Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Genesis 19-21
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 53
Key Verse
Genesis 20:8 — “Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears: and the men were sore afraid.”
Devotional Thought
The story of Sodom is a story of rescue, and it begins with a man sitting in a gate. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, had pitched his tent toward Sodom and now sat among its elders as though he belonged there. When two angels arrived at evening, he pressed them into his home and baked unleavened bread, but before the night was old the men of the city compassed the house, both old and young, demanding that the strangers be brought out. Lot stepped outside and shut the door behind him, pleading with his neighbors and even offering his own daughters rather than see his guests abused. The mob pressed hard; the angels pulled Lot back inside and struck the attackers with blindness, so that they wearied themselves groping for a door that grace had shut.
Then came the morning that Lot could hardly believe. He warned his sons-in-law, but he seemed as one that mocked. He lingered, and the angels took him by the hand, and by the hand of his wife and daughters, the LORD being merciful unto him, and set them outside the city. “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee,” they said. Lot bargained for little Zoar, and the sun rose as he entered it. Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the plain went up as the smoke of a furnace. Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. Yet verse 29 gathers it all into one quiet sentence: God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow.
How differently the rest of the reading unfolds. In Gerar, Abraham again called Sarah his sister, and Abimelech took her, but God warned the king in a dream and kept him from sinning. Abraham then prayed, and God healed Abimelech’s house. And in chapter 21, at the set time of which God had spoken, Sarah conceived and bore Isaac, and she said, “God hath made me to laugh.” Even Hagar, cast out into the wilderness of Beersheba with Ishmael, was met by the angel of God, who opened her eyes to a well of water. Psalm 53 says the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God; corruption and fear follow. But this whole reading testifies to the opposite: God sees, God hears, God remembers, and God rescues those who cannot rescue themselves.
Reflection
- Lot lingered even when the angels urged him to flee, and only the LORD’s mercy pulled him out by the hand. Where in your life are you lingering near something God has told you to leave?
- Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. What “back” is your heart still turning toward, and how does the gospel free you to press forward?
Prayer
O God, who remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the overthrow, remember us also in Your mercy. We confess that we linger when we should flee and look back when we should press on. Take us by the hand when our own hands are weak, and lead us out of every city of destruction. Open our eyes, as You opened Hagar’s, to the well of water You have already provided. Keep us from the folly of a heart that says there is no God, and fix our hope on the salvation that comes out of Zion, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 53:1 — “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.”