The story of Lot is one the saddest stories of believers in the bible. Lot was a righteous man before God although he did not have his life altogether. The bible says that his soul was tormented daily by what he saw and heard in Sodom. Even today we have Christians who live in a community that has no fear of the Lord at all. They speak all kinds of profanity and blasphemies and they are applauded. In the long run, some Christians who live in such communities end up adapting to that lifestyle of the infidels.
Lot’s daughters were also contaminated by what they saw in Sodom as we see what they did to their father. Tell me, where did they learn about making someone drunk? They learned it from somewhere. But God still did not forget about him and his family, because he was righteous. So the bible says that God delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filth conduct of the wicked (read 2 Peter 2:7). God cannot forget His own people. Although there were lot of temptations around Lot, “…the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgement” (2 Peter 2:9).
Lot was not righteous according to the works but according to the covenant and faith. When you were declared righteous, God meant it. Above all, the Lord Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgement (krisis – in Greek), but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24). The word ‘krisis’ it is also used for condemnation. No wonder Paul said there is no condemnation in Christ.
It is clear that the way God looks at things is different from the way the world looks at things. He only requires us to believe, and then we have everlasting life and we shall not come into judgement but have passed from death into life. What can make this everlasting life to be reversed? There is nothing, it is ours forever. According to Peter, Lot was righteous together with his family although his works were no longer godly corresponding. This includes us also; you and I are never excluded.
When Lot was rescued, the angels asked him about whomever he could want him to be rescued. The bible says, “Then the men said to Lot, ‘Have you anyone else here? Son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city–take them out of this place! For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it. So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, ‘Get up, get out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city!’ But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking” (Genesis 19:12-14).
Lot’s sons-in-law thought he was joking. They did not believe what he was saying. They were surprised that Lot could speak about God while knowing his lifestyle. But God came to rescue him and indeed he was rescued. My dear friend, you cannot be like this. Although God recognises you even in your deepest failures, you have to keep on worshipping the Lord perpetually because through this many will be turned into Christianity. The Lord Jesus said, “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).
When you are born again, your spirit is the one which is born of God and not your flesh. This answers the question that many people would have concerning the rescue of Lot. He was rescued because of his spirit and not because of his flesh. But certainly, when your spirit is born again, you repent. You begin to change step by step. For instance, how long does it take a person to be learned? It does not take one year; it takes years and still continues to discover more.
Just to have a Law degree, it takes four years in most universities in South Africa. That person, who graduated in the LLB, it does not mean he cannot stumble in the Law which he studied for four years. Although he stumbles, he still has his degree. The same occurs with the one whom the Lord purchased, although they stumble along the way, they are still His. This is phenomenal! This is not heresy, but it is the love of Christ. If we know of how much we are loved, we will love and have less and less desires to sin.
Although we see that Lot’s family was dysfunctional, but God’s eyes never looked away from him. He loved him and his family. Do you believe that God’s love for you is unconditional? Yes, it is believe me. Even when Abraham kept on stumbling by lying concerning his wife, God kept on protecting him and blessing him each time he lied about Sarah. In Egypt, he came out very wealthy, and the same occurred in Gerar he came out wealthy still as he lied. I said this once, God did not enjoy his lies, but God wanted to show him love that through His love Abraham may repent, and indeed he repented. We see him later preparing to sacrifice his son on God’s account.
Preachers, Pastors and church leaders, do not expect the members of your churches to become perfect at once. Learn it from you, you believe you are saved and yet sometimes you fail, you continue to believe that you are saved. Now to everyone in the body of Christ, when you sin, do not feel discouraged because your heavenly Father has already forgiven you of that sin. Just pray and say, ‘Father, I thank You, because I know that You have forgiven me of this sin’, and continue with life normally. Definitely sure, you will not continue in that sin because of the power of the Holy Spirit within you.
The Lord Jesus said, “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgement, because the ruler of this world is judged” (John 16:8-11). The word ‘convict’ here is the word ‘admonish’, and the word ‘admonish’, means advice or counsel in terms of someone's behaviour; and warn strongly (Advance English Dictionary).
