Lot’s Opportunity

“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. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.”* (Genesis 13:10-12)

This was one of the most significant steps of Lot’s life. He had not the slightest suspicion that this decision would lead to the destruction of all his family, except for two daughters, and that he would end up living in a cave, an unwitting participant in incest.

We find that Abram was a praying man (Genesis 13:4), but we have no record of Lot’s prayers. Lot looked and he chose; he leaned to his understanding (Proverbs 3:5-8), and the decision that he made seemed sensible and logical. Uncle Abram was generous and manifested no preference, so why shouldn’t Lot show his appreciation of his uncle’s magnanimity by choosing the easier path?

As with most lack-of-prayer-ers, Lot did not realize that Abram’s generosity came from his spiritual riches. For a man who prays can spiritually afford to be generous. He can afford to let others have the last word. He can afford to appear inferior in argument. Abram knew that God would take care of him regardless, so he could afford to be generous. How blessed to be spiritually rich! Both of these men were rich in this world’s goods, which (as always) left them with complications and challenges, but only one of them was spiritually rich. The other was spiritually poor.

Now if both had been spiritually poor, what a confrontation would have come out of this situation! “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”* (James 4:1-3) Most of the trouble in the world stems from the spiritual poverty of men. Men feel they cannot afford to take the right way, the noble way. As one evil person said, “I can’t afford the luxury of a good conscience.” It isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity. And one can afford it if one will really, really pray. There are sufficient riches in heaven for everyone (including Lot) to be spiritually wealthy and act accordingly.

What if both Lot and Abram had been praying men? There would have been no strain. Praise God! “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another.”* (Romans 12:10) It is very expensive to live “in honor preferring one another,” but there are riches in heaven for you to do so all the time toward everyone. “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.”* (Genesis 13:9) Would it not have been wonderful if Lot could have replied, “It doesn’t matter to me, Uncle Abram. The will of God be done”?

“Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.”*

But Lot was not aware at all that he had forfeited peace and set himself up for pain with his decision. He did not even realize that he would end up in Sodom at that point. He was taking the first significant step toward a flood of vexation and remorse, but he knew it not.

“O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.”* (Jeremiah 10:23) How needful it is for us to pray and to get answers to our prayers!

God has not seen fit to inform us of a great deal of detail of Lot’s history. God tells us of the significant choice, and He tells us of two of the eventual, awful consequences, but the voice of inspiration is silent about what transpired in between. We read between the lines and are appalled.

“They separated themselves the one from the other.”* (Genesis 13:11) This was not just the physical separation of going in two different geographical directions; it was a spiritual separation, too. When David came to a similar fork in the road, he said, “If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me.”* (Psalm 73:15-16) He was strongly tempted by the spirit of covetousness to be like the wicked, and opportunity to misuse what God had put in his hand was before him, just as King Saul had done before his eyes. But he also realized that if he yielded to that and lived that way, then he would break fellowship with all of God’s children who had lived right, and “it was too painful for me.” Of course, David only realized these consequences when he went into the sanctuary and saw the whole picture from God’s standpoint. This is what real prayer does for us. It helps us to think soberly (realistically) with God’s reality. It helps us to live up to Ecclesiastes 5:1-2.

But after a while, methinks that Lot began to realize that the separation from generous Uncle Abram was more than just living in the east while Abram stayed in the opposite direction. There were probably some family gatherings, and the differences in the lives of a praying man and his household were contrasted with the lives of a man who was not devoted to prayer. No doubt Lot comforted himself that he still held most, if not all, of the same values that he had held before, else how could Brother Peter speak of him as a just man and righteous (2 Peter 2:7-8). But could the same be said of Lot’s family, especially after his move to Sodom? Truly, the wily little foxes spoil the vines, especially the tender vines (Song 2:15).

