This lesson is compatible with the "Abraham & Isaac" Flash-A-Cards from Abeka Books.  

Scripture References: Genesis 19:1-29; Ezekiel 16: 48-50

The angels had left Abraham and God, who were talking about the city where they were going.  That city was Sodom.  The cries of all of the people who had been hurt by the people of Sodom had gone up to God, and God had come to judge Sodom for it’s sins.  Remember the sins of Sodom?  (Men marrying men, women marrying women, pride, forgetting the poor, rejecting God, etc.)  The angels arrived at the city gate, and found many men sitting at the city entrance.  This was very common in all the cities of that place and time.  The city gate was the most important place of the whole city.  There, the important men of the city would conduct their business.  Some of them would be judges in the complaints or fights of the citizens of the city.  We have courts for this, but the cities of that time would do this kind of thing at the city gate.  If you were an important man, you would surely be found at the city gate!  Visitors to a city often had to register at the city gate, especially if there was threat of attack!  I’m sure after King Chedorlaomer attacked Sodom and the other cities the visitors had to say exactly what they were doing there, and where they would be staying!  No one wanted spies from the enemy king to enter the city!  So the angels were at the city gate, and no one from Sodom had ever seen them.  I imagine the men began to whisper among themselves “Who are they?  Have you ever seen them before?”  “No!  They certainly don’t look like they come from around here! I wonder who they are, and what they want.”

Lot must have heard the whispering.  He looked up and saw the two angels, who looked like men.  Maybe he could sense they were special, because he stood up and walked over to them.  When he was in front of them, he bowed down and said “Important sirs, please come to my home where you will be my guest.  You can refresh yourself from your journey and wash your feet.  You can spend the night, and then tomorrow you can continue your journey.”

The two men replies “No, we will just stay the night in the city street.”

I think Lot must have been troubled when he heard this.  Lot knew that very bad things happened in the streets of Sodom, especially after dark.  He said something like “I insist!  You must stay with me in my house!  I can’t let you stay in the streets.  You must come with me!  I won’t be able to rest until you come home with me.”

So the two men, who were really angels, agreed to be Lot’s guests.  They arrived at Lot’s house and Lot made them dinner.  The men ate and were getting ready for bed when suddenly there was a loud pounding at the door. 

“Open up, Lot!  Where are the two men from the gate?  We know they came home with you!  We know they are in there!  Bring them out!  We want to know them!”

I think Lot and his family must have felt dread when they heard the pounding on the door, and the shouting outside.  They could hear that it wasn’t just one or two people at the door.  They were surrounded by the city men!  Young men, old men, and men in between!  There was a huge crowd outside!  All of them men from all over the city!  Lot’s heart sank.  He knew the men didn’t want to just meet the strangers to talk to them.  They wanted to hurt his guests.  And since they were guests in Lot’s house, he had to protect them, no matter what!  If you remember, it was a custom of that time and place that your guests were so very important.  You had to offer food even if you went without eating, a bed even if you had to sleep on the floor, and protection at the expense of your own safety.  Lot knew he had to do something before things got out of hand.

Lot opened the door and slipped out, closing the door behind him.  He must have been amazed at the number of men he saw.  He could from inside that it was a large crown, but when he saw how many men there were, he was amazed!  He knew these men.  They were no strangers.  They were neighbors and men he had done business with.  He had perhaps even eaten dinner or gone to special events with some of them.  He sat at the gate with some of them.  There were even judges and very important men there.  Lot looked them in the eyes and pleaded with them.  “Please don’t behave so wickedly!  You can’t hurt these men!”

I imagine the men just angrily stared back at Lot.  He could see the evil intentions they had.

“Look, I have two unmarried daughters.  I will bring them out here, and you can have them.  You can do whatever you want with them, but don’t hurt my guests.  They are under my protection, and I must protect them.”

WHAT???

Lot was offering his two daughters to a crowd of wicked, evil men!  Do you think this was right?

No!  Lot had spent so much time in Sodom, seeing such wicked things every day, that he couldn’t even think right anymore.  We can’t think that we can be around sin, but not be affected by it.  Lot was surely affected by all the sin he was around every day, and now he was offering a terrible thing to the men of the city. 

The men weren’t satisfied with this.  “STAND BACK!  LET US BY!” they shouted. 

Someone cried out “Who does this man think he is?  This stranger came to live in our city, and now he thinks he can be our judge by saying we are behaving wickedly!  Now we are going to do worse things to you than we will do to the two other men!”

The crowd of men rushed towards Lot and pressed him against his front door.  The door almost broke with the pressure of the men pressing against it.  I’m sure they were trying to break it down to get at the strangers and Lot. 

All of a sudden, the door opened, and the angels reached out to grab Lot and pull him inside.  They shut the door, and then the angels made all the men at the door blind. 

I wish I could say that the men became scared, went home, and prayed to God for forgiveness.

This is not what happened.  They were so full of wickedness that they STILL tried to find the door to break it down and hurt the men inside.  All they could think about was how much fun they could have hurting the men.  They only thought about themselves, and what they wanted.

And they wanted it so badly that not even angels making them ALL blind was going to stop them.  Thankfully, God was protecting Lot and his family, and none of the men could find the door.

All of this terribly, terrible sin was not uncommon in Sodom.  The people did things like this ALL the time.  They only thought about their own pleasure, no matter what kind of sin they had to commit to get it.  That is why God was going to destroy it. 

I am so thankful that God is a good judge of sin.  He loves us too much to let sin go without being punished.  Many innocent people are hurt by many different sins.  We all sin, and we all must be judged.  It is what is right.

I’m also SO THANFUL that one day, Jesus took all the sins of the world and paid the price for them.  God judged sin that day, when Jesus was on the cross.   Jesus gave himself to God, the Judge, and took the punishment for those sins, so that we don’t have to take the punishment for sin.  Our punishment is separation from God forever.  But Jesus died for us, so we don’t have to suffer separation from God in hell.  If we accept Jesus as God’s Son who died for us, we are forgiven! 

Does that mean we never have consequences for sin?  No!  Just like Lot had many problems in his life because of his sins, and even Abraham had consequences in his life from sin, we have consequences.  But we are forgiven of the punishment of separation from God in hell.

God is good to judge!

For sure, God judged Sodom and the sins they committed.  We will see what happens to Lot and his family next week.