The Worldliness of Lot

I'll take your Bible this morning. Go ahead and be turning with me to the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 12. Thanks, Brother Keith. I enjoyed that worship. Really feel like the worship really spoke to where we will be this morning. It's very powerful prayers in what we have sung, and I hope and pray that you have sung those honestly. It's best you know how in relation to what we have been learning concerning the family. You should know by now that we are in this series. The family, our fundamental foundation, I have said numerous times, on the foundation of the family is broken. So much is broken.

And the foundation of the family is as it should not be, and we need to do some repair. And I have been praying, and the Lord has been burdening me for quite some time, about addressing some subjects, dealing with some issues concerning the family. So that's been my heart. That's why I call these messages messages from the pastor's heart. Like I said earlier, we'll be in Genesis 12. We will move over into chapter 13, 14, chapter 18, chapter 19. Well, I don't want to scare you. I'm not going to read all of that. This will be one of those messages where I touch on quite a few scripture. I will read some.

I will leave some out, inevitably, and I apologize for that. But because of time, we can't read it all. That gives you something to study on your own. Now, I want to challenge you, adults. I challenge you and encourage you to take notes and study them on your own. I was talking with one of our teenagers this week, and they told me that part of their own devotional time is to go back, take the notes from the messages, and study them. So young people, I appreciate you developing those disciplines, and us older folks need to do the same thing.

Now, in our series on the family, I've been spending quite a bit of time on the great responsibility that we have with our children. It's not enough to talk about our roles. It's not enough to talk about husbands, fathers, wives, and how their homes should function. We must deal with our great responsibility of children. We have seen that from Deuteronomy, which is the Old Testament, all the way to Ephesians, that we, as Christians, are commanded to nurture our children, we're commanded to instruct them in the Word of God and the ways of the Lord.

Now fathers, I want to point the finger at you, and in doing so, I'm pointing the finger at myself. This is our primary responsibility to see that these things are going on in our homes with our children. I use this phrase a few times, "The buck stops here, and the buck stops with you, the buck stops with me," and that is our responsibility. But mothers, this is your primary responsibility as well, as your primary responsibility is to be focusing on the home, focusing on the children. So it is a, yes, a cooperative effort, but yet us men, we are the leaders. Now to be honest with you, some of you desperately need to go back and study, listen.

Some of you need to really go back and take these things serious. Some of you need to go back and evaluate who you are, what your family's like, maybe what kind of family you came from, because you need to adjust everything in your home according to the Word of God. Now you're not going to do that overnight. You won't do it with three counseling sessions with the pastor. It's a lifelong commitment. Some of you who have been walking with the Lord for quite some time, you've got some years under your belt, you would probably amen me there because it is a lifetime commitment.

But last week we kept with this theme of our responsibility to children, and we moved from instructions to an example, and we moved to a bad example at that, and that was the study of a man named Eli. Eli was a priest and a judge over Israel, and we learned of his great, ingredients hypocrisy. Really Eli was a total hypocrite, was he not? We must see that Eli failed in so many ways which inevitably led to his son's disgusting sins there in the house of God, the tabernacle, their rebellion, and their ultimate death. Go back and you study the rest of the story, and you'll see that they died as a result of their rebellion.

We saw that Eli loved his sons more than he loved God. He loved his sons more than he loved the kingdom work that was at hand, and we learned that Eli failed to discipline his sons. Now, we really didn't get the full story of Eli because we don't know what went on in his younger years. Now, I want to be careful here. I don't want to read anything into the text, but you ask this preacher standing here, and I'll tell you this. I believe that the reason he couldn't discipline his sons in the older years is because he did not discipline them in the younger years.

Had he disciplined them all through those years, I believe they would have been different individuals. We learned that Eli ultimately failed to even control them in outright rebellion, and he had the position and the authority to stop them, but he did not do it, a hypocrite in so many ways. Now, why do I believe that this is so important? I believe it is important because we must determine that we are going to love God more than our own family. We must determine that we are going to discipline our children. We're going to instruct them in the word of God and the ways of God.

