Lot's Legacy

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 19:27-38

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Well, this morning we look to conclude chapter 19 together, and we'll be looking at verses 27 through 38.
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One of the great things about expository preaching, meaning consecutively working through a book of scripture, is that we don't have to bounce around, we don't have to choose certain things, we won't miss anything, and so one of the great strengths of expository preaching is it forces you to grapple with the text.
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One of the worst things about expository preaching is you don't get to bounce around, you don't get to skip, focus on other themes, it forces you to grapple with the text.
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And so here at the end of Genesis 19 we find not a very popular passage for sermons in our day, a rather difficult passage.
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There's one commentator named H .C. Leupold, who basically gave his comments on the text and said, this is not a text to be preached.
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In other words, just keep moving, read it, let your people know about it, but just kind of include it under the umbrella of God's judgment on Sodom, no need to focus on it.
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Well, of course we have to disagree with our friend H .C. Leupold, it's in scripture and therefore it's profitable, profitable for instruction and for correction and for reproof.
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Last week we remembered Lot and we remembered Lot's wife. This morning we want to consider
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Lot's legacy. We have not quite a full toledoth, if you remember we've said throughout that we haven't seen one in some time, the backbone, the thematic structure of the book of Genesis is the genealogy.
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So you have the toledoth, the generations of any given figure, any given patriarch.
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Here is the closest we get at the very end of Genesis 19 to the generations of Lot.
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It's a dwarfed legacy, a rather pathetic legacy, and yet it's our focus this morning, the legacy of Lot.
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We began chapter 19 with Lot sitting in the gate. Look how far the mighty have fallen.
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We said the gate was a place of prominence. We argued that Lot over years, over decades, perhaps capitalized on his sought after influence in the city.
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It began only as a seed when he first looked in the general direction of the cities of the plain. He saw that they were fair, well watered.
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In fact, they looked like the garden of the Lord. And so of course that seed began to sprout.
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It became ambition. It became delight in the comforts and entertainments of the city.
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Soon enough he had vexed his soul at the filth of sodomite culture, but also because of this ambition, because of this influence, he was flexing his stance, his convictions to be more and more like the sodomites.
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Always only degree by degree, always with some rolodex of spiritual excuses, but nonetheless the result is the result.
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When Lot chose to dwell near Sodom, he made a poor decision and then he spent the next decade or so of his life compounding that poor decision with more poor decisions.
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So we remembered Lot. We remembered that straddled Christianity is no
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Christianity at all. He was hesitant, soul gambling, not only for his own soul, but for the soul of his wife and its children.
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In his lingering, he was disobedient to God. He was short -sighted and naive, foolish.
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He was willing though in the end, when finally the rubber met the road, he was willing to lose everything he had sought in Sodom just so that his life could be preserved.
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Lot's wife, as we saw, was not. Remember Lot's wife, Jesus says.
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Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life will preserve it.
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Lot, as it were, lost his life figuratively in Sodom and therefore God preserved it.
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Lot's wife, Jesus says, remember her, she sought to salvage, save, gaze upon, look back, somehow rescue her life in Sodom and therefore she lost her life.
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Now the sun has risen over Zoar. The winds carry that sulfuric smoke of God's judgment.
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Lot is now a widower. You can imagine the mourning that took place as that morning sun became the midday heat.
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The mourning, the anguish, the shock, the trauma of what has just happened. So many loved ones, so much labor, a whole life and many other whole lives have been extinguished.
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They're now literally up in smoke and though Lot perhaps is unaware as he looks upon that smoking heap of Sodom and the other cities, far from him all the way to the east is
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Abraham watching this scene unfold. Verse 27 and following, Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he stood before the
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Lord, the very place he had interceded. What was he expecting to see? God's judgment sparing the city.
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Surely his negotiations were successful. Ten righteous in the city. Lot and maybe his family account for 75 % of that.
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Surely there's a few more that will spare this city. Verse 28, he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain.
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He saw, behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace.
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And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain. Here's a summary statement.
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We've already seen this action. So here's the summary statement. It came to pass that when
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God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham.
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And he sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which
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Lot had dwelt. So we're given the summary statement, in other words, the real reason that Lot was spared.
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It wasn't Lot's gracious attempt to be hospitable to the two angels. It wasn't his integrity, his 2
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Peter 2 integrity as he vexed his soul in the midst of a wicked city. It was not that he was a decent man in a wicked culture, that he was a somewhat godly man, give or take, from time to time, that somehow his works deserved
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God's mercy. No, no, the answer is none of that at all. The answer is verse 29, even though Lot likely never knew it.
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God remembered Abraham and therefore he sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow.
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Why is Lot spared? It is simply because of the intercession of Abraham.
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But even then it's not simply the intercession of Abraham, it's God's remembrance of Abraham.
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So though we want to say with James, the prayers of a righteous man avail much, it was not
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Abraham so much as the God of Abraham. God is the agent here.
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God remembered Abraham, therefore Lot was spared. What does
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God remember when He remembers Abraham? Does He, as it were, gather over the city, ready to smite it, ready to strike it like a warrior?
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And then He just thinks, oh, Abraham's such a good guy. When I think of him, my heart just kind of swells up.
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Here I am remembering Abraham again, no. This is covenantal language.
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To say God remembered Abraham is to say God remembered the covenant
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He had made with Abraham. God remembered all that He had committed to Him against that day.
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And therefore God's moved by this covenantal love, this covenantal fealty.
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He had made a promise to Abraham and now out of that promise is flowing this boundless grace such that it even begins to cover
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Lot. So much grace is given to Abraham that it even will spare Lot and bring him out of the overthrow.
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But that's the summary statement that the Spirit has given us. Lot is mourning.
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He's crying his eyes out, embracing his daughters, seeing the statue of his wife like a pillar overlooking the
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Dead Sea. And Abraham's heart is dropped to his feet. Is Lot even alive?
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What a lesson for Abraham to learn about the magnitude of sin.
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He must have felt so triumphant when he got the agreement, if there are ten righteous in this wicked city,
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I will not destroy it. He must have felt like that was more than enough padding.
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Fifty was dicey, forty -five more so, thirty, twenty, even then, but ten, surely.
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Ten, that's a full night's sleep, surely. What a lesson of the magnitude of sin.
