A Man Named Lot (Part A)

There is the temptation to think that by doing good things, God will bless me. There is truth in that, but that is not the truth.

That is not the whole truth, I should say. If it were so, that means people would then follow God just so they could be blessed, but they really wouldn't love Him. We follow God because we love Him. We know He is good. We know this is going to end in the right way because He has revealed His character to us.

But the strength of our behavior is the strength of our behavior. It is set in His grace and His purposes and our love for Him because He loved us first and His love is better and greater. A man named Lot. Our text is Genesis chapter 13 and the 12th verse. There are many verses that would have suited, but I think this gets us the closest right away for the purpose of our consideration this morning. There in verse 12 we read, Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom.

Now, you have to have a little bit of knowledge of the story to appreciate what's going on. Abram here is Abraham. God has not yet changed the name of Abraham to Abraham from Abram, but it is that same man. And he is a great character in the scripture.

Every Christian should know about Abraham. But before I begin to dig into the text, I want to just make a few opening comments because it is my hope that you leave here with something that will remain long after you have gone from here this morning. It helps to realize that a major role of the sanctuary is just this. It is the place where the church, the believers, and unbelievers too are invited, but essentially believers. The ecclesia, the called out ones, gather together to receive from the Lord on a regular basis from His word.

This is the purpose, one of the key purposes of the sanctuary. See, the church itself is a sermon to the world. It is not just a sermon from a man in the pulpit whom God hopefully has placed there, but it is a sermon to the world from the people who come and sit week after week. And it is this sermon, our citizenship is in heaven. And we recognize this and we respond to all that Jesus has said and all that He has done and is doing and will do.

And we do this by faith in spite of all of the troubles, all of the influences and distractions. Jesus said in John's Gospel chapter 18 verse 36, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from here. Well, of course, first of all, He really doesn't need His servants to fight for Him, but He invites us to be part of His kingdom. And belonging to such a king and his kingdom, these things are privileges of her citizens. But back to the text here in Genesis 13.

The question I have to start out with is what is the biggest thing about you? Only you can answer this. Oh, God can ring in too. You know that. And His opinion is right.

It is not an estimation. It is His perfect decision and observation. But He also invites us to answer questions that are relative, that are pertinent, that are meaningful.

And this is the question, what is the biggest thing about you? This morning, our lesson comes from considering the life of this man named Lot, who lived in Sodom, where he had hoped to fit in and which he thought was the best fit, as though he belonged there. Now we know Sodom, the word Sodom, has become synonymous with perversity, and that is not inaccurate, that is not improper. That is the truth. It is meant to be that way. God has established it that way.

I should briefly comment, there are those, not many, there are one or two silly pseudo-scholars, fake scholars, that insist that this is not the case and they play with the Hebrew and they try to make it mean something other than what it means. And these things, they do because of wickedness, not because it is what is found in Scripture. But the lesson may be in that for all of us, that when we come to the word of God, we are not to look for it to say something. We are to listen to what it says. If you get into the habit of looking for what you want to find, well, you're going to find what you want to find, but that doesn't mean that's what is there. To be able to come to God's word and to receive from God, it is a skill and it is a perishable skill.

You can learn it and develop it and lose it if you do not continue to perfect it. So we come and we come reverently to hear what God says to us wherever we are where the Scripture is open, whether it is in our own private devotion time or it is in a forum such as this. But back to this man Lot, what does God want to be the biggest thing about you? What is the biggest thing about you?

First question. Second question, what does God want to be the biggest thing about you? Well, I hope that in that introduction to now move forward and discuss the man Lot, then we'll contrast him with Abraham, the friend of God, and then we'll wrap things up, hopefully leaving you with something throughout the day, throughout the week, and maybe even throughout your lives to return to from time to time, to draw from. That has been the case with me. There have been many sermons that I have heard or read that have impacted me, that have stayed with me over many years.

