Lesson 8
Read: Genesis 19:1-29 - www.bible.com/bible/59/gen.19
Lot:
- Hospitality
- Generosity
- Deference

Again, in this lesson, we’ll see good character traits put to bad use because they’re carried to the extreme, without regard for God and His will and direction.

Lot was sitting at the city gate when the two angels arrived in Sodom that evening. He got up, bowed before them and welcomed them. He called them his friends and invited them to his house to stay overnight. He said they could wash up in his home, sleep, then rise early and be on their way refreshed.

The men refused, saying they’d sleep in the street. Lot insisted, not taking no for an answer. So they followed him home. Lot fixed a hot meal for them.

Before the two men went to bed, men from all over Sodom, both young and old, surrounded Lot’s house so they couldn’t get out. They yelled to Lot, “Bring the men who are staying with you tonight out to us so we can be intimate with them.”

Lot squeezed out of his door, protecting the door behind him, begging the men not to be so wicked. He even offered his two virgin daughters to them for their pleasure! He went that far to try to keep the men from dishonoring his two guests.

The men from Sodom were angry and refused to be told how to run their lives by Lot, a foreigner. They threatened to treat Lot worse than they’d treat his two guests, and pushed past Lot to break down his door. But the two angels reached out and pulled Lot inside the house, locking the door behind him. They struck the men from Sodom who were trying to break down the door with blindness, so they were reduced to fumbling in the darkness.

The two men spoke urgently to Lot, “Do you have any other family living here in Sodom? We’ve been sent to utterly destroy Sodom, because the outcries of the victims who live here are deafening to God.

Lot quickly went to warn his daughters’ intended husbands. “Leave Sodom quickly! God is about to destroy it!” But his daughters’ future husbands just laughed at his warning; they thought Lot was joking.

As the sun started to go up, the angels urgently warned Lot, “Hurry! Get your wife and two daughters out of Sodom before it’s too late and you’re punished along with the city.”

But Lot didn’t seem to be in any hurry to escape. The men had to grab his arm and the arms of his wife and daughters and drag them to safety outside Sodom. God was so merciful to them! When they were finally out of the city, they told Lot, “Run for your life, and don’t look back! Don’t stop for anything – run for the hills, or you’ll be swept away in God’s judgment!”

Apply God’s Word to your life:
*Whom will you warn of coming judgment unless they change their way?
*What ungodly involvement or thing will you choose to give up today before God acts in judgment?
*What is the definition of the word “grace”?
*How has God shown His grace to you through warnings, answers to prayer, and promises from His Word?
* What changes have you made in obedience to God’s Word, and how has He rewarded you?