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What a lesson about the character of God. Whenever you open up Scripture, one of the things you want to do as a reader of Scripture, and of course you begin by prayer,
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Lord, illuminate Your Word to me, open my eyes that I may see it, help me to eat the scroll, to find its sweetness.
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One of the things you do is you say, Lord, what does this reveal about You and what does this reveal about me?
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Those two questions will guide you through all of Scripture and you want to think, what do I know about God?
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I don't approach Scripture with preconceived notions of who God is, which is always making God a little too small, a little too comfortable.
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So you approach Scripture with as little of that as possible unless it's been built up by Scripture, and say, what does this reveal to me about You?
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And you'll know that you're doing this well when God seems utterly other, utterly transcendent, utterly holy.
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Who is like You, O Lord? I thought You were just a bigger version of me and just more consistent and moral.
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Now I realize You're nothing like me at all, You're nothing like a man. So what lesson is
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Abraham learning about the character of God? When he sat around Him at that feast, he saw something of the long -suffering nature and patience of God, the kindness and the goodness, to come and sit and spend this time having a feast, to, as it were, draw
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Abraham out that he might intercede. Shall I tell Abraham what I'm doing? Shall I hide from him what
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I'm about to do? Though he had agreed to spare the city for the sake of ten righteous, there were not ten righteous, and yet such is the gracious, kind, friendly character of God to Abraham that he follows
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Lot's intention, and he commands the angels, do not destroy it unless Lot is spared, unless he is safe.
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It actually seems to be frustrating to the angels, Lot is so inept. Certainly Abraham has learned something about the kind, long -suffering, gracious character of God.
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And then he's also learned, as he looks at the smoke rising like a furnace over the cities of the plain, he's learned something about God and His judgment and severity causing the earth to tremble and the mighty cities to quake with fire and brimstone.
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And so the same Lord who strays for a terebinth tree picnic, the same
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Lord who says, spread out the cloth, spread out the blanket, bring out the basket, bring the fatted calf, let's feast,
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I've called you a friend. The same Lord who teases
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Sarah, no, but you did laugh, no, no, no, don't you forget it, you did laugh, Sarah, I know you've doubted me,
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I know you've doubted me, I know you've doubted my power, my concern, I know it feels that your prayers have fallen on deaf ears,
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Sarah, don't you forget you laugh. This friendly, gracious God is also a holy judge and He's just swayed the cities of the plain out of His hatred for sin.
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And so what is Abraham learning about the character of God? The judge who causes mountains to melt like wax is also a tender shepherd who calls
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Abraham His friend. And these things cannot be pulled apart, they must be held together.
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Remember, we said God is infinite and God is intimate. Infinite in His wrath against sin, infinite in His desire to glorify
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Himself in wreaking judgment across the earth, but intimate, having
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His people at the very apple of His eye, bearing them up gently as a shepherd.
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And so Abraham, you can imagine him gathering the leftovers out of the fridge, that fatted calf, that was a lot for four men to eat.
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They're still working off the leftovers and there's a pile of the dishes from that wonderful feast. And all of this is reminding
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Abraham of God's loving kindness, His presence, oh, how God has been faithful. He's been near to us and now we have even more of His promise and assurance.
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And yet the crackling echoes of His judgment slap across the tent and the distant smell of salt and brimstone remind
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Abraham that God is a consuming fire. This is the
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Lord. As believers, we can never become so fearful of God in a way that I think a lot becomes fearful of God.
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Not a good, healthy, submissive fear, but actually a sort of wild, selfish, uncontrolled fear.
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And as believers, we should never become so fearful, terrorized as to lose sight of God's long -suffering love,
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His designs for an ever -renewing mercy. Every morning that the sun rises is a morning that God has renewed
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His mercy toward His people, confirmed and established His promises, sure. So we say, no, there should not be this terror of God.
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In such a state, we cry, perfect love casts out fear. But at the same time, as believers, we should never become so comfortable with our failures that we lose sight of His holy wrath,
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His warnings against presumption and the warnings that He gives to us.
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If we must hold on to the promises, we must hold on to the warnings. And in such a state, we cry,
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God is not mocked. God is not mocked. Abraham is continuing to learn more and more about this
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Lord. The intimacy, the mercy is deeper than he could have ever imagined, but the holiness, the otherness, the severity is deeper than he could have ever imagined.
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What we come to, beginning in verse 30, is really the focus of our sermon.
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We want to consider Lot's legacy in three ways. First, verse 30, we want to consider
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Lot's legacy in the city, Lot's legacy in the city. Second, Lot's legacy in the cave.
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And then last, Lot's legacy in the kingdom. So Lot's legacy in the city, in the cave, and in the kingdom.
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First, Lot's legacy in the city, verse 30, then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains.
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And his two daughters were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave.
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Now this verse comes as a surprise to us. Last week, we read of Lot's urging, his pleading for the angels not to send him into the mountains.
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That's where I'll die if you send me there. Please let me go to a city. Look at Zoar. Isn't it just a little city?
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Surely it's not that bad. Let me go there. We have no time description in verse 30.
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We don't know how long this is after the judgment. There's no statement on how his migration to Zoar held up.
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There's no statement for the reasons it fell apart. We can speculate.
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We can imagine that that little city had great big sins, just like Sodom. We can imagine that this righteous man now terrorized at the judgment of God was a lot less comfortable around sin.
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We can imagine that any time two shadowy figures came to the gate of Zoar, he had a panic attack.
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The lifestyle of Zoar, though it was little compared to Sodom, coupled with that traumatic memory of God's judgment, must have finally prevailed over Lot and compelled him.
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Girls, grab your things. Grab some provisions. We're going to the mountains. If that's where God originally said to go, that's where I want to go now.
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Now again, I have no patience for quick surface readings that cannot sympathize with what
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Lot has endured and the motivations from a human level that drive Lot.
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I have never been on the brink of starvation. In Haiti, Haiti's been so deeply impacted.
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When these natural disasters are sent by God to a nation that's already so riddled with poverty and famine, it just collapses people's ability to survive.
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Haitian mothers would pour out seed that was given by the UN and use those
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UNESCO bags to tie knots in their stomach to try to trick their bodies into thinking their stomachs were full. I've never had to live like that.