The Holy Spirit will convict the world, in the context; it is referring to us believers because the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit (Ruakh Kadosh in Hebrew). The Holy Spirit cannot convict the world (people of outside) because the world does not know Him nor see Him. This is what the Lord Jesus said, “The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:17).
Going back to the story of Lot, the bible says, “So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, ‘Escape for your life!’ Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed’” (Genesis 19:17). The word ‘mountains’ here is har in Hebrew, meaning a mountain in a singular form. The mountain which the angel wanted Lot to escape to should be the mountain which where Abraham probably was.
In essence the angel was saying to him, go to where Abraham is. So Abraham is on top of the Mountain watching down the overthrow of the two cities. Lot on the other hand he is refusing to take the instruction from the angels who came to rescue him. By the way, Lot did not even know that Sodom and Gomorrah were to be overthrown, but the angels came for him specially, and yet he has the guts to refuse to take instructions from them.
See what he said, “…‘Please, no my lords!’ indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die. See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live” (Genesis 19:18).
See here, we have the first usage of the word ‘mercy (hesed)’, in the bible and it is used by a defeated believer, a man who did not focus on the blood. Again, looking at his name ‘Lot’, it means the veil (covering). Now look at this, “And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: ‘Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are – northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants” (Genesis 13:14-15).
In essence this is saying, that after the veil was removed from Abraham’s face. There are Christians today who are still veiled and say, ‘Jesus did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it’ and you tell them that He fulfilled it but they still do not believe because there is a veil on their faces. The bible teaches us that the veil is the teaching of the law.
The bible attests saying, “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech – unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:12-18).
When you try to keep the law you will be defeated. We are delivered from the law to be governed by the Spirit. Unless you are delivered from the law you cannot be governed by the Spirit. If you are trying to keep the law, you will end up natural and you will have lusts manifesting because ‘by the law is the knowledge of sin’ and not of righteousness nor of holiness.
Going back to the story, this is what the bible says, “And he said to him, ‘See, I have favoured you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there’. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar” (Genesis 19:21-22). At this point the angel is suspending the mission on Lot’s account, wow! Although he was defeated and not focused on the blood (remission of sins), he was able to save the city of Zoar.
Although this man was defeated spiritually but still spoke with an angel and an angel heard him. This is powerful, defeated but still prayed and God heard him. The city of Zoar was saved by him. Because the angel said, ‘For I cannot do anything until you arrive there’. We sometimes think that if we are weak in the faith, God will not hear us when we pray. It is not like that, God will never forsake His own. David said, “I have been young, and now am old. Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken…” (Psalm 37:25).
Many people deem things happening in America and some parts of Far East Asia as God’s judgements. That is not God’s attitude towards men, He will not send forth judgement until the righteous are raptured from the face of the earth. We will see consequences of sin and it will be bad, but judgement from God, not now. It will not happen until we are raptured. We will not see it, but the unbelievers will see it. No matter how many preachers told you that you will be here, believe me you will not see God’s judgement.
The bible says, “The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace” (Genesis 19:23-28).
The wife of Lot looked back and became a pillar of salt. This reveals that she enjoyed the life which she had in those two cities. When God overthrew them she looked probably back because she felt sad or she could not believe that it was really happening. So she was filled with filth. She is the example of the professing eternal life kind of Christians, and she was married to the possessing eternal life man (that is Lot). So she could not make it out of Sodom and Gomorrah although God was taking her out because of Lot.
So Abraham rose early in the morning and went to a high mountain to see the overthrow. This is what will happen on the day of our rapture. We will be up in the heavens looking down on earth. We only have one Man to thank, and that is our Lord Jesus. He died for all our sins, past, present and future that whoever believes on Him may not come into judgement but to have eternal life. If Sodom and Gomorrah’s judgment did not fall on Lot, it cannot fall on you either because your sins have been washed in the blood of Jesus.
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