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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/brandon-doll/lot/
Turn, please, to 2 Peter. We'll tear down the porch and chop off the tail, and maybe we'll get done in time. If not, will I get stoned if I take three or four minutes? Absolutely I will. 2 Peter in chapter 2, please.
What's on my heart for this conference fits in with both messages today, but it's kind of a contrast. And what we're going to look at is a young man who didn't appreciate the house of God, and he never prayed.
Okay? A young man who didn't appreciate the house of God, and he never prayed. He was a believer. He's called a righteous man, and his name is Lot. And for the sake of time, we'll read in 2 Peter chapter 2, and we'll read at verse number six.
I'll give you the context before we read this, what Peter is addressing in the beginning of the chapter is false teachers that have come in among God's people. And secretly, they've tore down, and they've overthrown the faith of some.
And now what Peter is teaching the Christians is this, that God knows how to deal with them. God is going to deliver his people out of temptation. He gives three examples. The first one is the angels that sinned.
The angels that sinned against God, what did God do? He knows how to deliver the righteous out of temptation and reserve the unjust into the day of punishment. We're gonna read that in verse nine. So God ignites the flames of hell.
Angels that sinned were separated from those that hadn't sinned. There's a great separation. You come to the world in Noah's day. Noah lived in a very wicked world, just like you and I live in. And in his day, there was the thoughts and the imaginations of the heart were only evil continually.
And God now is going to take, and he's going to reserve or deliver Noah and his family, and he's going to destroy the world. You come then to Lot's day. And what you have here are really illustrations of the temptation of the devil, the temptation that is brought on by the world.
And we're going to get to Lot and it's a temptation of the flesh with Sodom and Gomorrah. And God knows how to deliver his people from the temptation of the devil, from the temptations of the world, from the temptation of the flesh.
And so we get now to Sodom and Gomorrah and verse number six, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemn them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly, and deliver just Lot.
Now that word just is a very strong word. It means he was righteous, vexed with the filthy conversation of that wicked. Now that word vexed means to be worn down with toil. So to apply it here today, we've got believers that are justified positionally.
Lot wasn't positionally justified like you and I were. He had to live a righteous life. He couldn't be entangled in the sins of the world in Sodom and Gomorrah, and he wasn't because God says that he was just.
Now you and I are positionally just, and hopefully we're living in the good of that and we're living out what we have been made through the death and the shed blood and the resurrection of Christ. But verse number eight, for that righteous man, same word is just, dwelling among them and seeing and hearing, vexed.
Now that word vexed doesn't mean to be wear down with toil, it means to be tortured. He tortured his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. Now verse nine, the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.
Lot is a very interesting young man. Lot was the nephew of Abraham, you know that, and every time I'd go back and read some in Genesis in chapter 13, but Abraham went down into Egypt, didn't he, and he come back and he went to the place where he had first built the altar.
And what was the place called? It was called Bethel, the house of God. And there Abraham and Lot were together there at the house of God by Bethel and Hai was to the east of there and there was an altar there.
So there was a defined place that was called the house of God. Now there was no tabernacle there and there was no temple there and there was no assembly there, but it's the first mention of the house of God in Genesis 13.
And Abraham was there and Abraham prayed there and Abraham worshiped there and Abraham and his family, they would have been in fellowship there. And there was a time came then that Lot had great possessions, but Abraham had greater possessions.
Now the land was promised to Abraham, but Abraham says to Lot this, he says, there's strife between our herdsmen. There's not room for both of us here. He says, pick any place you want. So Lot, he's looking around.
He's got endless possibilities. And maybe there's some young people here. Lot obviously didn't appreciate the house of God. It never come into his thinking when it come to make a choice for where he was going to dwell and where he was going to earn a living.
I find that very striking and very sad. And Abraham says, Lot, you take a look. And Lot, there is a young man. He's looking over the well-watered plains. He's got his cattle. He's got his herdsmen. He's got everything he needs.
He just needs to go there. And you know the old story that the grass is always greener on the other side. It's juicier. The grass is greener. He doesn't pray about it. You know, the only time we could read it in chapter 19, the only time that Lot is praying, he prays to the angels when they come to get him out.
