Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Genesis 18-23 -- Part 1 : Dr. Daniel C. Peterson

Episode Date: February 12, 2022

How do the ancient Near Eastern traditions regarding hospitality affect the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah? Dr. Daniel Peterson explains how Abraham, Lot, and Sarah learn to trust the Lord and wrangle some of the more difficult passages regarding Sodom and Gomorrah.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/episodesFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsKrystal Roberts: French TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith and I'm John by the way. We love to learn, we love to laugh. We want to learn and laugh with you. As together, we follow him. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith, I'm your host.

I'm here with my salt of the earth co-host, John by the way. John, you are the salt of the earth. And the reason I bring that up is because I didn't want to say pillar of salt. I wanted to say salt of the earth. Hold that thought, folks. Yes, hold on to that thought. We're excited to be back. We're going to be in the book of Genesis and John, both you and I are a little starstruck today. Tell our listeners

who's with us. We are so happy today to have Dr. Daniel C. Peterson with us. I've listened to him read his blogs and everything on interpreter foundation and everything so we are so thrilled to have Dr. Daniel See Peterson with us today and let me give you our listeners some information. He's an emeritus professor of Islamic studies and Arabic At Brigham Young University and I think Hank I've told people I think the church's expert on Islam would be Dr. Peterson. I don't know who else that could possibly be. 100%. He was born and raised in Southern California. He received a bachelor's in classical Greek and philosophy

from BYU. Study for four and a half years in Jerusalem and Cairo. That's so cool. I earned a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from UCLA. He's been a professor of Islamic studies in Arabic from 1985 until retirement in just last July of 2021. The founder and until 2012,

director of BYU's Middle Eastern Text Initiative, which published dual language additions of classical Arabic works. I served in the Switzerland Zurich mission where they have the finest chocolate on earth. I'm just inserting that for nearly 10 years a member of the Gospel doctrine writing committee of the church served as a YSA bishop for a ward adjacent to Utah Valley University. He's a former chairman of the Board of Farms which you'll remember the foundation for ancient research and Mormon studies and the author and editor of numerous books and articles on Islamic and letter day Saint topics and

Since 2012 the president of the interpreter foundation. I hope you will find that to a website He is wife of the executive producers of the foundations Witnesses film project. Oh, I brought my DVD because I went and saw the movie in the theater and bought the DVD and this is part of our box of approved Sunday movies to watch. I went to the interpreter foundation's website. Wow, I did not know how much is here. I mean, this is it's interpreter foundation.org. Do you want to tell us just a little bit about that before we? Yeah, the Interpretive Foundation was begun in 2012, August of 2012. And we have amazingly, we have published at least one article every week online, and they're free.

Every Friday, since August 2012, it's nearly 50 volumes of material and it's all available online for free and we've done this movie and the documentary drama that's about to come out. And you know, there are things on all aspects of the scriptures and related topics. So we try to deal with issues that not always, we're not always trying to defend the church against criticisms, but when there are criticisms, we try to take them on straight forwardly. We're not afraid of any topic. And if there's a concern, then we'll try to address it. So it's been a lot of fun. I've been looking just to come follow me for this week, and there's dozens of articles

that, isn't it amazing in our day and age, the availability of gospel resources. Yes. I can't imagine telling Brigham Young or telling Wilford Woodruff about this. Yeah. No, there's so much in fact that I can't keep up with it. I mean, if I want to get ready for a come follow me lesson, I think, well, I'll look at all the relevant LDS helps. I can't. I don't have time. There's not time and a week to do it. I mean, if I want to get ready for a cum fall of me less than I think, well, look at all the relevant LDS helps. I can't. I don't have time. There's not time in a week to do it.

But which is a good problem to have, you know, as opposed to having nothing and being totally on your own when you're trying to deal in some cases with Isaiah or something like that. That's why I think this is nice to be able to talk about this because a lot of a lot of saints are eager looking for things but they don't know where are these guys coming from? What's their angle? What's their you know can I trust this and we can say, yeah, you can trust God interpreter and you can you can trust that. This is great content, faithful scholars, faithful scholars. We just love Brother Peterson how like you just said, we're not afraid to take on a topic and That straight forwardness is kind of characteristic. I think of you and

And that site as well, which is awesome Yeah, well, you know my confidence is the church is true There's no criticism out there. It's going to be lethal You know, there may be somewhere we don't have a good answer yet and maybe that'll come in a few years I've seen that happen. You know, where I didn't have an answer for a while, and suddenly something comes along, I think my word, that's it. That settles that issue. I can remember once being hit by an issue probably when I was a teenager.

