Mercy in Spite of the Man
Introduction: The Seduction of Sodom
We come now to a passage that is deeply uncomfortable for the modern mind. We live in an age that wants a God who is all mercy and no judgment, all tolerance and no holiness, all affirmation and no wrath. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a rock upon which such sentimental theology shatters. God is a consuming fire, and His judgment upon sin is not an unfortunate overreaction but a necessary expression of His perfect righteousness. Sodom was not just a city with a peculiar sin problem; it was a civilization in full-throated, arrogant rebellion against the created order. It was a society that had called good evil and evil good, and its destruction was a terrible and righteous preview of the final judgment to come.
But in the midst of this righteous judgment, we find a staggering display of God's mercy. And we find it lavished upon a man who is, to put it mildly, a spiritual buffoon. Lot is a man who pitched his tent toward Sodom, then moved into Sodom, then sat in the gate of Sodom as a city leader. He has been breathing the toxic air of that place for so long that his spiritual lungs are blackened. He is a compromised man, a worldly man, a man whose daughters have learned far more from the city than from their father's faith. And yet, for Abraham's sake, God has determined to save him.
What we are about to witness is not the heroic escape of a righteous man from a wicked city. It is the story of God dragging a foolish man out of the fire, a man who hesitates, who lingers, who wants to argue and negotiate with the very agents of his salvation. This is a story about us. This is the story of a God whose compassion is so tenacious that it seizes us by the hand when we, befuddled by the world, would rather stay and perish. It is a story that shows us the folly of trying to bargain for a smaller, more manageable sin, and the glorious, unilateral power of a God who saves us in spite of ourselves.
The Text
Now at the breaking of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of Yahweh was upon him; and they brought him out and put him outside the city. Now it happened, as they brought them outside, one said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, lest you be swept away.” But Lot said to them, “Oh no, my lords! Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your lovingkindness, which you have shown me by preserving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest calamity overtake me and I die; now behold, this town is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please, let me escape there (is it not small?) that my life may be preserved.” And he said to him, “Behold, I grant you this request also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
(Genesis 19:15-22 LSB)
Hesitation at the End of the World (v. 15-16)
We begin with the urgent command and the pathetic response.
"Now at the breaking of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, 'Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.' But he hesitated." (Genesis 19:15-16a)
The sun is coming up. The day of judgment has dawned. The angels, who the night before had struck a mob of violent sexual deviants blind, are now pressing Lot with a life-or-death urgency. The command is simple, direct, and clear: "Get up. Take your family. Get out." The reason is equally clear: "lest you be swept away." This is not a suggestion. This is a fire alarm.
And what is Lot's response? "But he hesitated." He lingered. He dawdled. The Hebrew word suggests delaying, tarrying. Why? Why would a man who has just seen the utter depravity of his neighbors, who has been told in no uncertain terms that fire is about to fall from heaven, hesitate? The answer is simple and tragic: Sodom was not just where Lot lived; Sodom lived in Lot. His heart was still tied to that place. His investments, his reputation, his comfort, his routine, all of it was woven into the fabric of a city that God had marked for utter destruction. He was like a man in a burning house, trying to decide which of his favorite chairs to save. His hesitation reveals a divided heart. He wants to be saved, but he doesn't really want to leave.
This is a profound picture of the sinner's condition. The gospel comes to us with divine urgency: "Flee from the wrath to come!" And our natural response is to hesitate. We want Jesus to save us from hell, but we would prefer He not disrupt our comfortable arrangements in Sodom. We want the crown, but we don't want to take up the cross. Lot's hesitation is the hesitation of every man who loves the world.
And what happens next is pure, unadulterated grace.
"So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of Yahweh was upon him; and they brought him out and put him outside the city." (Genesis 19:16b)
Lot did not save himself. He was saved. He was rescued against his own better judgment. The angels did not say, "Well, if you're not sure, we'll just leave you to it." No, they seized him. They grabbed him by the hand. This is a picture of effectual grace. This is divine initiative. The text is explicit about the reason: "for the compassion of Yahweh was upon him." It was not Lot's virtue, not his quick-witted obedience, not his spiritual readiness. It was the mercy of God, a mercy that had been set in motion by the prayers of Abraham. God saves us not because we are decisive, but because He is compassionate. He grabs our hand while we are still staring stupidly at the flames.
The Foolishness of Bargaining (v. 17-20)
Once outside the city, the command is reiterated with even more force.
"Now it happened, as they brought them outside, one said, 'Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, lest you be swept away.'" (Genesis 19:17)
The instructions are absolute. First, escape for your life. This is the ultimate priority. Second, do not look behind you. The past is condemned; your affection for it must be severed completely. Third, do not stay in the valley. The entire plain is a kill zone. Fourth, escape to the mountains. The only place of safety is the high ground, the place God has designated. The logic is inescapable. The danger is total, and the required obedience must be total.
