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LOT’S SONS-IN-LAW AND THE CANADIAN WILDFIRES
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 6, 2023 – I read the Bible several times a year, and each time I read it, something new jumps out at me, something I’d noticed before but hadn’t really taken to heart, something God put there for me to see and use at a specific time and in a specific place.
Lot’s sons-in-laws are a case in point. How many times have you read about Lot’s escape from Sodom and not given his sons-in-law a passing thought? For me, it’s been quite a few times. Mind you, the sons-in-law only appear in one chapter and only as minor characters, so it’s understandable if we overlook them.
What do we know know about Lot’s sons-in-law and why do they matter now? We know they thought Lot was joking when he told them Sodom was about to be destroyed and they needed to leave immediately. We know they laughed at him. We know that when Lot did leave, only his wife and two daughters went with him and that they were dragged out by the two angels, since even Lot himself seemed reluctant to go.
But the angels didn’t grab the sons-in-law when whisking the rest away. Why is that? Why were the sons-in-law left behind?
Scripture doesn’t tell us outright why the angels left them behind. But we do know that the rescue was carried out as a favour to Abraham, who’d earlier interceded with God for Sodom on behalf of his nephew Lot. So the angels, when they arrived in Sodom, were on a rescue mission. They had no intention of trying to save souls at that point, just the bodies of the souls that had been granted God’s mercy. In other words, they weren’t there to preach repentance; they were there to get Lot and his brood the heck out of Dodge.
The older I get and the stronger I grow in faith, the more I realize that there’s a time for preaching and a time to get out of Dodge. Those two times are definitive and should never be confused. Scripture is clear that God’s mercy has a use-by date. We see this in the flood narrative, as well as in Ezekiel 9, in the sacking of Jerusalem under King Zedekiah, and in the book of Revelation. And we also see it very clearly in the full-scale destruction of Sodom.
Jesus tells us that we as his followers should live as he did – with our “loins girded”, which means we should be ready to leave wherever and whatever at a moment’s notice. There are no exceptions to this directive. Leaving at a moment’s notice necessarily implies leaving everything (and possibly everyone) behind. That can be the hard part.
That, for some, is the deal-breaker.
There are currently several wildfires burning out of control in Canada. Most of these fires are in remote forest locations, but a few are burning near communities. As of today, thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes and forbidden to return until the all-clear is given. Some of the evacuees were not at home when the fires broke out and the mandatory evacuation zones declared, so they had to leave all their valuables, including their house-bound pets, behind. This can be emotionally devastating.
When Lot was hauled out of Sodom by the angels, he could take nothing with him but the clothes on his back. All his possessions – which were extensive, he was a very rich man – were lost when Sodom was obliterated. Scripture doesn’t say, but it’s highly likely that even before the angels showed up, Lot had been warned already by God to get the heck out of Sodom. Lot shows by his conversation with the Sodomites that he was fully aware of how evil the place was, and yet he continued to live there.
The hundreds of wildfires burning out of control across Canada have prompted local governments to issue warnings about evacuation alerts that may come at any moment, day or night. The Lots living in the fire zones have long since been hauled out of the ever-shifting path of the flames, while the sons-in-law are still there and continuing their lives as if there are no fires. Like their Biblical namesakes, they probably don’t even believe there is any danger, so if and when the government’s emergency evacuation order does blare from their phones, they’ll likely just hit mute, roll over, and fall back to sleep. In Sodom, Lot’s sons-in-law were likely still asleep when the fire and brimstone started falling on them and were incinerated in their beds.
Jesus told us to watch. He also told us to live our lives with our loins girded, ever ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Lot’s sons-in-law are a cautionary tale of what not to do when God gives you the signal to go. You don’t question the directive and you certainly don’t laugh at or ignore it. You should at all times be mentally prepared to walk away from everything and everyone the instant you’re directed to do so by God. It can be a difficult directive to obey, but your body and soul depend on your obeying it.
As we know from the sad and sorry tale of Sodom, God’s refining fire can purify or it can devour.
I BET: A CALL TO SPIRITUAL ARMS
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, June 18, 2023 – I bet, were someone so inclined, he or she could chart the steep decline of the developed world (or what used to be known as “the West” or the now politically incorrect “first world” or the even more politically incorrect “Christendom”) – I bet that someone so inclined could chart the steep and swift decline of former Christendom by connecting the falling away or death of each believer to an uptick in evil.
That is, for every believer’s death or turning away from God, evil would show an increase.
I bet it can be charted, this correlation between the withdrawal of God’s Spirit and the inrush of demonic forces. I bet it can be charted and I bet the devil is already doing it, because for every light that dims and/or goes out, God permits Satan to extend his reach. When the devil extends his reach, wildfires burn out of control, endless wars erupt, government corruption flourishes, people run out of money, families break apart, kids don’t know if they’re male or female, and killing your own child is as simple as swallowing a pill.
No, Charlotte, you’re wrong, sniffs the world. It’s White supremacy. It’s colonialism. It’s systemic racism. It’s socioeconomics geared towards the ruling oligarchy. It’s insufficient diversity and inclusion. It’s insufficient equity. It’s cis genderism.
It’s climate change.
I bet, if you had the right instruments, you could measure evil. You’d need very special instruments to do that, though, because evil doesn’t always look like we think it should look and you’d have to find it first before you could measure it. And you might have a hard time finding it. Evil shrouds itself so you look right past it, so “you don’t see it coming”. That’s how evil has gotten away with being evil for so long. It flies under the radar. It pretends it doesn’t exist. Sometimes it even pretends it’s your friend.