And I realized, I'll bet there's nobody around my neighborhood, not my bishop, nobody I know, who knows anything about this. And you suddenly feel all alone. Like this is the first time, this is totally irrational, but this is the first time that this issue has ever come up, and I don't know what to say. And then I began thinking about, it actually had to do with the witnesses, now that I recall, and I began thinking about Richard Anderson's book on the witnesses, which I just read, and sure enough, there was a passage of about five pages that dealt with specifically that issue. It just when I read the book, it hadn't meant anything to me, and I kind of, you know, breathed through it. When I came back to

it, I thought he nailed it. There was no reason for being worried about that issue. He'd already dealt with it, but not everybody, you know, is aware of that book or the equivalent in any given issue. And so the goal is to try to help them. I don't want people to feel like they're out there twisting in the wind and that nobody has an answer because somebody probably does. Dan, we got, we want to turn this over to you. Genesis 18, where do you want to jump in?

How do you want our listeners to, what might be some skills they need to approach this text, anything like that before any prelude before we read? Yeah, 18 through 23. Well, you know, I think one of the things that people need to appreciate about these chapters is one of their themes is hospitality. And let me give you a little background to that from

Middle Eastern perspective. Hospitality is really important in traditional Middle Eastern cultures and by traditional I'm meaning here not the Babylonians but the Bedouins. I mean the really oldest in some ways the oldest form of Middle Eastern culture. Even today one of the greetings that you have in Arabic when people come and I don't even know that the Arabs think of this, they'll say to you, Ahlan wasahlan, you know, welcome. Well, Ahlan wasahlan comes from two words, Ahlan means kinfolk, and Sahlan means a flat place like a good campground.

And so what you're saying to people when you say Ahlan wasahlan, like, welcome to my house, is you've come to family, and this is a good place to camp. This is a, you know, you should spend the night here. And that's what you see when the Lord and his two accompanying angels come to Abraham, he's out there, but in the plains of Mamrae or some translations say by the the oaks of Mamrae or the terabence of Mamrae, he is eager to have them come in and he wants them to stay with him. And this is classic Bedouin hospitality. And it's a really important thing. Elizabeth from Priuslamic Arabia who says, I'm not survival in any other way, but when a guest shows up, I'm his slave, anything for the guest. And they really believe that. And you would sacrifice almost anything

rather than allow harm to happen to your guest. That's, you know, this is really a terrible story that comes up later in this section of Lot offering his daughters to protect the visitors. We're a guest at that. And it probably says something about, you know, sexism in the ancient Middle East. But it also, and I think they would have meant it to be read as, he is so desperate to protect his guests. He is on a bound. It will be a disgrace to his family forever if he allows harm to happen to his guests while there with him.

He will give up anything, including his children. There's again a Middle Eastern poet, Emerald Piceice from the pre-Islamic period, who leaves his weapons with someone while he goes off to do something, and the enemies of that man come and besiege the castle in which Imroul Pice's weapons have been stored. And the master of the castle says, he's not here and where is he? I won't tell you,, let us in you know, no, I give us his weapons so he can't have them back No, well, we've captured your son who was out here hunting. We've captured him. We'll kill him if you don't let us in and he says well You know, I don't want you to kill my son, but you do what you have to do. I cannot allow you to

To violate the the relationship between the host and the guest. I mean, it's that important to them. So I think you're seeing that here with Abraham, and he's dwelling in a tent. He is in that way a classic Bedouin. And you notice, he comes out, he bows, he touches his forehead to the ground. You know, please stay with me, and it's this strong sense of honoring the guest, especially, I think it grows out of the fact you're out in the desert in this really inhospitable area. And when a guest comes straggling along, he may need help. And this is mutual protection. You hope for it too if you're in trouble. And there's a person out there. And even if he's your

enemy, if you come in under his roof, he will not harm you While you're his guest. He's on a bound and it would be disgrace forever if he did anything to you I'm putting that against Ben Franklin's fish and guests stink after three days, right? Totally different culture then yeah, yeah, and what where you used to there's a wonderful different culture than what where you used to. There's a wonderful section about this in a film it was done years and years ago, and I should have looked it up. I don't remember where it is.

It's been posted again in a cleaned up form. It's called the Faith of an Observer about Hugh Nibbley. And there's a really moving scene toward the end of the film where he retells the story of Abraham in the desert from a Jewish apocryphal source. And he gets emotional. He tears up, telling a story about how Abraham is not only welcoming to the guest, he's out there. It's a terrible burning hot day, dusty, the wind blowing, horrible. And he is looking for stragglers in the desert. He says, I will not eat until I've helped some poor soul out here in the desert. And that's when, according to that Jewish apocryphan, that's when the three travelers come, and he's given the gift of his son and so on. It's not just an arbitrary

thing, according to that story. It's rewarding Abraham for his faithfulness and his hospitality, his sheer goodness. But it's striking to hear you tell that story because he just chokes up, means so much to him. So as we're coming into these chapters, that's something that definitely keep in mind is why they're behaving the way they are is because of how seriously they take hospitality. Hospitality. Yeah. It means more than just putting out a nice party spread. It's taking care of the guest, providing the shelter. You notice some things like, he says, in verse 4 of chapter 18, let a little water I pray you be fetched and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. The idea of washing the feet leaps out at me because in the ancient world, especially for travelers in the desert, that's no mere formality.

