The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah became so incredibly wicked that the Lord decided to destroy them with fire.  Lot, who lived just outside of Sodom, was warned about it by an angel beforehand who said, “Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters . . . lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.” We could understand this as a command to physically leave the city and avoid having their bodies consumed by the coming fire.  But we could also understand it on a more spiritual level.  If Lot insisted on staying close to Sodom, being surrounded by wickedness, he would become spiritually consumed by the city’s wickedness.  In fact, this might already have been happening to Lot.  The famous poet, Alexander Pope, explained how easy it is to move along the spectrum from tolerating sin to eventually committing it ourselves.  He said, “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, as to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace.”  Lot was in danger of becoming so familiar with the sins of Sodom that he would first endure them, then pity them, then embrace them.  And we are too!  We are constantly surrounded by evil, but unlike Lot, there is no place we can go to escape it: temptation is everywhere.  So what are we doing to avoid the slippery slope of familiarity with sin leading to embracing it?  We have to be constantly on our guard so that we, like Lot, won’t “be consumed in the iniquity” of the world.   Music courtesy of bensound.com