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I do not see him as so much digging in his heels by “lingering,” but as being weak, indecisive and reluctant and or fearful to leave.

I suspect it was far more than simply being weak and indecisive. Please note what Peter tells us:

2Pe 2:7-8 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);

I was thinking about the difference in attitude of Abraham and Lot.

Abraham assisted the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah in retrieving their possessions (and helping Lot). But he wanted no reward from them. I suspect he treated them with dignity but that is where it ended. When he heard of God's plans he (essentially) prayed for them and pleaded with God to spare them. Abraham didn't understand the depths of their depravity the way God understood it.

Lot OTOH went to live with them. Lot looked around him and enjoyed the cushiness of his life and decided it was better than being out in the desert with Abraham. When told of what God was planning on doing, Lot pleaded with his future son-in-laws to leave. But by then Lot had lost credibility and they thought it was a joke. To think Lot was willing to give his daughters to such people to married should say something unlike Abraham who refuse to allow Isaac to marry those around and sent off for a wife for Isaac. The reason Lot's faith was weak was because he tormented his soul.

I'm not saying we should all become Puritans. But Christians today can make all sorts of excuses for the fleeting pleasures of this world. The contrasts of the lives of Abraham and Lot should be a warning to us. Abraham became the father of many nations. Lot became the father of the Ammonites and the Moabites.

Lot certainly is set in contrast to Abraham, and is an example of weak Christianity, and who has little salt and seemingly little weight of credibility (though even the apostles also mocked), but my point is that if Lot was so, then what about the present state in which you will find few constraining strangers or even brethren to lodge with them in a strange city at nigh (I have some experience), and risk his own for theirs, even if it indicated a lack of judgment. And have virgin daughters and other married ones in Sodom no less, despite his lack of judgment and apparent carnal reasoning in choosing it.

But as for Lot tormenting his righteous soul “he was” tormenting his soul as in being grieved by it (and we should be in American), by choosing to stay and care for strangers and keep sodomites out of his house.

But how many will move from America as iniquity abounds? Meanwhile, fornication abounds among “Christian” teens, and not just the world.

As for enjoying the cushiness of his life (what sitting in the gate presumes), how many believers are not seeking to be productive for the Lord today? How much money is wasted on entertainment and other things? How little goes toward the Lord’s work? Look at the stats http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.htm

Anyway, my point is certainty not to make excuses for the fleeting pleasures of this world, but that while Lot is presented as the worst kind of Christian, he looks good in some respects compare with the norm today.