Article 2015-08 - Growing Apart
Chapter 11: Growing Apart
Introduction
Sometimes believers separate because they have different priorities in life. These priorities are either spiritual or carnal. Carnal desires move one into the direction of temptation, not away from it and if ignored cause backsliders to go from bad to worse. God wants His friends to participate in His plans through intercession. In the end, Abraham’s intercession could not save the cities, but it saved Lot. Small decisions can have enormous consequences, either good or bad.
Scripture reference
So Abram said to Lot … ‘Let’s part company’ … Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan … while he pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord (Gen. 13:8,9,11-13)
Then he said, ‘May the Lord not be angry … What if only ten can be found there?’ He answered, ‘For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it’ (Gen. 18:32)
The story
Before the episode with Hagar and Ishmael took place, another separation happened in Abraham’s camp, but the story took years to develop. Now that it has matured we listen to its lessons, picking it up when Uncle Abraham (then still Abram) and Lot, his nephew, have their parting conversation.
They overlooked the Jordan valley, lying lush and green in the distance. Abraham reminded Lot that God had promised him the entire land, but Lot thought that this was long ago, and his uncle still lived in tents. The land was still owned by the Canaanites. He may have wondered whether the old man should not rather conquer the land himself. But Abraham explained that God had told him to be a stranger in the land. He had said nothing about conquering. After all, if the Lord promises to give something, you don’t have to fight for it. Lot did not share his uncle’s ‘long-term-faith’. He considered himself more ‘pragmatic’ in faith matters.
Abraham then proposed that they part, because their herds had become too big to co-exist peacefully. Lot happily agreed, choosing the best part of the land, near the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham probably warned him for his materialistic motives and that increasing wealth might negatively affect his relationship with God. He pointed out that the morals of those city people were very low. This would confront him with graver temptations than he had faced before. City life has more challenges than rural life does and political situations with the city-rulers might become volatile. Lot could be caught up in conflict before he knew it. Lot acknowledged his uncle’s words but time would prove that he had not really understood the spiritual depth of his advice.
Lot moved and at first pitched his tents near Sodom but after some time obtained a house in Sodom. He married a woman, probably of local origin and two daughters were born to them. Then war broke out between some kings, and Lot, being out in the field with his cattle, was captured and taken hostage by king Chedorlaomer. He remembered the warnings his uncle had issued years before and in his distress called out to God. He answered Lot’s prayer and Abraham mobilized over 300 men from his household and surprise-attacked the foreign kings, beat them and brought Lot and the king of Sodom home safely, with all they possessed.
Lot missed his lesson completely. He failed to recognize God’s warning. He had fallen in all the traps his uncle had warned him for, years ago. He had given so much attention to the increase of wealth, that Abraham’s God had never become the passion of Lot’s heart. Now he had almost lost it all. By living in Sodom his tolerance for the sin around him increased. Apparently he had no objection that his daughters befriended local boys, with the goal to marry them. Of course he knew that homosexuality was rampant in the city, but he had no sons, so, what could he do? He was part of the city-council, but could not exert enough power and influence to stop immorality.
Scripture reference
Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, ‘Hurry, and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!’ But his sons-in-law thought he was joking (Gen. 19:14)
The story, continued
Because he failed to learn his lesson when Chedorlaomer raided Sodom, Lot invited God to organize more drastic corrective actions to save his backsliding soul. Unaware of the meeting his uncle had had one day, he received two guests in his home that evening, handsome young men, who came with a message from God.
The two messengers were angels who had accompanied God earlier that day when He visited Abraham. God had told Abraham about the sins of the twin cities and His plan to destroy them. Abraham then started to bargain with God, thinking of his nephew all the time. ‘O Lord, if there are only fifty righteous people in the city…?’ And so he went on as far as he dared to go, down to ten people. The Lord granted protection, even if for only ten persons. Abraham hoped this would be enough to not destroy the city and save Lot’s family. He hardly slept that night, praying constantly that God would at least spare his nephew, if not the cities.