That's something you do to refresh them. They're dusty and dirty after traveling out there. That was a ritual practice, but a real practice throughout the ancient world. A friend of mine did a master's thesis, I think, on welcoming formulae and Homer. And he's looking at the Odyssey and wherever Odysseus goes, when he is received into a great house, they wash his feet, they wash him, give him a bath, andoint him with oil and give him fresh clothing. And I think that ought to ring some bells with some people when you're entering a great house, that this is something that is done. And it goes

back to very real world things. Two, just a small thing. He runs to Sarah and says, make ready quickly. Three measures, fine meal needed, make cakes upon the hearth. And she's probably making Peter bread. Later on, I noticed with with lot, he talks about unleavened bread. That's probably what it is. It's the same kind of bread that Bedouins make today. It's kind of like modern day Peter bread or almost like tortilla on a flat stove. When she makes cakes, I don't think we should think of Betty Crocker.

But he's showing real honor to them. He runs and he gets a young calf. Now, you don't do this for just anybody. You're not slaughtering your herd all the time, but when guests come, you do. And so he gets a good calf and dresses it and gives them a takes butter, which is probably lemon, which is really more like yogurt. They still use it in the Middle East for cooking and stews and things like that. So, you know, there's a lot about this that still rings true in the Middle East. If you visit a Bedouin encampment, although the Bedouins are no longer quite what they once were,

I remember taking a group of BYU students out to a Bedouin camp, we were told we were gonna have a Bedouin experience. And I have to admit, I got a little suspicious when I could see a TV antenna poking out of the Beto intent. And when the Beto and Chieftain came out in an Izoid t-shirt, I thought, this is not quite Abraham. But still, some of those attitudes remain.

Yeah, and these three men in verse two, what would we say if someone were to say, who are these people? Yeah. Well, I think it's pretty, one of them is clearly identified eventually as the Lord. And two of them are angels. And at one point then the two angels go on and the Lord seems to exit the picture. You know, when they go to Sodom, it's just two. We don't know what the Lord has done. One of the things that's striking to me is the continuum between humans and deity, that they described as men. They're clearly not ordinary men, and at what point Abraham recognizes that, I don't know. Eventually, he's bargaining with him about the fate of Sodom. He's got to recognize

this. It's not just three ordinary travelers passing through the desert. This is something remarkable. I don't know when he notices that. When he first starts, you know, in verse three, my Lord, he addresses one of them as my Lord. He's not addressing as Yahweh or Jehovah. It's just a respectful term. But at some point, he realizes this is unusual.

And one of them is clearly the Lord appearing in human form with two angels. That's pretty good stuff, and I think for some of our fellow Christian friends, it's a bit of a problem, poses a bit of a challenge. How does the God of the universe, who's without body parts or passions, appear in the form of a human being? I guess he can do anything he wants, but it seems a little curious.

So yeah, this is a divine visit. It's a remarkable, remarkable visit. The entertains God and two angels out there in the desert. It's a theophany. Yeah, I guess so. And they ate. Yeah, it makes me wonder, well, again, this is deep doctrine. I can't answer it. Who is the Lord in this case? He's eating. And in Luke, he shows that he's physical by eating. Right. But he's eating here. Yeah.

And so it's pretty astonishing. But they've come for a very practical purpose. And I think this is time for Abraham's blessing to be fulfilled. He's to have a son. And so one thing that I like about it is it shows how the Lord intervenes not only on massive, the massive cosmic scale, but also on very personal levels sometimes. This is about one man and one woman having a baby. And the Lord and two of his angels come down. Now Abraham is an important guy, I grant that, but still, beginning and bearing children

is it's not altogether unusual, you know, it happens. And so they're coming down for that. The unusual thing, of course, here is the advanced age of Abraham and Sarah. So, you know, when Isaac is born, Abraham is 100 years old. Pretty amazing. They immediately began asking about Sarah, and he said she's in the tent, which fits modern

Middle Eastern ideas. The woman is sort of withdrawn. We see this in the West as sexism, but in the Middle East, it's often regarded as treating the woman as a kind of hidden treasure. She's not to be gawked at by ordinary strangers. So, well, there's a house in Cairo that I really like called the gay or Anderson House, which is a traditional kind of upper-class aristocratic Islamic home. And there's an area where the guests would gather, and then there's an area upstairs behind