But Lot, having just been dragged from the fire by main force, decides this is the perfect time to open negotiations.
"But Lot said to them, 'Oh no, my lords! Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your lovingkindness, which you have shown me by preserving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest calamity overtake me and I die...'" (Genesis 19:18-19)
This is simply breathtaking. "Oh no, my lords!" is not a phrase one expects to hear from a man whose life has just been spared from fiery judgment. He acknowledges their kindness, but in the same breath, he questions their wisdom. He thinks he knows better than the angels of God where he will be safe. His reasoning is a masterpiece of faithless folly. "I cannot escape to the mountains, lest calamity overtake me and I die." The angels have just told him the mountains are the only place he will not die, and he argues that going there will kill him. This is what living in Sodom does to your mind. It makes you think that God's commands are dangerous and your own fearful compromises are the path of wisdom.
So what is his counter-proposal?
"...now behold, this town is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please, let me escape there (is it not small?) that my life may be preserved." (Genesis 19:20)
Lot doesn't want to go all the way to the mountains. He doesn't want a radical break. He wants a compromise. He wants a little Sodom. He points to a nearby town and makes his case. His central argument is that "it is small." The Hebrew for "small" is related to the name of the city, Zoar. "Please, let me have this little sin. It's not as bad as Sodom. It's just a small compromise." This is the logic of every Christian who wants to flirt with the world. We don't want to dive headfirst into the abyss, but we would like a nice little condo on the cliff's edge. We argue with God that our pet sins are "not that bad." Is it not a small thing? But the logic of holiness is that there is no small sin, just as there is no small rebellion against an infinite God. All sin is treason. Lot wants to be saved from the big fire, but he wants to keep a few small embers in his pocket.
Concession and the Patience of God (v. 21-22)
In a moment of staggering condescension, God grants the foolish request.
"And he said to him, 'Behold, I grant you this request also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.' Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar." (Genesis 19:21-22)
The angel agrees. God, in His mercy, condescends to Lot's weakness. He will spare this "small" city for the sake of this one wavering man. This is not because Lot's argument was good, but because God's grace is great. God is willing to work with our weaknesses, even when they are culpable weaknesses.
But notice the strange and wonderful statement: "Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there." The sovereign God, who is about to rain down nuclear-level destruction on an entire region, restrains His own judgment until this one hesitant, bargaining man is safe. The execution of divine wrath waits on the completion of divine mercy. This tells us something profound about God's heart. His judgment is His strange work, but His mercy is His delight. He restrains the fire until the last of His chosen sheep, however foolish and wayward, is in the fold. The entire judgment of the world waits for the salvation of the elect.
And so the city gets its name, Zoar, meaning "small" or "insignificant." It stands as a permanent monument to Lot's small faith and God's great patience. He wanted a small salvation, a small deliverance, and God gave it to him. But as we see from the subsequent verses, this compromise did not end well. Zoar was still too close to the fire, and Lot eventually fled to the mountains anyway, the very place God told him to go in the first place, but only after his compromise led to drunkenness and incest. Small sins are never content to remain small.
The Gospel According to Lot
This story is a graphic illustration of our salvation in Jesus Christ. We are all citizens of Sodom, a world under a righteous sentence of condemnation. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and the fire is coming.
And like Lot, when the gospel call comes, our first instinct is to hesitate. We are attached to our sin. We have made our home in a world that is passing away. We love the darkness. We do not want to leave. We are spiritually inert, unable and unwilling to save ourselves.
But then God, in His great compassion, does for us what the angels did for Lot. He seizes us. The Father chooses us, the Son redeems us, and the Holy Spirit grabs us by the hand and drags us out of the city of destruction. This is regeneration. It is not a negotiation. It is a rescue. It is a sovereign act of war against our rebellion, an act motivated by sheer, unmerited mercy. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8).
And even after we are saved, we are still prone to Lot's folly. God tells us, "Escape to the mountains! Set your minds on things above, not on things on the earth. Do not look back. Make no provision for the flesh." And we, so often, try to bargain. "Oh no, Lord! Not the mountains. That's too radical. Can't I just go to Zoar? Can't I keep this one little sin? It's just a small thing." We want to follow Christ, but at a safe distance. We want holiness, but not too much of it.
But our Lord is far more gracious than we are wise. He condescends to our weakness. But He also warns us. The compromise of Zoar is never a safe place. It is still on the plain, still breathing the sulfurous air. The only true safety is in the mountains, in radical, joyful, wholehearted obedience to the one who pulled us from the fire. There is no middle ground between Sodom and the mountain of God. Christ did not die to move us to a nicer suburb of the city of destruction. He died to bring us to Himself, to the heavenly places, far above the coming wrath. Let us, therefore, not hesitate. Let us not bargain. Let us flee to the mountain, which is Christ Himself, and find our safety not in a small compromise, but in a great Savior.