We have here the wretched picture, not only of the grossest wickedness, but of the moral consequence to the saint of getting into such a place; think of Lot saying " my brethren," and offering his daughters. Where sin is not a horror, there is companionship and friendliness.
There is nothing here at all of the ease and familiarity of Jehovah's intercourse with Abraham; this is all the ways of Jehovah.
On the whole this is a sad scene. The believer, if in the world, would have importance in it—do good; he sits in the gate—the gate of Sodom! But Lot is not easy at being found there, he acts as at ease, but he would hinder the strangers from knowing what a place they had found him in; it is no use, he takes it on himself, uses atrocious means, for what could he do against them? Power delivers him, that is all. These are Jehovah's ways in relationship with men; it is not Elohim here; note from verse 17, it is practically referred directly to the Lord, " He said," so verse 21—and verse 29, we find Elohim; they are God's ways, and judgment. We have noticed the general case elsewhere.
See the place Lot found himself in—the place of society and the worldly place, but it was not Jehovah he met. I suppose there was right feeling, and discernment however; his soul was righteous, but fleshly interest had brought him where he heard it (2 Peter 2:7), and to no purpose.
6, 7. What a picture of the falseness of his place. How strange he could have rested there; and akhay (my brethren)!
8. I think there was the desire to avoid, with respectable strangers, the perception of the company he was in. It is dreadful, and such an offer.
11. I suppose this shows very persevering wickedness; no sense of God's hand upon them.
14. Content—every point must be dwelt upon in this chapter—sorrowful, yet merciful (verse 19), so most instructive.
20. Lot's seeking to save Zoar seems a terrible proof of moral low estate. Grace indeed is wonderfully shown, but that this wonderful intervention of grace should not have led him to joyful obedience to the Angel's word!
21. Though accepted and borne with, how he clings to the city, and the plain. He believed the testimony as a fact, but in no way enters into the spirit of it, or he would not have sought one of the cities; he escapes, that is all. The true place of Abraham—faith—he is afraid of.
27. Note; one sees the judgment in the place where one has been in communion—for us heaven.
29. Note that it is Elohim here; the historical fact as to God's dealings; otherwise intercourse and dealings with Jehovah.
30. Judgment is so near what mercy has spared that Lot flees from it. The judgment of the world he recognizes, but he never himself judges the spirit of it.
31. There were plenty of men in the earth, but so unbelief calculates.
What lessons his daughters had learned in Sodom!
Even before this, it was for Abraham's sake Lot was delivered.
God in judgment and government could not think of Lot with satisfaction; he was righteous, He did deliver him, He knows how—yea, the evil enhances His grace in doing it, but " God remembered Abraham " (v. 29).
It is a sad and terrible picture; his pleading for Zoar is an expression of utter prostration as to faith.
There cannot be a more terrible picture of the fruit of connection with a godless world than this history, and see how the world is infected by it—a stain upon the moral feeling. What details of the case there are!
37, 38. "Unto this day"—this gives a dismal sense of what the world is. Sin perpetuates itself till judgment comes in, and gives the sense of a world infected by it, and which has its history from it; and we know this—not that the mind dwells on it as occupying it, for our own place is with Abraham on the mountain—with our Father in heaven.
But if I think of this world, I must in truth know it thus. And note, this was after deliverance; faith and confidence in God had been destroyed—sunk in dissoluteness of moral feeling.