Mashaabea screens from which the women could listen in on the conversation. They would not come out and mingle with the guests, who would be all men. And so she's in the tent, and the tent is kind of her sanctuary. And so he begins to talk to Abraham knowing that Sarah can hear. He says, I'll visit you again about this time next year, I think, is what he's saying. And Sarah, your wife will have a son by then. And she hears it. And because she's so old, she laughs within herself. It says she didn't laugh loudly. But this is the Lord. He knows. And she says, after I'm

waxed old, you know, come on, really? And the Lord says, what she laugh is anything too hard for the Lord at the time appointed, I will return under the verse 14. And Sarah denied this kind of embarrassing because she's lying now. Well, in a way, she's telling the truth. I don't think she laughed out loud, but she denied saying, I laughed not. She was afraid. He said, nay, but that did slap. You can't fool me. But he's made this promise which will then be fulfilled. And so that's a remarkable thing as well. And then it was shift to Sodom and Gomorrah, a very different story. It's interesting in our last lesson, we talked about they knew this blessing was coming, this seed, but they had tried to do some different things themselves, right? With Hagar, with, you know, maybe this is what God wants me to, maybe this is God wants me to do, and no, no.

All right, that's not it, that's not it. This is how it's going to happen. And I think that's often the case that the Lord will tell us to do something. He doesn't necessarily tell us how it will be accomplished. Right. Sometimes he eventually will intervene because we're dumb and we're not doing it right.

He'll finally say, no, no, do it this way. But sometimes he just says, do this. And then it's up to the leaders of his church or the bishop or whoever it is to figure a way to do that or ahead of a family. You know you're supposed to do it, but how you do it is kind of up to you. We're not puppets and we're not let at every step. So yeah, they know it's coming, but so far, it just hasn't seemed to materialize, and I'm 100 years old now. Yeah, how's this going to happen? I just can hardly imagine it being a little more. It's a very human story, right? Yeah, we have promises, we know

there's busings, but it doesn't seem to be playing out. Maybe like we thought it would. Well, and I think that's one lesson I've learned over my life that sometimes when things have been fulfilled, I've thought, oh, so that's how it was going to happen. It's not how I pictured it, but now that I can see it, I get it. And I think that happens a lot of the time.

That the Lord knows what he's going to do, but it won't necessarily come on our schedule or the way we imagined it. And this being the original little family here of the faithful, maybe you should expect this. If this happened to the original family, all of you should probably expect this if this happened to the original family all of you should probably expect to this type of this type of situation does not Isaiah say look unto the rock from when she were you look to Abraham and Sarah yeah has a kind of a model to

they are a model and I think that we should be constantly thinking of a thing of Abraham and Sarah as as models in regards. And they were set up to be that. So we're regarded constantly as the children of Abraham. There's a reason for that. So you said now we switch over. Yeah. And you know, Abraham's still in the picture because the men rise up, they're looking towards Sodom. And Abraham comes along with them

to bring them on the way it says. And then the Lord says, you know what? I'm not going to hide what I intend to do from Abraham, because Abraham is going to be a great nation. I trust him. All the nations of the earth will be blessed in him. I'm going to tell him. I know that he'll command his children to live my commandments.

So the Lord says, you know, I've been hearing complaints from Sodom and Gomorrah about oppression and wickedness hearing complaints. I like that. And and I'm going to go down and it's interesting because he says I'm going to see whether they've done according to the cry of it. If not, I'll know. So it's interesting, I don't think it's really the case that God doesn't know. But he's going to do a very serious thing. And so he will be a personal witness against them. The God himself will be. And so the men turn from then, yeah.

Dan, don't you think that's a good principle of, I've heard this, I better go find out for myself. Yeah, just like a human principle, right? I better go find out for myself. Yeah, just like human principle, right? I better not just believe what I hear. How many cases of I seen or experienced who've been involved in or frankly probably even done myself where I've trusted a report and then found out the report wasn't true. You know that the bad things I was hearing about somebody within 15 minutes of meeting that person I think none of this was true.

Nothing like that. Maybe it's just a good human principle here, what the Lord's trying to give us a good example. I remember an administrative decision that was made. A good friend of mine. He just committed one of the cardinal sins of an administrator. He did not seek out other accounts of that incident. And he should have done that. You never make a decision if it's going to be a serious one based on one report from one person or something like that. You know, because sometimes they're just unjust. There's two sides to every story. They're is. Yeah, but I won't point the finger at that person because I've done it myself and we maybe all have.

Yeah, but the Lord says, I'm going to be a witness myself, but the Lord stays there and the two men go off the two angels, whoever they are, go off towards Sodom. And then you have this wonderful bargaining session between Abraham and the Lord. And I don't think it's so much that the Lord really is being bargained down. But I think he's allowing Abraham to demonstrate his compassion. Abraham is the father of the faithful, as he's often called, and the friend of God, and he's a righteous man. But he's saying, you know, don't destroy this city. If you can find even a few righteous, how about 50? How about 45? And he gets it down finally to 10. Yeah. And the Lord says, okay, I won't destroy it for 10. The trouble is when he gets there,

when his servants get there, they can't find even ten, which means it's a really bad place. But this bargaining again is, I just get a kick out of it. It is Middle Eastern in a way. I still remember a case where I took a family that were visiting Cairo once out to a shop in the Bazaar area of Cairo, Chanel, Chalili, and they found something they wanted. I don't even remember what it was. It was $100.

