A.Character studies are very useful to Bible students, for the Bible contains stories of people of faith, not unlike us, who have lived in the same world in which we live.There is much that we can learn from them.
B.Presently, let us consider Lot, the nephew of Abraham, and the lessons that may be gleaned from his life.
II.THE LIFE OF LOT
A.Lot became a ward to his uncle Abram.
1.Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran was the father of Lot (Gen. 11:26-27).They lived in Ur of the Chaldeans (a place in southern Mesopotamia near Babylon).
2.After Haran died (Gen. 11:28), Terah took Abram, Sarai, and Lot from Ur toward Canaan.They went as far as Haran (a place in northern Mesopotamia) and settled there (Gen. 11:31).
3.After Terah died and Abram was called by God out of Haran, he took Lot along with his family.
a.They travelled to and sojourned in the land of Canaan (Gen. 12:1-9).
b.When there was a severe famine in Canaan, they went into Egypt until Pharaoh sent them away (Gen. 12:10-20).
B.Lot separated from Abram in order to end the strife between their herdsmen.
1.When Abram and Lot came out of Egypt back into Canaan, they both had many herds and flocks.Their possessions were so great that the land where they settled between Bethel and Ai was not able to sustain them all, and so there was strife between their herdsmen (Gen. 13:1-7).
2.For peace, Abram proposed to separate from Lot and gave Lot his choice of land (Gen. 13:8-9).
a.Lot chose to settle in the well watered valley of the Jordan and moved his tents as far Sodom (Gen. 13:10-13).Notice that the men of Sodom were “wicked exceedingly.”
b.Abram settled in the land of Canaan (Gen. 13:12).
C.Abram twice rescued Lot.
1.On one occasion, Abram rescued Lot when he was captured by the enemies of Sodom.
a.Lot was taken when Sodom and Gomorrah were ransacked for booty (Gen. 14:1-12).
b.When Abram heard of it, he led his own men to defeat the captors and return Lot along with everyone and everything else that had been captured (Gen. 14:13-24).
2.On another occasion, Lot was spared by God from the destruction of Sodom because of his relationship with Abram (then called Abraham).
a.Abraham interceded with God when he heard that God would destroy Sodom for its great wickedness (Gen. 18:16-33).
i.God conceded to Abraham that He would spare Sodom if ten righteous souls were found in the city.
ii.Certainly, Abraham’s concern for Sodom was because of his nephew, Lot.
b.Two angels who went to Sodom warned Lot to escape from the coming destruction (Gen. 19:1-26).Lot was spared because “God remembered Abraham” (Gen. 19:29).
D.Lot became the father of his own daughters’ sons.
1.After they were rescued from Sodom, the two daughters of Lot conspired together to preserve their family through their father.
a.While hiding in a cave with Lot, the two daughters made their father drunk with wine on consecutive nights and lay with him when he was unaware (Gen. 19:30-35).
b.As a result, both daughters were with child by their father (Gen. 19:36).
2.The resultant sons, Moab and Ben-ammi, became the fathers of the Moabites and the Ammonites (Gen. 19:37-38).These two nations were enemies to Israel for most of their existence.
III.LESSONS FROM LOT’S LIFE
A.It matters where you “pitch your tent.”
1.Every bad thing that happened to Lot resulted from one bad choice.
a.It is evident that Lot made his choice for temporal reasons rather than for spiritual ones.
i.When Lot looked upon the well watered valley of the Jordan, it appeared “like the garden of the Lord” (Gen. 13:10).He saw what he considered to be the ideal place to prosper with herds and flocks.
ii.However, he did not account for the spiritual degradation of the cities of the valley, Sodom and Gomorrah.The people of Sodom were “wicked exceedingly and sinners against the LORD” (Gen. 13:13).
iii.So many make the same mistake as Lot by choosing the temporal over the spiritual (choice of career, place to live, friends, pastimes, etc.).
b.Because of this, Lot reaped a multitude of problems that could have been prevented.
i.If Lot had not chosen to live in Sodom, then he would have spared himself from the effects of sinners, the sufferings of war, and the wrath of God.
ii.By the time Lot left Sodom, he had lost virtually all that he had.He went to Sodom to prosper, and instead he lost it all.
2.Consider the effects on Lot’s family.
a.There were not even ten righteous within Lot’s own household in Sodom, or else God would have spared the city.
i.By counting Lot, his wife, his sons (at least two), his daughters (at least two), his sons-in-law, and his servants and herdsmen, it is safe to assume that Lot had considerably more than ten in his household.Yet there were not ten righteous.
ii.It seems likely that the wickedness and evil of Sodom had corrupted Lot’s own family, for “bad company corrupts good morals” (1Cor. 15:33).
b.Lot lost his wife when she disobeyed the angels’ commands and looked back on the city (Gen. 19:17, 26).
c.It seems likely that Lot’s daughters had been influenced by the “gross immorality” (Jude 7) of Sodom that led them to conceive such an exceedingly wicked and immoral plan.
B.Righteous character is tested in an unrighteous environment.
1.In 2Peter 2:7-8, the Scripture says that God “rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds).”
a.The torment of Lot’s righteous soul could have been due to several reasons.
i.Perhaps he was provoked to anger by the ungodliness he witnessed around him, for he, like the psalmist, hated every false way (Ps. 119:104, 128).
ii.Perhaps the effects of the immoral culture upon his family grieved him.
iii.Perhaps the wickedness around him weakened him or tempted him to sin.
iv.Let us also keep in mind that there was a physical threat made against Lot by the Sodomites in Genesis 19:9.
b.Righteous souls in this nation today are likewise tormented by the conduct of unprincipled men and their lawless deeds (fornication, adultery, homosexuality, pornography, abortion, violence, blasphemy, indecency, etc.).
2.Notice how the Sodomites hated Lot because to them he was “acting like a judge” (Gen. 19:9).
a.They said this about Lot because he had urged them not to “act wickedly” (Gen. 19:7).To them, he had no right to judge them even though his judgment was right and compliant with Almighty God.
b.Similarly, those who speak out against wickedness (such as homosexuality, i.e., sodomy) today are often told they have no right to judge others.
i.A person who does not understand the Scripture might even cite Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge, lest you be judged.”
ii.Nevertheless, we must judge with righteous judgment (John 7:24).That which is evil must be exposed, and the wicked hate the light of such righteous judgment (John 3:19-21; Eph. 5:11-13).
C.The righteous are not swept away with the wicked.
1.Abraham pleaded with God not to sweep away the righteous with the wicked (Gen. 18:23), and indeed God does not.
a.God preserved Noah and his family from the flood (Gen. 6-9), Lot and his family from Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:16-19:29; 2Pet. 2:7-9), a remnant of Israel from the captivity (Isa. 10:20-22; 37:32; Jer. 23:3), and the church itself over the centuries.
b.If He has preserved the righteous throughout history, then He will continue to do so.
2.The message of 2Peter 2:4-9 is that “Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.”