You see, this is important because, like I said earlier, we get one opportunity with our children, and when it's too late, it is too late. That's what we saw with Eli. This morning, I want to move into another bad example, another story of failure, and that is the story of Lot in the Old Testament, the book of Genesis starting in chapter 12. Now, if you know this portion of the Old Testament, we know, you know, the story of Lot is a parallel story alongside the story of Abraham. Now, if you study in the book of Genesis, you'll know that God changed Abraham's name. Originally, it was Abram, but then God changed his name to Abraham.

So if I'm calling him Abraham at the time when God's calling him or he's named as Abram, I apologize, but I remember him as Abraham. But Abraham was the patriarch of God's people, the Jews. Now, like I said, I'm not going to read all of the scriptures concerning Lot, but I'm going to walk you through these chapters, and read some of the scriptures, and we're going to look at so much that took place. So glance at your scriptures with me. If you look at chapter 12, this is the beginning of the journey. God called Abraham out of his pagan land with his pagan people.

He was a worshipper of many, many gods, false gods, little gee gods, and God called him to go to Canaan. Lot had a plan for Abraham, God chose him, and it says that Lot went with him in verse 4. Then if you turn on over, you'll see that there was a great problem at the end of chapter 12, beginning of chapter 13. Abraham really didn't follow the instruction of the Lord. He went to Egypt. Then in chapter 14, there was a regional war, and Lot was swept up into that regional war. And then starting in chapter 14, chapter 15, we see this covenant of God promising a son to Abraham and his wife Sarah.

Then we see that carry on over into chapter 16 and into chapter 17. Then the birth of Isaac in chapter 18, which is again part of that covenant. And then we see God judging Sodom and Gomorrah. Those are famous stories. Most of you know or you're familiar with the story of God judging Sodom and Gomorrah. We see that taking place in chapter 19. And then sadly, we have the ultimate demise of Lot at the end of chapter 19. So that's big picture. You go back and you study. You read. You take some time, in your own time, to learn what is going on with Abraham and Lot.

Now before we get into the message, I want to give you some background information that you might not know. First of all, Lot did go with Abraham on this faith journey. I referenced that earlier, but verse 4 says, "So Abraham went forth as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him." Abram left his land, left his family, left his gods to follow the one true God. And this was the faith journey, and Lot was on this faith journey. Some have speculated that maybe it was not God's will for Lot to go. But I don't have a problem believing it was God's will because of some of the things that we're going to learn.

But the Bible is silent on specifics such as that. But it's obvious that Lot is intertwined with Abraham in this faith journey. He was there when Abraham first arrived at Canaan and first worshipped. You see, as Abraham got into Canaan, he had this habit of building an altar to the Lord. He was there with Abraham when he went down to Egypt. He went south when he shouldn't have. And he was there when God rescued Abram from Egypt and back to Canaan. So Lot was with Abraham in this faith journey. Second Lot was a righteous man. If we look at his deeds, which we will, we would probably assume that Lot was not a righteous man.

But the New Testament tells us, and there is some language in the Old Testament that does tell us that he was a righteous man. Second Peter 2 verses 7 through 8 say, "And if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked," talking about the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, but what do we see? That language there tells us that he was righteous. Now the word righteous, the King James uses the word just, means that Lot had a righteousness that was imputed to him by grace through faith, just as Abraham. So what do we see? Lot was with Abraham in this faith journey, and Lot was a righteous man.

And I want you to hold onto those two portions or pieces of background information because it's important for you to know that as we get into the message. Now the title of the message, again, the family, our fundamental foundation, and then we're going to look at the worldliness of Lot. The worldliness of Lot. Of course this all pertains to the family, and you're going to see how this all pertains to the family and what this did to the family. Last week we saw how Eli's hypocrisy impacted his family, and now we're going to see how Lot's worldliness impacted his family. You see the truths that are on the screen?

