A Dark Night and a Lonely Cave

Hello 2017!  Below is a belated Christmas column that I wrote for the Edgerton Enterprise.

Genesis 19:30-38 is one of those scripture passages that you’d like to avoid reading aloud at the supper table if you could.  The story of Lot comes to an appalling conclusion in that passage.  Once wealthy and highly esteemed, Lot has isolated himself and his two remaining daughters in a mountain cave.  The young women, certain that they will never have the opportunity to marry and bear children, get their wretched, unwitting father drunk and seduce him to commit incest with them. 

How did Lot end up in that lonely cave?  Jehovah had constrained him, his wife, and his unmarried daughters to flee Sodom, for He intended to destroy the city for its great and grievous sins.  As soon as Lot and his daughters entered Zoar, the Almighty rained down fire and brimstone.  Lot’s wife, who disobeyed the Lord’s word even as they escaped, was destroyed with the city that she loved.  Terrified Lot finds that he doesn't feel safe even in the small town of Zoar. He resorts to the mountains, the original destination to which the Angel of the Lord had commanded him. 

But how had Lot come to live in Sodom?  When God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to sojourn in a land that He would show him, his fatherless nephew Lot accompanied him.  God had declared that he would make Abraham to be a blessing.  Lot was the first beneficiary of that blessing.  He worshiped at Abraham’s altars and shared in the material prosperity that Jehovah had showered on His covenant friend.  But those riches led to trouble, as riches so often do, and Abraham’s and Lot’s herdsman quarreled (Gen. 13).  Abraham graciously gave Lot first dibs on pasture lands.  Lot chose the fertile plain of the Jordan River and pitched his tent toward Sodom, an exceedingly wicked city.  So they parted.

It’s not long and Lot is living in Sodom.  Soon he and his family are captured along with the rest of its citizens, and Abraham is compelled to come to his rescue.  This should’ve served as a warning to Lot, but it doesn’t.  He remains in Sodom, even sitting in the gate with the rulers of the city, in spite of his troubled conscience.  “For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds” 2 Pet. 2:8.

Proverbs 4:18 teaches that “the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”  Lot was an exception to that rule.  His light is all but extinguished in that desolate cave, where two sons are conceived.  From those two boys came the nations of Moab and Ammon, some of the bitterest, vilest enemies of God’s Old Testament people.  God had a specific command regarding the Moabites and Ammonites: to the tenth generation they were forbidden to enter his temple (Deut. 23:3-6).  Lot paid a high price to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.  He forfeited the souls of his wife, children, and countless grandchildren in his generations. 

            Does Lot’s sad end cause you to shake your head?  Jesus warns, “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32), and, “let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).  Our problem is not that we dwell in the world.  Our problem is that we too often allow worldliness to dwell within us.  God declared this about Abraham: “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment” (Gen. 18:19).  Can he say the same about you?
             In the gracious, marvelous providence of God, Lot’s story doesn’t end on a dark night in that lonely cave.  Nor does it end in the orgies or child sacrifices that marked the worship of Baalpeor or Molech, the idols of Moab and Ammon.  It commences on another dark night in another lonely cave, with the miraculous birth of the Seed promised to Abraham, the long-awaited Child who was also a descendant of Lot through Ruth.  And it will end when Lot’s Savior – and yours and mine – returns to fully and finally deliver us and commence a new story, a story of perfection and joy that will last forever. 

Why did God save Lot?  Why did he give him the privilege of being a father of our Lord?  In order that he might clearly demonstrate that salvation “is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Rom. 9:16).  That was true of Lot’s salvation.  That’s true of your salvation and mine, too.  May those good tidings bring you great joy.