Back in the Old Testament days Lot chose to live in Sodom, it was his free will choice and he could also have left there any time. The rest of the world was still available to him, and as time went on and his society degraded he was still aware that there were better places beyond the horizon (other options) to go live and raise his family.
Was it Mammon that held him there, and whatever worldly power and authority he had gained during that time?
I recently read something where an author blamed Lot’s wife, that her love of the material things kept them bound to that city and that was what made her turn (against God’s orders) and look back, only to be turned to a pillar of salt when the cities were destroyed. The author speculated she could not bear to leave her old life behind. I personally think it is more likely that she was just another one of those nosy woman who just had to know what was going on and her meddlesome desires were what destroyed her in the end.
Was Lot a righteous man or was he a wimp? If the author was correct about Lot’s wife, then the latter would be true about Lot. If that was really the case, Lot didn’t have to be led by his wife and continue living in sin city, after all, he was the head of the household. So that argument doesn’t hold much water with me.
What happened after he escaped out of the city with his daughters, their sexual deception of their own father is a clear sign of the impact of having grown up in that kind of environment on their own consciences and sense of moral wrong and right. Even though Lot is called righteous he tried to offer up his own virgin daughters as sexual sacrifice to the men of the town ,in lieu of his angelic guests whom he considered dignitaries. So even Lot, a righteous man, had been warped to a certain degree by his environment and driven in his choices (perhaps) by politics.
Why do I bring up the story of Lot?
In the days of Noah the whole world (not just “parts” as in Lot’s time) was corrupted except for Noah and his family. We are living in such times again (as Noah) but the scope of evil is of a much greater magnitude (due to many more people) and this world seems to look a whole lot to us like Lot’s, turning into one great big Sodom and Gomorrah. There “appear” to quite a few people who would love to have it so, and enough others willing to sit back and enable (them), allowing it to be so.
Where is the understanding, that innate knowledge built into every human being, the ability to discern the wrong from the right? Modern society with it’s teachings and it’s technologies have short circuited this in so many people, what other explanation can there be? One is not born with a seared conscience and yet so many seem to be completely given over to reprobate thinking. Some people temporarily lease their souls to Satan, others sell them lock stock and barrel.
The fact is that there is no place to physically hide now, no Utopia to escape to.
We have God and God alone as our hiding place, our rock and our fortress to protect us. We need to be hidden in Christ. And our one true hope is that by continuing to speak truth, the truths of God’s Word, that some of those still embracing darkness will soon long for and be led into the light… before the whole world feels the same kind of judgment and wrath that Sodom and Gomorrah did many years ago.
The big question is…
Will the righteous men and women in today’s world (who have some degree of power to change the society they are living in with God‘s help) have the guts and determination to do so? Or do they merely hope to just flee at the very end, having angels rescue them, to walk away and not look back, having no remorse while the cities of the world and all the rest of it’s inhabitants burn?