In Sodom the angels informed Lot about what would take place the next day, but Lot was so reluctant to attach faith to their words that the angels had to drag him and his family out of the city to save them. Once out of town they were told to run and not look back. Lot’s wife did look back and was overtaken by the judgment: it took her life. Lot and his two daughters escaped to the village of Zoar, with no more possessions than the clothes they wore. Not even the fiancés of the girls took the warning seriously and died with all the others. The shock about their losses must have been tremendous and their pain excruciating. Lot was under so much condemnation, blaming himself, mourning his losses all day long, that his daughters didn’t know any longer what to do with him. One evening they gave him wine to calm him down. That worked, and it became a habit that suited them all. After some time the girls realized that, now that their future husbands were dead, it would be hard to find a man, get married, and have children. So they decided to make their father drunk and seduce him, one after the other. The girls had grown up in Sodom and were trained well enough in the local urban customs and morals – or rather the lack of these. Both of them got pregnant by incest with their father, of which he had noticed nothing, and they birthed a son each.
Comment
And so two peoples came forth from Lot, the Moabites and the Ammonites, just like two peoples had come forth from Abraham, one from Ishmael (later called Arabs) and one from Isaac (later called Jews). Isaac was the son of promise and his descendants would face hostilities from the three other peoples repeatedly. Simple decisions and once-off acts of a few people had far-stretching consequences for millions of others. But before we continue with this story we need to look into another man’s story. God’s dealings with him also contain many lessons for us…
One may wonder: could Lot have become a missionary? Absolutely, if only he had stayed in Abraham’s camp longer, be properly discipled in God’s ways and learned Godly character. Then he could have moved to Sodom with an entirely different agenda than a material one. He would have seen Sodom for what it really was and direct its inhabitants to repentance. That might have been his vocation, but he missed it.
Abraham and Lot were both believers, but their priorities in life differed tremendously. Abraham’s vision was spiritual. He ‘saw’ the day of Christ, as well as the heavenly City to come. Lot only saw prospects of material wealth with his natural eyes. Abraham was a friend of God; Lot was a friend of worldly affluence. Abraham’s character developed in his meetings with God, Lot’s character corrupted under years of secular influence. Abraham’s intimacy with God increased, whereas Lot’s tolerance for sin widened. He fell for the temptation of increasing his material wealth – and eventually lost it all. If, long before the conversation with his uncle, he had opted for decrease of possessions there might not have been a reason to leave Abraham’s place of blessing. Lot could have become a blessing to the surrounding nations like his uncle, but failed.
Abraham sought God’s Kingdom first and received material wealth as well. Lot only sought material wealth and did not only loose that, but the Kingdom as well. Lot ignored first the warnings that Abraham gave him and later that of God, by allowing Lot to be caught by warring kings. After that scary experience he could have repented and so avoid greater losses than the ones he now almost had. He didn’t get it however, and headed down a road of losses and destruction.
Relatively small decisions can lead to big consequences. What if Lot had not moved away from Abraham? What if he had stayed near Sodom instead of living in Sodom? What if he had not allowed his daughters to date local men? What if these girls had not committed incest with their father? What if Abraham had not interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah? We learn in this story again the importance of praying before we make decisions, even if these seem only small.
Abraham, on the other hand, learned valuable missionary lessons in intercession. Never before had it happened that God so confided His plans to man. He desired partnership with man, but few were worth it. Abraham was the exception. God had to destroy those places of sin, but loved to save the sinners. When He told Abraham about the coming destruction and Abraham started bargaining with God for the salvation of people, He asked God to do what God wanted to do in the first place. He confided in Abraham in order to make him a partner in His salvation plan, and loved it when Abraham prayed exactly what He wanted to hear. In the end, even Abraham’s fervent intercession could not save the cities, but it did save Lot and his daughters from sure death.
Today’s missionaries are invited by God to become His partners in the intercession for cities, because God wants to save them. But even if such cities are not saved, God will use the missionaries’ intercession to save individuals that otherwise would have been lost. God still looks for people to ‘stand in the gap’, like Abraham, and is very disappointed if He can’t find any.
Scripture reference
‘I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so that I would not have to destroy it, but I found none (Ez. 22:30)
Discussion & dialogue
- List the reasons why Lot missed the missionary vocation he could have had, then list why Abraham was a successful missionary
- Discuss which five of the ten themes reoccur in this lesson (answers are in the Teacher’s Guide)
- Discuss how data can be gathered in cities, to intercede in an informed way, in preparation for evangelism