There are two truths on the screen. We're going to rotate our screens halfway through the message and look at the other two. Lot chose to live near sin, then God brought correction or grace to Lot. And we're going to see that Lot chose to live in sin, and then Lot suffered the consequences of sin. Now we have looked at the story of Lot before. This is going to be a little different, but yet there will be some truths that will be the same. We covered this back in the summer with our teenagers in a Bible study in my home, so some of you teenagers will be a little one-up on us because it might be a little fresher on your mind.

But we need to study and look at the worldliness of Lot and how it might relate to us and our families and our children in our day and in our time. So like I always say, I hope that you're taking notes. We can assist you to develop that discipline. We want you to take notes so that you can learn and study and retain God's word. So let's divide truth number one. Lot chose to live near sin. Lot chose to live near sin. Now if you look at chapter 12, there's that faith journey. That faith journey was interrupted because they did go down to Egypt, but then they come up out of Egypt and they're back in the land of Canaan. God rescued them.

God blessed them by giving him grace. But then what we see in chapter 13 beginning around verse 5 is that they began to clash. Lot and Abram. Because what does it say? Now Lot went with Abram and also had flocks and herds and tents. Verse 6, "But the land could not sustain them." They had overcrowding. There was not enough grass. So all of a sudden there was a clash between Abram and Lot. So we're going to divide these verses as we go and we're going to look at their choices. We're going to look at Lot's choices and Abram's choices. But before we get into the choices, I want you to see something.

This is still part of introducing this main truth. There was a test here and there was a trial. A test and a trial. Now I've said this many times. We need to understand and remember the purpose of a test. God does not allow a test to come our way to see what we're going to do. God already knows what we're going to do before a situation ever comes our way. So a test is not for God to see what we're going to do, but to show us what we're going to do. And this was a trial. This was a trial that came before Abram and came before Lot. We should understand trials because of our study in the book of James. Trials come to Christians.

They're both positive and they're both negative. This is positive and negative. They were blessed with plenty of herds, plenty of livestock, but there was a negative aspect that there was a quarrel. So we're going to see what these men are going to do. This was a major conflict and the first major conflict that they experienced. So let's examine these choices, several observations I want us to see. First of all, Abram looked to Canaan. Look at verse eight. Then Abram said to Lot, please let there be no strife between me and you. Are you and me nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen for we are brothers.

That is an illusion to the fact that he was a man of faith. It is not the whole land before you. What is he talking about? He's talking about Canaan. Please separate from me. You go to the left and I'll go to the right. And he is directing Lot's attention to Canaan. And here we see that Lot or Abram, the elder and the leader of the group, he took what we would call the high road. He had every right to determine the circumstances, but he chose to put the decision back on Lot. And notice that he did not want contention among them. He says we are brothers. The King James reads brethren. The English Standard reads kinsmen.

In the original it means we are men brethren. And that speaks of their spiritual relationship. But notice that Abram looked at Canaan and that was where God had commanded them to go. So Abram looked at Canaan. But Lot looked toward sin in this conflict. What does it say? Verse 10, "And Lot lifted up his eyes and he saw all of the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah." So what do we see? Abram looked to Canaan, but Lot looked toward sin because Sodom and Gomorrah were renowned for their sin.

And here we see that Lot looked and he looked at the valley and it was a well watered valley. Here Lot is thinking of his herds. Here he is thinking of how this is a good financial move. And remember, they were both keeping herds in flocks. But in making this move, he moved toward Sodom and away from Canaan. He moved toward Sodom and what appealed to his eyes and he moved away from Canaan and what God had originally commanded them to do. Third, Abram gave Lot a choice. We see that in verse 9. I've already alluded to that. This is that high road decision. Rather than making the choice for himself, he let Lot make the decision.

