Lot's Bad Decision - Genesis Part 22

You know, 1987 produced some great movies, but I wonder if you know which one of them was the highest grossing film of the year.

Let me tell you what some of your choices are. The Untouchables, Wall Street, Princess Bride, Moonstruck, Robocop, Lethal Weapon, Predator with Arnold, and Good Morning Vietnam. Which one do you think was the highest grossing movie? None of them.

None of them. Actually, the highest grossing movie of 1987, more than doubling the movie that was in second place, was the movie Fatal Attraction. Now, because, I just want to say for the record, because of the nature of that movie, I never actually went to see it. Maybe none of you did either.

Some of you maybe didn't. But, we all kind of know the plot of that movie. A nice, average guy with a loving wife and child had a one-night stand with a new woman at work, but it was a horrible decision. And as soon as he did it, he knew it was a horrible decision. So he went to this woman and he told her it was a bad decision and that he didn't want to do anything. So, you know, it was over, it was done, but it wasn't quite that simple.

Because this one-night stand turned into a psychotic obsession on the part of this woman that only ended when the man's wife shot her dead in their bathtub. Bad decisions. Hey, we've all made them. And that's what we want to talk about today. We want to talk about bad decisions and how not to make them. And we're going to look back in the Old Testament in Genesis 13 as we return to our study of the book of Genesis. We're going to look at a fellow named Lot and a really bad decision that he made. And then we're going to bring all that forward and talk about, well, how can you and I learn from that and do better today. So, are you ready?

Okay. But, you know, it's been a while since we've been in the book of Genesis, so maybe a little bit of review would be good. Remember in Genesis chapter 12, there was a terrible famine that hit the Promised Land. And so as a result, Abraham, his wife Sarah, and his nephew Lot left the Promised Land and went to Egypt looking for food. And because Sarah was so beautiful, Abraham was afraid that the Egyptians would kill him in order to take his wife.

And so he convinced her to lie and say, I'm Abraham's sister. Well, Genesis 12, 16, and Pharaoh treated Abraham well for her sake. And Pharaoh gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and camels. But before Pharaoh could defile Sarah sexually, God sent a horrible plague on Pharaoh and his household, which caused Pharaoh to discover the real truth about Sarah. And when he did, he banished her and Abraham and Lot and threw him out of Egypt.

Okay, so that's where we've been. Now let's pick up the story, Genesis 13, verse 1. The Bible says, So Abraham went up from Egypt to the Negev, and he and his wife and all that belong to him and Lot went with him. Now the Negev is the southern portion of modern day Israel, verse 2, and Abraham was very wealthy in livestock and in silver and in gold. By the way, where do you think Abraham got all this livestock, silver and gold? Well, remember, Pharaoh gave it to him, remember? And obviously, Pharaoh let him leave Egypt and take it with him. Verse 3, And from the Negev, Abraham went from place to place.

Remember, we saw in Genesis chapter 12 that archaeology has shown that at the time of Abraham, 2100 B.C., give or take, the Promised Land was full of semi-nomads, Bedouin-like people, living in tents and roaming freely, precisely the way the Bible says that Abraham lived. And so this brings us to our mantra, which I want us all to say together. Here we go. Say it with me. The more they dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right.

Now I would give you about a C plus on that, but I got good news for you. We're going to give you one more chance to do it before the sermon's over. So get ready.

We can improve. Here we go. Verse 3, And from the Negev, Abraham went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place where he had lived earlier, when he entered the land of Canaan.

Verse 4, This was the place, Bethel, where he had built an altar to the Lord previously, Genesis 12, 8, and there Abraham called on the name of the Lord. Okay. So far, so good. Right? Right. Okay. But there's trouble a-brewing.

Here we go. Verse 5, And now Lot, who was moving around with Abraham, also had flocks and herds and tents. Apparently Pharaoh had been very good to Lot also because of Sarah's sake, but the land could not sustain them both while they were staying together, Abraham and Lot, for their possessions were so great. So strife arose between Abraham's herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot. Now the Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at that time. You say, well, up, up, up, up.