We find Lot sitting in the gate of Sodom (Genesis 19:1). Adam Clarke comments on this, “Probably, in order to prevent unwary travelers from being entrapped by his wicked townsmen, he waited at the gate of the city to bring the strangers he might meet with to his own house, as well as to transact his own business. Or, as the gate was the place of judgment, he might have been sitting there as magistrate to hear and determine disputes.” We recognize the actions of a man under enormous strain. He is in a place where God did not put him, and he is in a battle with wrong that is not going to turn out well, for God did not send him there. He has suffered grievous loss, already, we find out, for his entire family is in a terrible condition. His son-in-laws are Sodomites; his two unmarried daughters are already mentally defiled by the wickedness in that place; and his wife’s heart is with her treasures in the abominable city.

He pleads with the two strangers to come to his house. Well he knows what will happen if they abide upon the streets. There is no decency left in his fellow citizens—only a hellish appetite that knows no restraint. But even Lot, with all the vexatious experience of dealing with these people to date, underestimates the strength of the constantly increasing wickedness in his fellow man. Soon, he is in a desperate strait. Had it not been for the supernatural intervention of the angels, he would certainly have been another victim of the Sodomites. Suddenly he is brought face to face with impending judgment upon the wicked people, long withheld, but now imminent; and he is told to get his family out of there immediately. No doubt he had tried to get them out before, but as the nature of the horrible wicked snare is newly manifested to his eyes, behold! O, the horror of that hour! There were things that held them fast, just as sin holds people today. And now, attended by two angels from God, he makes a last-ditch effort to persuade them to flee—but his corrupted family and in-laws merely laugh at his efforts and refuse to take him seriously. Only his wife and two unmarried daughters are disposed to humor the old man, and even then he cannot leave. “And while he lingered….”* (Genesis 19:16) Oh, what terrible words! Impending judgment. Destruction at hand. While he lingered! And poor Lot cannot find strength to break away! Everything he had was invested in that place. Thus sin snares and entraps. It is a horrible and riveting thing to consider that Lot would have died in that place with the rest, had not “the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.”* (Genesis 19:16)

Now it is a lot easier (hard as it was) to get out of Sodom than it is to get Sodom out of you. There were four of them who fled that wicked city that morning. Behind them, the first great hailstones of fire and brimstone exploded upon the rich, wicked city. The screams began—and were quickly silenced on this side of eternity—as the four terrified human beings ran for all they were worth. The angels’ admonition rang in their ears, “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.”* (Genesis 19:17) An overwhelming compulsion to see if anything was left came upon Lot’s wife. “Just a quick glance,” she thought. It cost her life. We are told to remember that look (Luke 17:32). Now there were but three. The wretched man asked if Zoar might be a refuge. “It is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?).”* (Genesis 19:20) The man who had chosen the most promising, the biggest, the wealthiest prospects of all was reduced to begging for a little town. His plea was accepted, but in the end, he was too scared to stay there, either. He ended up in the mountains, in a cave, with his two wicked daughters, and there he was deceived by them, brought to immorality, and had to live with the consequences. Surely the waters of a full cup were wrung out to him!

The separation between himself and Uncle Abram had assumed calamitous proportions. How could he go back now? His lack of praying had cost him everything worthwhile.

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”* (1 Corinthians 2:14) It is just plain foolhardy, dangerous beyond the telling, to just run around thinking your own thoughts, doing as seems best to you, being guided by something other than the Holy Ghost. For surely, if we are not led by the Holy Spirit, we are going to be led by something. The enemy of our soul finds his prey in those who live in this way, and he is not much hindered by right conditioning or right background or correct teaching. Satan goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, and if you are living as Lot lived, you are one of the ones who will most certainly be consumed. You need to pray. You need to forsake your way and mortify (put to death) your members on the earth, that the will of God be done in you instead of your own will.

“Save yourselves from this untoward generation.”* (Acts 2:40)

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Objection:

“And if he rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds)….”* (2 Peter 2:7-8)NASB

The inspired scripture above refers three times to Lot as righteous: “righteous Lot,” “righteous man,” and “righteous soul.” This seems to contradict the tone of the article.

