"Valentinus was the name of a young man who lived in Rome during reign of Claudius II when Christians were being persecuted. Although he was not a Christian, he helped them, but he was caught and put into prison. In prison he became a believer in Jesus. Because of this, Valentinus was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs, stoned and finally beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate on February 14, 269. After his death, this gate was known as Porta Valentini. While he was in prison he sent messages to his friends saying, "Remember your Valentine!" and "I love you."
Even Valentines Day like Halloween has Christian beginnings, but the world has taken them over and removed any trace, like it is trying to do with Easter and Christmas as well.
We take a day every year to celebrate our love for our friends and spouses and such. If you were to be honest, how many other days in the year do you do this? How many of you go out and buy a card, flowers, chocolates whatever, because that’s what you do on Valentine’s Day, and you better not forget. Anniversaries and Valentine’s days, don’t you dare forget them.
Is your heart in it? Or do you take a deep breath at the end of the day and say, “Whew I made it through another one without getting in trouble, now I got another year to relax and not worry about it.”
Do you know that you are God’s valentine every day? Let me share a little story with you:
Little Chad was a shy, quiet young fella. One day he came home and told his mother he’d like to make a valentine for everyone in his class. Her heart sank. She thought, "I wish he wouldn’t do that!" because she had watched the children when they walked home from school. Her Chad was always behind them. The other children laughed and hung on to each other and talked to each other. But Chad was never included.
Nevertheless, she decided she would go along with her son. So she purchased the paper and glue and crayons. For three whole weeks, night after night, Chad painstakingly made thirty-five valentines.
Valentine’s Day dawned and Chad was beside himself with excitement! He carefully stacked them up, put them in a bag, and bolted out the door. His mom decided to bake him his favorite cookies and serve them up warm and nice with a cool glass of milk when he came home from school. She just knew he’d be disappointed; maybe that would ease the pain a little. It hurt her to think that he wouldn’t get many valentines—maybe none at all.
That afternoon she had the cookies and milk out on the window. Sure enough here they came, laughing and having the best time. And, as always, there was Chad in the rear. He walked a little faster than usual.
She fully expected him to burst into tears as soon as he got inside. His arms were empty she noticed, and when the door opened she choked back the tears. "Mommy has some warm cookies and milk for you."
But he hardly heard her words. He just marched right on by, his face aglow, and all he could say was: "Not a one...not a one." Her heart sank. And then he added, "I didn’t forget a one, not a single one!"
I wonder if that’s how it is for Jesus, unselfish love for everyone, not even considering whether he gets it back. But how does it feel to know how he sees us, and become aware of the little love we give Him back? Jesus says we love him by doing what he says in His word.
Today I want to finish chapter 19 of Genesis, I want it over with, so I’m using it today in my valentine’s message mainly to show the wrong way, the desperate way, to get a valentine through disobedience to the Lord. Many single people I know, desperately want a valentine, a person to share love with on that day, there’s even movies about it. Single people hate valentine’s day and people in relationships love it.
And in Genesis we see the most hideously desperate attempts we will ever witness. So let’s begin with Lot’s daughters and see:
I. The Situation That was the Cause of Their Desperation (vv 30-31)
A. Their Isolation
Lot was afraid now to stay in Zoar. Remember the angels suggested he go to the hills, but Lot insisted that he be allowed to go to the small city Zoar. Well he gets there and is probably not received well being the only one who escaped Sodom and Gomorrah, not to mention the beautiful fertile land that led to these cities prosperity had been destroyed.
And now he’s so scared of what might happen to him there that he heads where? To the hills where the angels originally told him to go. Why do we make it so difficult on ourselves?
I wondered why Lot didn’t return to Abraham, but we have to assume that he would probably have been embarrassed and didn’t want to hear “I told you so” from his uncle. His pride probably kept him in the cave.
The mistakes these people keep making is always motivated by fear, and it usually leads them into deeper problems. Fear is the opposite of faith and perfect love. It’s amazing how these people who have been visited by the Lord and his angels continue to lack trust in God and want their own way. Of course we can’t relate to that can we?
