A Little Bit Of Sin

a fire was kindled against Jacob;

His anger rose against Israel,

because they did not believe in God

and did not trust His saving power.

Yet He commanded the skies above

and opened the doors of heaven,

and He rained down on them manna to eat

and gave them the grain of heaven.

Man ate of the bread of the angels;

He sent them food in abundance.

He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,

and by His power He led out the south wind;

He rained meat on them like dust,

winged birds like the sand of the seas;

He let them fall in the midst of their camp,

all around their dwellings.

And they ate and were well filled,

for He gave them what they craved.

But before they had satisfied their craving,

while the food was still in their mouths,

the anger of God rose against them,

and He killed the strongest of them

and laid low the young men of Israel.”

[*Psalm 78:17-31*]

Before moving on, I want to focus for a moment on something that the divine author says in verse 16. That verse reads, “[Lot] lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, */the Lord being merciful to him/*.” Despite the family’s refusal to obey immediately the command of the Lord, God was merciful. God is always merciful, though we often forget that truth as we resist His mercy in order to pursue our own desires.

When we are told that the Lord was merciful to Lot, we realise that the mercy extended to him was mercy because he had become just like the people of Sodom. The implication is that Lot deserved to die with the people among whom he lived. He had become so habituated to their sinful lifestyle that he had become practically indistinguishable from them. It was because of Abraham’s plea that Lot received God’s consideration and was spared [*Genesis 19:29*] despite his complete compromise with the world.

Tragically, many of God’s people are shown great mercy, only to waste the goodness of God by insisting that He concede to their desires. We need to remember John’s warning to believers. “Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity” [*1 John 2:15-17*].[3]

It is important to note that God was merciful not only to Lot and his family, but God was also merciful to the Sodomites. “How so,” you may ask. God was willing to entertain Abraham’s plea for the people of that wicked city, agreeing to spare the city from judgement is so few as ten righteous people were found. Though God did not find ten righteous people, He did spare Lot and his family. Surely, this is a mark of His mercy and His kindness.

Moreover, God had endured the sinful acts and attitudes of the cities of the plain for a long time, giving them ample time to repent of their wickedness and sufficient opportunity to turn from the evil they were doing. According to God’s own Word, the Lord is patient, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” [*2 Peter 3:9*].