Summary: One of the most difficult passages in the bible - Lot and his daughters commit incest, and Lot is drunk. All horrible sensuality on display. Then I look at why the New Testament calls Lot righteous, which thing I can not see, but the opposite I do see.

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.”]]

{{Genesis 19:31-33 Then the first-born said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of the earth. Gen 19:32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father,” Gen 19:33 so they made their father drink wine that night, and the first-born went in and lay with her father and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.”}}

THE DARKEST TIME IN LOT’S LIFE – BLACK AND HORRIBLE

The first thing we will look at is verse 32 and this statement about preserving the family. That is the worst excuse, it is not even an excuse. Sodom was so bound up in the life of the daughters that they had no sense of morality. It was an immoral and amoral place. That is what the daughters knew, the fabric of Sodom, nothing less than that. Their reasoning was so flawed. Men were living outside their location and they needed to return to Abraham. In today’s world in western nations this same thing applies without the incest, and that does occur even. The world is both immoral and amoral.

Let us come to the matter of BLAME. Who was to blame for this sordid incident? The daughters who schemed wickedly? Lot who got drunk? Clearly blame is attributed to all parties, all three of them. Does any one have greater blame? Yes, most definitely. It is Lot. He is the father, the head. They made him drink wine. Well they did NOT make him drink wine. He was not forced. It was Lot’s decision to drink and to control what he drank, and for him to have gotten drunk, it is another great blot on this man. Where was his self control? He was an utter disgrace.

Lot committed drunkenness and then incest. He was a disgusting man with no testimony whatever. David committed adultery, rape and them convenient murder. What then is the difference between the two? It is full repentance – that is the difference. We read of David’s repentance in Psalm 51 but nowhere do we read of Lot’s repentance because I think he did not repent! Lot showed no control and was a man of the flesh well and truly.

One slip up is bad enough but to do it twice must reveal a degraded state. That was Lot, a man of degrading passions, for we read just after that sordid incident that night:-

{{Genesis 19:34-35 It came about on the morrow that the first-born said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also then you go in and lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father.” Gen 19:35 They made their father drink wine that night also and the younger arose and lay with him and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.}}

Here we have again the pathetic man committing incest, devised by Lot’s daughters in the matter of the family name. What an excuse for incest. Obviously Lot was so drunk he had no knowledge and that means he drank so much wine. The man was a drunk. I will say it again, there is not one good thing about Lot recorded, not one hint of repentance, but only sin after sin. Lot was entirely to blame, an obviously weak and sinful man. His daughters are also very guilty.

We must be careful what we say and write but I am going to make a statement that some might consider very abrasive and even cruel but I will explain it later on. “It would have been better for the nation of Israel that was to come from Abraham, if Lot had perished in the overthrow of Sodom.”

{{Genesis 19:36-38 “Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. Gen 19:37 The first-born bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. Gen 19:38 As for the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the sons of Ammon to this day.”}}

Both daughters became pregnant through drunken incest, and the result was horrendous, for from the daughters came two nations that for all the time of the Old Testament because the most wicked of nations and the sworn enemies of Israel always. Moab and Ammon were vile and their names, and the wars against Israel, and their hate crop up over and over. You would hardly expect anything decent to proceed from such a sinful union of incest anyway, and it was most evil. That is the reason I made the comment above about Lot perishing.

I am not going to outline all the atrocities committed against Israel by those two nations, products of an incestuous union with Lot. You can do that yourself. There are many in Kings and the Prophets.

I am going to supply a bigger quote from C H Macintosh again to conclude this section. No more is Lot mentioned in the Old Testament:-

[[“And, then, see his end! His own children make him drunk, and in his drunkenness he becomes the instrument of bringing into existence the Ammonites and the Moabites - the determined enemies of the people of God. What a volume of solemn instruction is here! Oh! my reader, see here what the world is! See what a fatal thing it is to allow the heart to go out after it! What a commentary is Lot's history upon that brief but comprehensive admonition, "love not the world!" This world's Sodoms and its Zoars are all alike. There is no security, no peace, no rest, no solid satisfaction for the heart therein. The judgement of God hangs over the whole scene; and He only holds back the sword, in long-suffering mercy, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Let us, then, seek to pursue a path of holy separation from the world. Let us, while standing outside its entire range, be found cherishing the hope of the Master's return. May its well-watered plains have no charms for our hearts. May its honours, its distinctions, and its riches, be all surveyed by us in the light of the coming glory of Christ. May we be enabled, like the holy patriarch Abraham, to get up into the presence of the Lord, and, from that elevated ground, look forth upon the scene of wide-spread ruin and desolation - to see it all, by faith's anticipative glance, a smoking ruin. Such it will be. "The earth, also, and the things that are therein, shall be burned up." All that about which the children of this world are so intensely anxious - after which they are so eagerly grasping - for which they are so fiercely contending - all - all will be burned up. And who can tell how soon? Where is Sodom? Where is Gomorrha? Where are the cities of the plain - those cities which were once all life, and stir, and bustle! Where are they now? All gone! Swept away by the judgement of God. Consumed by His fire and brimstone. Well, His judgements now hang over this guilty world. The day is at hand; and, while judgements impend, the sweet story of grace is being told out to many an ear. Happy they, who hear and believe that story. Happy they, who flee to the strong mountain of God's salvation, who take refuge behind the cross of the Son of God, and therein find pardon and peace!”]]

