See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.” And he said to him, “See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” (Gen 19,20-22)

"I can't do anything..." What is meant by "can't"? Isn't he God, so he can do whatever? Of course he can, but he won't, because he has placed the principle of the salvation of his people above the principle of the judgment of the world. See 1 Peter 3:20 - until Noah stepped aboard the ark, the world was not flooded. Until Lot came out of Sodom, it would not be destroyed.

But God can't either because a friend stands in the way. Abraham pleaded for the salvation of Sodom up to the number of ten righteous. They were not found, and therefore Sodom will not be saved, but God will not let his nephew perish, whom Abraham no doubt had in mind. God limits his will because he has respect for the will of his friend. So the word "I cannot" here more accurately means "I do not want". God's friends influence events on this earth, even though they are mostly unknown to the world. After all, who then knew of Abraham's prayer on the high place above Sodom? No one who was concerned - none of the Sodomites, but not even Lot himself. And it is possible that he may even never have known about it.

Certain things will be different in the world if God's friends cry out to God. But that order cannot be skipped. First one must become a friend; then he comes and asks. It doesn't work the other way around, simply because a friend pleads like no one else - out of familiarity, out of a closeness that a stranger doesn't have.

Lot wandered out of Sodom at the end of the night, from "morning to dawn." He was ascending to a city that was, in his words, "near." The climb was not easy, but it certainly seemed easier to him than going up the mountain where God had sent him. But God rarely sends us on a journey about which we exclaim: sure, this is easy, why not give it a go? We often think: and why only not somewhere closer? Isn't there a more comfortable way? And why not somewhere else that's not so high?

A group of four people were leaving the city, but none of them with joy in their hearts. As its destruction began, Lot's wife, who (as characteristically described) "walked behind", looked back at Sodom. That was where her heart remained, her life belonged there, and she wanted no other. The pillar of salt into which she was transformed remains a memento that without consciously stepping out, one does not escape the fate of this world.