The story begins with the LORD saying, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."
This is a rather odd statement from One who is omniscient. God does know everything but one thing is still unknown and that is how the people in Sodom and Gomorrah will react when the holy presence of Love appears in their midst. So God decides to visit Sodom and Gomorrah in the manifest, tangible form of two angels.
The angels enter Sodom and Lot (perhaps the only righteous man in the whole region) recognizes them and asks them to stay in his home. The angels have every intention of spending the night in the town square but Lot is so insistent, they follow him. Later that night, men of Sodom surround Lot's home and say, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
So the answer to the question, "How will the people react if Love's holy presence appeared in their midst?" would be, "They will try to:
a) dominate, master and own it like it was one of their chattels?
b) destroy and ruin it like pigs trampling pearls?
c) experience, enjoy and know it?
Anyway the scene was getting rather ugly and threatening and Lot goes outside to 'reason' with the crowd. He even offers his own virgin daughters as substitutes for them to dominate, master, own, destroy, ruin, experience, enjoy and know. This makes Lot sound unnatural, unfatherly and craven but give the man credit for standing outside and trying.
I think we often make the same mistake Lot did in trying to protect God from the people around us, from spending the night in the town square. We even sacrifice ourselves and our families to ensure He doesn't have to deal with anything unclean or unpleasant because He is too holy to look upon sin. But He does not need our protection. The angels pull Lot inside and strike the men outside with blindness.
For me, the moral of the story is that God does not need our protection. He can take care of Himself. We should just let Him spend the night in the middle of our city and let the people meet Him. Sure things could get weird, unpleasant, even ugly. But then again, we may be pleasantly surprised.
This is a rather odd statement from One who is omniscient. God does know everything but one thing is still unknown and that is how the people in Sodom and Gomorrah will react when the holy presence of Love appears in their midst. So God decides to visit Sodom and Gomorrah in the manifest, tangible form of two angels.
The angels enter Sodom and Lot (perhaps the only righteous man in the whole region) recognizes them and asks them to stay in his home. The angels have every intention of spending the night in the town square but Lot is so insistent, they follow him. Later that night, men of Sodom surround Lot's home and say, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
So the answer to the question, "How will the people react if Love's holy presence appeared in their midst?" would be, "They will try to:
a) dominate, master and own it like it was one of their chattels?
b) destroy and ruin it like pigs trampling pearls?
c) experience, enjoy and know it?
Anyway the scene was getting rather ugly and threatening and Lot goes outside to 'reason' with the crowd. He even offers his own virgin daughters as substitutes for them to dominate, master, own, destroy, ruin, experience, enjoy and know. This makes Lot sound unnatural, unfatherly and craven but give the man credit for standing outside and trying.
I think we often make the same mistake Lot did in trying to protect God from the people around us, from spending the night in the town square. We even sacrifice ourselves and our families to ensure He doesn't have to deal with anything unclean or unpleasant because He is too holy to look upon sin. But He does not need our protection. The angels pull Lot inside and strike the men outside with blindness.
For me, the moral of the story is that God does not need our protection. He can take care of Himself. We should just let Him spend the night in the middle of our city and let the people meet Him. Sure things could get weird, unpleasant, even ugly. But then again, we may be pleasantly surprised.
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