Lessons From Lot

1/9/2012 | By Will Brannon

In Genesis 13, Scripture records Abraham (then Abram) talking to Lot about land. Abram’s herdsmen were having troubles with Lot’s (v. 7), so Abram proposed that he and Lot go in opposite directions to avoid conflict. Lot sees how fertile the valley of Jordan is, and chooses to settle down there. But as he settles, he ignores the fact that he will live near Sodom, a land that verse 13 tells us is filled with people who are, “wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord.” In other words, Lot was willing to live in the vicinity of blatant sin in order to have farmable land.

The story picks up in Genesis 19. Two angels show up at Lot’s doorstep. He welcomes them into his home, and serves them by giving them a place to stay. This welcoming clearly indicates that Lot was a righteous man who loved the Lord. His righteousness is also affirmed in 2 Peter 2:7-8. But despite that Scripture affirms Lot as a man who trusted in the promises of God, he made some undeniably ungodly decisions. When a group of men show up to literally gang rape his house guests, his solution is to offer his two daughters up instead. Think about that for a moment. A man who the New Testament affirms as righteous chose basically says to a sexually charged, violent crowd, “Please do not take these men, but my daughters are virgins. Please take them instead.” I like how the ESV Study Bible describes Lot’s act: “In desperation, he offers his two unmarried daughters as substitutes—a shocking, cowardly, and inexcusable act.”

Yet, in a scene where man’s sin is so disgustingly clear, God’s grace is gloriously displayed. In verse 15, God warns Lot about His impending judgment on Sodom. God saves all of Lot’s family, except for his wife (who chooses to look back at Sodom).

We live in a modern Sodom. Every day people are raped, molested, murdered, robbed, and assaulted. I watched a television show the other day that talked about a gang called “Satan’s Disciples.” One of the brutal murders committed by the gang involved a man murdering two people and dismembering his victims. He then hid the limbs of his victims all over an American city. Indeed, we live in a modern Sodom.

But as we see in Genesis 19, God is involved Sodoms. When I read this section of Scripture, I see three things that I think are helpful for us to remember.

1. God is patient, but He will always ultimately judge sin.

God did not judge Sodom the moment somebody sinned. The text indicates that He also did not judge Sodom as soon as sexual sin began to include homosexuality. I say this because I find it hard to believe the first ever case of homosexuality in Sodom involved a large, violent, homosexual gang. Depravity like that does not just happen one day, it gradually develops. God allowed the Sodomites to practice their lawlessness reached this boiling point. How many sins were committed in Sodom before God’s patience ran out? In evangelism, we praise God for His patience with the lost and continue to plea with Him to continuously soften the hardest heart. In culture, we praise God that no act of evil will go unpunished. Every sin will be paid for through either Jesus’ death or God’s wrath.

2. God will always protect and deliver His people.

Even in the midst of such immorality and eventual judgment, God protected His people. He told Noah to build an ark. He had Moses deliver His people from Pharaoh. And He told Lot to leave Sodom before it was too late. Deliverance may come through escape, as with Lot, or it may come through martyrdom, as with Stephen. But He always holds His people in the palm of His hand.

3. God’s people are not immune from worldly influences.

Although Lot and his family (minus his wife) are spared, the damage of them living in such a sin-ridden land has dramatically impacted their family. The next section of Scripture (vv. 30-38) describe how his daughters intentionally get him drunk and sleep with him in order to “preserve their family.” The world influenced their thinking. And it just as easily influences ours.

The atmosphere we put ourselves in effects our thinking, and plays itself out in our living. For example, Proverbs 22:24-25 warns that ill-tempered people can negatively influence those they associate with. In 1 Corinthians 15:33, Paul states that bad company corrupts good morals. Proverbs 13:20 says the companion of fools with suffer harm.

This is not to say that believers should not associate with unbelievers (1 Corinthians 5:9-13). However, Christians must always be wisely discerning their culture, friends, and surroundings. Lot was willing to live in the vicinity of wickedness for fertile land. There is no indication his purpose was evangelistic, or that he made any attempt to bring Sodom back to God. Instead of engaging and confronting the gang, he offers his daughters. Instead of his daughters trusting God with their family, they sleep with their father (no doubt such an act was influenced by the sexually immoral atmosphere they were raised in).

Learn from Lot. Praise God for His patience and faithfulness. Trust God to deal with sin in His timing. And remember that God desires his people to be in the world to change it, not to allow it to change us.