Sodom was a city with no fear of God, which is odd because its king and all its people, along with all their possessions, had been recovered by Abraham in a daring night-time raid on the kings who had seized them (Genesis 14:11-16).
So the king of Sodom knew Abraham well, and personally went out to meet Abraham on his victorious return (17). He may also have met Melchizedek, the “priest of God Most High” (18), so the king had been in close contact with godly men. Abraham had also refused any compensation for rescuing the king (23-24), so the king knew what a good man was.
Good, because in the previous chapter “the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord” (13:13), so hopefully this latest episode with Abraham in chapter 14 had created a change of heart, and especially toward God, because both Melchizedek and Abraham had credited the victory to “the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth” (14:20, 22).
But there’s no record of any change of heart toward God. Instead the “outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah” was “so great and their sin so grievous” (18:20) that God decided to see for himself if things were as bad as reported (21).
It was bad all right, because when Lot, Abraham’s nephew, the one good man left in Sodom, cried out to the mob, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing” when they wanted to sexually assault his two male guests (19:7), they totally ignored him, and even refused the offer of his daughters instead. The only thing that stopped the mob from breaking into Lot’s house was being struck blind by the angels (9-11).
How fitting, when they were so blind to their wickedness. But it’s how God reacted to their wickedness that sends a shudder through the ages, because when the “outcry against (Sodom) was so great the Lord sent angels to destroy it” (13). When the point was reached that no fear of God had created a culture so totally bent on evil, God destroyed it.
The scary part of that is Lot and his family having to be dragged out of Sodom by the two angels (15-16). A warning through the ages, therefore, about “The power of an evil culture”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 