Sin takes us farther than we wanted to go, keeps us longer than we wanted to stay, and costs us more than we ever wanted to pay. What a painful, troubling, disturbing story we find in this passage. Immersed in a broken world, few things leave us appalled. We hear tragic stories in our world. But how does the Biblical narrative get to this dark place?
Remember that Lot and his family were growing in wealth then his herdsmen argued with Abraham's. Abraham gave him the choice of the land. Lot looked toward Sodom and moved in that direction. Eventually, he moved into the city. When he was kidnapped, Abraham and his men rescued Lot. Eventually, Lot became comfortable living in a city that had lost its sense of morality. God came down to see the wickedness of the city and his angels destroyed it in a fiery holocaust.
When the city was destroyed, as Lot's family escaped with their lives, his wife disobediently looked back and became a pillar of salt. Lot and his daughters ended up in a cave. Raised in an immoral city, Lot's daughters lost their moral compass. Having given up hope they did the unthinkable. Right and wrong were completely forgotten. The two girls deceived their father and conceived children. Their sons became the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites.
Honestly, I have so many questions about this story. F. B. Meyer's words capture my concern: "This is the bitterest of all—to know that suffering need not have been; that it has resulted from indiscretion and inconsistency; that it is the harvest of one's own sowing; that the vulture which feeds on the vitals is a nestling of one's own rearing. Ah me! This is pain! There is an inevitable nemesis in life. The laws of the heart and home, of the soul and human life, cannot be violated with impunity."
This passage shocks our sensibilities, or it should. Again and again, the human story recorded in Genesis leads us to the darkest of places. Let this story call us to take inventory of our hearts today. Let us not settle easily into a culture that has forgotten God. There is no safe amount of sin in our lives. In Paul's words to the Corinthians, "Let us take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ." Horrible things happen in our world. The right time to abandon a treacherous path is immediately. We must deal summarily with our sin, or risk consequences which will affect generations to come.