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I've never been on the brink of starvation. I've never experienced famine. Lot had. Lot knows what famine is like.
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Lot knows when you finally realize if we don't go to Egypt, we're going to die here. I've never had to build an emergency shelter and rummage for provisions.
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I've watched videos on that. Even then, I don't think I could survive for more than a night, maybe.
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Lot had seen years of plenty, but also years of drought. He'd experienced those hardships, and it created in him, apparently from a young age, a desire to be in the safety of a city.
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I'm willing to put up with the wickedness of the city to have some of those daily provisions met. It's too hard for me to be outside in the wilderness, out in that insecurity, always wondering if there'll be enough to scrounge together to survive.
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And that's apart from the robbers and the thieves, the raiders and the wild animals. And so certainly, it's easy to say
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Lot is not faithful. Lot is not dependent. It's easy to say, because we've never had to endure the kind of hardships that Lot had to endure.
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Establishing that, let us now say, Lot is not walking in faith and dependence upon the
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Lord. He is simply being driven by fear. He is simply being driven by fear.
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It would have been well if he had gone to the mountains and experienced a supernatural provision of God, because he had obeyed
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God out of a submissive heart. But instead, he went against it. No, no, not there. I will die there.
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Angels are going, you're going to die here. We're telling you where to go. Do you not see that God is providing safety for you through us?
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Would you not trust the literal word of the Lord? But he's driven by fear. No, no, no, no. All I know is that the city is what
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I need. The city is what I need. But then even then, he's driven by fear. The city is going to be swallowed up just like Sodom.
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I have to go to the mountains now. But it's not this decision of resolute faith. He's again being driven by fear.
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And so that's the reason we read, he was afraid to dwell there. He wasn't resolute.
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He was afraid. He seems to have lived out his years in fear, doubt and uncertainty.
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And so the man who once sat in the city gate now lives in a cave with his two daughters.
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From the city gate to a cave. That's what it's like when people who have an inclination toward the
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Lord, even some semblance of an understanding and fear of him, do not trust him.
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They're brought out of high places to low places. They're humbled and they might be spared.
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They might be as it were snatched out of fire, but there's no silver, there's no gold, there's no precious jewels, there's no 1
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Corinthians 3. So that's Lot's legacy in the city.
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It's a non -legacy, isn't it? He does no great work of God in the midst of that wicked city.
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It's a non -city. He should have gone in there like a prophet, and maybe he did. But clearly he collapses into his own fears, into his own hands.
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He says, what can I do to try to salvage my life? Secondly, consider
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Lot's legacy now in the cave. It gets worse. The firstborn said to the younger,
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Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come into us, as is the custom of all the earth.
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Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve the lineage of our father.
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As a rule of thumb, good things rarely happen in caves. We can picture how bleak and dark and depressing this new setting had become.
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If there was any lingering hope of walking with God and trying to step out in faith and leaving
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Zoar, I think that setting just about quenched it. Lot's daughter, the eldest daughter, is so despairing of their prospects that she proposes a disturbing act.
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Please just notice. I don't know if I address this later on, so I just want to say it now, because I'll forget it otherwise.
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Notice that we have a few reasons given in verse 31 and 32.
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The firstborn says to the younger, just notice that dynamic, the firstborn is the one leading the younger. The younger never responds, never objects, never says, how could you even think that?
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And then even after a separate night, I went and did this, you need to repent now, we cannot do this.
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None of that happens. That older sister had more influence on the younger sister than Lot had.
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That's an important thing to say. Are you a sibling here? Are you an older sibling? Oh, do you have influence on your younger sibling?
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Oh, does the way you approach life influence them even more than their parents could influence them?
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Don't waste that influence. But notice the reason she gives.
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Our father's old. There's no man to come into us. There's no one coming to a cave.
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In other words, we're going to die here. We're going to die here. Now notice that, that's the reason, that's the off -the -cuff.
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Police, when they pull someone over, sometimes there's this phenomenon, I wish Sergeant Brown was here, he could tell us more about it, there's a phenomenon called spontaneous confession.
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So a police officer pulls someone over, you know, license and registration, do you know why
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I pulled you over tonight? No, and I don't have weed in my backpack. Okay, it's actually because you missed that stop sign, but now
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I'm going to have to search your vehicle. It's a spontaneous confession. The guilt drives them to, oh, it's because of this.
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It seems to be a spontaneous confession here. We're going to die. There's no prospect for us to have children.
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There's just, what are we going to do? We're going to be elderly women living in a cave? We can't hunt. What are we going to do when he's dead?
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We have no prospects for survival. This is desperation. But notice how this becomes rationalized.
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Let me calm down. That was a spontaneous confession. We want to preserve the lineage of our father.
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Isn't that a noble act? So this depraved, fear -driven act is then rationalized as something noble.
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Well, isn't the end justifying the means? Isn't it a good thing for us to preserve our father's lineage?
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Sin always is rationalized in such a way. Lot's oldest daughter proposes a disturbing act.
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It's depraved because it's desperate. How could these two young women be brought to such a shameful choice?
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Well, the first thing to say is there's some level of desensitizing that they took with them out of Sodom.
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They weren't just the product of Lot being inwardly vexed. They were also the product of Lot's wife.
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And those heart -clamorings for her girls to do well in the city, it impacted them.
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It made them comfortable with the sins of Sodom. How the mother must have gathered her daughters and so, we're so excited for the wedding.
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They're such strapping young lads. They're going to do so well. Maybe you'll get that big house on the east gate of the city.
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Oh, pretty soon you'll be some of the most noble and elite women in this great city. In some ways, like mother, like daughter, they were clamoring after this wicked city.
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And in that, they had become desensitized to the sin of Sodom. Undoubtedly, this daily influence of a godless culture laid hold of all of the sinful inclinations of their heart.
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It's not that children are put in a bubble, so to speak, as though sin only is transmitted outwardly, inwardly.
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No, we know that's not the case. But are you allowing things external to lay hold of sinful inclinations within?
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That's the issue. Now, I don't want to make light of that for them or for us, but as we said, verse 31 is the most clear, immediate reason given for this depraved proposal.
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There is no man on earth to come into us. In other words, there was this despair and depression and terror of what was coming.
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If we have to live now because our father's right, God's judgment is coming on the cities of sin, and now we ourselves, we have to preserve our lives and we have to live our life out here on the mountain.
