as bound by His paramount regard to the welfare of His people. He can do nothing towards the punishment of the wicked till their safety is secured. Had we not a Divine warrant for the use of such language it would doubtless be a high presumption in us to employ it; and when we find the Holy Spirit adopting it we still pause in devout admiration, mingled with a latent misgiving whether we are indeed to understand the words in their most obvious sense. But our doubts are precluded by adverting to numerous parallel instances of God’s dealings with His people. On more than one occasion, when He had determined to execute vengeance on Israel for their perverseness, the intercessions of Moses are represented as having been in effect irresistible, so that the threatened judgment was averted. What an argument is this for our pressing earnestly forward to the acquisition of the same character. If we are prompted at all by the noble ambition of becoming benefactors of our race, let us seek to form ourselves on the models proposed in the Scriptures, and thus by being made eminently acceptable to God, become in the highest degree useful to the communities in which we live.—(Bush.)
Judgment is well represented in the Scripture as God’s “strange work.” He takes greater pleasure in the salvation of men, to secure which He will even consent to delay His judgments.