NOW WE COME TO THE MOST DIFFICULT PART - HOW MUST WE CONSIDER LOT?

If you have read all I have written on the account of Lot over 6 Parts, you will have noticed that I examined his motives and behaviour thoroughly. I searched carefully for all the points of commendation and could not find one. I have read what commentators and reviewers said about Lot and some of them I believe are way off the mark in what they say. Some try to attribute honest motives to all that Lot did, ones like Martin Luther, but what they say does not hold water in the analysis.

If there was no New Testament reference to Job, then I am sure that nearly all commentators would see Lot in the worst possible light. The only reason some say all these positive things about him is because of what Peter wrote and they try to backtrack to read something good into what is not good. If you took Peter away then all that Lot did would be utterly condemned. He moved to Sodom because he loved the world and the sin of Sodom. He refused to leave the place and had to be dragged out. He offered his daughters up to be gang raped. He was disobedient to the angels. He had no regard for God at all. He was a drunk with no self control. Lastly his drunken behaviour led to incest and the formation of two of the worst enemies of Israel for about 1000 years.

When I was in school aged maybe about 5 or 6 I remember a lady teacher in the late 1940s telling the class a story that was so arresting to me that I went home and did all these good things I could. This was the story. She said that God has a board for your life and every time you did something good then God put a nail in the board, but every time you did something bad a nail would be removed. If you still had a nail in the board when you died, you would go to heaven. Of course that is no more than salvation by works and man’s humanism.

If that was applied to Lot, then as I study his life, there would be no nails in that board, for none was good, but there would be a huge list of items that would remove nails if they were there!

Now before we leave Lot in the biblical record, a question - “What do you find in the account of Lot in the Old Testament that is commendable? I would love to know what you have found.

Balaam is the complete opposite. When you read his account in the Old Testament he comes over as being very good. You’d think he served the Lord in faith. It is not until you come to the New Testament and read Jude and Peter than you realise God considered him as a false prophet, one who tried to corrupt the people of God for gain. {{Jude 1:11 “Woe to them for they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.”}} {{2Peter 2:14-16 having eyes full of adultery and that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed - accursed children - 2Pet 2:15 forsaking the right way they have gone astray having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor who loved the wages of unrighteousness, 2Pet 2:16 but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a dumb donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.”}}

Think! What is the worst sin in the bible? Murder? Rejection of Christ? Unbelief? Homosexuality? As I understand the Word, then the three matters that seem to come in for greatest condemnation are [1]. Unbelief and departure from God. [2]. Adultery and fornication and sodomy. [3.] Unjust judges.

I WILL BE FRANK – I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS PASSAGE:-

We will turn to 2 Peter 2:6-8

{{2Peter 2:6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter; 2Pet 2:7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men 2Pet 2:8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds)}}

Peter calls Lot righteous and oppressed by sensual conduct; righteous man and soul tormented.

I find it near impossible to believe what Peter wrote and therein lies my problem. Not one hint of any of Lot’s life suggests what Peter wrote, but the opposite is painfully true in every episode of his life. One last quote from Macintosh – [[“Instead of the refreshing of the Lord, Lot gets his righteous soul vexed; instead of enjoying communion with the Lord he is at a lamentable distance from the Lord; and instead of interceding for others as his uncle does, he can scarcely find enough to intercede for himself.”]] It would be so easy to say Peter got it wrong but then we are on dangerous ground. I have written so much about upholding the word of God in its entirety over the years, every jot and tittle under inspiration, that I’d like to say outright, “Peter is wrong,” but I can’t.

I have laboured over this for many, many years. If you had a man in your church who loved to go to homosexual habitats and partake in their rituals (but not in the act) and was part of their organisation, and who refused to leave those places; and offered his daughters to the homosexuals for a rape orgy; and then was in the habit of getting drunk; and had sex with his daughters – be honest – would you allow such a one in your church and not take extreme discipline against him? Well that was Lot.

Peter wrote “oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men” and “while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds,” THEN all I could say about that would be the following:-

“Lot COULD HAVE LEFT AT ANY TIME if "his righteous soul" was vexed. If he was offended by the happenings of Sodom, why did he not immediately leave? If he was a spiritual man (which he was not) then why not move out and leave IMMEDIATELY? He did not want to leave, so I don't see what Peter is saying. It makes no sense.”

My CONCLUSION to all this must be to submit to the bible. I just don’t understand what Peter was saying but I believe ALL scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and so I have to accept that.

I don’t know if anyone read all 6 messages but I wonder what your opinion would be.

God bless you all. Amen!

ronaldf@aapt.net.au