That's the test and that is the trial here. It would seem to indicate by Abraham's language that there was room for them in Canaan. Some have speculated there was no room. But what we see in Abraham, in Abraham giving Lot the choice, he says there is room. Look at the land. And fourth, I want us to see that Lot chose to move toward sin. Verse 11, "So Lot chose for himself all of the valley of the Jordan and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they separated from each other and Abram settled in the land of Canaan while Lot settled in the cities of the valley and moved his tents as far as Sodom.

So Lot chose to move toward that sinful place." Here we see that Lot moved toward the sinful, the renowned city of Sodom. He chose the region, yes, because it was well watered. It was good for his animals. But he moved near sin. Then verse 12 tells us fifth, "That Abraham stayed in Canaan." Here we see that Abraham stayed where God had commanded him to go. And that was Canaan. He had earlier made the mistake of leaving Canaan for Egypt. We see that in chapter 12 starting in verse 10. And that really didn't work out too well for Abram. Really could have been disastrous. There was grace and mercy and he came back to Canaan.

So Abram stayed in Canaan and then verse 12 says that Lot stayed near Sodom. So what do we see? Abraham looked to Canaan, excuse me, Lot looked toward sin. Abraham gave Lot a choice. Lot chose to move toward sin. Abram stayed in Canaan but yet Lot stayed near Sodom. So here we see the test for Lot. We see a test for Abraham. And the decisions here really prove what these men and who these men were. Men made the mistakes earlier but yet he had adhered to the grace and the correction of God. But really Lot is experiencing his first personal test and trial. Now what can we learn? How can we apply this to us today?

Men, we are the leaders of our homes. We have learned. We are to lead our wives, lead our children. And we are the ones who God has appointed to be the leaders of our home. And I want to tell you that you will be tested and you will be proven for who you truly are or who you truly want to be. Decisions will come your way and you will determine to move towards the world or to stay in Canaan which is where God's people should choose to live. And remember Canaan is a symbol of where God's people should be. Sodom and Gomorrah is a symbol of sin and the world to us. And you and I will have to make choices.

And we will make choices for our wives and for our children. Now let me give you practical ways in which we make choices in this manner. We get married. We begin to have children. Lo and behold we look around us and there are family that we have. Maybe our own mothers and fathers. Maybe there are people in our wives' families. But we have family and they are lost and they are ungodly and we can choose to move towards that family or move away from that family. You're saying, "Well, Brother Chris, you mean that I should move away from some of our family?" That is the case.

If they do not love God and they do not have in mind the things of God because what will happen is you will move toward that ungodly family and inevitably the sin that is within that family will rub off on you. You have this choice in the manner of your job. Just because the promotion comes along doesn't mean that it's necessarily the will of God. What does it do for your family? What kind of environment does that put you in? How does that affect your wife and your children? We have to make sure we are in God's will with our jobs. Just because it's a raise does not mean that it is God's will. What about friends?

I'll never forget when I first got saved I began to realize, "Wait a minute, my old friends, I could not keep them." Now it was quite a few years before I got married but I've seen people come to faith in Christ and they've got a whole host of lost friends and they can keep them in their life and they can move towards those types of people. What about your hobbies? I'm reminded of an example here. I remember years ago an old friend of mine, he began to tell me about how he, of course he loved the deer hunt.

That's kind of part of our culture and he was in a particular deer club, a deer lease, and he was talking about how some of the men acted in that deer club and that lease and he began to tell me how he had moved away from that kind of behavior and he began to tell me how it began to grieve him that he would take his children, his girls and his sons in that environment. He looked at me and he says, "You know, I just don't know that that's a good environment for my kids." What am I trying to show you? We will either move towards sin or move away from sin. Now we can't insulate ourselves from the world, but what am I showing you?

Lot chose to make a good financial decision, but he moved towards Sodom. It was a grievous mistake. He should have listened to Abraham and listened to what God had told him and stayed in Canaan. I'm going to give you a quotation here and I know I'm spending quite a bit of time on this main truth, but I ran across this years ago. It's by the famous pastor and writer. His name is A.W. Tozer. They say he was one of the most influential Christians of the 20th century. But Tozer says this, "Circumstances do not make men. It is their reaction to circumstances that determine what kind of men they will be." Lot reacted to the clash, the problem.

