“And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do;” (Ge 18:17 AV)
The LORD is referring to the destruction of the cities of the plain. He is speaking of the fire from heaven that will burn up Sodom, Gomorrah, and two other cities. Lot is living therein. He left the well-watered plain of Jordan to cohabit with the wicked of the world. He failed to raise his family in the fear of God and is now in peril. God asks the rhetorical question of enlightening Abraham as to God’s wrath upon a people. His contemplation is founded upon Abraham’s future as a nation. By allowing Abraham to witness the destruction of four cities, God is showing Abraham the consequences to people groups that hate God. This is not a matter of ignorance. Abraham had the accounts of Noah’s flood and the tower of Babel as a reference. In fact, it was the escape of Noah that set a precedent Abraham would use to barter for Lot and his family. God will not judge the righteous with the wicked. God delivered Noah prior to the flood. Therefore, if Lot and his family were righteous, then God must ethically spare Sodom and Gomorrah. What Abraham knew intellectually, he must now witness experientially. He needs to see it so he can pass down to his descendants the knowledge of the severity of rejecting God.
We may not like to look at horrific things, but often they are a warning to those of us who will learn. Seeing the end of a life-style caused disease might change the course of someone contemplating the same choices. Many years ago, there were PSA commercials using graphic ideas to prove a point. One of them showed an intact egg compared to an egg that was broken and frying. The tagline said, “This is your brain (the intact egg). This is your brain on drugs (the frying egg).” Even today, there are PSA announcements that warn against smoking. These ads feature a cancer patient suffering from lung cancer or throat cancer. The warning is clear. Make the same choices, and you might end up the same way. Visiting many people in the hospital and serving as a chaplain, I can honestly say there have been cases that have cured me from certain behaviors. We may not want to look at the ugly. We may want to turn our heads away from the unsavory. In doing so, we miss an opportunity to learn a lesson.
I am sure that as Sodom and Gomorrah burned, Abraham suffered many emotions. The loss of human life alone had to be difficult to bear. Knowing that his nephew was among those who were incurring the wrath of God had to make it all the worse. I don’t know how far away he was, but he may have heard the screams of those meeting their end. There is no indication that Abraham knew of Lot’s fate. Even if he did, it was tragic. Lot lost all but two daughters, and those two daughters had sons by their father. God did not hide the ugly truth from Abraham. Why? Because Abraham was to be the father of a great nation, and he needed to know what happens to nations that hate God. When I think of this, I think of our own nation. Once a great nation that was settled in biblical values and spreading the gospel throughout the world, we have failed to learn the lessons of history. We export filth and immorality. As we go, so goes the world. We failed to learn the lessons of Greece and Rome. We failed to learn the lessons of Noah’s flood or Israel diaspora. We believe ourselves to be immune from the wrath of God. Not so. As individual saints, we too lose the lessons that the lives of others teach. If we learned, then sin would be less of a problem.
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