I can't recall. You know, they bargained with the guy and finally they said, no, it's a little too expensive. Now we won't get it. And then I think two days later it was Monday, we were going to be taking them to the airport and they said, you know, that thing at the Bazaar, how we really do want it, and we'll even be willing to pay 100 bucks for it, is it near the airport? And I said, well, it's kind of on the way. I mean, if you promise to be quick, we can, we can go there. They said, okay, let's, so we take them there. And I knew the shopkeeper just a little bit and they said, okay, okay, we'll take it. 100 bucks is no, no, no,

you can't do that. That's what he mean. you can't do that. He says you have to bargain. And they said, we don't have time. And he said, okay, then I'll do it for you. I say $100 and you say no more than 60. And he did the bargaining on both sides and brought them to about $80. So we're in between and then sold it to the money. So he says there, now wasn't that better.

And I thought man, you guys have just had a cultural experience. This shopkeeper left some money on the table because just bargaining is part of it. You know? Oh, that's wonderful. Maybe this is coming from that culture that still exists today. I had never thought that before.

Yeah. So, you know, it's this back and forth between the Lord and Abraham. Hey, can I bring the price down a little bit? You know, will you spare them for this? But at 10, he decides I better leave off. I've pushed it too far. And the Lord says, yeah, I'll spare him for 10.

And then ultimately, he can't spare them at all. I read this and I feel like, man, I'm in a Middle Eastern Bizarre here. Only this, it's not the shopkeeper with a tourist. It's the Lord with Abraham. But, you know, does the Lord really, is he really affected by Abraham? Maybe. I don't know exactly how that works. But I think it's a good opportunity for Abraham to demonstrate his worthiness. His posterity is not going to bless just Israel, but all the world. So his concern is for everybody, even the city of Sodom. He wants to save them if he can. And that's why he is, who he is. I use this when I teach the book Mormon about,

well, if you cast out the righteous from among you, you know, then this place is going to get leveled and it sounds like a similar principle that even if there's a few righteous there, the Lord says, I won't destroy it, but I've always loved verse 25 because it sounds like Abraham is showing God how to be God, you know? Yeah. That'd be far from me. She'll not the judge of all the earth, do right? Do you know how to read the handbook?

You're supposed to be like this. And you can imagine he'll say, well, I'm just dust and ashes. I mean, how do I dare speak to you? And there's that, but he is speaking with the Lord. And I like the phrase at the end of 22, but Abraham stood yet before the Lord. I think the standing before the Lord may be important here,

because in the traditional court of the Oriental monarch, the proper pose is before the monarch is on your knees, forehead to the ground. I mean, you look at the standard prayer postures in Islam. When they touch the forehead to the ground, that's the time-honored gesture of a Middle Easterner in the presence of an Oriental, despot oriental Lord. And Abraham is standing before the Lord. When Gabriel is asked who he is in the enunciation, he answers, I am Gabriel.

I, you know, and when he says, when Zechariah says, but this is impossible, I am old and Gabriel responds, I am Gabriel, you know, I don't care if you're old. I am old. I am old and Gabriel responds, I am Gabriel. You know, I don't care if you're old. I am old. I am Gabriel. I'm Gabriel and I stand before the Lord. I stand in the presence of God. And when he says I stand in the presence of God, it means he's a member of the divine court.

He's not just some slave. He has status. And Abraham here, I think Abraham and away with the three visitors and God. Abraham is being made a member of the divine council in a way, temporarily. The divine council is at that tent in the desert, in the southern part of Israel. In the Amos 37, when it says, surely Lord God will do with nothing but He reveal it, His secret unto his servants, the prophets.

The word secret is sawd, which is richer than just secret. It means something like something discussed in a secret council. It's like the prophets are invited into the council, they at least get bits from the council that they can then reveal to people on earth. I think that's what Abraham is getting here. He is a member of the council. He's involved in a discussion with God about the decision of the council. Yeah, Dr. Sears, Josh Sears told us that even once Jeremiah says to a false prophet, you haven't been in the council.

I was at that meeting. You weren't at that meeting. Exactly. So where do you get off letting out what you say are the secrets of the council? You don't know them. You don't even come to the meetings. Yeah.

And I feel like Abraham, it sounds like he's getting more and more humble. Cause he's very bold and he's standing, but he's, okay, I'm nothing but dust and ashes. And then finally, okay, don't be eager. I'm going to speak just one more time in verse 32. And per adventure, I guess means suppose, right? Or it's a King James way of saying, well, suppose there's this many, right? Yeah, maybe. Don't know if that'll be true, but what if? You're not going to destroy it for those 10 people, are you? Yeah. So the standard is pretty low. Sodom doesn't have to pass a high bar, but it fails. So that tells you how bad the place was.