Response:

“For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”* (Matthew 5:20)

“God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.”* (Luke 18:11-12)

“By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”* (Hebrews 11:7)

Note that Noah did not have that particular righteousness which is by faith, but in the righteousness he did have, he became heir to it. This conclusion is in agreement with Hebrews 11:13, which tells us that these died “in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them.”

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”* (1 John 3:2-3)

“Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.”* (1 John 3:7)

When men receive of the righteousness of God, and the righteous acts of their lives proceed from this righteousness principle put by grace within their moral nature, that righteousness and its fruits are exactly the same as was in Jesus. With respect to this particular kind of righteousness, before the gospel, we read, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.”* (Romans 3:10)

The superior quality of the righteousness which is in Christ is referenced in verses 21 and 22.

Beyond any doubt, Peter was not speaking of Lot being righteous in this New Testament sense. He was speaking of Lot being righteous in another sense. No New Testament child of God could have offered his two virgin daughters to the Sodomite mob. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”* (1 John 3:9) As we read of Lot’s actions, if we possess a purified moral nature, we are horrified at his words. “How could he do that?” we wonder. His righteousness was of another kind than the New Testament righteousness we possess.

Now, the question: Was the righteousness of Lot acceptable enough to God for him to go to heaven?

That question raises a host of questions. Was Lot’s wife righteous as he was? She turned into a pillar of salt. Yet she was one of the ones compelled to leave the city of destruction in answer to the intercessory prayer of Abraham. How about his daughters? By their actions later, absolutely not. How about Lot’s intoxication and the awful results? How about the condition of his heart as portrayed by his lingering, his inability to leave his family and possessions in Sodom?

Beyond any doubt, Peter’s words were fulfilled in Lot’s abhorrence of the sin around him. With respect to the awful wickedness about him, Lot was a just man, a righteous man. With respect to deliverance from covetousness, I am not so sure that Lot was righteous. I note that God did not lead him to Sodom; in fact, Lot seems to have been on his own after the significant choice of which direction to live. Again, a clear difference from the New Testament (Romans 8:14). With respect to the young man who came running to Jesus and fell at His feet, crying, “What lack I yet?”* (Matthew 19:20) Lot lacked things yet, too—things that would make him righteous. Again, the question: What was the standard of being acceptable to God before the Mosaic Law, before the gospel?

There is little reason to doubt that Lot was sinful. He was not rescued from the sin of abiding and being a part (howbeit a reluctant, a vexed, a tormented part) of Sodom. He was not rescued from the sin of going there; he pitched his tents toward Sodom. He was rescued from the destruction of the city, but it could be well said that he was not godly, nor delivered from temptation. Note how he lingered. As we consider the life afterwards of this wretched man, father to each daughter’s child, it is well nigh impossible to consider the fruits of his life and think, “a godly man,” “a righteousness man,” and enjoying the fruits of that righteousness. What an awful contrast with the later life of Abraham! It is exceedingly difficult to think of Lot entering heaven, but it is not difficult to think of Abraham in this way.

I will quote a little from Salvation: Present, Perfect, Now or Never:

“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”* (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)

At the same time we are told that He will “be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe.”* (2 Thessalonians 1:10) So let it be known once for all that all who are unfit for heaven will be driven back to hell “from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” Though heaven’s gates stand wide open before all men, no person will enter with a stain of sin upon his soul. No unholy man can endure the presence of God and his divine glory. The hottest place in hell was a relief to the soul unsaved and out of Christ.

A wit once said in a New York paper that he dreamed a certain man, prominent in his circle, had died, and approached the gates of heaven, where he was told, “YOU MAY COME IN BUT YOU WILL NOT LIKE IT.” A mighty truth was unwittingly uttered by the thoughtless sinner. Oh, that the Almighty may make men to consider that heaven is worse than hell itself for all who are not of heavenly temper! Oh, how sad and sickening the sight of our present evil world, and its awful destiny so near! The masses who profess the Christian name, know they are sinful and unholy, and yet hope to stop sinning when safe in heaven. We used to hear them sing with much animation,

“If I only get to heaven,
If I only get to heaven,
If I only get to heaven when I die.”

