We use the phrase "frog in the kettle" to describe when someone is slowly and unknowingly compromised. This was the case for Lot, Abraham's nephew, when he took up residence in Sodom, an exceedingly wicked city (Gen. 13:13). We cannot live in a sewer without being tainted by its stain. Lot may have thought he could resist the influences of the world, but he was compromised. Lot was a believer, a righteous man who was tormented by what he saw and heard (2 Peter 2:7-8). He was weak, however, and saved as though through fire (1Cor. 3:10-13), whose works had been burned up. Though he was saved, he is not an example we should want to emulate. In Genesis 13:10, we get an idea of where he starts to go wrong when he selfishly chooses the best-looking land for himself instead of giving deference to Abraham. We don't know for sure, but it doesn't sound as if he had a wife when he left Ur with Abraham, so he may well have married a Canaanite woman or even a woman of Sodom. He shows several marks of righteousness in his hospitality and concern for the two strangers, who he did not know were angels, and then when he warns his sons-in-law. However, he offers his daughters to the perverted sodomites, and is also unwilling to leave the city ("But he hesitated...", Genesis 19:16). He also seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting - not that they thought he was serious and it just didn't apply to them, but that he was joking. This is because his life had not been at war with Sodom and its ways, so his warning had no weight. In Genesis 19:33-36, we see the sad ending of Lot's story. In going along with evildoers, there are consequences. May we not be like Lot. |