Lot made the choices and lot determined the kind of man he would be. Let's move on. Truth number two. Let's notice the fact that God brought correction and grace to Lot. God brought correction and grace to Lot. Now if you look at chapter 14 in your Bible, there was a war there. It was a regional war. This regional war involved kings who made allies with each other and there were these kings who allied and they overran these other kings and that was kind of a normal thing in that day and time. Go back and read that on your own. But because Lot had moved in the area, we see that he was caught up in this conflict.

He was not a participant, but he just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now I'm not going to go through the war, but we're going to pick up in verse 12. And there are three observations I want to make in chapter 14. The first observation is Lot is now living in Sodom. Look at verse 12. This is talking about the kings. They also took Lot. See they came through, took everybody captive. They also took Lot, Abram's nephew, and his possessions and departed, for he was living in Sodom. See verse 12 tells us that Lot moved his residence in Sodom. Previously he was near Sodom. Previously he was outside of Sodom.

He was on the outskirts of the city, but now he's living inside him. All of the translations read the same. Second, I want you to see that they took Lot and all that he had captive. In that day, captives would have been taken and sold into slavery and unspeakable things would have been done to women. So the idea of being captured in a situation like this was horrific, and verse 12 says that everything he owned was taken captive. Then the third thing I want you to notice is that Abraham rescued Lot and all he had. Verse 13 says, "A fugitive came and told Abraham," or Abram, the Hebrew, "what took place?" Someone escaped the battle.

And then what do we see? If you study the verses, "Abraham took all of his men and he rallied his troops and he devised a plan," and what did he do? He went to rescue Lot. Verse 16 says, "And he," Abram, "brought back all of the goods, brought back his relative Lot with his possessions and also the women and the people." So what do we see? Abram devised a plan to rescue his brother. Abram did several things to rescue Lot. First he traveled a great distance. He would have traveled about 120 to 150 miles if you do the research on the geography. Second he took great risk. What if Abram would have been captured? He could have been killed himself.

And then third, he left his own family vulnerable. What do we see? We see here that God brings about a great work of grace. Notice how complete this rescue is. Verse 16 states that he brought back Lot, all of his family, all of his possessions. God was good to Lot. Just as God had rescued Abram from Egypt, he rescued Lot from this bad situation. And as we progress, notice the difference in how Abraham reacted in his Egypt test and how Lot reacted in his Sodom test. Look at that in your mind, Abram reacted to Egypt in his failure and Lot reacted to Sodom in his failure. Now what can I say in application here?

Some of you, if you don't realize it, you need to see some of you on the verge of going into Sodom. Some of you, if you are not careful with some of the influences around you, maybe even some of your family, some of your friends, some of the people that you work with, if you are not careful, you will not only go near sin, but if you're not careful, you will go into sin. No doubt Lot probably said, "Honey, we'll only live on the outskirts of Sodom.

It's a wicked place." No doubt he looked at his family and said, "We're going to a good place because this will be a promotion." I want to warn some of you, you need to pray and you need to pray hard. Men, some of you need to look around and look at some of the influences, some of the choices that you make because you have one responsibility and that is to lead your wife and lead your family. And some of you, this can be some correction here. Now again, we cannot insulate ourselves from the world. We cannot run from the world. We have to be in the world but not of the world and there is a difference.

So if we stop the story here, we see a great picture of mercy. We see a great picture of grace and restoration. Lot is saved from a disastrous set of circumstances. Lot is restored back to Abram and not only Lot but his family and all of his possessions and he's restored back to Canaan which is where God had called them to be in the first place. This is a total work of grace. He's restored back to God's people, back to God's plan, back to where God had told them to be. And look, if I can say it like this, he didn't lose a flea on the dog. Isn't God good? I mean, think about that.

