Bird's-eye view
In these verses, the terrible reality of God's judgment moves from the general to the specific. The angelic messengers, having rescued Lot from the depraved mob, now pivot from defense to deliverance. The time for negotiation is over; the time for destruction is at hand. This is a scene of urgent grace. The angels reveal their mission is not just to visit, but to destroy, and they extend a covenantal offer of salvation to Lot and his entire household. The offer is generous, encompassing not just his immediate family but his extended relations through marriage. However, this offer immediately collides with the hard reality of unbelief. Lot, a compromised but righteous man, acts as a preacher of righteousness to his own family, but his warning of impending doom is met with mockery. The passage starkly illustrates the chasm between those who hear God's word and tremble, and those who hear it and laugh. It is a microcosm of all gospel preaching: a divine warning, a gracious invitation, and a human response of either faith or foolish jesting.
The core of this passage is the antithesis between the seriousness of God and the flippancy of sinful man. God is about to unmake a piece of His creation with fire and brimstone, a judgment so severe it would become a permanent biblical symbol of divine wrath. In the face of this cosmic crisis, the men engaged to Lot's daughters think it is all a big joke. Their laughter in the face of doom is the laughter of the damned. This is not just a historical account; it is a paradigm for the last days, for every age, and for our own time. The Lord has sent His messengers, He has declared that this world is under judgment, and He has provided a way of escape. And still, to the sophisticated and the worldly-wise, the message of the cross and the warning of hell are nothing more than material for a good jest.
Outline
- 1. The Covenantal Rescue Operation (Gen 19:12-14)
- a. The Scope of Grace: An Invitation to the Household (Gen 19:12)
- b. The Basis of Judgment: The Great Outcry (Gen 19:13)
- c. The Failure of Preaching: A Warning Dismissed as a Joke (Gen 19:14)
Context In Genesis
This scene is the direct consequence of the events in the previous chapter. In Genesis 18, the Lord Himself, accompanied by two angels, visited Abraham and announced the impending judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. This led to Abraham's famous intercession, where he pleaded with God to spare the city for the sake of the righteous within it, bargaining all the way down to ten righteous people. The fact that the angels are now proceeding with the destruction is the implicit answer to Abraham's prayer: not even ten righteous could be found. Lot, sitting at the gate, showed hospitality to the two angels, not knowing who they were, and this act of righteousness in a city defined by its violent inhospitality marked him for deliverance. The subsequent scene, where the men of the city demand to sexually assault the visitors, demonstrates that the "outcry" against Sodom was entirely justified. The city's sin had reached its full measure. The judgment is not arbitrary; it is the just and final response to a culture that has become completely saturated with evil. The deliverance of Lot is therefore the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham to care for his kinsman, and it is a demonstration of the principle that God knows how to rescue the godly from trials, while holding the unrighteous for the day of judgment (2 Pet 2:9).
Key Issues
- The Principle of Household Salvation
- The Nature of Divine Judgment
- The World's Contempt for God's Warnings
- The Tragic Position of the Compromised Believer
- Scoffing as a Sign of Unbelief
Grace and Mockery
There is a collision here that we see repeated throughout Scripture. On the one hand, you have the staggering grace of God. The angels don't just say, "Lot, get out." They ask, "Whom else have you here?" God's offer of salvation is expansive. He thinks in terms of households, of covenantal units. The invitation goes out to sons-in-law, sons, daughters, everyone connected to the righteous man. This is the principle of household salvation we see with Noah, with Rahab, and in the book of Acts. God's grace is not a stingy, individualistic affair; it overflows to the families of believers.
On the other hand, you have the dense, impenetrable wall of human mockery. Lot's sons-in-law are on the cusp of marrying into the one family that has an escape route from hell on earth, and they cannot see it. The message of deliverance is so alien to their worldview, so contrary to their daily experience of Sodom's business-as-usual, that it strikes them as comical. The man who is about to become their father-in-law seems to them to be a prankster, a jester. This is the tragic blindness of sin. The world is burning, and the worldly think the watchman is telling jokes. This is why the gospel is called foolishness to those who are perishing. The scoffer is not a neutral observer; he is a man whose laughter is a declaration of his allegiance to the city of destruction.
