What is lots' purpose in the Bible?

Answer 1

At 2Timothy 3:16,17 it says that The Bible was "inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, reproving, and setting things straight". So reading about Lot and his family should teach us something. His story stresses the importance of faith and obedience in God.

Answer:

In this modern world that's forging ahead into the openly wicked ways of Sodom and Gomorrah... Lot may be of some inspiration to those today who, like Lot, find themselves set upon by a Godless and lawless society that's becoming increasingly hateful and intolerant of the Truth of God and the very sound of Jesus' name. Lot's account may bolster a "believer's" resolve to hold on and wait for their salvation.

"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man... It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed." (Luke 17:26-30 NIV)

"For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell [tartarus], putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for Judgment; if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah... if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; if He rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) -- if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the Day of Judgment..." (II Peter 2:4-9 NIV).

Believers may take heart in Lot's steadfastness in the midst of distress and lawlessness... for the prophesied Day is coming when the "Lord will not spare" the wicked:

"...set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof... to the others He said in mine hearing, Go ye after them through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark... fill the courts with the slain...

"And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell on my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! Wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?

"Then said He unto me, The iniquity of the House of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not.

"And as for Me also, Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head. (Ezek.9:4-10)

Taking to heart the lesson of Lot's account may encourage a believer to be patient... and wait on the Lord... that he might have the Lord's "mark" set upon his forehead [see Rev.7:3]. That he might be "spared" in the Day of Judgment that this generation will undergo along with the generations of Noah, Lot, and all the other generations of men.