So here we get to Sodom, and here again, I want to say there's something else going on. Again, I think it's that hospitality issue as well. The men of Sodom want from these two visitors when the two angels go to Sodom, but they want it by force, and they want to humiliate and dishonor the visitors. That's a violation of every human rule of not only hospitality, but just general human interaction. You just don't do that. So contrast the hospitality of Abraham and the preceding chapter with the attitude of the men of Sodom who in these guests, what they want to do is violate them. Comparative with Lot, Lot begins the chapter very much like Abraham.

He's sitting in the gate and when the strangers come, he says, come to my house, I'll feed you. You can wash your feet. I mean, it's very much like Abraham and the preceding chapter. And then by contrast, come the men of Sodom. So where are they? And the Lord is saying, no, no, don't do this to these men. You know, they take refuge in my house. Don't do this. It's a violation. Yes. We would say of the laws of nature. I mean, it's it's wrong.

But it's also a gross violation of hospitality rules that are really important and that Abraham and Lot have just illustrated. Yeah, people become objects. Yeah, right. I want to use that. Yeah. Yeah. So like things and things like people. Yep. I think that's one of the things that would have offended people in the Ancient Near East. No wonder the cry of Sodom has been coming up before the Lord. This is a rotten city where the first thought they have when two strangers come into the city is, let's abuse them. It's a terrible place. And I would bet that did it happen to strangers before who had the misfortune of coming through Sodom and sought to put up for the night out in the middle of the desert. I mean, if you know where Sodom probably was,

of the desert. I mean, if you know what Sodom probably was, it's at the south eastern end of the Dead Sea, pretty miserable territory. If you're coming through there and it's late in the day, you haven't had any water and you need some shelter, you go into Sodom to get those things. And then it turns out to be this violent criminal town, the horrible place, where you may not come out of it all right at all. So the Lord is sick of it, and he sends his angels to take care of it. So it's interesting that Lot lives there, isn't it? Yes, I've always wondered what in the world would possess you to live in a town like that. So he's brought out of it, and maybe he needed to be brought out of it, before he succumbed to it.

He evidently hadn't completely, but he's raising his kids there. I think, okay, not a good choice. One of the worst places on oath you could possibly raise them. I think if you look at footnote 8a, there's Joseph Smith translation. I'm looking in a commentary here. The Joseph Smith translation explains that the citizens demanded both the visitors and the daughters, but lot refused both. All of this evil that Joseph Smith translation adds was after the wickedness of Sodom. Yeah, much more edifying. This is a really horrifying story on a lot of levels. Isn't that part of the Old Testament down? They just share the details. You know, they have a very

different attitude toward these things than we do. Where Mormon says, I don't want to tell you. I don't want to tell you. I don't want to hurt your spirit. Maybe they had a different, very different attitude toward a lot of these matters than we do. I mean, I can imagine I grew up in the city. If you grew up on a farm, some things just come across differently to you. If you grew up with flocks and herds and you're always trying to get them to multiply,

well, you know, you have a little different attitude and from a young age. You know, and I remember a Latter-day St. woman friend of ours who was the wife of the branch president, Cairo. They lived in Yemen for a while and she was invited sometimes to all women gathering, sometimes on the eve of a wedding. He would just come away stunned. The conversations were quite different than you would hear among Latter-day Saints on an evening before a wedding. So a little bit on the earthy side. So yeah, maybe none of this needs to be shared with the kids.

Yes. A little bit on the earthy side. But you know, this whole chapter, there's a whole lot about this chapter that's pretty awful, you know. But he eventually leaves and the men kind of have to take it into their own hands, the visiting angels. They reach out and they grab a lot and pull him back into the house, and then they smite the men outside,

or staggering around, trying to find the door they no longer can. And then they tell him, look, you need to get out of this place right away, because we're going to destroy it. And I don't know if the decision had been made to destroy the place until this event, they're kind of there as the intelligence gatherers. Well, they've seen for themselves now. So the decision has been made. We're going to smite this place. So you need to get out and you need to get out quite a distance. But he goes to his sons-in-law and they say, yeah, you're joking.

This is, you're not serious, so they don't go. And then the angels take him and they he lingers. I like for a 16. Well, he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand. And upon the hand of his wife, upon the hand of his two daughters, Lord being merciful under him. And they brought him forth and set him without the city.

You are the man. This is not a time to linger. No, I'm thinking he's looking around, you know, maybe, well, should I take this and should I pack that? I see, just get out. Okay, if nothing else, we'll take you by the scruff by the collar and just the scruff of your neck and drag you outside and plant you outside the city. Get out. What an interesting principle. I do that with my own sins, where the Lord says, get rid of that sin. Let me linger here for a minute.

