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"Worldliness" Text Comment v.17 A symbolic appropriation of the land. v.18 "Oaks of Mamre" some 20 miles south of Bethlehem became the center of Abraham's movements; it was near here that he would later buy his only property in the promised land, the burial cave of Machpelah. Both Abraham and Lot had been in Egypt, as verse 1 of chapter 13 reminds us. Lot had known of Abraham's clever plan to save his own skin at the risk of his wife's virtue. And Lot had seen how that plan had unfolded: Sarai in the Pharaoh's harem but Abraham a still wealthier man. And, Lot had also seen God intervene to save his covenant with Abraham and had seen the rebuke and the shame that was Abraham's penalty for his faithlessness and his cowardice and his setting too much store by this world. But what Abraham did and what happened to him as a consequence, what God had done and how Abraham responded, did not make a great impression on Lot. Now Lot was a believing man. Hard as that is to accept, in some ways, and all the more given what we are yet to learn about this man in subsequent chapters of Genesis, the Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that Lot was a believing man. Dangerous as it seems even to admit that a man like Lot could be a true child of God, Peter says that Lot was a righteous man even when he was living among and making his peace with the viciously wicked men of Sodom. And what are we to conclude from that but that it is possible, at least for some men, perhaps for very rare men, or, at least it is not impossible, for a man to be righteous in Jesus Christ and at the same time not be a high-minded, not to be a genuinely spiritually minded man, but to be a worldly man. Now there must have been some sort of spiritual mind in this man, because one cannot be a Christian who is not a new creation in Christ and, after all, Peter says that the sins of Sodom did disturb and vex Lot, though not enough to drive him from that city. But, try as we might, we find little to say to Lot's credit as a believing man. We are never told of one large-hearted or self-forgetful thing he ever did. And even later when he flees Sodom before its destruction, he remains a pathetic figure, the right thing, the holy thing being more forced on him than chosen by him. Such is the grace of God. In that sense, of course, we are all Lot and he is all of us! What is clear, in any case, is that Egypt did not have the same effect on Lot that it had had on his Uncle Abraham. For, soon after Abraham and Lot returned to the promised land with their still greater wealth and property and flocks and herds there was trouble. They had difficulty finding adequate pasture for their large flocks. This in itself is not hard to explain. They were semi-nomads having to fit into a land that already contained a settled population -- the Canaanites and Perizzites -- who had cultivated farms and had herds of their own to graze. The upshot was that Lot's herdsmen and Abraham's herdsmen began to quarrel, each seeking the best pasture for their master's flocks, each offended by what they saw to be competition from the other's. And this situation revealed a great difference between Abraham and Lot. Abraham would have none of it. For Abraham this situation could not continue. And so he gave Lot his choice of land and Lot chose the fertile plain of Sodom and Abraham remained in the less fertile hill country of Canaan. Now here we see the difference between Abraham and Lot, between a faithful man and a worldly man, a wise man and a foolish man, between two believers: one who acts as a believer should and another who betrays his faith.
It was not Lot's idea to separate the flocks. Our impression, from all that we know of this weak and foolish man, is that Lot would not have made any great sacrifice to end the quarreling between the two groups of herdsmen. He might have wrung his hands over it from time to time, but he would have said, at last, "What's a man to do? What can you expect of herdsmen, after all? Or, Herdsmen will be herdsmen!" But for Abraham there was much more involved. He had passed by the consideration of right and wrong when he had gone down to Egypt. He had made his calculation of cost and benefit for himself, just as Lot was now to do, and had left aside the question of right and wrong. And God had corrected him, had left him in no doubt about the gravity of his error! And Abraham had learned his lesson well. Now, for Abraham, flocks and herds are no longer the issue. The quarreling: that is all that matters. As he says in v. 8, we are brothers and cannot be quarreling, which we are if the men under our charge are quarreling with one another. Actually, the point is more strongly put. The NIV, for some reason, has left out a word in its translation of v. 8. The verse literally reads: "Let us not have any quarreling between your herdsmen and mine, for we are men, we are brothers," as if Abraham is saying, "men shouldn't quarrel over such things; how much less brothers!" Abraham here is the Bible's very best example of someone who does what Paul in 1 Cor. 6 says every Christian, every child of God, should do. There Paul rebukes those who were insisting on their rights and caring more for their property than for the honor of God's Name. Christian brothers were taking one another to court. "No!" says Paul. "Never! Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? than to bring disrespect upon the Lord, which believers do when they act as if believing in God and belonging to his family and being servants of Christ and heirs of eternal life makes no real difference when push comes to shove, when one's money or property is involved!" Not so Abraham. He would do God's will, come wind, come weather, and whatever sacrifice might be required of him -- whether his life in Egypt or his advantage in the promised land -- would be cheerfully made for the sake of the Name of his God.
