Genesis 18 tells of God’s judgment against the city of Sodom. God decided He would destroy the city for its wickedness. However, Abraham pleaded with God to spare Sodom for the sake of the righteous within the city. God agreed to spare Sodom if He found ten righteous souls within (verse 32).
In Genesis 19, Abraham “looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace” (verse 28). God had evidently not found even ten righteous individuals in the city.
Yet, notice something about Abraham’s nephew Lot (who dwelt in Sodom at the time) that is brought out in the description of God’s judgment against Sodom in 2 Peter 2:6-8: and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked (for that righteous man dwelling among them, was tormented in his righteous soul from day to day with seeing and hearing lawless deeds):
Though Genesis does not give a lot of details about Lot’s righteousness, it is clear from 2 Peter 2 that he was a righteous man in the midst of unrighteousness.
This pattern is seen throughout the Bible. God’s servants are often surrounded by unrighteousness. God’s faithful children often behave very differently from those around them.
This is not surprising when we consider what Jesus taught in Matthew 7:13-14: Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it. How narrow is the gate, and restricted is the way that leads to life! Few are those who find it.
To be among the righteous few, we must take the strait and narrow path. We must not strive to be like the ungodly around us, as the Israelites of Samuel’s day did (1 Sam. 8:5,19-20). God’s people are to be set apart from the sinfulness of the world (cf. 1 Pet. 2:9; 2 Cor. 6:17).
This does not mean we must avoid the world, but rather we must allow God to rule our lives and thereby shape our character and conduct.
We must change our thinking to see good for what God says is good and evil for what God says is evil (Rom. 12:9).
May we be “blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world,” (Phil. 2:15). May we live righteously amid unrighteousness.
– Michael Hickox