Stop. Lon, why in the world would the Bible mention that? I mean, what importance could it possibly have for us to know that the Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land of Canaan? Why mention it?

Well, two very important reasons, actually. Number one, God wants us to understand that Abraham and Lot did not have unrestricted access to all the land of Canaan. There were other people living in the Promised Land, people who had flocks and herds that needed grass and water, just like Abraham and Lot's herds did. The point is Abraham and Lot couldn't fix the problem they were facing just by spreading out and taking more land. There were other people in the land who were using the land.

So that wasn't a solution. The second reason it's important for us to know all these people were there is so that we understand that people were watching Abraham. They knew who he was. They knew he built an altar at Bethel. They knew that he claimed to worship the one true God of the universe, and he had a testimony to protect. And a big fight between him and Lot was not exactly what you would call a great testimony. So Abraham had to fix this.

There were people watching. Okay? On we go. Verse 8. Then Abraham said to Lot, Please let there be no strife between you and me, between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Please, Abraham said, let's separate.

Lot, if you go to the left, then I'll go to the right, and if you go to the right, then I'll go to the left. What an incredibly gracious man. Abraham gives Lot the first choice of where he wants to go.

Now, think about it for a moment. Abraham was the man whom God had called. Abraham was the man with whom God had made a covenant. Lot was just a hitchhiker. Lot was just a barnacle on Abraham's boat.

You understand what I'm saying? And yet in amazing, amazing graciousness and humility, Abraham says, Okay, Lot, tell you what, I'll give you first choice. You pick wherever part of the land you want, and I'll take what's left over. So Lot had a decision to make.

What did he decide? Well, let's look and see. Verse 10. So Lot looked around and saw the valley of the Jordan River, that it was well watered everywhere, like the Garden of the Lord, like the Garden of Eden, like it was like Egypt, like where they had just come from. And Moses adds in parentheses, this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, which was down in this area. Lot looked around and decided to go to the southern end of the Jordan Valley.

And you say, Lon, I've been to this area with you when we've gone to Israel, or I've seen pictures of this area. This area is complete wasteland. It's a complete arid desert.

There's not even anybody that lives there today. Why in the world would Lot have chosen to go down there? Well, the answer is because that's not the way it was 4,000 years ago. The Bible says 4,000 years ago that this area was well watered everywhere, like the Garden of the Lord. It was green and luscious and verdant, just like it had been in Egypt when they had been there a few months before. Now, this statement by the Bible that this area was green and lush and wealthy has been used for centuries to prove that the Bible is inaccurate, that the Bible is wrong, that the Bible is untrustworthy, because you saw what this area looks like today, so people say, you know, the Bible completely inaccurate. However, in 1932, between the years 1932 and 1947, the very famous archaeologist and Jewish rabbi Nelson Gleick actually did excavations during those years down in this area around ancient Sodom and Gomorrah. And what he found is the remains of more than 70 cities that were there at the time of Abraham and Lot. And what's more, he also found indisputable proof that at the time of Abraham, the southern Jordan Valley around Sodom and Gomorrah was green and luscious and wealthy, exactly the way the book of Genesis says. So it's time for our mantra again. Are you ready? Here we go. Come on. The more they dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right.

Much better. Verse 11. So Lot chose for himself the valley of the Jordan, and journeyed eastward.

Thus the two men separated from each other. Thus Abraham settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the valley, and Lot moved his tents as far as Sodom. Verse 13. Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. Now that's as far as we're going to go today in our verse by verse treatment of Genesis 13, but before we leave the chapter, I want to point out to us three reasons why Lot made the decision that he did. Three forces were at work that the Bible tells us about that lay at the heart of Lot's decision to move to Sodom.

All right, here we go. First of all, let's notice that Lot's decision to move there was based on the fleshly attractions that the Jordan Valley offered. Living in tents with Abraham was a Spartan life. But don't forget, Lot had seen Egypt with all of its wealth and all of its affluence and all of its sensual pleasures, and Lot liked those things, and Lot wanted those things, and the Jordan Valley down around Sodom and Gomorrah offered Lot those things. Point number one that I want us to make sure we understand is that what attracted Lot to the Sodom and Gomorrah area was not that God was there, but what attracted him there was all the earthly sensual pleasures that were there. Do we all see that?

