Lot – Part 6 – A Lot Of Trouble For God – For Abraham – And For Himself – Genesis 19 Lot’s Reprobate And Fallen Corrupt Nature - Incest Series

LOT – PART 6 – A LOT OF TROUBLE FOR GOD – FOR ABRAHAM – AND FOR HIMSELF – GENESIS 19 LOT’S REPROBATE AND FALLEN CORRUPT NATURE - INCEST

THE INCESTUOUS ACCOUNT – GENESIS 19 VERSES 30 - 38

This is the last message in the series on Lot. In a number of ways doing the life of Lot is instructive, but not pleasant. Here was a man who could have been a great witness for God as all his early instruction came from Abraham and there was no greater teacher in the Old Testament than the Friend of God.

Lot made a willful choice to erect his tent right on the edge of Sodom and before long he was in Sodom itself. He and his family were infused by Sodom and their roots were there, so much so, that it took the angels some effort to remove them out of Sodom, but once out, Lot craved for a smaller town in the valley which itself was set for destruction and in the end the men let him go there. Lot went from one wicked place to another. His wife was so connected with Sodom she looked back hankering for the place and was also destroyed.

That left Lot and his two daughters choosing the town of Zoar for themselves. Lot’s path was never up, but all down. As I read and think into this, I see Lot had no time for God and no interest in what was good and eternal. Abraham looked for the city whose Builder and Architect was God. Lot looked for the sin of a city of Satan. In this message we follow the account to the end.

{{Genesis 19:30 “Lot went up from Zoar and stayed in the mountains, and his two daughters with him for he was afraid to stay in Zoar, and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters.”}}

Well Lot did go to Zoar but became afraid there. The reason we do not know. Maybe because he was a stranger, or the threat of rape because those in Zoar were no better than those of Sodom, but he fled the place and went to the mountains where the angels told him in the first place to go to. What a sorry state of affairs, all because the attraction of the world and lust was too much for him. He had no resistance which is the strength of God to overcome temptation. He had no desire for God, which overcomes the desire for lesser things.

Cambridge Bible says this, [[“Why did he fear to dwell in Zoar? Not, as has been suggested, lest the people of Zoar should put him to death, as one who either had escaped just punishment, or, like Jonah, had been the cause of catastrophe; but lest Zoar, one of the cities of the Plain, should still be overtaken by catastrophe. As for living in a cave, the definite article in the Hebrew has been thought to mean either a well-known cavern, or a locality in which caves were numerous.”]]

Lot now is reduced to living in a cave. He reaps what he sows, but we must acknowledge this – it is all too easy to sit back and be an armchair critic and judge others in a sanctimonious way. We are all capable of being in the position Lot was in. It all starts with one wrong move and when it continues, it becomes the well trodden road to failure. We condemn Lot but must remember we ought to condemn ourselves because we all have failed. It is God who leads us out of failure when we are repentant and genuine. After exiting Sodom, lot should have returned to Abraham who would not have rejected his nephew for whom he always interceded. His position could have been that of the Prodigal Son in the parable.

The Benson Commentary suggests the following and I think it makes a lot of sense:-

[[Genesis 19:30. He feared to dwell in Zoar - Probably he found it as wicked as Sodom; and therefore concluded it could not long survive; or perhaps he observed the rise and increase of those waters, which, after the conflagration, began to overflow the plain, and which, mixing with the ruins, by degrees, made the Dead sea. In those waters he concluded Zoar must needs perish, (though it had escaped the fire,) because it stood upon the same flat. He was now glad to go to the mountain, the place which God had appointed for his shelter. See in Lot what those bring themselves to at last, that forsake the communion of saints for secular advantages! He has lost all his substance, and the greater part of his family. His wife is made a monument of the divine wrath against those that prefer the world to God, and the principles of his remaining daughters are so corrupted, and their moral feelings so stupified, through their intercourse with the depraved inhabitants of Sodom, that they are prepared for the greatest crimes; they even lay snares to entangle their own father in the dreadful one of committing incest with themselves. He dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters — It seems strange when he was thus reduced, that he did not think of returning to Abraham, from whom he was at no great distance, and who, no doubt, would have kindly received him. But probably he was ashamed to return, being conscious that he had not treated that venerable servant of God with due respect; or, being now stripped of all, and a wretched outcast, he could not brook appearing so degraded among those that had known him in his more prosperous days.”]]