LESSONS FROM LOT

LESSONS FROM LOT

Genesis 13:3-11 (KJV)

And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai;

Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.

And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents.

And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.

And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.

And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.

Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.

And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.

Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.

For most students of the Bible who employ an historical-grammatical interpretation of the Bible[1]the most obvious and meaningful pictures of the rapture of the saints in the Old Testament are found in the accounts of:

·  Enoch

·  Noah and

·  Lot

Elijah would be included, but he is much later in the Old Testament narrative.

Enoch represents the kind of man to be raptured

He has a personal and living relationship with God

Noah represents the quality in the man to be raptured

He has found grace. It is not his walk that spares him, but God’s grace.

Lot represents proof grace is what saves the man

He certainly did not deserve to be spared. His testimony was not much better than any of those in Sodom and Gomorrah. He was spared because of God’s grace and nothing else.

I hesitate even bringing this message because it is so difficult to preach it from a positive perspective.

There are some positive things in the account of Lot, but those positives will turn right around and be the very darts that pierce the heart and soul of the child of God.

Lot was the nephew of Abraham and followed him into the Promised Land. By virtue of that relationship he had opportunities for grace beyond any of his peers in the day.

But the choices he made after entering the Promised Land led him deeper and deeper into sin.

It is possible to argue that Abraham’s own sins influenced Lot’s. I have a few things to say about that:

First, no one around you is perfect. 

So what? You are responsible to God for yourself. Stop making excuses and stop placing blame and start doing right before the Lord.

Second, Abraham had a record of turning to the Lord despite his sin. 

He did not dwell in it but, as soon as he realized his sin, got things right with the Lord.

Read the book of First John.

You will find there is a difference between sinning and confessing that sin and continuing in or dwelling in sin.

I’ll divide this message into three headings beginning with

I. A DOCTRINAL LESSON

2 Peter 2:4-8 (KJV)

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

I’ll remind you of one of the major principles of Bible interpretation; We get our doctrine from the New Testament, but we find illustrations of those doctrines in the Old Testament.[2]

We never want to infer a doctrine just because we have what appears to be an example of it in the Old Testament.

But if we have clear doctrinal evidence in the New Testament, we often find those doctrines fleshed out in the New.

There are at least two doctrinal lessons born out in the account of Lot:

First

A. That the righteous are always righteous

2 Peter 2:7 (KJV)

And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

If there were ever a person who could have, should have “lost his salvation” it would have been Lot.

·  He refused to live in unity with Abraham

·  He set his eyes on the financial opportunities of Sodom and Gomorrah rather than spiritual blessings in the Promised Land

·  He compromised his family in those wicked cities

·  He defiled himself with the sights and sounds of the evil around him

·  He had to be forcibly removed from the cities by the angel of the Lord

·  He lost his wife, who had grown too much in love with the world around her

·  He allowed himself to be gotten drunk not once, but twice and

·  He defiled his own daughters while drunk

If I believed it were possible to lose one’s salvation, I could write a whole message on how to do it just with Lot.

But 2 Peter calls him both “just” and “righteous,” and that in a passage clearly meant to preach judgment.

Let me tell you why it is impossible for a saved person to ever lose their salvation; because they never earned it in the first place.

·  Salvation is a gift from God purchased with the blood of Jesus.[3]

·  Salvation is a promise of God for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord.[4]

·  Salvation is an act of mercy performed by the Holy Ghost.[5]

You can’t lose your salvation because you didn’t do your salvation.

The other day I had a guy challenge me that people can walk away from the faith.

You didn’t walk into your faith.

It was God, all God and only God.

About this time someone will ask me the question, “What about those people who have obviously rejected the faith they once claimed?”

The Biblical answer is simple:

·  They are saved and backslidden and God will chasten them as His children or else

·  They are false professors. They never were really saved and, like pigs, they have returned to their wallow.

I have spoken to people who claim that they were once saved but they no longer believe.

I think it’s funny. They get offended when I tell them, “No. You were never saved. You were a false professor.”

