Luk 17:20 And having been asked by the Pharisees when
the reign of Elohim would come, He answered them and said, “The reign of Elohim
does not come with intent watching,
Luk 17:21 nor shall they say, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look
there!’ For look, the reign of Elohim is in your midst!” (Acts 3:21)
Luk 17:28 “And likewise, as it came to be in the days
of Lot: They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were
selling, they were planting, they were building,
Luk 17:29 but on the day Lot went out of Seḏom it rained fire and
sulphur from heaven and destroyed all.
Luk 17:30
“It shall be the same in the day the Son of Aḏam is revealed.
Luk 17:31
“In that day, he who shall be on the house-top, and his goods in the
house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in
the field, let him not turn back.
Luk 17:32
“Remember the wife of Lot.
Luk 17:33
“Whoever seeks to save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his
life shall preserve it.
WARNING TO
ALL SEEKERS OF TRUTH!
Pro 14:12 There is a way which seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death1. Footnote: 1See 16:25.
Some famous quotes about deception:
“Almost
everyone who is deceived does not realize it.”
“There is
nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
“Just
because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar
knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to
deceive is a craftsman of destruction.”
“Seldom,
very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it
happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”
“A lie that
is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.”
“The truest
way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.”
“A lie's
true power cannot be accurately measured by the number of people who believe
its deception when it is told, it must be measured by the number of people who
will go out after hearing it trying to convince others of its truth.”
“When you
can't tell the truth, tell *a* truth.”
“A joke is a good camouflage. Next best comes sentiment... But the best camouflage of all - in my opinion - is the plain and simple truth. Because nobody ever believes it.”
― Max Frisch
“Deception is the most violent form of brutality,
because you destroy yourself on an instalment plan and refuse any interference”
“The deepest gratitude and greatest miracle comes to
those who are being delivered from deception.”
One of
Yahshua’s talmadim (disciples) said the following:
2Pe 2:1 But there also came to be false prophets1
among the people, as also among you there shall be false teachers, who shall secretly
bring in destructive heresies, and deny the Master who bought them, bringing
swift destruction on themselves. Footnote: 1See Mt. 7:15-23 v. 7-8,
and again v. 21. (1Co 2:2 For I resolved
not to know any matter among you except יהושע Messiah and Him impaled.)
2Pe 2:2 And many shall follow their destructive ways,
because of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of,
2Pe 2:3 and in greed, with fabricated words, they
shall use you for gain. From of old their judgment does not linger, and their
destruction does not slumber.
2Pe 2:4 For if Elohim did not spare the messengers
who sinned, but sent them to Tartaros* and delivered them into chains of
darkness, to be kept for judgment,
2Pe 2:5 and did not spare the world of old, but
preserved Noaḥ, a proclaimer of
righteousness, and seven others, bringing in the flood on the world of the
wicked,
2Pe 2:6 and
having reduced to ashes the cities of Seḏom
and Amorah condemned them to destruction – having made them an example to those
who afterward would live wickedly,
2Pe 2:7 and
rescued righteous Lot, who was oppressed with the indecent behaviour of the
lawless1 Footnote: 1The Greek word here, and in 3:17, is athesmos
(not the usual one, anomos) but it also means “lawless.”
2Pe 2:8 (for
day after day that righteous man, dwelling among them, tortured his righteous
being by seeing and hearing their lawless works),
2Pe 2:9 then
יהוה knows how to rescue the reverent
ones from trial and to keep the unrighteous unto the day of judgment, to be
punished,
2Pe 2:10 and most
of all those walking after the flesh in filthy lust and despising authority –
bold, headstrong, speaking evil of esteemed ones,
2Pe 2:11 whereas messengers who are greater in
strength and power do not bring a slanderous accusation against them before the
Master.
*Tartarus is only known in Hellenistic Jewish literature from the Greek text of 1 Enoch, dated to 400–200 BC. This states that God placed the archangel Uriel "in charge of the world and of Tartarus" (20:2). Tartarus is generally understood to be the place where 200 fallen Watchers (angels) are imprisoned
2Pe 2:17 These are fountains without water, clouds
driven by a storm, to whom the blackest darkness is kept forever.
2Pe 2:18 For speaking arrogant nonsense, they entice –
through the lusts of the flesh, through indecencies – the ones who have indeed
escaped from those living in delusion,
2Pe 2:19 promising them freedom, though themselves
being slaves of corruption – for one is a slave to whatever overcomes him.
2Pe 2:20 For if, after they have escaped the
defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Master and Saviour יהושע Messiah, they are again entangled
in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the first.
2Pe 2:21 For it
would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness,
than having known it, to turn from the set-apart command1 delivered
unto them. Footnote: 1The singular “command” often means “commands”
– see 1 Tim. 6:14, Dt. 17:20, Ps. 19:8.
2Pe 2:22 For them
the proverb has proved true, “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “A washed
sow returns to her rolling in the mud.”