He went near sin, he ended up in sin and then there is great grace, great rescue, great restoration. But let's move on. I want us to notice truth number three. I want us to see that Lot chose to live in sin. Lot chose to live in sin. We must turn over a couple of chapters. It's not that those other chapters are not important. We need to study the covenant there but we need to turn over to chapter 19 and we're going to see how this chapter takes place. To understand what is taking place in chapter 19, we must understand what took place previously in chapter 18.

Now we'll try to be brief here but in chapter 18, Abraham had a visitation from three angelic beings and they were there for two purposes. The first purpose was they were there to tell Abraham that they would have their child a promise. Abraham and Sarah were well beyond childbearing years but those three angelic beings came to say God is going to honor his word, you will have a son. But second, they were there to tell Abraham of God's impending judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah. They came to say they were going to judge those cities. We also see a great story of intercession. Abraham knows who's living in Sodom. He knows Lot's there.

He knows his family is there. But he intercedes for the righteous living in the city. So chapter 19 has these angels visiting Sodom to see the sin firsthand and to rescue Lot. Now there's three observations I want to make out of this chapter. First of all, Lot is a person now of prominence in the city. Look at verse 1 of chapter 19. Now two angels, because only two went, came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. This tells us that Lot has ascended to a place of prominence. In that day, city officials and people of authority would conduct official business at the city gate.

The city gates in that day would have been comparable to our city hall. They would have been comparable to our town council or the mayor's office. We see this alluded to in several places in the scripture. In Ruth chapter 4 verse 1, Boaz is seeking to redeem Ruth and he goes by the letter of the Old Testament law and where does he go to conduct this business to the city gates? We see this in Proverbs 31 verse 23, the story of the Proverbs 31 woman. That wonderful example of a Christian wife. The scripture says that her husband is known at the city gates. Known for what? Having an awesome woman who loves God. But what do we see?

Those examples speak of the fact that official business was conducted at the city gate. So Lot is a person of prominence because we see him there at the city gate. Second, I want you to see that Lot offers hospitality to the angels. The angels come, verse 3 says he urged them strongly so they would turn aside and enter his house. What do we see in these verses? Lot knew how wicked the city was and he knew who those men were that they were sent from God and he reacts to these visitors. He recognized them as from God and he asked them to come to his home. And later the wicked people of the city see them differently.

Notice how the men of the city see them and notice how Lot sees these men. But Lot recognizes they are from God and he extends hospitality to these visitors. But to progress, I want you to see the circumstances change. Lot is forced to make decisions now. Decisions that he never dreamed he would have to face. The third thing I want you to see is that Lot offers his daughters to the men of Sodom. Let me pick up in these verses. Verse 3, he urged them strongly so they turned aside to him and entered his house. They said they were going to stay outside. Lot knew what these men were like. He said you can't do that.

He urged them strongly, they turned aside to him and they entered his house and he prepared a feast for them. Verse 4, before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom surrounded the house both young and old and all the people from every quarter and they called Lot and they said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out that we may have relations with them." Yes, that's what it says. Verse 6, "But Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind him and said, 'Please my brothers. Do not act wickedly. Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man.

Please let me bring them out to you and do to them whatever you like. Only do nothing to these men inasmuch as they have come under my roof, under my shelter.'" So an unspeakable thing here. Lot is in a great conflict. There is a great conflict within his soul and he has become so far engrossed in the sinful city that he does an unspeakable thing. He dare not allow the heavenly visitor to be assaulted, but he offers his daughters instead. So here we see that Lot notices, chooses to live in sin. He lived near sin, then he moved into Sodom and now he ignores grace, he ignores correction and he chooses to live in sin.

And then he begins to offer up his family, offer up his daughters to the utter sinfulness of the city. He is literally offering his children to Sodom. Now an application, how might we learn? What might we learn? I venture to say that all of you here are saying the same thing, how could a man do such a thing? Some of you have probably thought this, I would never do that. But I want you to see how he got to this place. He got to this place gradually. He got to these decisions in chapter 9 because he made the wrong decisions all along. It was a gradual move. He didn't fall into sin, he slid into sin.

