Journey Of The Seed - Catch The Bible's Big Picture In 60 DaysSample

GOOD GUYS AND BAD GUYS

[Scheduled Reading: Genesis 15-21]

The biblical story is like a western movie. There are good guys and bad guys. In the current scene, Abraham and Lot are good guys. And there are lots of bad-guy characters – like the men of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

In God’s eyes, they’re bad guys because they stand in direct opposition to God – and in opposition to advancing The Seed. 

God sends two angels to destroy the two cities. When the angels visit Lot to rescue him, every man of the city surrounds Lot’s house and threatens to break in and rape the angels. 

If this still feels like a violent movie, I agree. 

Then we come across one of the most unfathomable verses in the Bible.

Lot offers to give his virgin daughters to the bad guys as a compromise to leave the angels alone. 

Now there isn’t any explanation that can help me fully understand this sort of compromise. But here’s a partial explanation as to what Lot might have been thinking. 

Remember on Day 1 when we discussed the evil being carried out in the day of Noah? Sons of God were intermarrying daughters of men. 

Could it be that Lot was well aware of the stories from the flood and the reason why God’s wrath unleashed a flood of destruction? Perhaps Lot saw that an angry mob wanting to sexually violate his angel visitors was a recipe for disaster. 

The last time angels and humans interacted in such ways, God destroyed the earth with a flood. 

In this case, the sons of man wanted to rape the sons of God, the angels. This sexual violation against God’s angels was terrorizing to Lot. 

I still can’t understand how he would offer up his virgin daughters. (Couldn’t the angels take care of themselves anyway?)

But here’s the overall point for today. The account of Sodom and Gomorrah is the second act of mass destruction in Bible history (the first being Noah’s flood). 

In both instances, sexual immorality was the context. 

God was serious about protecting The Seed. And protecting The Seed meant protecting His design for sex and procreation. 

God was also strategic about geography. He relocated Abram’s family from Ur to inhabit the land of Canaan. Eventually Christ would be born and raised in Canaan. 

When God rained burning sulfur and fire from heaven to wipe out an entire community, He was cleaning out the land for the eventual arrival of the Israelites. 

Sodom and Gomorrah were located in the land of Canaan (The Promised Land, the future of Israel). Their evil and wickedness was a threat to the path and future survival of The Seed. 

As we read throughout the Old Testament and encounter more of God’s destruction, keep this in mind – the role of God’s wrath was not only to inflict punishment, but to clean out the land and make way for The Seed.