He looked out at Sodom and Gomorrah, the fertile plain, and he saw Egypt. You see, right there, was Sodom’s attractiveness to Lot. It was like the land of Egypt.
I also think that it is interesting to note that Lot did not separate from Abram while they were in Egypt. I think that it is probably because there were enough diversions there, especially to satisfy Lot’s taste, to keep them from getting into one another’s hair. But when they were once again in a state where they had to rub shoulders, trouble arose. Abraham’s faith, his righteousness, was too much for Lot to take. I am sure that it convicted him, it angered him so much that when the opportunity presented itself, he quickly took what undoubtedly, carnally, looked so good to him, it appealed to him, and off he went for it.
He should have deferred to the patriarch. But even though Abram offered it to him, he should have said, “No Abram, I cannot do that. You are the patriarch, the land is promised to you, you do with it as it pleases you and I will take whatever you decree.” But it shows the mind of the man and what a difference there was spiritually between Abram and Lot. Lot’s focus was on the here and now, Abram’s focus was on the Kingdom of God. See, the relationship with God meant so much to him that he was not going to purposely put himself back into the world.
I think what happened is that Lot chose to hide himself in Sodom, I mean hide himself because Abram’s character, Abram’s righteousness, Abram’s faith was convicting him and it was something that he did not want to be around. So rather than searching his own weaknesses in the presence of Abram and overcoming them, he took off for Sodom. Much easier to live there.
Abram was a man of faith. He was content to appear weak in the mountains with God, rather than appear strong without Him down in the strongholds of evil there in Sodom. He chose a more lonely path, but he certainly chose a better path.
Now if we would go back through those verses again, we would find that Lot saw, Lot chose, Lot journeyed, Lot took up residence. By sight, by self-will, he makes his home back in the evil unclean world.
Then Lot leaves, and then the Lord appears and He commands Abram to do the same things that Lot did in verse 10. He said, “Lift up your eyes.”
The New International Version translates verse 50 as being "arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned." Remember what Genesis 13:10 said about Sodom, that it was "well watered everywhere . . . like the garden of the Lord." It was a veritable Eden just like the United States and Canada are veritable Edens, producing abundantly for its people, rich soil, rain in due season, everything that one might have need of in order to make a great deal of wealth. An abundance of minerals coming out of the ground: oil, iron, coal, silver, gold. You name it we have it in abundance: rivers, lakes, tremendous amounts of pure clear water, well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, a veritable Eden.
But we can see because of what occurred that the people did not have the character, the right vision, and the faith to properly use and appreciate it, and it snared the people into perversions to provide the excitement, the amusements, and what they considered to be the fulfillment for their lives.
Last week we had a revealing look at the faith of Lot who, though converted, was carnal. He was living by sight. He first shows his true colors in Genesis 13 where God records, he lifted up his eyes, indicating by that that Lot was being guided by what he saw. There is no indication that he asked counsel of God in prayer. There is no indication that he had the character, that he had the deference toward Abraham to say, "Abraham, you choose first." His motivation appears to have been to make a killing for himself. He looked at the things of time in the way man looks, a carnal look. He did not look at things through the eyes of eternity. His thought seems to be of worldly profit, things that would help him in his life immediately, rather than the things that would help him toward eternity.
So he moved to the plain, and the next thing we know in the next chapter, he is living right in the center of wickedness. This man had just come out of Egypt. Surely, he should have learned something there, something about the world, about the way the world deals. But he did not. See, that is the way of those who live by sight. Living with the world in the way that Lot did does something to the way a person looks at life, looks at principles, looks at values. People who are living by sight give very little thought to what God thinks about what they are doing.
Now over to Genesis 13. Abraham was traveling with his wife, Sarah, and all that he had, which we are told was a lot. (No pun intended because Lot was with him too.) Abraham is certainly the greater of the two. He is the uncle, the elder. Lot is the underling of sorts, the companion. It appears he is unmarried because there is no mention of his wife here; and Lot does pretty well under Abraham and his flocks and his servants multiply. Then we start to see the collision of their herdsmen. And so Abram humbly offers Lot to take his choice on the land that he wants to settle on. They are going to separate slightly. And Abram humbles himself even though he probably had the right to the better land and says, "Hey, pick what you want."
So Lot chose the land that was well watered. This land was the clear physical choice as that fresh water brought an abundance of life and wealth to those nearby cities. I mean, just think about how much time had to be spent fetching water back and forth from a bucket to do anything: to clean, to water your animals, to cook with, right? They spent a ton of time doing that. Cities in close proximity to water they actually thrived. They had fish in water bodies so that was a a food source that was not available in the desert. They had perhaps transportation via water, whether it was a lake or a river. They had more fertile soil often from the over-flooding of the banks.
And so the land Lot chose was far superior to the land that Abram chose, and Abram knew this, but he still offered him the first choice. Lot was driven by sight. He was driven by the physical. He chose the superior physical land. Abraham humbled himself. He took the inferior desert land. It was a small sacrifice and he did not really care for physical wealth. He was fine living in a tent.
Abram barely got the words out of his mouth. I can just see this happening, right? He barely offers Lot, "Hey, take your pick." "Yeah, I'll take the plain of Jordan. Yep, that's what I want." All that easy access to water, we read, led to the downfall of those cities. They became fat, they forgot about their God, and they became too occupied with the physical things. Verse 13 tells us they were exceedingly sinful.
At least you have to say for what the Bible says about Lot that he was troubled, vexed, tormented, tortured by what was going on around him, even though he chose unwisely, foolishly to live within it. So Lot appears to have had a measure of faith, but his approach to living was quite a bit different from Abraham's.
So Lot left Egypt, but apparently Egypt never left Lot. It shows he was an upright man, a good man. He was a great deal like the Israelites who came out of Egypt. The fact that he chose to go in that direction toward Sodom and Gomorrah rather than resolving the problem that arose between his herdsmen and the herdsmen of Abraham, and instead choosing the ground that was like Egypt, or rather than return to Abraham and allowing him to make the choice, shows us a very great deal about Lot and his approach to life.
Does it not appear to you that he was a man of some faith, and at least intellectually, he wanted to follow the ways of God, but he wanted to do it with one foot in the world. He was not like Abraham. He consciously chose to separate himself from within the context of what was being worked out at that time.
Things today are a little bit different than they were in Abraham’s day, that is, what God is working out. God is teaching us something here. The man of true faith separates himself as far as he can possibly get from the world. The person whose faith is weak, though he does have some faith, gets as close to the edge of the cliff as he possibly can get, but still tries to somehow keep God [unclear]. Now Lot seems to have compensated and in some way justified what he was doing in Sodom by preaching to these people and scolding them for their sins. But he never entirely broke away from that way of life himself.
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.
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.
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.