He didn't just run head first into sin, he walked into sin. You see, you notice what he did? He made these decisions gradually and he ignored the work of God all along and you need to be careful here because if you say I would never do such a thing, look, you will blind yourself to the fact that you can make choices like this and you need to be careful how and where you offer up your family. I've seen people get to this place. I've seen people who said they were strong Christians end up offering their children up to pagan, ungodly people in marriage. You hear me? I've seen men offer their children into ungodly, wicked activities.

You make those decisions gradually. Lot chose to live in sin. Now let's continue. I want one more truth I want us to look at before we begin to conclude. I want us to see truth number four that Lot suffered the consequences of his sin. Lot suffered the consequences of his sin. The second portion of chapter 19 records the consequences of Lot's decisions, the consequences of his sin. Now remember his sin, he moved near Sodom, should have stayed in Canaan. He was taken captive, he experienced grace, rescue, and he moved back into Sodom. He moved near sin, then he moved in back into sin. Not only did he move back, but he went deeper.

He went into the world of Sodom. He's in a position of authority. Now the story changes and Lot must suffer the consequences of his own actions. A couple of things I want us to notice here. First of all, he loses his influence. You might not know it, but his daughters were pledged to be married. But what does verse 14 say? And Lot, he's been told of the judgment, he went to his family, and Lot went out and he spoke to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters. And he said, "Up, get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy the city." And he appeared to his sons-in-law to be joking or jesting.

He tries to reason with his sons-in-law, and we see that he had no spiritual influence. If he had any spiritual influence on his family, it seems to have been gone here. It seems that he could not even have evangelized his own sons in the beginning, or sons-in-law. So he loses influence. Second, I want you to notice, he loses his sons-in-law because they did not venture out of the city, they stayed. Ultimately, they were judged. They were swept up in the judgment. Also third, I want you to notice, he loses his spiritual urgency.

Verse 15, "And when morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, 'Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.' But he hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his daughters. For the compassion of the Lord was upon him, and they brought them out." So he loses his urgency. The angels literally had to lead Lot and his family by the hand. Whereas once, he most likely had spiritual sensitivity and urgency, now it is gone. At once, he must have had spiritual influence, but that is gone as well.

And fourth, I want you to notice, he loses his wife. They're fleeing the city. The angels told them to leave, never looked back. But verse 26, what does it say? "But his wife from behind him looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." Here we see that he could not even persuade his wife to follow the instructions of the Lord. Some have said that she loved the world so much that she had to look back. Maybe she missed some of her sodomite friends. Maybe she missed that nice home they had downtown. But yet, she loved the world more than what God's word said. Then two more observations I want to make. I want to put them together.

He loses his daughters, and he loses his heritage. I'm going to start reading in verse 30. "So Lot, he went up from Zor, this is after he departed the city, he stayed in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him. As he was afraid to stay in Zor, and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters. That was all that was left. Then the firstborn said to the younger, 'Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come into us after the manner of the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve our family through our father.'" Yes, the unthinkable.

So 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. "And it came about on the morrow that the firstborn said to the younger, 'Behold, I lay last night with my father, let us make him drink wine also tonight, then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve our family through our father.'" So they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger rose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

"Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father, and the firstborn, born a son, and she called him's name Moab, and he is the father of the Moabites to this day. And as for the younger, she also bore him a son called, and called his name Benomny, and he is the father of the son of Ammon to this day." Two things I want us to see observing here. He loses his daughters, and he loses his heritage. If you do your Bible study, you will find out that those two people groups who came out of their daughters, his daughters, became enemies of God, fighting against God and God's people. So he suffered the consequences of his sin.