Okay, good. Number two, let's notice that Lot knew that he was choosing to walk very close to the edge of sin when he chose to go down to this area. Listen, friends, Lot knew what kind of people lived in Sodom and Gomorrah.

This was not a classified secret in the land of Canaan. Everybody in the land of Canaan knew that morally, Sodom and Gomorrah were the toxic waste dump of Canaan. And the second point I want you to see is by choosing to go there, Lot was choosing to walk perilously close to the edge of sin and he knew it. Finally, number three, I want us all to notice that Lot failed to think about the long-term consequences of his decision before he made it. He failed to think about how living near Sodom and Gomorrah might erode his own spiritual life.

He failed to think about how living near Sodom and Gomorrah might corrupt the spiritual life of his wife and the spiritual life of his daughters. The point is that Lot made this decision without any consideration of the long-term effect that it might have on him and his family. Do we see all those things? Yes.

Okay. Now, how did this turn out for Lot? Well, let's kind of just jump ahead to Genesis 19 and take a peek. We'll get to Genesis 19, but let's take a little peek and see how this turned out for our friend Lot. Genesis 19 tells us that when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, number one, Lot lost all his possessions. You remember all those flocks and all of the silver and all of the gold?

There was so much that he couldn't even live near Abraham. You remember all of that? Poof! Gone.

All of it gone. Number two, Lot's wife looked back. You remember the story? And she died, so he lost his wife. And number three and finally, his two daughters had become so infected by the immorality around Sodom that after Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed and their husbands were killed, they had married two men from Sodom, they got their father, Lot, drunk. They went in and had sexual relations with him while he was drunk, and they each had a child from this incestuous relationship. Not good. He lost his possessions, he lost his wife, and he lost the moral character of his daughters. So tell me, do you think Lot, here in Genesis 13, made a good decision or a bad decision? What do you think?

He made a bad decision. Absolutely. All right, now that's as far as we want to go in the chapter. We want to stop now and ask our most important question, and I know it's been a little while, and I know that you're a little rusty, so we need to get a little limbered up here, and all of you folks out there on the Internet, you need to do that too. And I just need to tell you that today you don't have much competition here in the 1230 service. The other services were meh, so you don't even have to do it that hard today to beat them.

They're going to be better next week, but you guys should win this hands down. Are you ready? All right, here we go.

One, two, three. Oh, I love you people. You are, I'm telling you, the best. You say, all right, Lon, that's wonderful, but what difference does any of this make to my life? I mean, I appreciate the fact the man made a horrible mistake, but what does that do with me?

Well, friends, let's talk about that. You know, the Bible says, Romans chapter 15 verse 4, that everything that's written in the Old Testament was written for our instruction. In other words, the reason God wrote down in Genesis 13 about the really bad decision Lot made was so that we as followers of Christ today could learn from it. And so let's ask the question, how then can you and I as followers of Christ today avoid making the kind of disastrous decision that Lot made? Well, the Bible gives us four principles to help us with this, and you know, each of them basically is just a case of doing the exact opposite of what Lot did. I'm going to show you that. That's all, Lot got all four of these wrong.

Okay, so here we go. Principle number one, want to make good decisions in life as a follower of Christ? Then the Bible says, number one, we need to make decisions based on spiritual criteria, like obedience to the word of God and fidelity to Christ and loyalty to our spiritual convictions. Spiritual criteria instead of fleshly ones. Remember, Lot made his decision to go down and live in Sodom and Gomorrah based on the fleshly attractions that were there. He never considered what location in the promised land would help him to walk closer with God.

Lot's concern was totally where in the promised land would cater to the desires of his flesh. Now, let me say by way of balance that there's nothing in the world wrong with having some things that please our flesh. Nothing wrong with having a nice house, a nice car, a nice television set, nice clothes, belonging to a golf club, whatever. If, listen, if the Lord chooses to give these things to us, if we're making decisions in our life that honor Christ and that keep his word and that maintain our integrity, and yet in spite of making those kind of decisions as a side benefit, God blesses us with all these earthly things, no problem. But friends, there is great danger in making decisions in our life based on seeking these things instead of seeking the things of God.

