Walking With God And Holding Hands With The Devil

Then Lot intentionally changed his direction. Once the direction had been determined, taking steps in that direction followed immediately. His Willful Choice Was Followed by Decisive Action against God’s Wisdom. The appeal of the land led him to take action, knowing or at least suspecting, that such actions would not line up with the direction the Lord was leading Abram, the way of eternal promises and godly wisdom. His Deliberate Steps Were Taken with Persistent Disregard for God’s Will. Rather than deliberate on what would please the Lord, Lot like most of us, took action without any consideration for, and in fact, with complete disregard for, the will of God.

Can we not say "NO!" to appeals from empty sources and wicked attractions and "YES!" to the call of Christ to live by faith trusting in His promises? Once we take that first step, stopping becomes very difficult, so we need to resist the appeal to act in a manner that leads us away from God’s way.

No doubt when Lot first moved into Sodom the sin of the place must have grieved his heart.

• He may have even justified his settling in the city as a way of hope to evangelize the place.

• Perhaps in his mind he hoped to change the city for God.

• As time goes on however we will see that rather than his changing them, they changed his family in ways that brought destruction to it.

Lot’s choices to live in Sodom and be a part of this community would have ramifications on his entire family, some of which he would never recover from!

• He lost his wife.

• He lost his married daughters and sons-in-laws, they don’t leave with them.

• He also loses the respect of his unmarried daughters who do leave with him, but they later commit incest with him and produce two children by this ungodly union.

In the end Lot will lose all his wealth, most of his family, and his peace of mind, not to mention the spiritual heritage and witness he could have had.

His compromising all through his life left him with almost nothing in the end!

• Solomon discovered a similar fate although he maintained his wealth.

• It is tragic to realize that most of the Biblical characters that fell did so in the later half of their lives, through a process of compromise!

What a sad, sad, story this is! Lot lost everything because of compromise.

Illustration: Cows nibble their way to being lost. They nibble on one tuft of grass here, and here, and here. Then on the other side of the fence, etc.

Although God spared Lot from death in Sodom, he paid a terrible price for playing around with sin.

Conclusion:

I began this sermon this morning by telling you that ‘You can’t walk with God and hold hands with the Devil.’ How true this is!

Lot could have been enjoying the blessing of Canaan-land like his uncle Abraham was, but instead his choose the well watered plains of the Jordan, and he ended up paying the price for his compromise.

So, how about you? Are you compromising? Are you trying to live as close to the world as possible, or are you living in Canaan land? Don’t try walking with God and holding hands with the Devil! We all need to be aware of the fact that the Devil wants to get us to let up a little here, and a little there, until soon we are living in Sodom rather than in Canaan.