Lot lost all that he ever had. Not only did he lose his job. Not only did he lose his wealth. Not only did he lose his possessions, but he lost his family. And he lost them in an utterly horrible way, and in a despicable way. So he suffered the consequences of his sin. Now men, I want you to look at me, and I want you to think about your wife. Do you want your friendship with the world to destroy your wife? Do you want your friendship with the world to destroy your children? Do you want to lose them to the world?

Listen, if we are friendly with the world, and we do not heed God's call to come back and come back to him, to come back to that spiritual Canaan, listen, we will see our children depart the things of God. There is no guaranteed plan, I know that. There's no magic wand that all of our children will come to know the Lord. But what am I showing you? If we are friendly with the world, the world will steal them every time. And when you see this take place in people who love God, you can look up in the second and third generation, and they will be utterly pagan. Utterly pagan.

I've seen this in people who live in the pew, laymen, and I've seen it from people in the ministry. And Lot suffered the consequences of his sin. Now in conclusion, I want to show you the mistakes that Lot made, real simply. This requires you to go back and look at the total story, starting in chapter 12. First mistake, I believe it's the first one, is Lot lacked worship, whereas Abraham practiced worship. If you contrast Lot's behavior with Abraham's behavior, everywhere Abraham went, he had a habit of building an altar to the Lord.

As a matter of fact, sometimes he would come back to an altar he previously used, and it said that he would repair that altar. And what do we see? That is personal worship. And all through these chapters, you never have a recorded instance of Lot worshiping. It's not there. I believe that he lacked worship. A righteous man, and he just lagged behind in reading his Bible and prayer and attending church like he should. He lagged behind in his own personal relationship with God. I've said it like this. It's almost like he worshiped off Abraham's coattail. That will only take you about an inch down the road.

Second is he rejected the great, not perfect example of Abraham. Not only was he his uncle, but they were brothers in the Lord. And Abraham did not do this thing called a Christian life perfect, but he walked with God. And he, Lot, rejected that example. It is like he wanted to get as far away from Abraham as he could. The third mistake is that he cultivated a love for living in the world. Notice his progression. He went near sin, went near Sodom, then he began to be inside him, and then he ascended a place of authority and position inside him. See the progression? But what we see here is Lot cultivated that relationship.

I said he didn't fall, he slid, he walked. He didn't run, he walked towards sin. And he cultivated a love for living in the world. And then when he brought his family near the world, then they cultivated a love for living in the world. And then I think his wife looked back. And then fourth, I want you to see in these horrible mistakes is he ignored God's grace and correction. What would his life have been like if he would have just stayed in Canaan after the great rescue? Remember, he didn't lose one animal. He didn't lose any of his servants. God performed a complete work of grace and he ignored that grace and he ignored that correction.

Then fifth, he offered his family to the world thinking that it would benefit him. You know, if we move near Sodom, my retirement plan might be a little better. If we move into Sodom, we'll have better opportunities for our children. If I take that position on the town council, we'll be looked upon a little different from all of the Sodomites. And then ultimately, when he had to choose between the angels and the men of Sodom, he did the ultimate and he offered his daughters for unspeakable things. He offered his family to the world thinking it would benefit him. Now, as we conclude, what are we looking at? We're dealing with the family.

We're dealing with our responsibility with our children in light of all that we've learned concerning the family, our roles and what we should be as men and what you should be as women, what we should be as fathers and you should be as mothers. And we're looking at the fundamental foundation and our great responsibility and we're learning from bad examples. We saw the hypocrisy of Eli. Now we see the worldliness of light. Could be that you're here this morning and you're a little too friendly with the world. It could be you're here this morning and you're holding hands with the world.

It could be this morning and you're far more worldly than you even know. It could be you're here this morning and you're not worldly, but God shows you down deep in your heart and your mind that in the right set of situations you can make these same choices. There's a whole host of things that God the Holy Spirit could teach you. I trust and pray that God will take this message, drive you to your knees, cause you to examine because listen, if we let worldliness come in, it will destroy. Lord Jesus I thank you for this example.