Now before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them..." (Gen 19,4-5)

Lot had been experiencing doubts about his place for several years as the bad situation in the city escalated. But he mostly pushed them away, thinking that things might not be much better elsewhere. He'd put the pros and cons on the scales, and it came out that there was simply no point in taking too radical steps. Somehow it was, somehow it will be; he always managed to reconcile conflicts, to come to an agreement, to get out of difficult situations without much loss. All Sodomites will surely never forget how his kinsman once saved them. Not only because of that, but also because of his wealth, Lot has a proper position here. Only a fool would start from zero again somewhere alse.

Steve McQueen tells the story of a certain fool in the iconic film The Magnificent Seven. The man who has just jumped off a skyscraper window is asked, "How's it going?" And he answers on every floor: "so far, so good".

A similar thing happened to Lot. For years he surrounded himself with promising-sounding arguments until he stopped being able to realistically assess the situation and perceive the danger. He failed to notice that the morals of Sodom had meanwhile changed so much that he was no longer of any value to them, certainly no more than the thrill of one evening of violent orgies. Yet only yesterday he had thought that all was "so far so good."

But then, in an instant, there came a blow that smashed his whole life to pieces.