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All the decisions based on fear rather than faith. The oldest daughter was convinced that no man on the earth would come to the cave.
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That seems to be a rational presumption. And so if judgment was only beginning on the face of the earth, then how were they going to survive?
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Who was going to care for them? And so by some fearful projection, she reasoned, her father would soon enough be dead, they would be utterly alone, unprotected, with no earthly hope, and this warped into this debauched proposal to take matters into their own hands.
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You can imagine that that passing thought, it was just a passing thought, you know, there is one way, oh, how could
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I even think that? But a little more depression, a little more extenuating circumstances, and soon that passing thought becomes entertained.
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Yes, that is a way. Surely if people knew the dire straits, they would understand.
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Who even has to know but me and my sister? And so these fears begin to cloud reason.
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The anxiety of what was unknown in the future clouded morality. And then months, we don't have a time statement, it could be years, brought them closer and closer to what seemed to them like inevitable extinction.
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Now I don't want to take away from the shock or the vulgarity, the barbarity of what takes place in this cave.
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I simply want to show how sin became rationalized because of plight, because of desperation.
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When we understand these two young women's sense of plight, we begin to understand how often and easily the most heinous sins are rationalized.
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They're proposed and they're committed. So we can't read this in a modern sensibility of, oh,
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I really want a baby. Oh, you know, I never got a chance to have a baby. No, no, no. We're misreading it if we think of that.
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Certainly that's reflected in Genesis. You get there in Genesis 29 and 30, give me a child lest I die.
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But we have to juxtapose here. This is life or death for them. As far as they know, this is life or death.
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And this is true, generally speaking, in the ancient world. You have subsistence, agrarian level living.
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And if you don't have children, particularly boys, it's going to be very hard. You won't live as long.
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You'll have very little protection. That's true even if things are going relatively well in a subsistence economy.
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These people are living in a cave on the side of a mountain. This is life or death. Let me try to illustrate it this way.
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In October 1972, a Uruguayan flight bound for Chile crashed high in the
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Andes Mountains, nearly 12 ,000 feet high. Forty -five passengers. Eleven of them died on impact.
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In the next two days, several more died from injuries. After eight days, the search and rescue mission was called off.
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And they knew it was called off because they still had some functioning radios. And over the course of weeks, 13 more died from exposure and starvation and an avalanche.
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Out of 45, in the end, 16 were rescued. And it was known as the miracle on the
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Andes. Sixteen. After 72 days. Seventy -two days.
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12 ,000 feet up in the Andes Mountains where there's no plant, no wildlife. Nothing but snow, rock, metal, plastic, and seat fiber.
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These are the words of one of the survivors, Roberto Canessa. Again, we're trying to capture the plight of life or death.
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Our common goal was to survive. But what we lacked was food. After just a few days, we were feeling the sensation of our own bodies consuming themselves just to remain alive.
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And so we knew before long we would be too weak to recover from starvation. And then we knew the answer.
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And it was too hard to contemplate. The bodies of our friends and teammates preserved outside in the snow and ice contained vital, life -giving protein that could help us survive longer.
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But how could we do it? And so for a long time, we agonized.
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We wondered whether we were going mad even to contemplate such a thing. Had we become brute savages?
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Or was this the only sane thing to do? Truly, we were pushing the limits of our fear.
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I think that's how Lot's daughters felt. How could I even be thinking this way?
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Have I lost my mind? Or is this the most sane thing to do? Is this the most necessary thing to do?
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No, I won't even think of it. We're done discussing it. How long had they agonized in that cave?
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How long did they feel the pressures of starvation and survival? All of that lies between verse 32 and 33.
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We're not excusing their sin or what Scripture shows to be an abomination. We're simply painting the picture that human beings, when pressed to such difficult life or death circumstances, can rationalize the most unimaginable evil.
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They made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with their father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
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And it happened on the next day. The firstborn said to the younger, Indeed, I lay with my father last night.
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Let us make him drink wine tonight also. You go in, lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.
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Again, let's just say it's this noble thing. Let's say it's this noble thing.
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And they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
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This scene, not this particular scene, but the moments leading up to this scene, is a very famous motif in Western art.
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In Western painting. Particularly in 16th century painting, where you had a lot of moral symbolism from scripture.
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And so there's many famous renditions of Lot and his daughters. Rembrandt, Gentileschi, Cranach.
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It was a very famous motif. There's one that always strikes me.
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It was of a Flemish painter, Lucas van Luyden. And literally, they're pouring wine, and you can tell
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Lot's somewhat inebriated. And they're pouring wine into his cup, as Sodom in the background is being destroyed by fire.
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Now, Lucas van Luyden knew that these things weren't simultaneous. It's a very common theme in art of that period to give a larger view of some story by combining different events all together.
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And so there's the famous painting by Cranach. It does the same thing. But I do think in our minds, we think, judgment has just been poured out on Sodom.
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How could you do something like this? Don't you fear judgment? Don't you fear God? We remember how much time has passed.
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It's how much time we don't know, but enough time that they had agonized about the reality of their prospects.
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And then Lot was eventually left to himself. He's now in the mountains. He's getting older. Think of his despair.
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Think of his regret. Think of a depression to end all depressions.
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That would be Lot. That would be Lot. John Gill says, we learn from this, what the best of men are when left to themselves.
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He that had stood his ground in the midst of Sodom, notwithstanding all the excess of that place, the impurity of it, the temptations that were daily offered, now falls when seemingly out of the way of all of that.
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You see? He was, as it were, on guard in Sodom. Now he's away from all of those pressures and temptations, and what does he do?
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He falls. It doesn't take long for the adrenaline of judgment and the memory of God's mercy to fade away.
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It doesn't take long, brothers and sisters, in the Christian life, for the severity of chastening, for the rebuke upon our health or our family or our finances, that chastening of the
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Lord that causes us to come humbly in repentance and be restored to right fellowship with Him.
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It doesn't take long for that judgment to fade. Or for the memories of God's many blessings and mercies, those spontaneous confessions that we make,
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Lord, I'll never struggle with this again. I'll never do these kinds of things again. You have blessed me so richly, I will not forget it.