I still have them and I am very grateful for them. The first thing we should say about this man Lot by way of introduction is that he was a nephew of Abraham. He was related to Abraham. In fact, he lived with Abraham, followed Abraham, was under the authority of his home, became rich because of his uncle Abraham. And again, this is a man that this man Lot and this man Abraham, all Christians should be very familiar with them, but twice the Scripture declares that this man Lot who ends up living in Sodom and Gomorrah, twice the Scripture declares that he was a righteous man.

The first time it does it is by fact. The fact is that his uncle Abraham was interceding over the destruction of Sodom, saying to God, do you really have to destroy the place? What if you found fifty righteous men? God, well if I found fifty, I wouldn't do it. And it gets down to ten. If I find ten men, I won't destroy the city.

Couldn't find ten men there. What does that say about the ministry of Lot in such a filthy place? Well, Lot was one of the righteous who got out of the city. And he got out of the city because the Lord sent angels to get him out because the Lord knew that Lot was a righteous man. And that is how we know that he stands among the righteous. And essentially, the righteous are those who when they die, they go to be with the Lord. They go to heaven. It is a very complex situation from our point of view because there are many people that we would say, I don't think they deserve to go to heaven.

That's not what God says. Lot would have been one of those for me. What? Lot gets in?

But he does. And thank God, there's grace in this, there's mercy. Does God say, well what does that say about you? You're not as bad as Lot.

So there's a place for you. When the devil comes hounding you, telling you all the bad things about you because that's what he does, we have a witness to respond. Now there are other characters in the Bible that I'd be surprised to see in heaven. I don't think we'll see Balaam there. We won't see Judas there. I would be surprised to see King Saul. I'd not be disappointed to see King Saul, but I would be surprised knowing what I know now.

These things are to cause us to contemplate our own state of what is big to us, what is important to us, what is big about us. But the fact of his righteous status being clear that he was again evacuated from the city does not take away the fact of his shallowness, which is also very clear. The fact that they had to evacuate him from such a place as Sodom where he was by choice is an indication that something was wrong with him. A righteous man, very defective in spite of this. Peter, the apostle, also writes about this, but I want to take a little time here in this section because Peter's got much to say. 2 Peter is where he's going to mention Lot, and if you remember, 2 Peter is the letter Peter wrote to warn the church about false teachers in the church.

You really don't have to worry about the false ones outside the church too much, though they are a threat also, but it's the ones that have infiltrated. And here he talks about God is going to deal with those who are wicked. And he says in 2 Peter 2 verse 4, For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but save Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly.

Man, this is powerful. This is tempting to interrupt the sermon with another sermon. And then he says, Delivered and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. For that righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing the lawless deeds. Then the Lord knows how to deliver the ungodly out of temptation and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment. Now, I'm not going to attempt to comment on so much of this, but I do want to insert there are those who are Christians who do not believe in the rapture of the church, the supernatural removing of the believers from the earth before the great tribulation comes upon the earth.

I think that many of those Christians who have the view that the Christians will suffer through the great tribulation do so not on the strength of Scripture, but on the strength of a legalistic bent, a misunderstanding of the grace and goodness of God. Lot stands as a rebuke to that thinking. Lot says, hey, God is not about punishing. He will punish the wicked, but that's not what he's into. In fact, he wants to extract his righteous ones even if they are defective as Lot was. And that's why he says here in verse 9, then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of trial. And what he's talking about is God went out of his way to get Lot out of the way so he could judge Sodom. And that is what the rapture is. God will get his people out of the way to make way for the great tribulation period because he's a god of love and grace. And so there are many other Scripture verses, but again, those who want to see the church go through the tribulation period, I think their theology is off course in many areas, and one again is this bent to see a judgment. A side note, there is the temptation to think that by doing good things, God will bless me. There is truth in that, but that is not the truth.

That is not the whole truth, I should say. If it were so, that means people would then follow God just so they could be blessed, but they really wouldn't love him. We follow God because we love him.