So here they are living in a cave, which archaeology has shown was quite common around the Dead Sea, just two girls and their dad, not another soul in sight, and we see:
B. Their Frustration
Some kids can’t wait to get out of a small town like Killarney. Can you imagine these daughters who were brought up in a bustling city, now camped out with their father in a cave in the wilderness? They had no idea how long they would be staying there, and they knew no man would find them there. They had no prospects for husbands to preserve offspring for their father.
Now before you think what they did had a noble motive, to perpetuate their father’s line, I think the truth is that the motives were purely selfish. In this culture it was quite acceptable to marry your half siblings, and many scholars agree that the daughters wanted these children for their own husbands in the future. They wondered who would provide for them when their father got older. Who would they celebrate Valentine’s Day with?
It was all about them, it was a disgrace then for a woman not to have a child, not to mention that compared to what their father did in offering them to a bunch of savages, this likely seemed like a minor sin in comparison. Talk about desperation. But see how the father’s earlier compromise leads to the children’s. None of these people trusted God, it was the last thing on their mind to think God would take care of things. No let’s take our own desperate measures.
Did you notice the daughters, like Lot’s wife, were not mentioned by name, and this is an obvious slight in the Bible. So again here it sounds like the daughters have a noble cause in initiating this incest with their father, but really they were doing it for themselves, and it shows a great lack of faith.
Now quickly look at:
C. Their Orientation
They are completely worldly in their mindset, “there is not a man on the earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth.” Another translation says it like this, “so we cannot marry like everyone else”. They are self-centered and concerned about being like the world. They’re practical atheists.
This frustration leads to:
II. The Deception That was Fostered by Their Desperation (vv 32-35)
And the very first thing we notice is that:
A. It Involved Alcohol Consumption
Wanna manipulate someone? Get ‘em drunk. Proverbs 21:17, “Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.” How many people in our culture equate getting drunk with having a good time? Many people can’t do anything social without alcohol. And of course us Baptists can’t seem to do anything without food.
And then as is often the case where there is drunkenness:
B. It Resulted in Sexual Deviation
When I was counselling alcohol abusers and addicts, I can’t tell you how often a pregnant woman would come to me, or someone with children already, who would say “it was an accident.” And nine times out of ten what they meant was I got drunk, had sex without protection, and lo and behold, I’m pregnant.
Alcohol and sex go together, usually in a bad way especially outside a marriage relationship. So it seems here that you could take the girls out of Sodom, but you couldn’t take Sodom out of the girls.
But again they’re not totally to blame. Who offered them up to a bunch of men back in Sodom? What did that teach these daughters? Again, a good teaching here is that if you start to compromise your values, it’s usually a slippery slope until you’re compromising everything you stand for. And it will rub off on your children by your example.
Isn’t it ironic that Lot ends up sinning with his daughters in the way that would have happened with the mob back in the city? And here we also see great parallels with the last episode of the flood story. Both of the major episodes of God’s judgment and salvation in Genesis end up with the father getting drunk, and some yucky sexual stuff goes on with the children.
I think this is clearly again God giving us an indication that the desire for pleasure, specifically altering our emotional state, and sexual pleasure, are at the root of most sin.
What about:
III. The Nations That Would Emerge From Their Desperation (vv 36-38)
We’re told that the children born to these daughters become the Moabites and the Ammonites. Both are incestuous names, Moab meaning “from the father”, and Ammon meaning “son of my people”. Wouldn’t you know the region of Moab contained what was Sodom and Gomorrah.
What would become of these nations? Numbers chapter 25 “While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.”
Deuteronomy 23, “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever.”
Leviticus talks about the worshippers of Molech, which are the Ammonites. In first Kings, Solomon builds high places for Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites, and for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites. Molech in particular was associated with child sacrifices.