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It doesn't take long for that to fade away, does it? It's easy to maintain zeal with these powerful moments in our walk, but when that season passes, as it will, when changes come and challenges come, when we've lost our first love, we enter into a little cave of our own.
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What if, instead of going to the mountains by Zohar, Lord had been humbled?
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And in his fear, he said, we're going to go the long route. We're going to go all the way back to my uncle Abraham. We're going to go dwell with the one who delivered me when
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I was in bondage, when I was a POW, and he came and rescued, and clearly the
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Lord gave him victory. And oh, how I need his influence, how I need his help, how
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I need his intercession, how I need his guidance, how I need his God and his faith.
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Can you imagine with me for a moment if Lot had left the cave and left the despair and left the fear behind and traveled to be with his uncle
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Abraham? How would his daughters have fared? Would they have been driven to this kind of agonizing depravity?
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Or would they, as they're consumed with terror, who will marry us now? Who could we marry?
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Who will our father give us to? Who? Who will he give us to? What other
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Yahweh worshippers are there? We have no children. Girls, pack your belongings.
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It's time to go into Canaan. You're going to meet your great uncle Abraham. When they get there,
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Sarah's beaming, and she begins to understand their plight and what they've been through, and they weep together, and she says,
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Can I tell you what the Lord has promised me? In my old age, out of this body of death, he's going to bring the seed of promise.
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Oh, girls, trust in the Lord. Cast your ways on him. Don't look to the things you can understand, but walk by faith.
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Even in what seems that no man on the earth will come to you, God can bring life out of death. Stay here for a year.
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He's already given me the promise. Watch what he'll do. Watch what he'll do. Would they have come to put their faith in the
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God who sees? Would it be said on the mountain of Zoar, the
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Lord will provide? What a great witness they would have had there. My grandnieces, gather around.
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The Lord is sovereign. The Lord that you saw destroy the cities. He's also a
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God of mercy. Don't you see his faithfulness to you? You can trust him.
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Wait on him. When the world is collapsing around you, let me tell you what you must do.
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Fear him. Keep his commandments. This is the essence of life. Fear him.
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Keep his commandments. My sweet, precious grandnieces, fear him. Keep his commandments.
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But Lot never comes. Lot never goes to Canaan. He'd rather dwell in a cave. And we ask, why?
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He knew that God was for Abram. It's why they were in Canaan in the first place.
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It's why they got out of Egypt intact. It's why he got out of the clutches of the four kings.
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Is it pride or is it despair that keeps Lot out of Zoar, far from Canaan?
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Is it pride or is it despair? Is it depression that he can't even move?
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He is so filled with regret and remorse and haunted by what he's experienced that he, like the prophet in the cave, he wants to die.
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I relent of life itself. Or is it pride? I can't go see him. I can't go see him.
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I can't see his tent overflowing with blessing and come to him with nothing. I left and chose the best thing when my cattle was so rich that my herdsmen were fighting with his herdsmen.
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And though he was my uncle, I almost shamed him. I chose the best Lot, which he should have chosen. And what do
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I have to show for it? Ruin. I can't go see him. I can't go see him. I won't. Frankly, it doesn't matter whether it's pride or despair or both.
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The result is the same. The reality is the same. Lot would rather live in fear and despair in a cave than humble himself and walk by faith and seek out
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Abraham. The proverb says it so well, he who seeks his transgressions will never prosper. Never.
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And so Lot is a fearful, despairing mess. As readers of Genesis, this ought to sound very familiar to us.
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In Genesis 9, we read, Noah began to be a farmer and he planted a vineyard and he drank of the wine and was drunk and became uncovered in his tent.
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Remember how Canaan saw him and there seemed to be something either with Ham or with Canaan.
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It seems to be some depraved, disturbing act as the rabbis understood the uncovering language to be, such that when
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Noah had knowledge of it in his sobriety, he cursed Canaan. Cursed be Canaan. Does this sound like a literary parallel?
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It is. Noah let his guard down. He gave himself over to wine, a little bit more and a little bit more, just like Lot.
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And he did it the next night. Noah watched the world he knew disappear in judgment, just like Lot.
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Everything, everyone that I knew is gone. It's just me and my family.
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That's it. No wonder he was driven to the bottle. No wonder he had to numb himself.
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Noah was a victim to some depraved sexual act by his own offspring, just like Lot.
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You see this pattern. Out of this judgment comes this great despair and this guardlessness and the fear that motivated them to escape judgment now vanishes.
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And now in their folly, in their security, they despair and make fools of themselves and bring their legacy over to cursing, just like Noah.
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Lot's post -apocalyptic drunkenness brings the saddest legacy to fruition. What fruit has come from Lot's deliverance?
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What fruit has come from Lot's deliverance? Can you imagine those two angels looking on this scene and saying, why even save him?
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Why? What fruit? What honor? What glory?
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Lord, would you spare him? And his whole legacy, his offspring that will now be a thorn to your people's side?
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We wonder how different it would have been if instead of despair and pride there was humility and repentance and that godly sorrow, instead of being a worldly sorrow that keeps you in the cave and keeps you being numbed and keeps you in bondage, if it was a godly sorrow, like Paul says, it would become zeal.
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That repentance would give way to zeal and to boldness and to power and to glory.
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Would his daughters have ever gotten to this place, gotten to this proposal, if they watched their father pull a
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David in Psalm 51? Where is his altar? I don't find it in Genesis 19.
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Where are his prayers? Where are his tears? There's not a modicum of spiritual concern.
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He operates entirely out of fear. Think about this.
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As a father, just as a father, as a father, he knows that his two girls who have been dragged with him out of the city, dragged with him out of Zohar, now dragged with him into a cave.
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They lost those sodomite young men that they loved. They have the little valentines and all the little sweet text messages on their phones still.
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He knows that his two girls lost their betrothed and all of their possessions and every single one of their friends along with all of their dreams and ambitions.
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They watched all of it get completely wiped away in fire. And then when they finally thought at least we have mom and dad, they watched their mother turning back, being struck down in judgment.
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And now every single happy memory they ever had for their whole life was stained with sorrow and misery.
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Out of such desperate times, the fears, the longings of the heart that, dad, you're getting old and what's going to happen to us?
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Where is Lot's guidance? Where is Lot's fatherly concern? Where is
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Lot's awareness of his daughter's lives and the need to protect them and provide for them and establish them?