We know he is good. We know this is going to end in the right way because he has revealed his character to us. But the strength of our behavior is set in his grace and his purposes and our love for him because he loved us first and his love is better and greater.

This is the idea behind taking the crowns off their heads and casting them, saying it's not about the gold. It's not about the blessing, it's about you. And people who have that mindset will be blessed and they will be a blessing.

And in the end, it will be glorious beyond words. But in the meantime, in the meantime, we do good because we want God to bless us. Yes, but our first reason is because we love him.

That's our motive for doing right. We need to know that, otherwise we get tangled up in this merit system that works maybe among men to some degree, but it's not who God is. God is bigger than all that. Otherwise, you could not account for righteous men suffering persecutions and other things that we suffer.

Well, back to a man called Lot. It says there in Peter in the Old King James that his spirit was vexed. He was in distress over the circumstances in Sodom and Gomorrah. But his being vexed at the filth of Sodom was a vexation that was a failure.

It was not ideal. And that's why the Bible is preserved so much about this man Lot is to say, Hey, this is not how I want you to do it. But if you fail, you're mine still. I love you still. This ought to empower any believer to overcome, to keep fighting, to keep swinging, to persevere.

This ought to keep all of us who contribute to it from becoming apostates and backsliders and weak and emaciated believers. Lot was a man who had clouded vision. Again, evidenced by his insistence to nest where he did not belong. He insisted on it.

No one put a gun to his head. We're going to get to some very heavy differences about this man that I think are very beneficial. So bear with this background because I think it is essential to appreciate the conclusions. And so again, because of his insistence to nest where he did not belong, consequently others were burdened with his rescues. Rescues, plural. Two times, two big times, somebody had to bail this guy out.

Twice. Unnecessary calamity struck him again because of where he chose to live. Now you can choose to live in a place that you don't belong geographically and you can choose to live in a place where you don't belong emotionally, with your attitude, with your mind.

Where do you live? What's the big thing about you? Where does God want you to live? What does God want to be the big thing about you?

Not for a day, but for the entire life, from beginning to end. You say, yeah, but you don't understand. No, I don't have to understand. God does. God fully understands. If you say, but I've made a wreck of my life, goofy friends and I've got turned on by so many things I can't seem to turn off, God says, I know that. I still love you. You're still mine if you've come to Jesus Christ.

You are mine. I look at you, I see the righteousness of Jesus Christ on you, not the filth of the flesh, not the influence of Sodom. So as we consider this man, we've got to say, well, what is going on? Again, stamp on your Bibles over these pages of Lot, grace, grace, grace, undeserved kindness because of who God is, and the power that belongs to our saying, I know who God is.

See, that's the thing. Lot knew God. That's why he was a righteous man. He did not bow down to idols. He knew who God was, but there were some other issues interfering.

But before we get to those again, back to these consequences of causing others to have to bail him out. There was the first episode when, because he chose to live in Sodom, he was taken captive. The king, Kedelomar, and his other kings with him, four other kings, came down to Sodom and they conquered the city and they took Lot and the people of the city away to enslave them.

Sure, slavery awaited them. That's in Genesis 14. And then, of course, there's Genesis 19 where God has to then dispatch angels to rescue Lot because of his poor decisions, and that is found in Genesis 19. But briefly, the descent of Lot, Lot, let's track it because he starts out with Abraham. But in verse 10 of Genesis 13, we read, And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. Lot was attracted to wealth, to prosperity, to comfort.

We all are to some degree. But when it starts to make your decisions over what God would have for you, then it becomes a problem. He wanted to mingle two worlds together, the garden of the Lord, the land of Egypt. Those two in scripture don't go together. And yet, Lot, verse 10, Lifted his eyes. Bookmark that in your head.

We're going to return to that thought. In verses 12 and 13, our text, verse 12, Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan, Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom, verse 13. But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. Lot knew that. He knew that going into this. And he wasn't looking at the plain of Sodom and Gomorrah and saying, You know what? There are lost souls there.

