25th January 2026

25/01/26 – Abraham 10– Martin Mowat

Readings: Genesis 19:1-3,15-17 & 23-26 and Luke 17:20-33

Sodom & Gomorrah, Lot’s escape, 

Last week we heard God telling Abraham and Sarah that their long-promised son would be born within the year, and he even told them that his name was to be Isaac. 

But then the Bible narrative seems to leave us in suspense and go off on a complete tangent, to tell us this strange and seemingly irrelevant and unnecessary story of Sodom and Gamorrah.  

While the story might seem that way, Jesus, as we just heard in Tess’s reading, didn’t find it either of those things.

Interestingly he compares it, even links it, with the story of Noah. 

-       Both contrast wicked populations with righteous individuals. 

-       On both occasions God said, ahead of time, what he was going to do, but he didn’t discuss the morality of it. Also, the mere fact that God did tell Abraham, and allowed him to bargain tells us a huge amount about their relationship. No wonder James called him the “friend of God”. 

-       In both cases God was teaching key people the importance of righteous living.

So, depressing though it might seem at first glance, let’s have a look at the story.  There are lessons here that we need to learn from God.

Abraham has three visitors, one of whom is the Lord himself.  They’ve come with a double mission.  The first was to establish the “covenant” that we discussed last week, and the second was to deal with these two sinful towns. 

We don’t know exactly where Sodom was.  It was either at at the northern end of the Dead Sea, or more likely at it was at the southern end.  Either way, from where Abraham was camped, it was a journey of either eighteen or forty miles on foot, which the two angels seem to have achieved between “late afternoon” and “early evening” on the same day, an hour or two at most, a miracle in itself.  

They find Lot ‘sitting in the city gate’, a common meeting place for conversation, for business, and for the administration of justice. Lot bows low before them as a sign of respect, recognizing them as important people, though not yet as divine messengers.

He prevails upon them to come to his house for the night, and gives them a modest meal of flatbread.  Genuine hospitality, but nothing as grandiose as the meal that Abraham had given them. But sadly the enjoyment of the evening meal was interupted by a crowd of men at the door, men of all ages, wanting to have sex with the visitiors. Proof to the angels that the town really was as corrupt as its reputation gave them to believe.

Although it seems clear that unrestrained homosexuality was common, legal, and socially acceptable in Sodom, we find elsewhere in the Bible that their portfolio of sins didn’t end there, but included ‘injustice’, ‘adultery’, ‘pride’, ‘indifference to the poor’, and ‘general wickedness’.

But I can’t go any further without pausing to underline what this chapter is in the Bible to teach us. There’s no way of getting round it. In God’s eyes, sexual deviation is a deviation from his created order, and sexual misconduct, of any kind, is a three letter word beginning with S.  

I’m not talking about physical attraction, I’m not talking about temptation, I’m not talking about inclinations, I’m talking about misconduct.  You know very well what I mean. 

But let me say this because it’s hugely important, we must NEVER confuse the sin and the sinner.  Jesus loves sinners, he came into the world for sinners, he died for sinners, he established his church for sinners, he just can’t hack the sin. 

Sexuality is a hugely complicated and contenscious subject today. Modern society tells it’s all OK. It says that you can chose what sex you are, you can choose what sex you can have intercourse with, even what sex you can marry. But that’s exactly, exactly, what the modern society of Genesis 19 said too, and look where it got them. 

Just try to imagine the scene! Verses 24 and 25 tell us “Then the Lord rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah, from … out of the heavens.  Thus, he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities – and also the vegetation in the land.”

Did it really happen? Or is it just another fanciful Bible story? And if so, what exactly did happen? There are different theories about earthquakes and volcanoes because of the geology of the Dead Sea, but whatever it was, I read that an Old Testament scholar called R. K. Harrison says, "Archaeological investigation has shown that in about 2000 BC, a devastating natural catastrophe occurred there, which denuded the area of sedentary occupation for over a half a millennium." 

So yes, it really did happen, exactly as the Bible described it. 

All I can say is that if you think sexual deviation is OK, think again my friend. I’ll say no more. Let’s move on.

With the help of the two angels, Lot, his wife and his two daughters managed to escape the inferno, but Lot’s wife “looked back”. She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. 

I don’t think it means that she took a quick glance over her shoulder as she was running away.  You can read the story for yourselves.  You should. You should read the whole of Genesis 19.

Perhaps they hadn’t really believed what the angels were trying to tell them. As a result, they had been so slow making their preparations during the night, that the angels had had to literally drag them out of the house. I think that as Lot’s wife – whose name the Bible doesn’t mention, but according to Jewish tradition, was Idit – as she was following her husband across the plain, she suddenly realised that she had lost everything and so she stopped, she stopped and turned round to see if things were really as bad as the angels had said they would be, and seriously considered going back to see what she could salvage, or even perhaps to see whether she could continue to live there. 

But “Flee for your lives!” the angels had said, “Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”

Certainly, there’s another lesson for us here, though it’s not so easy to see. 

Jesus referred to the incident when he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come in Luke 17 "On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot's wife! Jesus said, whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." (Luke 17:31-33)

Speaking more positively, the writer of Hebrews was also probably referring to Lot's wife when he said "We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved." (Hebrews 10:39)

Then, after listing the heroes of faith in chapter 11, in chapter 12 he said this Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In other words, so that you will not turn back.

Once we decide to walk forward with Jesus, there is no turning back. 

Well, that’s all we’ve got time for. I had hoped to get much further, at least as far as Isaac’s birth, but it wasn’t to be.