I will, I will, I'll leave, I'll leave. Just let me linger here for a minute. Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a good moral to draw from this. When the Lord says, get out, get out. Yeah, now, now. If you receive that kind of inspiration or that kind of commandment, quit. Don't, don't linger. The fact is a lot of us, you know, as the famous prayer supposedly of

St. Augustine, oh Lord, make me chaste, but not yet. Give me a few weeks or months and then I promise I'll get my act together. But the Lord means now and I think this is again a good lesson for us to learn that you shouldn't linger. The longer you hang around the more likely it is you're going to start taking on the coloration of your environment. Hmm. Oh Lord, like we are leaving. No, I'm grabbing, I mean, yank you out of here.

Yeah. See, I kind of picture this is probably not fair, but Lawton is family suddenly just being plopped down in the middle of the desert looking around kind of blinking and say, how do we get here? You know, just now move. There's a great verse in Revelation. I think it's, I want to say like Revelation 19 where the Lord looks at Satan's kingdom and he says, get out of there my people. It's a Revelation 18 verse 4, come out of her my people

that you be not partakers of her sins and receive not of her plagues. It's really a get out now. Yeah, get out of Babylon right now. Elder Maxwell used to like to talk about people who, you know, they want to have a house in Zion, but they like to keep a vacation home in Babylon too. You can't do that. Exactly. I can't do that. I can't do that.

I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I stay by the tree of life, but I weekend at the great and spacious building and then I come back. Yeah. So, you know, he used to ask the question, and others have too. How many people are active, and how many people are valiant? There may be a distinction there. It's an important one. We have to ask ourselves,

which group do I fall into? Yeah, I'm there on Sundays, but am might really pay attention. Am I really into this or am I just kind of there? And so leave the world behind. It doesn't mean withdrawing into a monastery, nothing like that, but really making a decision. There's a line from trying to think, CS Lewis, who says that the Lord has promised to speak with us face to face, but one of the problems is we have to decide which face is ours. A line that I've always loved from the Danish philosopher, Saren Kyrgyjör, the Kyrgyjör.

Purely of heart, he said, is to will one thing. If we're double-minded, as James says, then we're unstable. Purity of heart is to will one thing, to really be focused. But it has to be focused on the right thing. I'm sorry, I'm going to go a little bit astray here, a far afield, but there's an essay by Bertrand Russell of all people, famous atheist floss for the 20th century. Don't hear him quoted in church very often, but I've quoted them. But he talked about once, he had an essay on the most, the two most impressive men he'd ever met. And one of them was Vladimir Lenin. He wrote with him for 24 or 72 hours in a train car. And he was deeply impressed by Lenin, but not positively. He said, his impression was that

Lenin was totally devoted to his idea of the revolution. In a way, totally incorruptible. He said, he would have without hesitation leaned over and cut my throat and let me bleed to death on the floor of the train car. And it wouldn't have bothered him a bit. He said, he was unnerving. and it wouldn't have bothered him a bit. He said, he was unnerving. And that's a kind of purity of heart, but it's not the kind of Lord wants. It's got to be purity of heart focused on good things, not evil things.

So I like that. Wow. That would be a little disconcerting to sit in a train car, right? Yes. No, I think I'm not gonna sleep on this train. Yeah. Yeah.

They're told not to look back. And there again, this story about lots of wife is an odd one, but the idea of not looking back, we can take that as a metaphor very, very clearly. And he's, yeah, leave Babylon and don't look back, leave Sodom and don't look back. Don't keep thinking, man, it would have been nice. Oh, you know, GI Miss X Y and Z. No, just make a clean break. She looks back and it's turned into a pillar of salt. Whatever that actually means, I don't know. There are sort of salt pillars around that part of the Dead Sea because it's a really salty lake and it's gone through various periods of expansion and contraction.

It's in a deep contraction right now. And it's left pillars of dirty salt all around the area and it stinks really badly. But I can imagine that that's what they're thinking of when they think of this passage. We had a bus driver pull over and point and say, there's lots of wife right there. So I think there's maybe a spot where there's a particular pillar they like to. Yeah, some of them are about the height of human beings.

I mean, I almost look like people. You can see people in them. It does sound like a harsh punishment to become a geographic formation, all of a sudden, for just looking. I was so excited to ask Dr. Peterson this, because isn't there a hint in the Quran that she didn't just want to go back, but she actually went back? Yeah, there is. Yeah, that she went back and she's punished for that. Yeah, that's a Muslim tradition that it wasn't,

it's not just a glance, we think that's too harsh, but if it's, my heart's really there. I liked that place, I had a nice house, I had lots of good stuff and I'd rather be there. Like layman and Lemuel always saying, she wish we could be back in Jerusalem. They never really left in their hearts and it would look what happened to them. So I've always thought along the way, by the way, you know, Lehigh has warned that they

might wander off and be lost or something, and I think would it have been so bad? But he's a father, right? He cares about laymen and Lemuel, but he brings them along and look what they do. Well, I always wondered, who couldn't Nephi just say, you know what, you guys are right. Lehigh, I'll take care of him. You guys go back, I'll stay with him

because I mean, he sees what they're gonna do to his posterity and that might have been a temptation for me to say, you're right, dad, soft as rocker, just go back. I'll take care of Sarai and Lehigh. Yeah, or you like this area, I think that they probably were attracted to South Arabia, the Great and Spacious Building, I think was an old South Arabian skyscraper. They still have them in Yemen.