Verse by Verse Commentary
12 Then the two men said to Lot, “Whom else have you here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and everyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place;
The angels, having demonstrated their power by striking the mob with blindness, now reveal the fullness of their purpose. They are here to save and to destroy. Their first question to Lot is telling: "Whom else have you here?" This is the voice of covenantal grace. God's deliverance of Lot is not atomistic; it is designed to include his entire sphere of influence. The list is comprehensive: son-in-law, sons, daughters, and then a catch-all, "everyone you have in the city." As the patriarchal head of his house, Lot is being addressed as its representative. The offer is made to him, with the assumption that his household is bound up with him. This is a beautiful picture of how God's grace operates. He saves individuals, yes, but He saves them into families and communities. The offer is broad and generous, a testament to God's kindness even in the midst of wrath.
13 for we are about to destroy this place because their outcry has become great before Yahweh, so Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.”
Here is the basis for the command. This is not a drill. The destruction is imminent and its cause is explicit. The "outcry" of Sodom has become "great before Yahweh." This is legal, covenantal language. The sins of the city, particularly its oppression and violence, have been crying out from the ground, much like the blood of Abel. God has heard the testimony. The case has been made, the verdict is in, and the sentence is about to be carried out. Notice the clear chain of command: the outcry came to Yahweh, and Yahweh sent the angels. This is a sovereign, judicial act. The angels are not acting on their own initiative; they are ministers of divine justice. The destruction of Sodom is not a natural disaster; it is a supernatural, targeted judgment from the throne of the universe against a culture that had filled up the measure of its sin.
14 And Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city.” But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be jesting.
Lot obeys. For all his worldliness and compromise, when the command comes, he acts. He goes out and preaches the first fire-and-brimstone sermon to his own family. The message is simple, urgent, and direct: "Get up, get out... for Yahweh will destroy the city." He is functioning here as a prophet, a herald of God's warning. But the reception is tragic. To his sons-in-law, he seemed to be "jesting." The Hebrew word here can mean joking, mocking, or playing a game. They simply could not take him seriously. Why? Because Lot had lived among them for so long. His own compromises, his assimilation into the culture of Sodom, had likely eroded his credibility. When a man who has been winking at the world for years suddenly starts talking about judgment, the world thinks he has developed a new, dark sense of humor. The sons-in-law were so thoroughly marinated in the spirit of Sodom that the categories of divine wrath and miraculous deliverance were nonsensical to them. Their laughter was the final seal on their condemnation. They were offered a place in the ark, and they chose to stand on the shore, laughing at the man with the hammer.
Application
This passage puts every believer on notice. First, we are reminded that God takes sin seriously, even when the world does not. Our culture is awash in the sins of Sodom, not just sexually, but in its pride, arrogance, and contempt for the poor and the weak. The outcry of our own culture is great before the Lord, and we must not be lulled into thinking that judgment is a joke. God's patience is not His approval, and the day of reckoning will come.
Second, we see the importance of our own testimony within our families. Lot's message was true, but his life had been compromised, and it cost him his audience. We are called to be preachers of righteousness to our own households, but our words will carry weight only to the extent that our lives are distinct from the world we are calling them out of. If we look, talk, and act just like Sodom all week, our Sunday morning warnings about judgment will sound like a jest. A life of holy separation is what gives our gospel proclamation its sharp edge.
Finally, we must be prepared for mockery. The apostles warned that in the last days scoffers would come, walking according to their own lusts and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?" Lot's sons-in-law were the archetypal scoffers. They heard the warning and laughed. When we proclaim the gospel, when we warn of the wrath to come and point to Christ as the only way of escape, we should not be surprised when many people think we are telling religious jokes. Their laughter does not invalidate the message; it confirms it. It reveals the spiritual blindness that only a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit can cure. Our job is to be like Lot, to faithfully deliver the warning, whether they listen or whether they laugh. The fire is coming.