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Where is Lot's reproof? Where is Lot's intercession? Where is Lot wrestling with his fears and his doubts at the altar of the
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Lord? Where is his compassion? Where is his sympathy? He has not even concern for the plight of his girls.
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He's just too busy being despaired, being drunk, no thought for their blessing or for their future or for their hope.
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This is the legacy of Lot. Passivity, driving his children into Sodom, letting them get a fill of the world and then driving his children to the despair that leads them to this depraved act.
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And like father, like daughter, they grew up and they watched their dad closely. Was he vexed around the dinner table?
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Oh, you know how I feel, girls. You know I hate the wickedness of this city. You know every day
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I have anguish what I see take place in the square and in the marketplace and at the gate when I see the injustice, when
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I see the victims and the abuse, when I see the corruption. You know how vexed I am. Then they saw their same father smiling and waving, feeling so proud as he sat at the city gate over the city he supposedly was vexed.
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They saw him navigate an inward anguish but an outward pomp. An inward vexing and irritation but an outward love and embrace.
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Oh, to be great in this city. They saw their father navigate by deception.
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They saw him know sin and hate sin but never speak against sin. Never turn them away from it.
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And so Lot was a master survivor and he trained his daughters to be master survivors at any cost.
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It doesn't take believers long to figure out how to do what we want to do and then couch it in some spiritual language.
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We're all capable of doing that. We do it all the time. Here's what
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I don't want to do, Lord, and here's some spiritual reasons that I think will pass muster with most
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Christians I know. Here's what
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I want to do, Lord, and it will be good because of this and because of that and there's this church and that and this would be a good thing for this relationship and the marriage.
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We can pack in the spiritual rationale but in our heart of heart we're no different than Lot, lingering, fearful, selfish.
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Is it not a little city? Isn't it so small? I can make a great impact here. Surely a city this small is not as wicked as Sodom.
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Surely I will come away from this judgment with more zeal than ever. Surely I will not make the same mistakes. Surely their sin won't be as bad.
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Rationalization, desensitization, like father, like daughter. Through his own sinful patterns in Sodom, through his ongoing passivity,
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Lot's daughters now were thorns in his side rather than olive plants around his table.
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You know, Elisha's been under the hand of God I think these past two weeks and I've realized that I do not make a good mother.
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To put it bluntly. The girls will be excited, Lord willing, for her to be restored in health.
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But in my vain attempts to try to fill Elisha's shoes, I see just how much more they need me to be a father.
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This is a sermon I think for parents, but this is a sermon for you fathers. For you fathers.
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What is your legacy? Through his own passivity and worldly ambition, his children become a thorn in his side rather than olive plants around his table.
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You know the imagery from Psalm 128. That blessed man who fears the Lord. And what is this blessing?
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Olive shoots rising around his table. Not grass to be mowed, not weeds to be frustrated with.
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Olive plants. Something that brings nourishment and life. An image that God uses of his promises and even of his people.
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That which is crushed to anoint the blessed. And notice, these are shoots.
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These are not mature trees. They're little shoots that grow up around the mature olive tree. That aging saint lot who's now been brought solo in God's judgment.
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And now whatever wasted time is there, it's time to turn around in repentance. God will bring great mercy.
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Girls, gather around. Things are going to be different from now on. And he would have known that a tree doesn't bear fruit overnight.
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It takes a lot of care. It takes a lot of protection. It takes weeding and watering and feeding and praying.
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And that's the picture the psalmist gives of the blessed man. Of the children being nurtured to be fruitful as they mature.
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So that when that mature olive plant is no more, those shoots have become mature in their own right. And there's this generational, life -giving vibrancy.
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And all of that, that hard, persevering, hard work is your legacy.
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That's your legacy. It's the olive grove. It's the shoots taking the place of the shoots taking the place of the shoots.
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It's vitality. It's godly influence. It's godly concern. It's selfless sacrifice. It's perseverance.
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It's intercessory prayer. That's your legacy. How fatal is passivity?
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How fatal is worldliness? Consider Lot's legacy.
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Lot had a particular fear of God. Lot had a righteous soul.
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Lot was a righteous man. And Lot became paralyzed by an irrational fear operating always by sight and rarely by faith.
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Lot always, even off the cusp of judgment, chose what seemed to him good according to the flesh, not according to faith.
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Lot tried to gather as best as any man could from two different fields. He tried to straddle two different paths.
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He tried to serve two different masters. There is no blessing in that kind of Christianity.
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When the disgust and the shame of what happened dawned on him, like the worst hangover in human history, can you imagine how he felt?
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Lord, how much lower can a man go? Now my legacy is a byword.
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My progeny are defilements. My daughters are incestuous rapists. My wife is a statue of your wrath.
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My friends and my relatives and everyone I knew all these decades are unwarned, unconvinced, and now gone.
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My status, my wealth, my ambition, it's gone, gone, gone. And all because he operated out of the pride of life and out of the passivity of his flesh.
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Do you think it will be any different for us if we live our lives the same way?
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You don't know that you're creating this legacy in this direction until it's too late.
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And by then you're so depressed in whatever cave you happen to be that you can hardly care. Consider Lot's legacy.
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Some of you have heard this before and it's just so illustrative of this point.
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I grant that it's possibly one of the best examples and one of the worst.
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But it's just striking how this imagery of God's generational blessing, A .E.
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Wineship, the study that he did, it was dependent upon work by Richard Dugdale. In a 150 -year period, he studied the offspring of two different families.
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The first family was descendants from Max Jukes. If you have a kid, don't name him
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Max Jukes. Name your dog Max Jukes. He didn't follow the
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Lord. His wife didn't follow the Lord. In a 150 -year period, they had 1 ,200 descendants that were studied.
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310 were beggars. 440 were physically wrecked by debauchery, drunkenness, and fornication.
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130 went to prison for an average of 13 years each. Seven of those were murderers. 100 were alcoholics.
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60 were thieves. 190 were prostitutes. Of the 20 who learned a trade in 150 years, half of them learned it in a prison.
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The second family studied was that of Jonathan Edwards, the great New England Puritan and polymath, and his godly wife,
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Sarah Edwards. Among his descendants, 300 became pastors, missionaries, or professors.
