Genesis 19:29 - Exposition

The last days of Lot.

I. HAUNTED BY TERROR .

1. The terror of Divine judgment . The appalling spectacle of Sodom's overthrow had no doubt filled him with alarm. And so are God's judgments in the earth designed to put the souls of men in fear ( Psalms 9:20 ; Psalms 46:8-10 ; Psalms 119:120 ).

2. The terror of men. Dwelling in Zoar, he apprehended an outburst of wrath from the citizens, who probably regarded him as the cause of the ruin which had invaded Sodom. So are better men than Lot sometimes overtaken by the fear of man ( 2 Samuel 22:5 ; Psalms 18:4 ), though they should not ( Isaiah 51:12 ).

3. The terror of conscience . That Lot enjoyed while in Zoar a calm and undisturbed repose of heart and mind is scarcely supposable. Rather it may be safely conjectured that after the storm and the fire and the earthquake through which he had lately passed, the still small voice of conscience spoke to him in awe-inspiring accents, unveiling his past life, reproving him of sin, and piercing him through with many sorrows; and that under the agitations produced by its accusations and reproaches he became afraid, and withdrew to the mountains. "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all."

II. SOUNDING THE LOWER DEEPS .

1. Descending into unbelief . God had promised to spare Zoar for him, and him in Zoar, and one would have thought Lot had been sufficiently warned of the sin of distrusting God. Yet he is scarcely established in the city which God had granted in response to his own prayer than he begins to think it hardly safe to remain within its precincts. How inveterate is unbelief!

2. Plunging into sin . The details of the present story clearly show that Lot, when he went to the mountain cave, endeavored to escape from his terrors not by carrying them to God's throne, but by drowning them in dissipation. The wretched man, who had once been a saint in God's Church, must have been in the habit of drinking to excess, else his daughters would never have thought of their abominable stratagem. Only one little gleam of virtue can be detected as entitled to be laid to Lot's account, viz; that his daughters apparently believed that unless their father was drunk he would never be brought to assent to their lewd proposal.

3. Sinking into shame . Twice overcome by wine, he is twice in succession dishonored by his daughters; and twice over, while in his drink stupor, he allows himself to commit an act which almost out-Sodoms Sodom. To what depths a saint may fall when once he turns his back on God!

III. DISAPPEARING INTO OBLIVION . Nothing could more distinctly mark the Divine disapprobation with Lot ' s conduct than the fact that after this he was suffered—

1. To live an unrecorded life, being never heard of again in the pages of Holy Scripture.

2. To die an unnoticed death . Where and how he met his end the historian does not condescend to state.

3. To sink into an unknown grave . Whether buried in his mountain cave or entombed in the Jordan valley no man knoweth unto this day.

See—

1. The danger of turning aside from God and good men ( Hebrews 3:12 ; Hebrews 10:25 .

2. The melancholy end of a worldly life ( 1 Corinthians 10:6 ; Philippians 3:19 : 2 Timothy 4:10 ).

3. The bitter fruits of parental neglect ( 1 Samuel 2:27-36 ; Proverbs 29:15-17 )