Genesis 13
RileyGenesis 13:1-18
ABRAHAM—THE FRIEND OF GODGen_11:10 to Genesis 25:10.ONE week ago we gave this hour to a study in Genesis, our subject being, “The Beginnings”. The bird’s-eye view of ten chapters and ten verses brought us to Babel, and impressed upon us the many profitable lessons that come between the record of creation and the report of confusion.Beginning with the 10th verse of the 11th chapter of Genesis (Genesis 11:10), and concluding with the 10th verse of the 25th chapter (Genesis 25:10), we have the whole history of Abraham, the friend of God; and while other important persons, such as Sarai, Hagar, Lot, Pharaoh, Abimelech, Isaac, Rebecca and even Melchisedec appear in these chapters, Abraham plays altogether the prominent part, and aside from Melchisedec, the High Priest, is easily the most important person, and the most interesting subject presented in this inspired panorama. It may be of interest to say that Abraham lived midway between Adam and Jesus, and such was his greatness that the Chaldeans, East Indians, Sabeans and Mohammedans all join with the Jew in claiming to be the offspring of Abraham; while it is the Christian’s proud boast that he is Abraham’s spiritual descendant.It is little wonder that all these contend for a kinship with him whom God deigns to call His “friend”. The man who is a friend of God is entitled to a large place in history. Fourteen chapters are none too many for his record; and hours spent in analyzing his character and searching for the secrets of his success are hours so employed as to meet the Divine approval.The problem is how to so set Abraham’s history before you as to make it at once easy of comprehension, and yet thoroughly impress its lessons. In trying to solve that question it has seemed best to call attention toTHE CALL AND THE .“Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).Did you ever stop to think of the separations involved in this call?It meant a separation from home. “From thy father’s house”.
How painful that call is, those of us who have passed through it perfectly understand; and yet many of us have gone so short a distance from home, or else have made the greater journey with such extended stops, that we know but little how to sympathize with Abraham’s more effective separation from that dear spot. To go from Chaldea to Canaan in that day, from a country with which he was familiar to one he had never seen; and from a people who were his own, to sojourn among strangers, was every whit equal to William Carey’s departure from England for India.
But as plants and flowers have to be taken from the hot-bed into the broad garden that they may best bring forth, so God lifts the subject of His affection from the warm atmosphere of home-life and sets him down in the far field that he may bring forth fruit unto Him; hence, as is written in Hebrews, Abraham had to go out, “not knowing whither he went”.This call also involves separation from kindred. “And from thy kindred”. In Chaldea, Abram had a multitude of relatives, as the 11th chapter fully shows. Upon all of these, save the members of his own house, and Lot, his brother’s son, Abram must turn his back. In the process of time the irreligion of Lot will necessitate also a separation from him. In this respect, Abraham’s call is in no whit different from that which God is giving the men and women today. You cannot respond to the call of God without separating yourself from all kin who worship at false shrines; and you cannot make the progress you ought and live in intimate relation with so worldly a professor of religion as was Lot.We may have marvelled at times that Abraham so soon separated himself from Lot, but the real wonder is that the man of God so long retained his hold upon him.
No more difficult task was ever undertaken than that of keeping in the line of service a man who, in the lust of his eyes and the purpose of his heart, has “pitched his tent toward Sodom”. It is worthy of note that so soon as Abraham was separated from Lot, the Lord said unto him,“Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place that thou art, northward and southward, and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever” (Genesis 13:14-15).The men of the broadest view in spiritual things, the men upon whom God has put His choicest blessing, have been from time immemorial men who have separated themselves from idolaters and pretenders that they might be the more free to respond to the call of God, and upon such, God has rested His richest favors.This call also involves separation from the Gentiles.
The Gentiles of Chaldea and the Gentiles of Canaan; from the first he was separated by distance and from the second by circumcision. God’s appeal has been and is for a peculiar people, not that they might be queer, but that He might keep them separated—unspotted from the world. God knows, O so well, how few souls there are that can mingle with the unregenerate crowd without losing their testimony and learning to speak the shibboleth of sinners. Peter was a good man; in some respects greater than Abraham; but Peter in that porch-company was a poor witness for Jesus Christ, while his profanity proved the baneful effect of fellowship with God’s enemies. The call to separation, therefore, is none other than the call to salvation, for “if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world”.But God’s calls are always attended byGOD’S .As this call required three separations with their sacrifices, so its attendant covenant contained three promised blessings. God never empties the heart without filling it again, and with better things.
God never detaches the affections from lower objects without at once attaching them to subjects that are higher; consequently call and covenant must go together.“I will make of thee a great nation”. That was the first article in His covenant.
To the Jew, that was one of the most precious promises. This ancient people delighted in progeny. The Psalmist wrote, “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate”. If our Puritan fathers, few in number and feeble as they were, could have imagined the might and multitude of their offspring, they would have found in the prospect an unspeakable pride, and a source of mighty pleasure.
It was because those fathers did, in some measure, imagine the America to come, that they were willing to endure the privations and dangers of their day; but the honor of being fathers of a nation, shared in by a half hundred of them, was an honor on which Abraham had a close corporation, for to him God said,“I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall also thy seed be numbered”.If the heart, parting from parents and home, is empty, the arms into which children have been placed are full; and homesickness, the pain of separation, is overcome when, through the grace of God, one sits down in the midst of his own.This covenant contained a further promise. “I will . . . make thy name great”. We may believe that the word “great” here refers not so much to empty honors as to merited praise.
The Jewish conception of such a promise was expressed by Solomon when he said, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches”. And, notwithstanding the fact that our age is guilty of over-estimating the value of riches, men find it difficult to underrate the value of a good name.Years ago, Jonas Chickering decided to make a better piano than had ever appeared on the market. He spared neither time nor labor in this attempt. His endeavor was rewarded in purity and truthfulness of tone as well as in simplicity of plan, and there came to him the ever-attendant result of success. His name on a piano was that instrument’s best salesman.A Massachusetts man, seeing this, went to the Massachusetts legislature and succeeded in getting them to change his name to Chickering, that he might put it upon his own instruments.As Marden said when referring to this incident, “Character has a commercial value”.And, when God promised Abraham to make his name great, He bestowed the very honor which men most covet to this hour.But the climax of His covenant is contained in this last sentence, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blest”. That is the honor of honors!
That is the success of all successes! That is the privilege of all privileges!When Mr.
Moody died some man said, “Every one of us has lost a friend”, and that speaker was right, for there is not a man in America who has not enjoyed at least an opportunity to be better because Moody lived. No matter whether the individual had ever seen him or no; had ever read one of his sermons or no; yet the tidal waves of Moody’s work have rolled over the entire land, over many lands for that matter, and even the most ignorant and debased have breathed the better atmosphere on account of him. George Davis claims that Moody traveled a million miles, and addressed a hundred million people, and dealt personally with 750,000 individuals! I think Davis’ claim is an overstatement, and yet these whom he touched personally are only a tithe of the multitudes blessed indirectly by that evangelism for which Moody stood for forty years. If today I could be privileged to make my choice of the articles of this covenant, rather than be the father of a great nation, rather than enjoy the power of a great name, I would say, “Give me the covenant that through me all the nations of the earth should be blessed”. Such would indeed be the crowning glory of a life, and such ought to be the crowning joy of a true man’s heart.In the next place, I call your attention toABRAHAM’S AND .His obedience was prompt No sooner are the call and covenant spoken than we read,“So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him” (Genesis 12:4).In that his conduct favorably contrasted with the behavior of some other of the Old Testament’s most prominent men.
Moses was in many respects a model, but he gave himself to an eloquent endeavor to show God that He was making a mistake in appointing him Israel’s deliverer. Elijah at times indulged in the same unprofitable controversy, and the story of Jonah’s criticism of the Divine appointment will be among our later studies.
I am confident that Abraham brings before every generation a much needed example in this matter. In these days, men are tempted to live too much in mathematics and to regard too lightly God’s revelations of duty. That is one of the reasons why many pulpits are empty. That is one of the reasons why many a Sunday School class is without a teacher. That is the only reason why any man in this country can say with any show of truthfulness, “No man careth for my soul”. If the congregations assembled in God’s sanctuary should go out of them, as Abram departed from his home in Haran, to fulfil all that the Lord had spoken unto them, the world would be turned upside down in a fortnight, and Christ would quickly come.In his obedience Abraham was steadfast also.
There are many men who respond to the calls of God; there are only a few who remain faithful to those calls through a long and busy life. There were battles ahead for Abram.
There were blunders in store for Abram. There were bereavements and disappointments to come. But, in spite of them all, he marched on until God gathered him to his people. I thank God that such stedfastness is not wholly strange at the present time. When we see professors of religion proving themselves shallow and playing truant before the smaller trials, and we are thereby tempted to join in Solomon’s dyspeptic lament, “All is vanity and vexation of spirit”, it heartens one to remember the history that some have made and others are making. Think of Carey and Judson, Jewett and Livingstone, Goddard and Morrison, Clough and Ashmore—men who, through long years, deprivations and persecutions, proved as faithful as was ever Abraham; and so, long as the world shall stand, stedfastness in obedience to the commands of God will be regarded highly in Heaven.
Why is it that we so much admire the company of the apostles, and why is it that we sing the praises of martyrs? “They withstood in the evil day, and having done all, stood”.Again, Abram’s obedience was inspired by faith.When he went out from Chaldea to come into Canaan, he was not yielding to reason but walking according to revelation. His action was explained in the sentence, “He believed in the Lord”.
Joseph Parker commenting on the world “believed” as here employed says, “This is the first time the word ‘believed’ occurs in the Bible. * * * * What history opens in this one word. Abram nourished and nurtured himself in God. * * * * He took the promise as a fulfilment. The word was to him a fact. The stars had new meanings to him, as, long before, the rainbow had to Noah. Abram drew himself upward by the stars. Every night they spoke to him of his posterity and of his greatness.
They were henceforward not stars only but promises and oaths and blessings”.One great need of the present-day church is a truer trust in God. Oh, for men who like Columbus can let the craft of life float out on the seas of thought and action, and look to the starry heavens for the guidance that shall land them upon newer and richer shores!
Oh, for men that will turn their ears heavenward to hear what God will say, and even though His commissions contain sacrifice will go about exercising it! Such men are never forgotten by the Father. We are not surprised to hear Him break forth in praise of Abraham, saying,“Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, m blessing 1 will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gates of the enemy, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice”.No sacrifice made in faith is ever forgotten, and when God’s rewards for service are spoken, good men always regard them more than sufficient. If you could call up today the souls of Carey, Judson, Livingstone and Morrison, and assemble Clough, Ashmore, Taylor, Powell, Clark, Richards and a hundred others worthy to stand with them, and ask them the question “Has God failed in any particular to keep with you any article of His covenant?” they would answer in a chorus, “No”. “And has God more than met the expectations of your faith?” they would reply without dissent, “Yes”. As He was faithful to our father Abraham, so He is faithful to the present-day servant.And yet Abraham, the obedient, wasGUILTY OF .Twice he lied, and the third time he approached the utmost limits of truth. He told Sarai to say she was his sister.
She was his half-sister, and so he thought to excuse himself by dissembling and keeping back a part. But a lie is not a question of words and phrases!
It may be acted as easily as spoken! When God comes to make a report upon your conduct and mine, dissembling will be labeled “falsehood”, for God does not cover up the sins of men. Somebody has asked, “Do you suppose, if the Bible had been written by some learned Doctor, revised by a committee of some eminent scholars, and published by some great ecclesiastical society, we would ever have heard of Noah’s drunkenness, of Abram’s deception, of Lot’s disgrace, of Jacob’s rascality, of the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas, or of Peter’s conduct on the porch? Not at all. But when the Almighty writes a man’s life, He tells the truth about him”.I heard a colored preacher at Cincinnati say, “The most of us would not care for a biography of ourselves, if God was to be the Author of it”. Yet the work of the Recording Angel goes on, and as surely as we read today the report of Abram’s blunders, we will be compelled to confront our own.
Let us cease, therefore, from sin.But Abram’s few blunders cannot blacken his beautiful record. The luster of his life is too positive to be easily dimmed; and like the sun, will continue to shine despite the spots.
Run through these chapters, and in every one of the fourteen you will find some touch of his true life. It was Abraham whose heart beat in sweetest sympathy with the sufferings of Hagar. It was Abraham who showed the most unselfish spirit in separating from Lot and dividing the estate. It was Abraham who opened his door to strangers in a hospitality of which this age knows all too little. It was Abram who overcame the forces of the combined kings and snatched Lot out of their hands. It was Abraham whose prayers prevailed with God in saving this same weakkneed professor out of Sodom. It was Abraham who trusted God for a child when Nature said the faith was foolish. It was Abraham who offered that same child in sacrifice at the word, not halting because of his own heart-sufferings.
It was Abraham who mourned Sarah’s death as deeply as ever any bereft bride felt her loss.The more I search these chapters, the more I feel that she was right who wrote, “A holy life has a voice. It speaks when the tongue is silent and is either a constant attraction or a continued reproof”. Put your ear close to these pages of Genesis, and if Abraham does not whisper good to your heart, then be sure that your soul is dead and you are yet in your sins.There remains time for but a brief review of these fourteen chapters in search ofTHEIR TYPES AND SYMBOLSAbram’s call is a type of the Church of Christ. The Greek word for Church means “the called-out”. Separation from the Chaldeans was essential to Abram’s access to the Father, and separation from the world is essential to the Church’s access to God and also essential to its exertion of an influence for righteousness. I believe Dr.
Gordon was right when, in “The Two-Fold Life” he said, “The truest remedy for the present-day naturalized Christianity and worldly consecration is to be found in a strenuous and stubborn non-conformity to the world on the part of Christians. With the most unshaken conviction, we believe that the Church can only make headway, in this world, by being loyal to her heavenly calling.
Towards Ritualism her cry must be ‘not a rag of popery’; towards Rationalism, ‘not a vestige of whatsoever is not of faith’; and towardsSecularism, ‘not a shred of the garment spotted by the flesh’. The Bride of Christ can only give a true and powerful testimony in this world as she is found clothed with her own proper vesture even the ‘fine linen clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints’”.Isaac’s offering is a type of God’s gift of Jesus. He was an only son and Abraham laid him upon the altar of sacrifice. And, if one say that he fails as a type because he passed not through the experience of death, let us remember what is written into Hebrews 11:17 following,“By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, *** accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him, in a figure”.It might be written in Scripture, “Abraham so believed God that he gave his only begotten son, for God’s sake”. It is written in Scripture, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.Melchisedec is a type of our High Priest, Jesus Christ. His record in Genesis 14:18-20 is brief, but the interpretation of his character in Hebrews 7 presents him as either identical with the Lord Himself, or else as one whose priesthood is the most perfect type of that which Jesus Christ has performed, and performs today for the sons of men.In Sodom, we find the type of the days of the Son of Man.
Of it the Lord said,“Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto Me”.Jesus Christ referred to that city and likened its condition to that which should obtain upon the earth at the coming of the Son of Man, saying, “As it was in the days of Lot, they did eat; they drank; they bought; they sold; they planted; they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all, even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed”.The newspapers some time ago reported great religious excitement in a Southern city through the work of two evangelists. Doctors said, “We will prescribe no more liquor for patients”, druggists said, “We will sell no more liquor as a beverage”; gamblers gave up their gambling; those called the “toughs of the town” turned to the Lord; the people of means put off their jewels, changed their frivolous clothes to plainer style; and wherever one went he heard either the singing of hymns or the utterance of prayers, and a great newspaper said this had all come about because the people in that little college town expected the speedy return of Christ.
You may call it fanaticism, if you will, and doubtless there would be some occasion, and yet call it what you may, this sentence will remain in the Scriptures, “Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh”.
Genesis 13:12
LOT’S AND SORROWSGen_13:12THERE are few characters in the Old Testament whose history is better, if indeed so well, known as that of Lot, not because of any excessive iniquity into which he fell, neither by reason of any deeds of splendid piety which his record is found to contain. His was one of those characters most common to all ages, in which the good and the bad, the virtuous and the more debased and debasing mingled in varying proportions. That he was not the godly man his uncle Abraham was is proven by the simple statements of the Bible which contrast rather than compare their characters. That he was not as vile as his neighbors in the plain, or his friends in the city of Sodom, is as sure as the inspiration of Peter’s Epistle, since in that we are told, “Their lasciviousness and lawless deeds vexed his righteous soul from day to day”. Lot’s history is familiar to all Bible students because of mere incidents which were unique and have proven to be interesting to the universal mind. Few men ever touched so great a soul with the intimacy of kinship and friendship as did Lot when he walked the hills arm in arm with Abraham, and watched the servants and flocks with that early saint and father of the faithful.It is a splendid fortune to be thus associated with a man whose heart is generous, whose faith is strong and whose soul is large.
Even if we seem the smaller, standing at his side, our history will be the more sure of study if interwoven with his own. The very prominence which the Bible narrative has given to Abraham, makes the few sketches of Lot’s life appear the more important, coming as they do in the very midst of it all.
His choice of the plain in the day of dispute presents the meanness of the nephew and the largeness of the uncle. We will forget the one as soon as the other. The tragic history of the days that follow have in them enough of the unusual to excite in the reader a lively interest, while the more tragic end of it all has a novel temper about it that keeps it ever fresh in memory.Our text deals with only one experience in the life so briefly narrated here, and yet that experience is far-reaching in its retrospect and prospect. It bespeaks a permanent element in character; that is the element some call “worldly wisdom”, while with a keener perception others denominate it as a moral or religious weakness. We shall see and better understand this element if we look closely into the text and learn well the lessons there plainly suggested.“Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom”.The expression, “Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain”, reminds us of the choice which made this, his habitation for the while. We may inquire then into this question:WHAT WAS THE CHIEF IN MAKING THIS CHOICE?Only one answer could be made to this query if we confined ourselves to a single reply, but it is our intention to give as many reasons as really existed in the ease.
The chief consideration, however, is put beyond all question by the language of inspiration. We are told that“Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere”. “So Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan”.Who doubts that he reckoned first of all upon temporal gains?
He considered before all things else the prospect of riches, the hope of abundant wealth. In that respect Lot was no monstrosity, no unusual phenomenon, to be gazed at and studied with curious interest by a generation which cannot understand such views of life. On the contrary, Lot discovered in that choice his kinship with most of the sons of Adam. His spirit is the spirit of the age today. Men still follow in his tracks, act from his motives, reckon by his arithmetic, and conclude as did he. The first thing, and the thing of first importance in locating in life is the money consideration.
When men are willing to leave the old homestead, the place of youthful and most sacred memories; when men are willing to turn their backs on the old fireside, around which the dearest of earth have been wont to gather; when men shake hands in good-by with neighbors whom they have loved from the first days of life and with ne’er a tear start East or West or North or South, to get gain, who can doubt that the money consideration is still influencing the pitching of tents, the choice of plains, the spot to be called “home”?When parents tell their sons that first of all they must get rich, and their daughters that above all they should marry rich, Lot’s choice seems not the action of a fool, or even of a heathen, but of a shrewd business man, or a Twentieth Century Christian of practical ideas. Professions are chosen for the most part with reference to the gains they promise to return.
Law and medicine have been overcrowded because they have long given large material returns. Today the mechanical arts are numbering more and more students in their various branches, because forsooth they offer good reward. The ministry is crying to Heaven for recruits, and though the largest fields have opened and the loudest invitations are sounded, men come not trooping to the call, because the goal offered is not gold. I have no tirade to make upon money-seekers, but I have a word of advice in this connection. Young men and women, if wealth is today the chief hope of your life, and like Lot, you intend to make your home at last in the midst of material plenty, don’t expect to find in that direction anything like perfect content. I don’t say that the one who begins life determined to be rich, may not one day see the full fruition of his desire, but I do say that if he expects satiety from such a source, disappointment awaits him.Among the revelations which the great prophet Mohammed professed to have received from heaven, we have this saying which is as true as though his claim to inspiration were made good.
He says, “If a son of Adam had two rivers of gold, he would covet yet a third, and if he had three he would covet yet a fourth”.Few writers have discovered a keener study of human nature, and clearer perception of fundamental truths and laws than Ruskin. What he said of England and London has become true of America, and most of her important cities.
It was this: “The first of all English games is money-making. That is an all absorbing game; and we knock each other down oftener in playing at that than at football or any other rougher sport; and it is absolutely without purpose. No one who engages heartily in that game ever knows why. Ask a money-maker what he wants to do with his money—he never knows. He doesn’t make it to do anything with it. He gets it only that he may get it. ‘What will you make of what you have got?’ you ask. ‘Well, I’ll get more’, he says. Just as in cricket you get more runs. There is no use in the runs, but to get more of them than other people is the game.
So all that great foul city of London there—rattling, growling, smoking, stinking, a ghastly heap of fermented brickwork, pouring out its poison at every pore—you fancy it is a city of work? Not a street of it! It is a great city of play, very nasty play, very hard play, but still play. It is only the Lord’s cricket ground without the turf, a huge billiard table without the cloth, and with pockets as deep as the bottomless pit, but mainly a billiard table after all”.Some may object to Ruskin’s view and say it is extreme, but of one thing this text and its subject is the sufficient illustration. Lot could not get rich enough. When the hills could not hold his own and his uncle’s cattle, he went to the wider and more fertile plains.
When he possessed them, then he set covetous eyes upon town lots and palaces and business blocks. Think not to be satisfied at last if the hope of wealth determines your calling, your location, your life!But was not society a chief attraction for Lot also?
To dwell in the hill country where Abraham was might be to live closer to the heavens and enjoy angels’ visits and hear often the whispers of God’s love, but in the plain you were close to men. The great gates of a great city opened to let you into its festivities, and let its inhabitants out for your visitation, entertainment and flattery. This society idea is no new thing in the earth. Lot is not the only man of wealth who has quit the broad and fertile plains for the sake of city society. His wife probably desired it and the daughters fretted against the humdrum existence of living among the hills where they saw few people of refinement, and where an uncle’s piety was a constant check upon and aggravation of their more worldly spirits.The record does not tell us what Mrs. Lot and the Misses Lot had to say in the day when this question of a new home was being discussed, but does anybody imagine that they were silent?
What wife, what daughters are silent on such occasions? They were different indeed from their latest offspring if they did not express their opinion right freely that day, and draw such pictures of social bliss in that suburban home in the plain as swept Lot completely off his feet and sent him back to Abraham with his mind made up. “Abraham, I will take the plain.
It brings me close to the city. I have a house full of girls growing up and they need opportunities of education which Sodom furnishes and the advantages of Sodom’s social life. You are childless, and Sarah does not care for these things as my wife does. So good by; I will take the plain”.It is not always wrong for parents to be ambitious to educate and see their children refined. It would be unnatural and I think even sinful for parents to feel otherwise. If my dear mother were yet living I should feel like going to her knee to thank her afresh that she thought of these things when I was yet a totterer in the strength of fourteen months only, to say to my father, “Husband, I will not, I cannot bring up my children in this place”, and so he moved and we enjoyed the better training, the larger advantages, and escaped a thousand forms of rudeness and illiteracy that existed in the locality where I was born.
So far as educational and social advantages were concerned, if Mrs. Lot pled eloquently to move toward Sodom, she has my sympathy.
But there are other reasons to be considered than financial and social.Religion is a thing of greater importance than either; and in that view this suburban Sodom business was fatal! When he left the hill, Lot parted from the only preacher of righteousness in that land. It was one blessed and continual inspiration to live with Abraham. His faith was the measure of his obedience and his every act was a sermon in a deed.There are some men whose very presence is like a breath from heaven. There are some women whose every speech is seasoned with sweet incense of prayer. Be careful how you run away from such persons for any or all godless advantages.
He who gives up a faithful and brilliant ministry and moves into some desert spot, taking a few acres of land instead, is making a mistake to be wept over one day with bitter tears. The West has its broad and fertile plains, richer perchance than even those west of the Dead Sea and along the banks of Jordan.
Hundreds,Lot-like, have turned their backs upon the place where the Gospel was preached and, going there, have settled upon 160 acres of land and lived for years without a sermon, the Bible neglected and God almost forgotten. Don’t tell me of the riches of the West, of the splendid soil and the magnificent hopes, then stammer when I ask, “What of religious advantages?” and answer, “We have none”! No man has a right to move away from a sacred ministry to possess himself of loamy yet godless soil.But Lot was not satisfied to stay in the plain. The Revised Version shows us his caravan moving again.WHAT HIS FOR CITY LIFE?Selfishness is not a principle to stand still. It is ever moving, driving, goading even its most obedient subject. That Lot was a shrewd business man is evidenced by this first choice.
After going to the plains, he had sold his cattle to the butchers of Sodom, his wool to the factory men, his garden stuff to the green grocers, and had bought from the city merchants in his turn. In all this trading he has discovered an ability to grapple successfully with the most skillful in business.
Why not move closer to them and make exchange of commodities a thing of more easy and frequent occurrence? Why not get within the walls and take a hand in trusts and pools and combines? Oh, this love of money, the root of so many evils, was the beginning of Lot’s successes and the occasion of his downfall alike.The language of our text indicates that Sodom was not reached with a single bound. On the other hand there were several short moves, but every one in that direction. No man becomes the most grievous sinner in a day. Misers are not made in a month; thieves do not grow in a fortnight. As a rule these all require years for their gradual growth. Lot’s tent went a few rods at a time, but ended in Sodom at last.
That is the law of all iniquity. It does not spring upon its victim and crush him with a blow as is the habit of the tiger and the lion, but serpent-like, it crawls stealthily upon him, crushes slowly, yet sends a poison into the veins that deadens sensibilities and renders the victim unconscious of the awful end.The man who would be safe must keep his distance from the seductive power. In St. Augustine’s “Confessions”, we read how a friend had determined never to look upon the fencer’s prizes. One day he fell into the company of some friends whose importunity won him to the theatre where the bloody scenes were being enacted. After having yielded so far he protested still, and closing his eyes declared that though in a wrong place he would not look upon the cruel sights.
But while he sat in imposed blindness there was a great and sudden shout of the people. He looked about to see what the matter was, whereupon he became another man and altered his former course so that his hatred of the sport was turned into love of it.Sodom may have seemed to Lot a den of iniquity when first he knew its sin, but familiarity with its inhabitants brought him more and more to their level and robbed him of his integrity.When you yield to sin be sure that it will not be controlled by you, but will itself dominate at last.The man who has an inordinate love of gain and knows the danger of his greed, the card player for fun seldom thinks of the gambling table, midnight hour and blighting companies ahead; the tipler thinks not of himself as the toper of a few years hence.
Shakespeare seems to have seen the danger at this point and, to warn against it, made Othello say, “When devils will their blackest sins put on, they do at first suggest with heavenly shows”, and in the speech of Banquo, adds, “And oftentimes to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths; win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequences”.In olden times the conqueror often dragged at his chariot wheels the subjects of his latest victory and made his triumph the more splendid as he increased the wretched number trailing there. If we are to escape dragging after the swiftly driving wheels of hell, then we must beware of the first yielding to temptation and the first consent to sin!My last question is this,WHAT WERE THE OF LOT’S ?The narrative shows him to have lost all riches and to have left the city like a beggar. In that respect surely this man’s life is only one of the many illustrations wherein men’s greed of gain has robbed them of the plenty once enjoyed. Æsop was wise enough to discern that common experience long ago. He intended its illustration in that fable of the dog who on crossing a stream with a piece of flesh in his mouth saw his own shadow in the water, and, mistaking it for another dog with a piece of meat, dropped his possession and snatched eagerly at that below, to learn a moment later that his greed had lost him both. It would seem that God did all He could to forewarn Lot of this impending danger. To forewarn, it is said, is to forearm.
What else did it mean than a hint of greater calamities when the kings combined and carried away everything that this man had, and only gave it up when the power of Abraham’s forces compelled it? But some men learn not from experience.
God’s providences may be employed daily in their behalf, yet they never interpret their meaning until the devil has done his worst. Excessive worldiness unfits men for Heaven’s lessons, and robs them of God’s intended mercy and deliverance.Men will not learn. They wish not to learn, and if God instructs them best He must do it, as in Lot’s case, by the process of destruction and humiliation. If kinder dealing, significant warnings, are not enough, then let the more severe means be employed, and the thunders of judgment effect what the still, small, sweet voice of love, or the more decided tones of warning, could not accomplish.Lot went out of Sodom having left behind all the power of good influence. Who can doubt that the family in the plains were a model in devotion and religious zeal for all the heathen round; that the lordly shepherd walked among his neighbors as the best example of integrity and exerted upon them a strange power for good? How sad the day when, by any change of thought or habit, a man robs himself of that Heaven-born breath!
How pitiful the sight of a Samson shorn of his locks and robbed of former strength by dallying with Delilah and playing at godlessness!I have often thought that no loss quite equals the loss of personal power over one’s fellows in thought and deed. I have seen men go down in financial panics and fall to the very bottom of the pit of bankruptcy, but if they retained their integrity and still stood before their fellows as examples of honesty and exerted upon them a power for godliness, their estate is reckoned not half bad.It is a sad sight to see Lot, the prince for the country neighborhood, and the example of neighbors, the inspiration of neighbors’ sons, now a bondholder in Sodom, but without the power to impart Heaven’s message to a single neighbor or even the ability to persuade his own children of the truth.
A night of preaching and crying and prayer elicits only mockery in response. I know that a great many people in these days hold to the notion that no breach should exist between the religious and the godless, and that we gain power over them by mingling most freely with them. Be not deceived! Let Lot’s experience instruct and see in this mirror the likeness of yourself, laughed at, and your message from Heaven spurned with contempt by the comrade in whose godless way you have walked, and in whose opinions of worldliness you have too long agreed.But last and worst of all, Lot saw his house a moral wreck. The wife stricken for a backward look, the children victims in part of the fearful stroke of judgment; two of them saved to practice their Sodom-learned lusts, and a future opening which knew no angels’ visits; the thought of God only to remember his cruel stab, and the look to heaven only to fear its fire rather than expect its mercy. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” When you select a home, build where God can visit it. When you move, stop not in the place smoking now for judgment!