Monday, December 10, 2007

Total Depravity

I was doing my daily devotions a couple of days ago and arrived at Genesis 19 in my walk through the Bible. I read the passage about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and encountered an interesting phrase in the part about the attempted rape of Lot's angelic visitors. Lot offered his daughters up as substitutes for the mob, and their response is:

But they said, "Stand aside." Furthermore, they said, "This one came in as an alien, and already he is acting like a judge; now we will treat you worse than them." So they pressed hard against Lot and came near to break the door.

But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.

They struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the doorway.

The last phrase caught my attention. Although supernaturally struck down with blindness, the mob is completely unconcerned. They care nothing about this sudden strange turn of events, nor is there any indication that they notice that they have become blind. They are obsessed with only one thing: continuing to carry out the evil on their mind.

Such is the human condition. Without grace, we are blind and seek only the things that make us blind, and are unaware that we are blind. We don't know that we are lost and don't care; we want only to satisfy our wicked desires.

2 comments:

JD said...

Sweet revelation, John! I really love it when Christ comes to us in verses that, on the outside, seem so insignificant, but for the time, hold a greater power of understanding.

Thanks for sharing God's amazng sense of timing, yet again.

PAX
JD

Dale Tedder said...

Amen.