Lot: The Man Who Compromised Series

LOT: THE MAN WHO COMPROMISED

Gen. 11-14; Genesis 19; 2 Peter 2:7-8

Read at beginning of service:

2 Peter 2:1-10 (NIV)

1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)-- 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings;

INTRODUCTION

For the next few weeks we’re going to be looking through the pages of the Bible and uncovering the lives of some little known people in the Bible. Their stories are the stories that aren’t very often told. Often when their name is mentioned it is greeted with a, "Who’s That?" They may not be included in the list of well known Bible characters such as Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, David, Solomon, Daniel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, or Peter but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from their lives and their contact with God. In fact, in looking at their lives we often find some parallels between their strengths and weaknesses, their challenges and accomplishments, their fears and failures – and our own. It is good for us to examine these lives – for it will serve us well when in taking a glimpse at their lives we also can glance at our own.So without further ado, I’d like to introduce to you the man we will be looking at this morning. His name is Lot – and I guess he could be known as the man who compromised… We are first introduced to Lot in the latter part of Genesis 11 where we learn he is the grandson of a man named Terah. Terah, it turns out is the father of a man who probably is familiar to a lot of us – Abram (who would later be known as Abraham, the father of Israel). Terah had three sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Lot is born to Haran and in the same passage we learn that Haran died fairly young.

It appears from this passage that Lot comes into the care of his uncle Abram and one of his first journeys recorded in the Bible is when Terah took Abram, Sarai (Abram’s wife) and Lot from where they lived (Ur of the Chaldeans) to go to Canaan. Only, they didn’t make it quite that far and ended up staying in another place named Haran (the namesake of Lot’s father)

In Genesis 12 there is the famous "call of God" upon Abraham and we read how Abram is commanded by God to "…Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you." (Gen. 12:1) When Abram gets up to leave we find recorded in verse 4 that, "Lot went with him." It is interesting to note that the next time we find his name mentioned it is found in the same phrase,

Genesis 13:1 (NIV)

1 So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him.

Lot, it seems, had a good relationship with his uncle and wasn’t about to give that up.

It is in chapter 13 where the Bible starts to fill in a little more detail regarding the story of Lot’s life. Up to this point Abram and Lot appear inseperable but then we find that strife begins to arise between the servants of Lot and Abram. The strife was over the fact that each man’s herdsmen sought water and the best pasture for the animals of their master. This competition inevitably led to conflict between the herdsmen of Lot and Abram. The Bible says that both Abram and Lot had been blessed with many possessions, "…But the land could not support them while they stayed together." (Genesis 13:6a).