In Jeremiah 32 God says they built high places to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
These were wicked places, these nations were centers of sin of every disgusting kind. Sure the daughters got Lot some offspring, but they basically continued the legacy of Sodom, and were thorns in the spiritual side of God’s people for generations.
Though Jeremiah says later in chapters 48 and 49 that God will restore the fortunes of Moab and Ammon in the last days after the judgment. So there will be redemption.
So does anything good from this. Of course, this is God we’re talking about here. I’d like to show you:
IV. Postscript: The Salvation That Would Come Through Their Desperation
Some have called this passage Christmas in a cave. Let me show you why. We have to go to one of my favorite books, the book of Ruth.
Read Ruth ch1: 1-4. Then if you know the story, the sons also died and Naomi was left with her daughters in law. They set out to go back to Judah when Naomi tells her daughters in law to go back to Moab where they were from, but Ruth refuses. She was willing to leave Moab and remain loyal to Naomi.
Now in the book of Ruth the word Moab is used unnecessarily 6 times, and Ruth is called the Moabite woman six times. I think we would have got it if they mentioned it once or twice in a little four chapter book.
Why does God bother to emphasize that? And did you also notice where they are, Bethlehem the birthplace of Christ? And Boaz is called a redeemer when he takes Ruth in. Clearly God is making a point that Moab and the Moabite woman are important in His plan of salvation even though Moab came from such unsavory sexual practices.
Ruth is probably one of the most beautiful, obedient, and loyal characters in the Bible, even though scripture makes it very clear that she is a Moabite. Redemption is all over that.
Now look at this In Ruth 4:13-17.
Isn’t that amazing, from the incest and sin of Sodom literally rises out of the ashes the line of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Ruth the Moabite woman, a descendant of the sons of Lot’s daughters, is David’s great grandmother and ancestor of Jesus.
What a phenomenal testimony to God’s sovereign Grace, and his love for us. We can never again say that God doesn’t use any situation for his glory and purpose. We’ve just gone through some of the most horrendous times recorded in Scripture, and God in his sovereignty, absolutely thwarts Satan’s attempts to cut off the line of the redeemer, and brings us a saviour through the most unlikely line of people. Satan never could have predicted that.
This is why we can’t judge anyone. We don’t know what kind of so-called rif raf God is going to use to bring salvation and glory to His name, so we need to be very careful how we treat those who we think are less than, like Jesus did. Jesus didn’t come to world as a rich king either.
Well I can’t tell you how glad I am to be done with Genesis chapter 19. But I hope we have seen that our sin is still rampant and judgment is coming, that God is faithful to those to whom he has made promises in spite of this judgment. And that anyone can be used by God to bring about his purposes.
It’s so important to start off in God’s will. If we get off course early, we will likely get more and more off course even if we’re trying to correct using our own ways. If we start out of God’s will, then we should wait and seek his will to get back on track, then when we receive his will we do it, then we wait for the next step. Don’t try to get ahead of God. I really believe most times it’s better to do nothing and wait, than to proceed out of God’s will and timing.
Today is Valentine’s day. It’s fun to give valentines to our friends and those we love. But today would you consider taking your loved ones aside and making our Lord and Saviour your Valentine? The one you love above all else. This life He gave us is all about cultivating that relationship if we want to truly live this side of heaven.
As the church, we people are Christ’s bride and he has chosen us as His Valentine, and asked us to be His. Please don’t just celebrate your love for Him today, or just on Sundays, don’t do that with your spouse either. Make everyday Valentines Day for those you love, because in the end that’s what life is all about.
God says, “Be mine.” Do we say that to Him? Do we show Him our love through obedience to His Word?
So there’s that and the other Action Plan in your bulletin is to:
Think about a decision you made that was motivated by fear, how did it work out? If you have something coming up that causes you fear, take it to the Lord, ask for His will and try not to make a panic decision based on fear. Be still and hear His voice with confidence. Perfect love casts out fear.
Young people wait for God to give you your valentine, the results will be far better.