We had said, last week, in considering Gen. 12:10-20, that what was so jarring about Abraham's behavior in Egypt was that it was so out of keeping with his behavior up to that point. He had become God's pilgrim's and had answered God's summons at great risk to himself. But now, as he approached Egypt, he was suddenly calculating the danger of his pilgrimage. Well, Abraham is his true self again, the Father of the faithful once more, now that he is back in Canaan. He learned his lesson did this good man! And so he lets Lot make his choice. Do you not think that he knew full well what choice his nephew would make. Abraham was a wise man; much wiser now that he was a believing man. No doubt he understood his nephew's character very well. No doubt he knew what Lot would choose and what he would be left with. Under no circumstances would Abraham have settled in Sodom, but, then, he didn't have to. But renouncing the wealth and prosperity of this world was what Abraham had already done. It was his life to do that. He had already done it to a far greater degree than he was being asked to do it now. He was a pilgrim again; he didn't want to be anything other than a pilgrim. To let Lot choose first was simply to play the pilgrim, to renounce the world, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, for the life of a follower of God. Seen that way, Abraham's choice was natural, inevitable. But, then, it should have been for Lot as well, if he were a believing man! But he had begun a pilgrim and gone as far as he wanted to go. Now, for Lot, it was the time to settle into this world and make his home in it. He was laying down his pilgrim's staff. Abraham held it firmly in his hand when he offered Lot first choice.
There can be no doubt why Lot chose as he did. He saw that fertile plain, all of that water irrigating all of that grass, and all he could think of was how fat his sheep and cattle would grow on that ground and how rich he would become as a result. The point is made quite explicit and powerful in v. 12 and you will see it if you compare that verse with 10:19 which delineates the borders of Canaan or the promised land. In other words, Lot moved to the very edge of the promised land, the inheritance God promised Abraham and his seed, and, as the rest of the Bible makes perfectly plain, the symbol of the everlasting salvation in heaven which was the true and full meaning of God's promise to Abraham and his seed. Lot moved to the very edge of the promised land, or, perhaps, the words mean that he actually moved outside of it. A share in the promised land did not mean that much to him. --All that was future and he couldn't see it. Abraham saw other things entirely. He saw the divine promise of the land he already occupied. He saw the heavenly country of which the promised land was but a type or symbol. He saw the favor of God, the forgiveness of his sins, the salvation of his family and his children's children. And so he stayed right smack in the middle of the land God had promised to him. Abraham here is a man of faith -- acting on what he knows to be true but what cannot yet be seen. Lot, who has faith, has forgotten it and is all for what he can see with his eyes. And is so blinded by what this world has to offer him that he cannot see what else lies before his eyes, the sin of those cities of the plain and the corrupt life into which he will now move his family. For his choice Lot got wicked neighbors. That is what he really got. He got the wealthy pasturage, of course, but he got it for only a short time. Verse 10 ends with an ominous reminder of things to come. Abraham on the other hand got to walk the promised land with God and lay claim to a land and to a salvation that would forever be linked to his name. Lot's lush valley would soon be barren desert, tar pits, smelling of sulphur, the water thick with killing salt. Abraham's land grows greener and more lush -- like the Garden of the Lord -- and will continue to do so until the last of his descendants has joined him there. We have a contrast drawn here, brethren, between faith and worldliness. And it is a timeless contrast. What a world of illustrations I have at my disposal. But I thought of this one. Last spring, when Dr. Jim Boice was in this pulpit, he told you of the Haldane revival, that 19th century revival of true faith and godliness in the churches of Switzerland, France, Germany, and Scotland that was occasioned by the preaching of the Haldanes, James and Robert, two Scottish brothers. I had heard of the Haldanes before and had used Robert's famous commentary on Romans. I knew of his influence on men who later were to restore Reformed Christianity in Europe: Cesar Malan (who was instrumental in the spiritual awakening of Rabbi Duncan, by the way), the Monod brothers, Frederic and Adolphe (I read extensively to my sister from the latter's exquisite little book Farewell, a collection of his