They hope to see the beautiful gate ajar for them, and if they may only be permitted to slip into the golden city, imagine they will be all right. Oh, how awful will be their disappointment! The very holiness of heaven will drive them back in terror. Jesus knew very well that men would base their eternal happiness on merely getting into heaven, and has given us a parable to show all men how such a faith will terminate. He tells of one who came in without the “wedding garment”; but he did not enjoy it. He was speechless, and was bound hand and foot, and cast out into outer darkness; “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”* (Matthew 22:1113) Nothing but the spotless robe of perfect holiness will make heaven a heaven for you.

“Be not deceived, God is not mocked.”* (Galatians 6:7) None but the pure in heart can enter there and see God in peace. Yea, in the light of God’s truth we cry aloud and say unto all, you must be as pure as heaven to enter and enjoy that holy place. And, thanks be to the God of all grace and mercy, SALVATION will put you in that condition and preserve you ready to enter and enjoy all the glory of heaven. Many scriptures prove the fact. “For by one offering he [Christ] hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”* (Hebrews 10:14) This does not mean that the holy state cannot be forfeited; but that entire sanctification perfects our salvation from sin, and puts us on the plane of heaven’s purity. Therefore Christ, “being made perfect [a perfect Savior]… became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.”* (Hebrews 5:9) The law was a temporary system; it “made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope [Christ] did.”* (Hebrews 7:19) In him we have come to the final and complete redemption, that fits us for the society of God through all remaining time and eternity.

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”* (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)

[Daniel S. Warner; Salvation: Present, Perfect, Now or Never, “Salvation Fits Us for Heaven”]

Jacob lived a life of less than New Testament holiness, too. His testimony was, “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”* (Genesis 47:9) Yet we believe that he was accepted of God and made it into paradise.

The same could be said of all children of God prior to the New Testament. “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.”* (Acts 17:30) While this scripture is specifically addressing idolatry, yet, in a general sense, it applies to a multitude of sins that God overlooked to an extent before the time of deliverance in Christ. If David had died during the year after he had Uriah murdered, after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba, when he was being the hypocrite, would he have gone to heaven? When he humbled himself and confessed, “I have sinned,”* (2 Samuel 12:13) he found forgiveness, but what would have been his end if he had not?

It is quite possible that Lot could have been a righteous man in many respects, but not in others, in such a way that he would not have been acceptable to God in the end. Peter did not say (by inspiration) that Lot was heaven-ready righteous. The scope of the words, just and righteous, do not necessarily mean heaven-ready. They mean just what they say: Lot was right in his stand against the evil of Sodom. He was just in that respect, and perhaps with only that scope of meaning.

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Objection:

Peter by the Spirit used Lot as an example of how God knows how to rescue the godly from temptation (“…if He rescued righteous Lot… then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation…”* (2 Peter 2:7,9)). I would hardly think Peter by the Spirit is going to use a lost person as an example of how the Lord can rescue godly people.

Response:

There is no doubt whatsoever that Lot was delivered from Sodom. There is also no doubt that he would never have gotten out on his own. Sodom had him. Except those angels had taken him by the hand, the Lord having mercy on him, he would never have made it out. Nor is there any doubt that we could ever successfully resist all the cunning and ingenious temptations devised for each of us by the master of evil if God did not have mercy on us and help us, too. No man under grace has ever lived a holy life without God’s help, any more than Lot was able to extricate himself by his own will. It is in this way and with this scope of understanding that Peter by the Spirit speaks of Lot’s situation. Still, by any measure, Lot’s life was a failure—a huge, awful failure—a disgrace and a terrible warning. The Bible says, “Remember Lot’s wife,”* (Luke 17:32) and we would do well to “Remember Lot,” too. As is true of many less-than-acceptable-to-God lives, he could say to us, “Don’t do as I have done. Don’t live so that you must be rescued by an angel from the city of destruction, and your whole life is a waste, your family is wrecked and ruined, and you finish out your days as an example of what sin can do to you.”

Even this does not mean that Lot missed heaven. “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”* (1 Corinthians 3:13-15)