They had to go behind Yemen through the desert to get to the old world bountiful. Cause I think Lehigh was afraid they might have stayed in Yemen. Well, hey, would that have been so bad? Let him stay. Nice place here, you know? You might want to just buy a house.

And don't come with us to the new world. I guess we better bring along the opposition and all things, brothers. And that one looks like a fit you perfectly. That one's great. That one's spacious. Yeah, try that. Hey, John, I wanted to share a story from that talked Melder Holland. It's called Remember Lots wife. And if our listeners have time, I definitely would, I'd take time for Elder Holland this week. If you've never read that, I would listen to it as well. You know, it's Elder Holland, it's just the way he speaks.

And he shares this one story. He says, I remember one fall day, I think it was the first semester after our marriage in 1963. So this is way back in the 1900s. I don't know if you guys remember the 1900s, but 1963, he said, we were walking together up the hill past the measure building. This is him, he and his wife, on the sidewalk that led between

the president's home and the Broom Hall building. Somewhere on that path, we stopped and wondered what we'd gotten ourselves into. Life that day seemed so overwhelming and the undergraduate plus graduate years that we still anticipated before us seemed monumental, nearly insurmountable. Our love for each other and our commitment to the gospel were strong, but most of all the other temporal things around us seemed particularly ominous. And then he said, I turned to Pat and said something like this, honey, should we give up? I can get a good job, carve out a good living for us.

I can do some things. I'll be okay without a grie. Should we just stop stop trying to tackle what right now seems so difficult to face?" He said, in my best reenactment of Lot's wife, I said, in effect, let's go back. Let's go home. The future holds nothing for us. And then he quotes Pat, grabs me by the lapel and said, we are not going back, we are not going home. The future holds everything for us. I like that idea of the past is better than the future, like lots wife, right?

Let's go back. Let's, let's, the future isn't, isn't gonna be good, where he's like, and that's part of his, his talk here. So I would encourage everybody to go listen. Yeah, that's the, remember Pat's husband story. Yeah. Well, you know, I can imagine that Lot and his family maybe felt, look, we'd made a home in Sodom, you know, curious place, but we'd made a home there and we had to abandon

it. And we were actually kind of forced out. These angels grabbed us and hauled us out. We've got nothing. And, you know, and now what, we're out in the middle of the desert. I mean, wow, this is real progress. And again, if people have been there, if they've seen pictures of it, this is desert that makes Nevada look like a tropical rainforest. I mean, it's really serious desert. And so you've got to be thinking again, what have we gotten ourselves into?

Where are we going to go from here? Interesting you bring up Lehigh and Siraya, you know, this we're leaving and we're leaving what, you know, what they've always known. Yeah, they had to abandon everything. Laman and Laman, this is the land our fathers gave us. And I just feel like when they were uprooted from their land, they lost part of their identity and I've always wondered if

that's why Jesus just keeps telling you are when he finally shows up in the New World, you are my sheep, you are house of Israel because they're real estate meant more than just, oh, we're going to move here, we're going to move there like we do today, you know. Right. than just, we're going to move here, we're going to move there like we do today, you know. Right. Well, that's a really interesting thought. And, yeah, I mean, I've sometimes thought I'd like to rewrite first Nephi from the standpoint of layman and Lemuel just because I think I can understand that they're complaint. You know, come on, we're comfortable here. We lead a pretty good life, we're well off. And that dad has these crazy religious notions

and he wants to abandon everything. And I think if we demonize them and just say, oh, they're evil, we aren't learning from them. Because if we were in that situation, wouldn't we have been tempted to react to a way layman and lemmul were reacted? Or the way of possibly lot in his wife reacted. I'm comfortable here. I don't want to leave. Yeah. Yeah. So what are the odds? What are the odds? This is going to be

destroyed. Come on, this city was stood the Assyrians. Yeah. And when Fire and Brimstone comes out of heaven, this is not something that happened regularly. They were anticipating that. That's not on the forecast. Serious said nothing about this today. Hey John, I've got one to share with your kids. You ready? The primary teacher said, the Lord commanded a lot to take his wife and flee into the wilderness. And his wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. And the little student said, but what happened to the flea? of salt and the little student said, but what happened to the flea? There's a wife and so Lee. So share that one with your kids, John.

I'm sure it'll get a good groan. We talked about earlier. Please join us for part two of this podcast.