Show Don't Tell: Genesis 19:12-29

The dawn was still a whisper on the horizon when the angels, with their urgent commands, seized Lot’s hand, pulling him from the clutches of a doomed city. The air was thick with the acrid scent of sulfur, a pungent warning of the divine judgment that loomed just beyond the hills. As Lot stumbled out of Sodom, the world around him was a juxtaposition of tranquility and impending chaos. The sun began to break, casting a warm, golden light over the landscape, but behind him, dark clouds gathered, pregnant with destruction.

“Hurry! Flee! Don’t look back!” The angels shouted, their voices sharp and clear against the horizon’s silence. Each step felt heavy with hesitation, as Lot glanced back, feeling the weight of his memories—the laughter of his children, the fleeting comforts of his home, now mere echoes in a heart filled with dread.

As he reached the safety of Zoar, he turned to witness a cataclysm unlike any other. A torrent of fire and brimstone cascaded from the heavens, raining down like a waterfall of destruction upon Sodom. The very earth trembled beneath the ferocity of God’s wrath. Buildings collapsed in a fiery embrace, and the once-vibrant city became but a shadow, swallowed in an inferno.

But in that moment, Lot's wife lingered. Perhaps it was the ache of familiarity, the longing for what once was, that compelled her to look back. Her gaze turned to a fleeting vision of Sodom, and in that instant, she was transformed—a pillar of salt, a testament to hesitation and doubt, forever frozen between two worlds.

On a distant hill, Abraham stood, his heart heavy yet hopeful. He had pleaded with God for mercy, and now he witnessed the smoke rising like a funeral pyre, a stark reminder of the choices that bind us. God remembered Abraham and spared Lot, but the fate of Sodom was sealed in ashes—a grave reminder of the consequences of turning back when the call to flee is upon us.