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100 became college professors. 100 became lawyers, including 30 judges. 60 became physicians.
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60 became authors. 14 became presidents of universities or United States congressmen, and one was the vice president of the
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United States, Aaron Burr, Jr. Consider Lot's legacy.
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Augustine said, Sin becomes the punishment of sin. So often, the consequence of sin is
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God's punishment for sin. Sin becomes the punishment for sin. There is this great contrast that now is being established in Genesis 19 between Abraham and between Lot, between the offspring of Abraham and between the offspring of Lot, even though God, because of Abraham, will extend mercy to Lot.
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And even as the Israelites pass into the Promised Land, Deuteronomy 2, the command is, Do not conquer the
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Moabites. Do not conquer the Ammonites. I have not given this land for you to take. This is for the descendants of Lot.
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There's still this mercy that attaches to them. But we're seeing a difference not just between Abraham and Lot and their progeny and their theological outlook.
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We're seeing the difference between Abraham as a father and Lot as a father. Abraham will come imperfectly to teach his children the way of the
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Lord and the testimony of the Lord and the truth of the Lord, to do justice and to do righteousness, to find the blessing in their pursuit of God.
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Will there be sin in their home? Yes. Will there be deception and twisting and lying and deceit and sibling rivalries?
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Yes. We'll see all of that unfold in Genesis. But that godly influence, that godly concern, that selfless way of living by faith, that will be transmitted from generation to generation.
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But what of the children of Lot? Only further heartbreak, further shame, further misery. That's Lot's legacy.
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Consider Lot's legacy. In both his worldly ambition and his spiritual passivity,
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Lot had allowed his daughters to absorb the ways of Sodom. It wasn't a conscious decision he made.
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It was a failure to make a conscious decision. It was just weekdays being weekdays being weekdays where Sodom and the energy of that city captured more and more of his daughters' hearts.
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And he had less and less influence, more and more, I'm just vexed. You know how I am. I'm always vexed. But when is that vexation going to manifest in some changes, some repentance, some earnest concern?
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Rather than having this fascination with the way of God and the testimony of His truth,
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Lot in his passivity allowed their taste buds to be formed around Sodomite culture. He allowed their eyes to be set in that wicked city filled with daydreams and imaginations of what their lives could be.
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This is a sobering reminder of what Paul says is a maxim. Bad company begets bad morals.
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The company we keep, and I don't just mean in our social lives, I mean the way we spend our time, the energy with which we spend our time.
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Listen, if your kids see your heart jumping up more, seeing your blood pressure rise, getting more excited about things that have to do with sports teams or cultural issues or entertainment than they do the things of the
01:01:01
Lord, what do you think they're going to take away from that? Where is the excitement? Where should they pitch their lives toward?
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We are constantly training our children even when we are not training our children.
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We are constantly, fathers, constantly training our children even when we are not training our children.
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No wonder Deuteronomy 6 says, as soon as you wake up, as you go, as you come, as you rise, as you sit, as you eat.
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If you're not sleeping, you're training. That's Deuteronomy 6. Because you're constantly training.
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Your children are being catechized. They're watching you. What provokes you? What animates you? What drives you?
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What drives the home? The hard decisions you've made in life that went against the culture and against the society.
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The things that made life hard. It tore on your health. It wore you out. But it was worth it because it's what
01:01:57
God called. And they see that. And they say, yes, that's what I want. I want that integrity.
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I want that conviction. I want that passion. I want to live for something greater than this life. I want that legacy.
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Consider Lot's legacy. You are constantly training your children about what you approve.
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Is it being passive? Some debauched thing on the screen? Some report?
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Is it just a passive acceptance? You're training your children about what's approvable. What you can wink at.
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You're constantly training your children how to respond to evil around you. Is it going to be 15 years of smiling and waving to the sodomites and being inwardly vexed?
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We'll talk about this in the car. Or is there ever going to be that provocation? You know, what you're doing.
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Scripture says this is wrong. Do you have a Bible? I'd love to give you one. Can I pray for you?
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Okay, all right, middle finger. Okay. See girls, this is what we're trying to do. Is there something of that?
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We're constantly training our children with our spiritual commitments. What is the testimony of my conscience?
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Yeah, this week was pretty good. What's the testimony of my children? Hey, Elsie, Sophia, what do you think daddy's priority was this week?
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What was weighing on daddy's heart? What of Christ did you see in daddy's life? If you were to give a one week summary, what are three things that stand out to you about daddy?
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Brothers and sisters, especially brothers, are you working hard for those olive shoots?
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Because they're your legacy. They're your legacy. Are you doing the hard work of nurturing and testifying and disciplining?
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It's hard work. It's hard work. Do you have the water of the word flowing freely and fully?
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Are your kids watching as your wife is bathing in that word? And there's this blessed union and sweetness in the relationship and they say, yes, yes.
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As strange as it looks to the world, that's what I want. That's what I'm pitching my life toward. Do you have a testimony of prayers that are sought?
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Prayers that are answered? Prayers that are rejoiced over? Prayers that are wept? Is that coupled with the testimony of a good conscience?
01:04:18
Is this part of the testifying and nurturing in your home? Do you wield the rod consistently? The Hebrew word for rod is large wooden spoon, by the way.
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No, it's not. I want to say that lest this recording makes it in the hands of our enemies.
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Do you wield the rod out of a hatred for sin? Out of a fear of the consequences of sin?
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Out of a love for that little sinner that belongs to you? An old
01:04:50
Puritan said, a parent who will not use the rod on their child, listen to this, a parent who will not use the rod on their child will soon find
01:05:07
God using their child as a rod on them. Consider Lot's legacy.
01:05:20
Grace is a tender plant. It needs to be cherished, it needs to be disciplined, it needs to be chastened, it needs to be rebuked, it needs to be encouraged, it needs to be loved.
01:05:33
Cultivate, work hard for these little olive shoots. When you fail, when you miss a stretch, don't go into the cave, don't despair, don't lose sight.
01:05:44
Remember Lot's legacy. Every home is dysfunctional to some degree.
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Maybe your kids are grown and they're out of your reach and out of your influence and that's tempting you to head into a cave.
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What use can I be and what ridicule I am? Look at the influence you still have to bear. You're still a father spiritually, in the way that Paul was a spiritual father.
