Lot's Lot

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life, is not of the Father, but is from the world” (1 John 2:15-16, NASB)

I thought of this verse over the past week as I began another journey through the Word in a recently purchased chronological Bible. I saw a picture of the destructive nature of sin in the story of Lot and his family (Genesis 12, 13, 14, and 19). While we know that our choices have consequences, Lot’s story seems almost metaphorical for our country and this generation that is so steeped in its sin. Like Lot living in Sodom, America has tolerated the sin around us, gotten carried away by it, made excuses for it, sacrificed whatever had to go to keep from moving away from it, and will succumb to the destructive wrath of God if we are not careful.

Lot’s journey is attached to Abram’s as he obeys God’s call to leave his relatives and his father’s house to go to an unknown land; why Abram took Lot is unclear, but take him he did, and God blessed them both with flocks and herds and wealth to the point that the land couldn’t even sustain them and they were forced to separate. Like Lot, we often choose the “lust of the eye” as we see things that hold appeal and seem good. Sometimes things that look good can become gods if we aren’t careful. Sodom, the place where Lot chose to dwell, was a notoriously wicked city. From all appearances, Lot learned to fit into the landscape very well, which means that to some degree he tolerated the enormity of the sin that had to be around him.

After he settled in Sodom, Lot was carried away at the end of the War of the Kings and Abram successfully led a small army to rescue him from their hands. The Word is mute about how Lot ended up back where he began, but I imagine he made several excuses about why he needed to return to wicked city where he chose to dwell.

God’s mercy toward Lot continued and He revealed to Abraham that He was planning to destroy Sodom and its sister city, Gomorrah, because of the significance of their sin, which seems to involve the lust of the flesh. The lack of even ten righteous men in the city became apparent when men besieged Lot’s house to get to the angels who had been sent by God to destroy the city. Lot’s willingness to sacrifice his two virgin daughters to spare the men showed his desensitization to the sin around him. Lot even hesitated when the angels told him to take his wife and daughters and leave the city before they too were swept away by the disaster to come. If not for God’s mercy and the angels bodily dragging them from the city, they would have been incinerated with the rest.

The true cost of “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life” became clear when Lot’s wife disobeyed the instruction of the angels and looked back at what she had left behind; as a result, she became a pillar of salt.

When we choose to indulge our flesh and dwell in the sin that always accompanies it, our lives become like Lot’s. He lost everything but his life and his two daughters, who were so affected by the sin that had surrounded them in Sodom that they saw nothing wrong with getting their father drunk and bearing children by him since their men chose to stay in Sodom and were destroyed. Their children were the fathers of the Moabites and Ammonites, whose tribes later lived in opposition to God and his people. Sin is consuming and has long-term consequences. We can ill afford to sit and watch our country be consumed by its own sin. Lot’s lot shows us that we cannot indulge in sin and make excuses for it without expecting to pay the ultimate cost.