Hagar: Part IV (I looked ahead, she really does return to the story, but not until Part VI)
Sodom & Gomorrah/Lot & his daughters
Remember in chapter 18 Abraham bargained for the lives of 10 righteous men? Well, here we see the depravity of Sodom & Gomorrah. In verses 4-7 the men in the town came to Lot's home and demanded the strangers be turned over as sexual objects... the mentality of "let's rape the new guy" is repulsive in itself, then you add the homosexuality to it and, well, it is a repulsive thought! In verse 8, Lot shows us his best and his worst all wrapped into one act... he offered his daughters in place of the strangers to this mob of perverted men. The good side is that he attempted to protect his guests, the worst is obviously his willingness to give his daughters to be raped instead! While I do understand the importance of keeping house guests safe, I would never consider handing my children over in their place! My thought is that Lot had been living among the evil in that town for so long that although his intentions were good (protect the visitors), he was calloused towards his own negative thought on how to protect these men (offering his daughters). He probably wasn't aware of how the perversion around him had impacted his own life and faith. Because of Abraham's plea to protect the righteous, the angels offer Lot, his wife, his daughters, and their fiance's a means of escape from the destruction to follow. Lot's wife turned back longingly and turned to a pillar of salt, the gentlemen laughed at Lot and remained in the town, and Lot found himself with his two daughters.
Now on to more cheerfulness, Lot didn't find the girls new husbands after the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, he then left the town of Zoar and lived with his daughters in isolation in a cave. The girls feeling responsible for maintaining the family line (there were no brothers) got their father drunk, and bore him sons. Skipping over all the obvious incest issues involved here, these two parts of Lot's life showed me just how important everyday decisions are. If we live in Sodom and adopt that mentality, will we realize we are doing wrong? When we flee from that life, will we take elements of our past with us to pass on to our children? What will those around us learn from us? Will they see someone who lives for God no matter what those around them do or will they see us as one of the crowd who just happens to be a child of God? We're supposed to stand apart from the crowd, to be different, to be a light to a dark world. How can we do that if we indulge in activities that are blatantly sinful? We are to be above reproach, avoid the appearance of wrongdoing... not just avoid doing wrong, but the appearance of it! How I live, no matter what is around me, will have more impact on others (especially my children) than the words I speak of Christ, His love, and salvation... if I don't live it, it means nothing. Take a look at Lot, he tried, but when push came to shove, the lesson his life and actions taught his daughters was to take matters into their own hands and do whatever was "necessary" to get the job done... I don't want my children to learn that lesson, I want them to walk with Christ.
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6 comments:
The daughter's husbands were in Sodom, they refused to leave it.
The men were destroyed with Sodom, before the wedding, the girls were still virgins... back then, they considered an engagement promise as serious as the wedding, which is why they were "husbands" but the marriages had not been consummated. He never found them suitable husbands after leaving.
Yeah. Just wanted to make sure you had it clear that the husbands screwed up, too.
What those women did was pretty gross...I am not sure that it was something their father taught or inspired them to do. But maybe it's just easy to blame it on them.
I wonder what he thought when they were pregnant and gave birth? As in, did he know the children were his? I would have been absolutely horrified...the temptation to commit infanticide would have been strong. I am glad that it wasn't me.
Furthermore, I think I would have to be blackout drunk, tripping on acid and high on PCP (all at once) before I had sex with my daughters. But then again, I don't know what it's like to be drunk and have to make a judgement call like "Have sex/not have sex with my daughters".
Evil isn't as far away as we would like to think...
I don't think Lot flat out said, get me drunk and have sex with me if you aren't married by age 30, but at the same time, the societal pressure to have children, to carry on the family line, etc... was real, and there were no men around because Lot took them into isolation.
Think of it this way, you have a mom that smokes, you have a dad that smokes, although they don't encourage the behavior, you pick up the habit. That's what I'm saying Lot's part in this was, he never went out of his way to teach his girls to do evil, but by living among evil and not being the beacon of holiness that he should have been he set the example that to live as the world did was okay... the girls were of marrying age before leaving Sodom, they already saw the perversion from living there.
As for being stonefaced drunk... yeah, I think so too, I have (unfortunately) been that bad and didn't know what had happened until the next day... doesn't make it right, but it is possible.
For some reason, the image of a *&^%faced semite makes me laugh. I imagine Osama Bin Laden staggering around, drunk as a lord. What happened while he was drunk was not funny, but the image was...
I think Lot could have said "I think that's enough drink for one day" and not gotten so intoxicated. He let himself get trashed, so the consequences are there.
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