reading on the end of the cities of the plain

The Lord is gracious and merciful. Psalm 103. Grace is a reward unearned; mercy is punishment earned but not inflicted. I read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah this morning and wonder how far I am down the path to damnation and fire from the sky. Did God’s mercy fail when fire came down from the sky on the cities of the plain? He warned Lot to get out but when his wife looked back she turned to a pillar of salt. He fled to cave in the hills to live with his two daughters whose husbands had ignored Lot’s warning to flee the doomed cities. His daughters got him drunk and had sex with him so they could keep his seed going and the tribes of Moab and Ammon descended from his incestuous drunkenness. Were Lot and his seductive daughters any much better than the Sodomites who died in the fire? The almighty Lord sent the city of Nineveh one unwilling prophet, Jonah, to warn them of their doom and to call for repentance. He did and they did. To Sodom and Gomorrah he sent two angels to warn one man and his family to get out of town before the end. They blinded the gang of rapists who wanted to rape them then killed everyone in the city except to future drunken incestuous father. The message is that God isn’t limited to working with perfect people because if he were, not much work would ever get done. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh and Lot screwed his own daughters in a drunken haze. I have struggled against the same character defects for my entire life without much progress toward their eradication beyond not using drugs or booze. Anger, lust, sloth, and an overactive mind seem to be the biggest problems that still hold me in their thrall despite my own best efforts at progress in love and purity.