It’s not a balance, the favourable measure of good and evil. It’s more a percentage, like 33.333% falling from Heaven and 66.666% not, or a fixed number, like 10 righteous souls holding back Sodom’s destruction. Balance implies compromise and God never compromises. He would rather have only one committed soldier fighting the good fight than thousands who are only in it for the payout. He saved Noah and his family and let everyone else die. He wanted to give everything to Moses and kill all the rest of the children of Israel in the wilderness. For God, it’s not about balancing out the good with the bad, but about sifting and panning until he finds a gold nugget; if he finds only one, God will make do with that and dump the rest.
I bet, were someone so inclined, they could chart the fall of the standard of living in former Christendom with the decline in faith, they could chart the rise in crime with the decline in faith, they could chart the rise in hopelessness and divorce and suicides with the decline in faith, because there is your real correlation for standard of living, crime levels, and happiness – the level of faith within a community. And when I say “faith”, I mean faith in God as a follower of Jesus. The greater the faith, the higher the living standard, the lower the crime, and the greater the happiness. This is the real reason why the first world became the first world in the first place.
But again, you don’t need a lot of people to have a lot of faith. Even just one person of strong faith can have the righteousness to cover many. God would have been pleased to spare Sodom had there been just ten righteous souls among hundreds of thousands, but there weren’t. Truth be told, there might not have been even one righteous soul, considering how Lot treated his daughters (and how his daughters treated him). Scripture tells us that God spared Lot and his family as a favour to his righteous uncle, Abraham. Whether or not Lot was actually righteous himself is for God to know.
The obvious antidote to the rising levels of evil in former Christian nations is to increase the amount of faith in the people living there. But getting more people to believe is an uphill battle that we may not win. The only alternative is for us born-again believers to increase our faith, so that while we may be few in number, we’ll be counted as many for righteousness. Whereas previously 9 out of 10 in a family believed, there may now only be 1 in 10, but that 1 will be strong in faith, maybe even strong enough to cover for the whole family. This is what we need and this is what we must pray for – that our faith be increased along with the faith of our spiritual brothers and sisters.
This is how we stop the steady uptick in evil – not by reparations or “equity” or electric vehicles or regime change, but by building our faith strong enough to move mountains.
And this, my fellow born-again believers, is up to us.
PREACHER
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 14, 2015 – I came across a video of a street preacher plying his trade at a “gay pride” festival. While it was difficult to make out what the preacher was saying and whether he was actually preaching or just yelling responses to his tormentors, the words spewing from the mouths of the hecklers rang loud and clear.
I’m not going to repeat them here.
As I watched (sound turned way down) the relentless onslaught of hate emanating from the crowd, I couldn’t help but wonder what the heck the preacher was doing there. The phrase “don’t throw your pearls before swine” sprang to mind. I tried to recall an instance in the gospels where Jesus preached to a crowd of rowdy and possibly drunken and/or stoned sodomites, but I could think of none. The best I could come up with was Lot and the angels admonishing rowdy drunken residents of Sodom the night before God destroyed their city.
But in this example, as in all examples of preaching in the Bible, the Sodomites came willingly to Lot. Certainly, they didn’t come to be preached to, but they did come to him. He didn’t seek them out.
This may seem a minor distinction, but it is actually very important. Jesus roamed the countryside as an itinerant preacher, but he only preached to those who came to him wanting to learn about the kingdom, and only healed those who sought his help. He didn’t impose his preaching or healing on anyone who didn’t want them and he avoided places where he knew he wasn’t welcome. Even God doesn’t impose himself on anyone: He respects our free will and waits for us to give him a clear signal before he rushes in to help.
This approach – waiting for a clear signal – is crucial to successful preaching. Whether done two thousand years ago or today, preaching must be done to those who want to be preached to. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time. When Jesus told his followers to go out into the world and preach the Good News, he didn’t mean to stand on street corners and rail at all and sundry. He meant to feed those who were spiritually hungry, wherever you encounter them. People who are hungry for the Word will come to you on their own volition; God will send them. What kind of message can possibly be conveyed when a preacher’s every word is drowned out by a mob shouting expletives and curses? That is not preaching.
The Word is a precious cargo: We carry it with us wherever we go, and our job is to share it with whoever wants some. We let them know it’s available, they come to us of their own free will, and we give it to them freely. The heckled preacher at the “pride” festival would have done better just to leave a few flyers around rather than try to force-feed God to people who clearly had no hunger for him.
As for targeting sodomites, Jesus stated that there are far worse sinners in need of repentance, and that Sodom’s judgment will be far less than that of hypocrites. If it’s sinners that preachers genuinely want to reach, they’d be better off heading to the top floor corner offices of banks or multinational headquarters, or to seats of government, or to the inner reaches of the Vatican or any commercialized church today because THAT’S where the super-mega-sinners park their arses and plot their dark deeds day in and day out. In the grand scheme of things, as Jesus pointed out, the “sin of Sodom” is small peas compared to people who pretend to be something they’re not in order to rip people off.
Bottom line? Just because you think someone needs to hear the Word doesn’t mean that they want to hear it. There are more than enough people who want to hear the Word. Preach to them. In the meantime, pray for those who have shunned God. It may be that they, like me, will one day turn.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 