Sodom, the city to which Lot moved after leaving Abraham, was very wicked and sinful before God (Gen. 13:13). The situation of Sodom is the second aspect showing how utterly fallen and corrupted Noah’s descendants became under the curse. Eventually, they were judged by God with burning fire, and their end was destruction (Gen. 18:20; 19:24-25). Sodom portrays the end—corruption—of the fallen men who were not in God’s grace. The judgment by burning fire indicates that God, as a consuming fire, will destroy such corrupted people and will not tolerate their existence.
The first aspect of the ultimate corruption of Noah’s cursed descendants was seen at Babel, a place full of idolatry; the second aspect was seen at Sodom, a place full of fornication (Gen. 10:19; 18:20; 19:4-9). Idol worship always brings in and goes along with fornication (Num. 25:1-2; Rev. 2:20). All the people who worship idols are careless regarding the matter of fornication. Their idol worship ushers them into fornication. Quite often in China, in front of the idol temples, where people worshipped idols, operas with stories of fornication were performed. In the book of Numbers, when the Israelites worshipped idols, they committed fornication (Num. 25:1-2). Therefore, the worshipping of idols brings in fornication, and fornication ushers in idolatry.
During Noah’s time, some of the fallen angels came to the earth and committed fornication with the daughters of men (Gen. 6:2). When Lot dwelt in Sodom, the Sodomites, in the same manner as the fallen angels, gave themselves over to fornication (Jude 7), even males with males, working shame toward one another shamelessly (Gen. 19:4-9; Rom. 1:27). This is contrary to what God ordained for human marriage according to the nature of His creation (Gen. 2:18-24). Marriage is a holy thing. God instituted marriage in order to maintain the human race, which He created for His purpose. Therefore, we must hold marriage in honor (Heb. 13:4). God has ordained a holy principle regarding marriage—the principle of one husband for one wife—in order to keep the human race in a proper condition for the fulfillment of His purpose. But the Sodomites did not care for the holy principle ordained by God. Leaving the natural use of the female, the males craved one another and defiled their own bodies. Their sinfulness was so great that God had to intervene and judge them by burning fire.
For those who take God’s way by faith, Genesis uses three places to signify the world. Chaldea, a place of idols, signifies the aspect of the idolatry of the world (Josh. 24:2); Egypt, a place of rich produce, signifies the aspect of the material riches of the world (Gen. 12:10); and Sodom, a city of fornication and sin, signifies the aspect of the sinfulness of the world (Gen. 13:13). These three places formed a triangular boundary around the land of Canaan, each side having its own attractiveness. We, God’s called ones, live within such a triangle and must be careful lest we fall back to the land of idols, go down to the place of worldly pleasure, or drift into the city of sin.
Lot left idolatrous Chaldea and did not go down to materially rich Egypt. Nevertheless, he fell into sinful Sodom. Consequently, in seeing and hearing the lawless works of Sodom, he tormented his soul day after day (2 Pet. 2:7-8); yet he was not able to render the people of Sodom any help. His wife, by looking back on the wicked place condemned by God, became a pillar of salt (Gen. 19:17, 26). His two daughters, having been corrupted under the influence of sin, lost their sense of shame to such an extent that they even manipulated their father and bore children through him by incest (Gen. 19:31-38). Consequently, to the tenth generation their descendants were not allowed to enter into the congregation of Jehovah or to serve the Lord (Deut. 23:3). The sinful Sodom brought a tragic end to the family of Lot.