Something comes along that offers you and me more money, more power, more creature comfort, etc. But in order to get it, we have to compromise our spiritual life and disobey God's word. Then the decision, my friends, the right decision is always no.

No. Number two, as followers of Christ, want to make good decisions in our lives? Then number two, God says that we need to make decisions based on their proximity to sin. Remember, Lot, his decision in Genesis chapter 13 took him closer to sin. That is to Sodom and Gomorrah and the people who were living there in their sinful lifestyle. It took him closer to them rather than farther away from sin.

Folks, decisions like this almost always end in disaster. You remember our friend Samson in the Old Testament? He came, Judges 14 two, and said to his father, Get me this Philistine woman as a wife. And his father said, Is there no woman among our people? Is there no godly woman?

Is there no woman who loves the Lord that you're attracted to? That you must go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife? But Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she looks good to me. Now what was Samson's father trying to say to him? He was trying to say, Son, this decision to go marry a Philistine woman is taking you closer to sin, not farther away from it. But Samson wouldn't listen. He walked too close to sin and what happened?

We all know the story. He went over the edge. Same thing happened to David when he invited Bathsheba over that evening for tea.

You remember that? Yeah, he was definitely moving closer to sin. Yeah, what he should have done is closed his drapes, closed his window, go in and go to bed, move farther away from sin.

And David went over the edge too. My friends, listen, when we walk on the edge long enough of sin, we are going to go over. And so we always have to ask ourselves when we're considering a decision, we have to ask ourselves, Is this decision taking me closer to sin or is it taking me farther away?

If it's taking us closer to sin, then the answer is no. I'm not doing that. If you're at the office and you're sexually attracted to someone at the office, you're married and this is not your wife, and suddenly you get the chance to work closely with them or they get the chance to work closely with you and you've got the decision to make, the decision is no. Don't put yourself in that situation, friends. If gambling is a problem for you, then don't take a job in Las Vegas.

If donuts are a problem for you, don't work for Krispy Kreme, folks. This is just common sense. Don't go in the direction of sin and say, I can do it. I can walk close on the edge and nothing will ever happen to me.

Oh, yeah? Well, if David went over the edge, folks, then believe me, you and I will go over the edge. Number three, want to make good decisions before the Lord? Then number three, the Lord says to think through the possible consequences of a decision before we make it.

Remember, Locke didn't do this either. If he had, if he'd have really thought through that decision carefully to go live down by Sodom and Gomorrah, he wouldn't have done it. And if we're going to make good decisions, we must take the time to ask ourselves. Listen, we need to ask ourselves if this decision goes completely south. I mean, if it goes as bad as it can possibly go.

If it's worst, worst case scenario, this thing unravels completely. Am I prepared to live with the consequences of that? If not, don't do it. Am I prepared to live with the consequences of getting a DUI? Well, if the answer is no, then don't drink and drive. Am I prepared to die from lung cancer?

Well, if the answer is no, then don't smoke. Am I prepared to lose my wife and my family? Well, if the answer is no, then don't commit adultery.

Stay faithful to your wife and stay faithful to your family. You get the point, right? Good decisions are decisions that have been thought out, they have been prayed out, and they have been played out in our minds before we make them.

We've taken them in our minds to the extreme worst case possibility and decided that there's no danger there before we make the decision. Number four, we want to make good decisions as a follower of Christ, and the Bible says that we should cultivate friends who will help us make good decisions. Hey, did Lot do this? No. Do you ever read one time in the Bible that Lot went and asked Abraham what Abraham thought about where he should move?

Think about it. Abraham was the most godly man on the face of the earth. He was Lot's uncle. He was standing right there next to him. Wouldn't wisdom dictate that you say to Uncle Abraham, Hey, Uncle Abraham, I've got a decision to make.

