Chapter 18 to 20: God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
The Lord came with two angels to visit Abraham by the oak of Mamre. Abraham immediately recognised the Lord and bowed and worshipped Him. He then washed their feet, a Jewish courtesy. Sarah was to bake a meal, while he would personally pick a calf that is tender, and supervised the servants to cook it. He also served curds and milk. The Bible wanted to teach us, through Abraham, how to serve God. Personal at all expense.
The Lord has come to bring Abraham the good news. He would finally get his son. The Lord inquired about Sarah. Sarah was skeptical and laughed. The Lord said, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" Sarah denied that she laughed and the Lord rebuked her for the denial. (Note that the Bible is back to using the term Lord, instead of God.)
The Lord decided to confide in Abraham, His decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, because He had chosen Abraham to be the father of a great and mighty nation. He wanted to teach Abraham to establish his family in righteousness and justice. (In 2 Chron 20:7 and Isaiah 41:8, - God called Abraham a friend.)
Abraham wanted God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of Lot. He decided to bargain with God. Abraham was a good trader, he bargained from 50 till 10. He was aggressive but humble - I who am but dust and ashes, Let not the Lord be angry, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord.
Somehow he misjudged the wickedness of humankind. He must have thought that there must surely be ten decent people in Sodom.
Question: Did Abraham saw the face of God? The Bible is easy to understand when it is about salvation, but very difficult in certain places. This is one of them. In Exodus 33:11 we were told that Moses also spoke to God face to face" as a friend. Immediately in Exodus 33:20 it wrote, "You cannot see My face, "for no man see Me and live." So we shall leave this as another mystery of the Bible.
The two angels went to Sodom. Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. This would indicate that he had become a leader of the community of Sodom. Lot recognised the messengers of God and accorded them the customary Jewish hospitality. However the angels have their job to do - to find the ten righteous people in Sodom. After much persuasion they did obliged Lot.
However the man of the city, both young and old, all the people to the last man, came to demand sex with the angels. The worldly Lot even offered his virgin daughters in place of the angels. They men refused and made a grab for the angels. The angels blinded them.
The angels could not find 10 decent people in Sodom and urged Lot to leave Sodom. Lot could not leave his wealth behind, but God remembered Abraham and decided to save Lot. The angels took Lot, his wife and his two daughters by force out of the city and commanded them, "Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley; flee to the hills, less you be consumed." God rained brimstone and fire from heaven and all the inhabitants were killed. Lot's wife did not obey the command of the angels and looked back, and was turned into a pillar of salt.
2 Peter 2:7-10 "by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes God condemned them to extinction and made them an example to those who were to be ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot ............ then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority."
Lot pleaded that he be allowed to stop at the next city, Zoar. So he dwelt in the nearby caves with his two daughters. One day the daughters decided to have sex with the father because there were no other men around. So they made their father drunk and the elder went first. The next night she encouraged her sister to do the same. They gave birth and their descendents became the Moabites and the Ammonites.
Finding: Was Lot a righteous man? Peter said he was as he still believed in God and despised the immorality of his community. It must be some doing to still have two virgin daughters in such a community. Other than that we can only say he loved worldly wealth more than his life. Yes God forcefully saved him because of his faith.
