He magnanimously gives Lot the choice of choosing the land that he wanted for his herds and flocks. Notice carefully what God records about Lot.
What is the least important aspect of seeing the faith? Eyesight. What is God beginning to tell us here? He is beginning to tell us that Lot lived by sight, not by faith. And even though God saved him, the man was what we would call today "carnal." Converted, but carnal. Just like Paul called the Corinthians in I Corinthians 3, he told them, "You are yet carnal." These were converted people. That is the way Lot was. So Lot lifted up his eyes, he saw the beauty of the land, saw that it would produce wealth, and he chose to ignore the evil that was plainly visible to anyone who cared to look at it.
We have moved one chapter. He is no longer outside the city; he is now living in the city and chapter 19 confirms that he was living in the city whenever the angels showed up. Step by step. Abram lived his godly life and God chose him, separating himself from the people of the land. Lot lives his life by faith, and even though he is converted, even though he knows the work of God, he chooses to mix himself in with the people of the land, and we see him sucked right into the midst of it. Now maybe he never intended when he made that choice—“Well, we can live there but we won't live in the city. We'll be in the outskirts and we'll kind of live the kind of life that we live out there,” but he ended up in the city. So he did not do it right away.
What we are seeing here is the contrast to Moses. Moses deliberately chose to turn his back on the world. Lot deliberately chose to go toward the world and what occurred then was the association wore down his spirituality, wore down his resistance until his true spirituality was such that he did not really know much of the difference between right and wrong any longer. He really did not know what he wanted. He lingered in the city while it was getting ready to be destroyed. There is no surer way to go backward in one's spirituality, to blunt your feelings and knowledge of sin, to dull your spiritual discernment, than by mingling with the world. That's the lesson.
That is hard for me to imagine, two men, so wealthy that the land could not support the two of them together. That is the indication, it could not bear them.
Abraham magnanimously gave Lot his choice. What do you think Lot should have done? I think it is interesting to at least to think about it. The Bible does not have all of the details, but do you not think that Lot should have given way to Abram? Was Abram not the patriarch? Do you not think that a person of humility would have said, “This is too big for me. I don’t have the mind, I don’t have the capacity, I don’t have the understanding, I don’t have the wisdom.” Do you not think that he should have bowed before the patriarch and said, “You make the choice. You’re the head of the family.” Now maybe they did say that. I do not know.
But whenever Lot made his choice, he chose the area that was, I think we would have to say, most worldly. Now because he made that choice, it gives me the impression that they did not discuss it in that manner. That Abraham made his statement to Lot, “go ahead, you take your choice,” and Lot very legally took the land that he thought was the better land, which gives an indication, I think, into his pride when he left to Abram what seems to be the less favored land—the hills, the mountains, the more rocky areas, the areas that were away from the center of action, away from the big city, away from the areas of excitement and entertainment, where real living was.
Now I think that what Lot did was the choice that any person with his mentality or his approach would have made. I think it was a worldly approach. But his mind was not on getting into the Kingdom of God, I think that his mind was on grasping, increasing his wealth ever more—he took the best land. His mind was also on the entertainment and excitement that the city could provide. Now I have no doubt that he continued to become very wealthy, but he almost lost it. And I think Lot’s choice revealed the goal of his life.
Ten years before the events of Genesis 15, Abram at 76 submitted himself to God’s judgment for the sake of peace, and let Lot choose what physically looked to be the best territory. On Lot’s part, here is another decision driven by the mind of men based on what is seen that did not work out very well either.
Now with this let us get back to Abraham. In chapter 13 we saw Abram taking a step in faith of self-sacrifice for the sake of peace, while literally putting his own destiny into God’s hands when separating from Lot. And within God’s favor he ended up in the Land of Promise and his own home base of operation for the rest of his life, “by the Terebinth trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron,” as we read in Genesis 13:18. This was 23 years before the events of Genesis 18 and his interaction with the Lord and two angels, and the first time the English word for favor is used in the Bible.
Over this 23-year period of time we see he had been growing in grace and knowledge, while maintaining His humble attitude. He was actively involved in a relationship with God, who was showing His friend that his own solutions to problems were not the answer. He was continuing to earn God’s favor through humble submission and trembling at God’s Word—building layers of mutual trust as he was trusting the Lord with all his heart and not leaning on his own understanding of things, just as it says there in Proverbs 3.
Please put a marker there in Proverbs 31, and we will turn to a couple of examples of this kind of grammatical question. So please turn with me first to Genesis the 13th chapter. We will be coming into the middle of a situation with Abraham and with Lot.
Abraham poses a rhetorical question that implies careful consideration from Lot regarding all the various aspects of the land in front of them both.