Where would you move? What do you suggest I do? I guarantee you, if he'd have asked Abraham, Abraham would have certainly not told him to move down to Sodom and Gomorrah, but he didn't ask. I don't know who he asked, but he didn't ask Abraham, and that was the man he should have asked. Folks, the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, Bad company, bad friends corrupts good morals. It's been my experience that more bad decisions are made by listening to bad friends than any other single reason. When I was in college, you know who got me started smoking dope? A friend. You know who got me started drinking and I developed a horrible drinking problem? A friend. You know who talked me into forcing my girlfriend to have an abortion even though she didn't want to? A friend. You know who convinced me to start smuggling dope in from Europe and pushing it in Chapel Hill so that there was a warrant for my arrest and I almost got sent to penitentiary?

I'd still be in the penitentiary today if they'd have caught me. A friend. All those horrible decisions that I made in my early life was because I had ungodly friends whispering ungodly advice into my ears.

But you know the converse is also true. Wise godly friends whisper wise godly things into our ears that help us make good decisions. So let me ask you about your friends.

What kind of friends you got? You got the kind of friends that are always pushing you towards Sodom? That are always pushing you towards sin?

That are always whispering in your ear? Move on down there. Go on down there.

Pitch your tent on down there. Friends, if you do, my advice is get rid of those friends and get some godly friends, some friends that love the Lord Jesus Christ, who will help you make godly decisions. And on the other hand, if you have godly friends, friends that love the Lord, who are always trying to push you away from Sodom and towards obedience to God and towards godly decisions in your life. Folks, you need to thank God for those friends. You need to appreciate those friends.

And you know what else? You need to listen to those friends and listen to them. When they all get around for a little intervention, a little come to Jesus meeting with you and say, this is the way it is, friends, don't you blow them off?

Not unless you're stupid like Lot. Don't you blow them off. They're trying to help you and me. All right. Let's summarize.

We're done. Four principles for making good decisions as followers of Christ. Number one, we need to make decisions based on spiritual criteria, obedience to the Word of God, fidelity to Christ, loyalty to our spiritual convictions. Spiritual criteria instead of fleshly ones. Look, God will take care of any fleshly pleasures you need. You just obey Him.

He'll take care of giving you what you need. Number two, we need to make decisions based on their proximity to sin. If a decision is drawing us closer to sin, it's a bad decision. Number three, we need to think through the possible consequences of a decision before we make it. And number four, we need to develop friends who promote good decision making in our lives.

You realize Lot broke all four of these. And that's how he made such a horrible decision. And the reason God wrote his experience in the Bible was for you and me to learn from it. So we don't repeat his mistake. And may I say in closing that these four things need to be more than just four things we do.

You know why? Because if they're just four things we do, then there'll be a lot of times we'll forget to do them. No, no, they need to be more than that. These need to be four principles that become part of the fabric of our life, part of the warp and the woof of our life, part of the very nature of how we make decisions in our life so that our whole decision making process becomes so rooted in these four principles that we wouldn't even consider making a decision. It's almost second nature that we go through these four principles when we're thinking about a decision. And so I hope you'll allow the Holy Spirit to do that. Let me just say in closing, if you and I make decisions by running everything through these four principles, listen to me, it is virtually impossible to make a bad decision.

It's virtually impossible if you run it through these things. So protect yourself and use the wisdom of the Word of God to make good decisions. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as you know, we make hundreds of decisions every day. We decide what time we're getting up in the morning, what route we're taking to work, what we're having for lunch, what phone calls we're going to return, what time we're going to bed, and so many of these are routine decisions indeed. But Lord, there are some decisions in life we make that are life-altering. There are some decisions we make in life that will either bring huge blessing or huge curse to our life. And we must, must get those right. And so Father, I thank you for sharing these principles with us today, principles that if we follow, we cannot make a bad decision if we've run it through these four principles. So build these principles into our life as part of the very fabric of how we think and how we analyze decision-making. I want to pray, Lord, for people here today whom I know probably are in the middle of considering something very significant.

They have to make a decision about something very important in their life. I pray that these four principles we've talked about today will have brought clarity to that decision and that they can walk out of here today saying, wow, in light of those four principles, I know exactly what I need to do. Lord, use your word to bring that kind of clarity and wisdom to our lives. And we pray all of these things in Jesus' name. And what did God's people say? Amen. Amen.