Then he prays twice to the evil men in the city. And then he prays to the angels not to take him out. The man was not a man of prayer. So he's leaving a place in his mind is empty, a place called Bethel.
And he's going now to the place with endless possibilities. What about you, young believer? Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? What choice are you going to make? Are you going to stay in the house of God, in the place where the Lord has placed his name?
Oh, I know you know everything about the older brother. Lot knew everything about Abraham. Oh, that uncle of his, he went down to Egypt and he even lied down there. And he said to Sarai, don't say you're my wife.
He wasn't perfect. And you know a lot about your brethren in your assembly. And you've got your thoughts about how imperfect your elders are. And how good it looks down the road compared to where you are.
If the Bible tells us to abide in the calling we're with we've been called. And I know in Corinthians, they were talking about being slaves, to be a slave. But if you can be free, take it rather. But here's something for you to consider.
If you were raised in an assembly, or you were saved in conjunction with the meetings that an assembly had, could I just suggest something? Perhaps God has saved you in that place. So for you to stay in that place, perhaps God has blessed you and he has saved you there.
And now he wants you to stay there for the furtherance and continuation of that place. But when we get our late teens or early twenties, is there anyone here that would take less in life to build up the house of God?
The reason that people say that they go away from their assembly is because there's no work here. There are places that might be true, but it's not true in Iowa and Wisconsin. It's not true. The proximity of the local assemblies in Central Iowa and in Wisconsin, there is all sorts of work within a half an hour drive.
So he looked at the assembly as an empty place. He lives in a place that vexes his soul. He fights it every day. And you'll notice when the Lord rescues him out of Sodom. Every single day, it vexes his soul, it is wearing him down, and he's about to the point to sin, isn't he, himself?
He tells the men of the city, leave these guys alone. Then he offers his daughters. Lord knows what's coming next, doesn't he? This man that sat in the gate of the city to try to be a judge in that place, to try to help that place, to try to change that place, he was no judge.
For the men of the city come after the angels because they said, they're gonna judge us. They recognize those men had something from God that Lot didn't have. And Lot had no testimony in that place of Sodom, and he had no power in that place of Sodom.
In his own son's laws, when he goes and tries to get him out, they thought he was mocking the truth, and they drag him out. In order for God to deliver him, he had to take him by the hand. God's messengers took the man by the hand and physically walked four of them out of that city, and one turned back.
Why are you living in a place that tortures your soul? We say sometimes in the Midwest, when it gets good and cold, why do we live where the air hurts our face? That's a good question. Florida's a lovely place.
Why did Lot live where it vexed his soul? Well, you say, I don't live where it vexes my soul. How many of us, older ones now included, are vexed every day from the internet? Let me just speak to you Fox News junkies.
Have you ever got peace from Fox News? You never did. You only got worked up. You only got agitated. You only got political, patriotic. No, I'm a patriot. I love this country. I appreciate what God has done.
But you vex your soul daily on your phone. And some of you young people, you live there. By the seeing and the hearing in Lot's case, wasn't it? He vexed his soul daily by seeing and hearing of the unrighteous deeds and the things that were going on in Sodom and Gomorrah.
And it wore him down. Lot took his business to the well-watered plains. It was a good business move. Plenty of resources there. But what does the Bible tell us of one who seeks to save their own life?
They'll lose it. Mark 8, 36 is written to believers. We apply it in the gospel. So I want you to think about Lot. He left a place that he thought was empty. And at the end, he was empty. He was empty.
He raised a family there. He had taught his daughters right. They married men. His two youngest daughters were so influenced by the world that you know the story on the mountain when it is over. But the point is this, that here was a man who was raised by the house of God.
He lived his life. He lived a vexed life. He wasn't a happy man where he was. He wasn't a prosperous man where he was. He was not in touch with God where he was. He was not a man of worship where he was.
He was not a man of prayer where he was. He was vexed. And at the end of his life, everything that he worked for, everything that he suffered for, everything that he endured for, he watched it burn. He watched it burn.
How many of us when we get to the judgment seat of Christ are gonna watch it burn? A life lived and at the end there was nothing for God.