SCRIPTURE: Genesis 19
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
(Read my reflection from 2008)
The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” [Genesis 19:12-13]
Can people be so twisted and perverse like this passage suggests?
Living when we do, coming out of a period of relatively high morality and order, we cannot imagine how corrupt things have been throughout history when there was no law, no charter of rights and freedoms, no code of ethics.
So bad that the outcry to the Lord against is so great that He is compelled to destroy it?

How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. [Matthew 24:17-21]
Jesus talks about another time when things are so bad, so twisted, that judgment is finally unleashed – against the city of Jerusalem in AD 70.
Jesus’ words have two layers, He is describing the judgment against Jerusalem in light of the final judgment, which will make other judgments small by comparison.
When God finally releases sin to unleash it’s full fury, as a judgment against those who refuse to give it up, it will be hell on earth – more than it is already.
Remember, God is holding the full effects of our sin back right now, He is restraining evil to give humanity a chance to escape, to flee.
Think about what happens to a society that rejects moral boundaries; what happens to their children, who take those freedoms to the next level; and how this unravels.
Society may balk about God’s rules, but if not for healthy moral boundaries, this world would be in a worse mess than it is in now.
I am not saying that all the destruction in these passages is good or nice; I question the response of people who describe God as a monster for doing or allowing these things.
God is not being the monster, He is finally stopping the monsters!

Passages like these remind me of the following:
1) The sin in our world is sickening, perverse, no matter how nice we pretend to be.
2) God holds back the full effects of sin for a time, but eventually He lets go.
3) God is not to blame for the misery and suffering in the world, we are!
4) Whenever there is suffering or disaster or destruction, it is a part of the judgment against sin, the natural consequence of life without/against God.
5) Both good and bad people suffer in these judgments, but God will sort them out at the final judgment.
6) God is providing plenty of signs and warnings to get our attention, to warn us, to show us what happens when we reject Him.
7) The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 6:23]
Jesus’ death on the cross is a reminder that God does not just unleash judgment against us, He endures it for us, so that we can be set free from it.
Will we listen, will we heed the warnings, will we repent, will we flee to safety?

PRAYER:
Lord, help me (and all of us) to take sin more seriously than we do!