Our Torah Portion:
Gen 19:1 And the two messengers came to Seḏom in the evening, and
Lot was sitting in the gate of Seḏom.
And when Lot saw them, he rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his
face toward the ground,
Lot was most probably one of the elders of the
city. He was sitting at the gate. Perhaps one of the worst forms of deception
is to think you can do good when in fact you shouldn’t even be where you are or
doing what you are doing.
Sometimes you just need to leave a situation or
place because it will suck you in and spit you out, bringing great harm and
loss to your life.
Gen 19:2 and
he said, “Look, please my masters, please turn in to your servant’s house and
spend the night, and wash your feet, and rise early and go your way.” And they
said, “No, but let us spend the night in the open square.”
Gen 19:3 But
he urged them strongly, and they turned in to him and came into his house. And
he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
The sages tell us that Lot prepared a feast and
baked unleavened bread (matzos) as they believe it was the 15 th of Aviv –
Passover. There are some similarities between the exodus of the Yisraelites and
the exodus of Lot and his family – midrash about the pattern to leave ….
Gen 19:4
Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Seḏom, both old and
young, all the people from every part, surrounded the house.
Gen 19:5 And
they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight?
Bring them out to us, and let us ‘know’ them.”
Gen 19:6 So
Lot went out to them through the doorway, and shut the door behind him,
Gen 19:7 and
said, “Please, my brothers, do not do evil!
Gen 19:8
“Look, please, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Please,
let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you wish, only do no deed to
these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.”
Gen 19:9 But
they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This
one came in to sojourn, and should he always judge? Now we are going to
treat you worse than them.” So they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came
near to break down the door.
Gen 19:10
But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with
them, and shut the door.
Gen 19:11
Then they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with
blindness, both small and great, and they wearied themselves to find the door.
Gen 19:12
And the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? A son-in-law, and
your sons, and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city – bring them
out of this place!
Gen 19:13
“For we are going to destroy this place, because the cry against them
has grown great before the face of יהוה, and יהוה has sent us to destroy it.”
Gen 19:14 And Lot
went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said,
“Get up, get out of this place, for יהוה is going to destroy this city!” But
to his sons-in-law he seemed to be as one joking.
Gen 19:15 And when
morning dawned, the messengers urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Get up, take your
wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the
punishment of the city.”
Gen 19:16 And
while he loitered, the men took hold of his hand, and his wife’s hand, and the
hands of his two daughters, יהוה having compassion on him, and they
brought him out and set him outside the city.
Gen 19:17 And it
came to be, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your
life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the
mountains, lest you be consumed.”
Gen 19:18 And Lot
said to them, “Oh no, יהוה!
Gen 19:19 “Look,
please, your servant has found favour in your eyes, and you have increased your
kindness which you have shown me by saving my life, but I am unable to escape
to the mountains, lest calamity overtake me and I die.
Gen 19:20 “Look,
please, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please let me
escape there – is it not a small matter – and let my life be saved?”
Gen 19:21 And He
said to him, “Look, I have favoured you concerning this matter also, without
overthrowing this city for which you have spoken.
Gen 19:22 “Hurry,
escape there. For I am not able to do
any deed until you arrive there.” So the name of the city was called Tsoʽar.
Gen 19:23 The sun
had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Tsoʽar.
Gen 19:24 And יהוה rained
sulphur and fire on Seḏom and Amorah, from יהוה out of the heavens.
Gen 19:25 So He
overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the
cities, and what grew on the ground.
Gen 19:26 But his
wife looked back from behind him, and she became a post of salt.
It is difficult to leave …sometimes impossible to leave –
you can be so embedded into a wrong belief system that it becomes more and more
difficult to leave and move on.
Gen 19:27 And Aḇraham
arose early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood
before יהוה,
Gen 19:28 and he
looked toward Seḏom and Amorah, and toward all the land of the plain. And
he looked and saw the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace.
Gen 19:29 Thus it
came to be, when Elohim destroyed the cities of the plain, that Elohim
remembered Aḇraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow,
when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.
Gen 19:30 And Lot
went up out of Tsoʽar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were
with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Tsoʽar.
And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave.
We notice that the Torah repeats certain information in
this parasha. This is to perhaps remind us that these events have some kind of
fulfilment for a future time.
Gen 19:31 And the
first-born said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the
earth to come in to us, as is the way of all the earth.
Gen 19:32 “Come,
let us make our father drink wine and lie with him, so that we preserve the
seed of our father.”
Gen 19:33 So they
made their father drink wine that night. And the first-born went in and lay
with her father, and he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she arose.
The word “arose” or uvkumeah” has a dot over it – Strongs
6965 can also mean to arise and become powerful. It may imply that when Lots
daughter had intercourse with her drunk father and received his seed, she got
up with a feeling of self empowerment. We find evidence of this in her naming
of her child “Moav” or “From my father” Lots daughter was not even trying to be
discreet about the incest she had committed with her father – a sign of
arrogance.