September 13, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. ‘My lords,’ he said, ‘please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.’

‘No,’ they answered, ‘we will spend the night in the square.’ But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house.” (Genesis 19.1-3a)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Knowing what is right and good and doing what is right and good can sometimes be two different things. How many of us know what is right and good and yet we do some fraction or shade of it. We live in part and not whole. The Apostle Paul wrote:

“ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7. 15-20)

It is that “presence of sin” in Lot that we see being exampled as Paul himself perceived it for himself. Lot recognized “the Angels” as not the kind of men who should be in Sodom. He calls the “lords.” Now whether he immediately recognized them as Angels and ambassadors of God, indeed the Two of the Three, the scriptures do not tell us. That he was at the gate of Sodom meant that he was seen as an elder of the city. As such, he was a gatekeeper. Lot had not fully immersed himself in the culture and climate of Sodom and Gomorrah. He still had the good sense of courtesy and hospitality. He still practiced reverence and dignity even if it was not respected by those who had given themselves fully to sin from the inside out. We would hear in the following verses of Lot’s refusal to allow the men of the city to have access to the two men of God now under his roof. In response, the men of the city recognized Lot still as a stranger and not one of them. He had not put on the corruptible of Sodom. Yet, we will also see what he was willing to sacrifice to maintain the dignity and safety of the Two Men of God. That sacrifice was to offer his virgin daughters who were betrothed to two men of Sodom. I won’t even pretend to understand that dynamic at all. It would become even more confusing after Lot and his daughters became the sole survivors on the conflagration which was used to execute God’s justice upon the unrepentant profane.

On the one hand, Lot knew what was right and good. On the other hand, Lot did what was only partially right and good. Honoring the men was right. Dishonoring his daughters, their vows and his family was not. It was that sense of compromise which is indicative of moral confusion and bad religion. What Lot wanted to do, he could not. Even with the warnings of the Two Men, Lot was not fully capable of making the decision to save himself and his family from what was about to happen. Lot knew he could not live the way he was living much longer. Sin lay crouching at the door waiting to devour. The men of Sodom ignored Lot’s authority and so overcome by their passion for men, especially those as beautiful as we the Angels, they sought to push through him. If not for the intervention of the Angels, all would have been lost. Of course, it would not have happened because these Angels were of God. They were not of those who like others in Heaven on the day of Lucifer’s rebellion succumbed to the temptation of serving their own passions and desires and be separate from the love of God. They would remain undefiled. Abraham’s bargaining with God for the lives of the righteous which was settled at ten became a reality of one (and that one under duress as the call of being “at home” in Sodom was strong. So strong, in fact, it would cost the life of Lot’s wife who refused the wise counsel of the Angels. She looked back to Sodom and its destruction and was turned to a pillar of salt. Thus should we be returned to the dust of the earth and trampled underfoot.)

Mighty ones, what will it take to convince us to do what we know is right and good? What will it take to stand not only as the gatekeeper but as the watchmen over our homes, families and communities? The world of sin is ever-increasing and negatively influencing. Slowly and quietly at first, it is loud and in full force to gain respectability and acceptability in our world. We must remember that while we are in the world, we are not called to be of the world. At what cost are we willing to compromise ourselves and those dear to us? God is sending His messengers to warn us and lead us to safety. Sometimes those He sends are, in truth, us. Will we accept the challenge, charge and commission? If we are of Christ, then we know what is right and good. Let us be faithful in the execution of our duties and our opportunities and save as many as we can without looking back.

TODAYS’ PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness endeavor, but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.