“What do you mean I wasn’t saved? I tell you I was as saved as you are!”

If you don’t believe that there is a God who saves, why would it offend you for me to say that you were never saved?

The second doctrinal lesson is

B. That Christians preserve and protect this world from judgment

2 Peter 2:9 (KJV)

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

Allow me to read this verse in the context.

2 Peter 2:1-9 (KJV)

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

Wow!

Look at all the judgment:

·  Judgment of false prophets

·  Judgment of false teachers

·  Judgment of those who follow the false prophets and teachers

·  Judgment of fallen angels

·  Judgment of the people in Noah’s day

·  Judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah

With all of that judgment a person might wonder, who could possibly escape it all?

Answer, “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly…”

The account of Lot is clearly a lesson concerning the pre-tribulational rapture.

Just as God would not judge Sodom and Gomorrah so long as Lot was there, He will not release Anti-Christ to do his worst until the believers are removed.

·  We are the salt

·  We are the light

·  We are the few righteous that remain and prevent Anti-Christ in this hour

One day, I do not know when, but one day soon.[6]

·  Jesus will come in the clouds with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God.

·  The dead in Christ will rise first

·  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them

Only then will that “Wicked” one be revealed.[7]

The account of Lot gives us secondly

II. A SPIRITUAL LESSON

Compromise with the world vexes our soul

2 Peter 2:7-8 (KJV)

And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

The word vexed means “torture, testor harass.”

How much pain do we cause ourselves because we refuse to separate ourselves from the: 

·  Activities

·  Attitudes

·  Attention and

·  Assemblies

of this world?

I recognize that we are in this world and we necessarily have to have something to do with the world.

It would be totally wrong to hide ourselves in a cave and have nothing to do with 

·  People who are unsaved, 

·  Profits earned by doing business with the unsaved or the

·  Perspective held by those who are unsaved

I am not advocating we become “Baptist Amish” and go back to driving buggies.

But to engage ourselves in worldliness will lead to terrible consequences.

I remind you that Lot not only vexed his own righteous soul but

·  He lost his wife

·  He defiled his two daughters and

·  He likely had other children who died in the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah 

“Seeing and hearing… from day to day, their unlawful deeds.”

There is finally,

III. A TRAGIC LESSON

Genesis 19:24-36 (KJV)

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;

And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD:

And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:

Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

Though Lot, his wife and two of his daughters escaped the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, they suffered many tears

No picture is ever perfect and so Lot, as a picture of the rapture, has certain weaknesses.

·  Nobody who will be raptured ever dies

·  Nobody who gets raptured is ever defiled and

·  Nobody who gets raptured will ever get drunk

But I would like to remind you that there is, after we get to heaven, the judgment seat of Christ.

Christians are not judged for their sins; they were all judged in Jesus Christ and removed forever.

But we are judged for the deeds done in this body.

2 Corinthians 5:10 (KJV)

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

And here is an amazing verse – that follows right behind this one

2 Corinthians 5:11 (KJV)

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.

You see, not everyone who goes to heaven has the same experience in heaven.

There is such a thing as an abundant entranceinto heaven,

2 Peter 1:10-11 (KJV)

Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

And there is such a thing as suffering lossin heaven,

1 Corinthians 3:15 (KJV)

If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

Conclusion

Lot was spared from the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, but he suffered loss, didn’t he?

I want to end the message by asking, An abundant entrance, of to suffer loss; which would you have?

It’s up to you and

Now is the time to choose

---

[1]Most often we call it literal interpretation because we take the Bible literally unless the Bible itself tells us to do otherwise.

[2]Romans 15:4 (KJV)

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. 

1 Corinthians 10:6 (KJV)

Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

1 Corinthians 10:11 (KJV)

Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

[3]Romans 6:23 (KJV)

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[4]Romans 10:13 (KJV)

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

[5]Titus 3:5 (KJV)

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

[6]1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

[7]2 Thessalonians 2:8