I'm going to win them. He looked over there and he said, You know what? I can make out a pretty good life there. I don't have to deal with these sheep and cattle and all this other stuff. And the story bears that out. Because see, Lot was very wealthy. Abraham was very wealthy. They had so much between the two of them that it became a problem. And Abraham was the one that said, Look, Lot, choose where you'd like to go.

Anywhere you go, I'll go the other way. And that's where it says in verse 10, and Lot lifted up his eyes. That's what precipitated that moment. Uncle Abraham saying, We can't keep on like this.

There's not enough space for us. And so Lot looked at Sodom. And then in verses 12 and 13, we read he pitched his tent even as far as that filthy city, knowing that. And then in chapter 14, in verse 12, if you turn one page over, probably, they also, verse 12, took Lot, Abraham's brother, who dwelt in Sodom and his goods and departed. Now he's living in Sodom. So first we have him lift up his eyes and see, but that's bookmarked.

We'll comment on that point again in a moment. Then he pitches his tent as far as Sodom. Now in chapter 14, he's dwelling in Sodom. And then we go to chapter 19, and there in the first verse, we read.

Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. He's established. He is a somebody in the sinful city. He's a judge. He's a dignitary. He has advanced. Something about Lot caused others to allow him to sit in the seat of the city.

Very likely, he knew how to make himself money and other men money too. There's always a reason why those who are ranked sinners will tolerate other ranked sinners or the righteous. Maybe you find yourself there. Maybe you are in a place in your life where you are always around ranked sinners, and they really like you because you don't preach. You don't stand for Christ. And this is something that I think the Bible tells us we should be concerned about. It doesn't mean that we should walk around with a soapbox or a megaphone or wear a sandwich board and jam our message down people's throats. That's never becoming conduct of a Christian. But what we are supposed to do is lift up our eyes to the Lord and say, Lord, what would you have me do? And so some of the lessons that we have so far from this man is that one can be saved and at the same time remain dumb. That's true. It's not like you get born again and they give you a cap and gown. So there you go. You pin that on your wall. That doesn't happen.

One can be saved and remain dumb, and if you remain dumb in Christ, you become dangerous to others because you live so near sin. See, that's what happened. The first time Lot was taken away, Abraham so happened to have 318 armed and trained men, and they gathered, and with a grand military offensive, they launched against King Kedelomar and his confederation of kings, and they won. They took the victory. There's a grand point after the victory, just to show you one of the differences between Abraham and Lot. After the victory, Abraham goes to worship Melchizedek. The king of peace comes out, a righteous man, a priest of the Lord, and it tells us in chapter 14 in Genesis that Melchizedek blessed Abraham and said, Blessed be Abram, God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth.

God is the possessor of heaven and earth. Okay, that's the word of Melchizedek to Abraham. And then when they want to say, Abraham, we're going to pay you for the military campaign that you launched to get us all back, Abraham says, listen, you can pay the expenses of the young men that are with me, but as for me, I don't want a sandal strap or a thread from you, lest you say you made me.

I love this, but then Abraham does something that's quite powerful. In verse 22 of Genesis 14, he quotes what Melchizedek said to him. He quotes effectively scripture to them. He says, I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, the possessor of heaven and earth. Right away, he's using holy language to people who are themselves not holy. Right away, he can't wait to share the scripture verse he got in church with those who needed it.

I get goosebumps reading this because only the God of the universe, only El Elyon, possessor of heaven and earth, can make such things so in print after having them first be so in fact in life. So one can be saved and remain dumb and dangerous to others, or one can be saved and begin to receive from those who are more advanced and begin to use what they have received. That's what I first received, I have given to you, Paul said, I have given to you a portion of that which I have received from sitting in the presence of the Lord.

That is supposed to be the Christian life. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick is teaching from God's word each time you tune in.

As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, this teaching is available free of charge at our website. Just visit crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can do so at crossreferenceradio.com or search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app store. That's all for today. Join Pastor Rick next time for more character studies right here on Cross Reference Radio.