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You still have an influence to bear, a godly influence to bear in a church body toward other children, toward those around you.
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Consider Lot's legacy. Every home is dysfunctional to some degree.
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Abraham's home, dysfunctional. Isaac, Jacob, all the patriarchs' homes, all their relationships look a lot like ours.
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There's sin and there's dysfunction and there's envy and there's rivalry and there's bitterness and there's wrongs and real evils that are committed.
01:06:36
Every home is sinful because every individual in the home is sinful. Therefore, every home has challenges.
01:06:42
It has hindrances. There's unrealistic expectations. There's seasons that burn out. There's despair and depression that come.
01:06:49
There's regret and selfish attitudes and harsh words and long days and sleepless nights and dirty diapers and fighting toddlers.
01:06:57
It's hard. But consider Lot's legacy. Where there is a fear of God yoked with a faith in God which comes out of and produces a love for God, there, in that place, despite all that failure, there will be mercy upon mercy, grace upon grace.
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God himself will bless all those feeble efforts to bring up those chutes out of your table, to bring up that legacy.
01:07:24
God himself will bless it. And so lastly, as we come to a close, we consider
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Lot's legacy in the kingdom, briefly. We saw
01:07:37
Lot's legacy in the city. It's a non -legacy. We saw Lot's legacy in the cave. It's a pitiful, miserable legacy.
01:07:49
But consider Lot's legacy in the kingdom. 36,
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Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father, the firstborn bore a son and called his name
01:08:03
Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name
01:08:10
Ben -Ami. He is the father of the people of Ammon to this day. Lot's legacy seems to us to be nothing but curse, foil, a burden to Israel, and all of this is, in one way or another, stemming out of his own foolishness, his own failures, his fears.
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He spent the rest of his life driven by fear. Like David, Moab and Ben -Ami could say, truly, in sin did my mother conceive me, in an unimaginable sin.
01:08:42
And that's true of all of us. If not through Lot, then through Adam. We're all born into this defilement, into this wretched condition.
01:08:50
But then we see, and this is the whole unfolding story of Genesis, out of the darkest chapters of our past, out of the bleakest moments in our legacy, out of the hardest collapses and failures in our walks,
01:09:02
God sheds His light. And where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.
01:09:09
And out of this depraved assault in a dark cave, in a life or death situation, that blinded them to the abomination they were committing, which leads to a little boy named
01:09:18
Moab, suckling at his mother's breast. And the whole Moabites come eventually, a
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Moabites named Ruth. And when we begin the
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New Testament, the first page and the first paragraph of the first page of this
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New Testament reads this way. The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
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Abraham begot Isaac. Isaac begot Jacob. Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.
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Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez begot Hezron and Hezron begot
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Ram. Ram begot Amminadab and Amminadab begot Nashon and Nashon begot Salmon.
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Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab. Boaz begot
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Obed by Ruth, the Moabites. Obed begot
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Jesse. Jesse begot David, the king. Can God turn around a legacy of sin and bondage and shame?
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Can God return beauty for ashes? Can God bring abounding grace where sin abounds?
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Here's this child born into violence. Here's this cursed progeny. Here's Lot despairing in a cave as he wastes away.
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There's no record of his death, no record of his burial, no record of what happens. Lot despairing on his deathbed.
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What of my legacy? What of my legacy? A wasted life, a failed life, a failed fatherhood.
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What of my legacy? Consider Lot's legacy and consider the mercy of God.
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That out of Lot's loins, out of Moab's curse, comes
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Ruth. And out of Ruth comes our Savior, Jesus. Where sin is at its darkest, at its bleakest, where curse seems to be so unavoidable,
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God has mercy in store. He delights to show mercy where it's least expected, where it's least deserved.
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I close with these words from Jeff Thomas. Through the umbilical cord that attached
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Jesus to Mary, the line of our Lord goes back and back and back, finally, to this cave and to a drunken man and to immoral, scheming daughters.
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Jesus is here. Jesus is in this cave. In the birth of Moab, in the birth of Ruth, in the birth of David, the lineage of our great
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Lord and Savior goes right back to this unimaginable act. Why? Because He's the
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Savior for the chief of sinners, of Jews and Gentiles, Ammonites and Moabites, whoever puts their faith in the
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Savior. Consider Lot's legacy so that you're moved by the warnings and callings of God to be what
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Lot was not. But where you fail and where you're despairing, consider Lot's legacy, which is the mercy of God through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. Consider Lot's legacy. Let's pray. Father, we thank
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You that even in this disturbing paragraph of Scripture, we see so clearly
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Your goodness and Your kindness, Your desire out of miserable failure and sin to bring blessing, to create a legacy better than the most righteous men could ever have imagined that through their bloodline would come the
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Savior of the world. Thank You, Lord, that You show such astounding mercy to undeserving sinners.
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Break our hearts before You, Lord. Where have we been living like Lot lived in Sodom, living like Lot lives in this cave by Zoar, having no concern about the prospects of our children or their behavior or their fears or their hopes,
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Lord, not guiding them and shepherding them as You would have us do? Convict us as fathers in this congregation,
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Lord, to from the time we rise to the time we sleep to be that godly influence, to be a legacy builder, to take great care and persevere in the difficult, exhausting, frustrating work of nurturing and disciplining.
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May our children never be used by You as a rod against us.
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May we be those who fear You. May they rise up to call us blessed. Create, Lord, for Your glory a legacy from us, using us as servants, as vessels, as instruments and extensions of the work
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You're doing in the world. Lord, we pray if there's one in this room that does not know
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You that they would be brought to this great Savior. That they would be beckoned out of their cave of despair and depression, out of their folly of dwelling in the city of Sodom, that they would lay hold of the
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Savior who is rich in mercy and grace. We'll open their eyes and take out their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh,
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Lord. May it be this day You bring such salvation. Is there a despairing mother or father here,
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Lord? Galvanize them. Strengthen them. Help them to see the blessedness and the worthiness and the glory of this difficult calling.
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And that You will abundantly grow, even in places that we have not sown, such is
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Your goodness and kindness to us. Let us all tremble, therefore, at the warnings, remembering that You are holy in Your wrath against sin and that You are not mocked.
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But even then, Lord, may we find past the veil that boldness in Your throne room, for You consider us friends in Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray.