PILGRIMS PROGRESS

Isn’t it interesting how differently Abraham and Lot viewed the world. Abraham, the reigning patriarch, allowed Lot to pick where he would settle taking the rejected part even though the choice was rightfully his. Lot choose to pitch his tent in the plain of the Jordan Valley and Abraham pitched his tent in the land of Canaan.  Although Abraham was the financial  Bill Gates of  B.C. time he chose to live in tents his whole life, refusing to establish roots or permanence in this world – for he was a pilgrim looking for a city whose builder and maker was God. Lot, whose pilgrimage was in true Donald Trump fashion, fondly set his gaze upon the bright lights of Sodom and proceeded to acquire real estate, staying even though the sinfulness “vexed his righteous soul.” What does cause a righteous man to offer his young innocent daughters to quell a savage perverted mob? There is room for supposition here for little is stated by way of explanation for this grossly unrighteous offer. We know from Peter’s writings that the unbridled wickedness of Sodom vexed, tormented and tortured, Lot as his soul rebelled to exhaustion against the filthy depravity continually about him. Vexed (gr., basanizo) is a word evoking powerful imagery originating in the concept of examination by torture to prove one’s guilt or innocence (2 Peter 2:8). Lot’s agony was self induced and easily preventable for his situation was ultimately due to his own choices driven by desires for the very thing that was destroying him. Sounds a little familiar doesn’t it?  It wasn’t a tent flap the men of Sodom railed against but the door of Lot’s city digs. The pull of the world would be very costly for Lot who lost his spiritual bearing somewhere between his tent flap in the plains and his door post in sin-city. Decisions have decedents, and some are pretty ugly! He lost all his wealth, everything, his wife became a salt-lick for the plains animals, and he finished his life as a drunken cave-dweller who incestuously fathered two ungodly nations. Don’t take the devil for a ride, he likes to drive you know, and he will keep you longer and take you further than you really want to go. A sad end for “righteous” Lot, and a lesson to all who crave the “bright lights” of the world, in which we are called to a divine paradox: Hating life while “loving” every minute of it (Jn. 12:25; 1 Cor. 13).

DECISIONS HAVE DECEDENTS...