deathbed addresses to members of his congregation in Paris), and the great church historian, Merle D'Aubigne. But I wanted to know more about these men, so I got a copy of their biography written by Alexander Haldane, James's son and Robert's nephew. It is wonderful history and, such is the timelessness of Holy Scripture, history very much like that we have read from Genesis 13. Robert, the older brother, and James, the younger, were born to devout Christian parents in the 1760s, but their father died when Robert was but a few years old and before James was born. Their mother raised them to love and serve the Lord, building into her young boys a knowledge of the Word of God and a Christian conscience. This is very remarkable, because she died when her youngest son was only six. Both of the boys grew up to be moral but spiritually uninterested young men. And it might have seemed as though the mother's spiritual nurture and prayers for her son had born no fruit. But, and this is one of the most remarkable and wonderful aspects of their story, both of them came under powerful spiritual impressions at almost exactly the same time, when Robert was 30 and James 25. They were not even together; indeed, James was at sea. And it was not through the instrumentality of any particular person. The Holy Spirit simply caused the seed, long ago planted by a faithful mother, to sprout and bear a tremendous harvest. Now, the feature of their story that made me think of it while I was working on Genesis 13, is this. These men, and particularly Robert, the eldest son, were heirs to a very large, very extensive estate in central Scotland. It was called Gleneagles, and some of you golfers will recognize that name as one of Scotland's famous golf courses and sometime location of the British Open. Well it once belonged to the Haldanes. They were wealthy men, to the manor born, and came from a long and distinguished family line. Robert, in fact, before he began to live for Christ, was quite interested in the development of his estate, its gardens, farms, and main house. At one point he brought water down from the hills to make a large lake, because a lake was the one thing the main grounds did not have. But then came Christ and pilgrimage. Now Robert's plan was for a mission in India that he and others would serve. To fund the effort he made plans to sell his estate, the manor and the grounds that had been in his family for generations. He would sell it and use the money to evangelize India. He put it this way, in words Abraham would have perfectly well understood. "Christianity is everything or nothing. If it be true, it warrants and commands every sacrifice to promote its influence. If it be not, then let us lay aside the hypocrisy of professing to believe it." [p. 99] How proud his long-dead mother must have been! As it happened, the plans for a mission in India fell through, but that was in God's providence, for their interests were thus directed elsewhere, to Europe, where they were to have such a phenomenal and wonderful effect for genuine Christianity. The estate was eventually sold and the money realized from the sale was put to the use of the Gospel. We can imagine what Lot would have thought of that plan and what reasons he would have found for doing nothing of the kind himself! How sensible this believing man would have been in doing what unbelievers would also do. But neither the Haldanes nor Abraham long before them would have thought what they did some great sacrifice. It is what pilgrims do. It is what lovers do. It is what faith makes all who have it do. So they thought and so they said. Such extravagance in the cause of Christ and salvation is no extravagance at all. Lot wanted Christ and Canaan, but he wanted them along with the well-watered plain. His lack of modesty, in taking the first choice when his Uncle offered it to him, was the sign of a much deeper problem. "Demas has deserted me, having loved this present world," said Paul. But, remember, as with Lot, Paul doesn't say that Demas got this present world, only that he loved it! Now, listen to me, brethren, and especially you young people. It is a time of the greatest conceivable importance when a young man or a young woman is deciding near what city he is going to pitch his tents for life or she is going to pitch hers. [City of God...City of Man]. And far too many of them make their decision, far too many young men and women of the Christian church, make their decision as if the history of Lot had never been written. No, do not be so foolish as this man was, who chose the world and lost it all. Read Genesis 13 and then read chapter 19 where Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed and Lot is saved in his own pathetic and humiliating way, and then make your choice, young people. And then read of the Haldanes and, before them, of Abraham, the father of the faithful. And you will see that it is very wise, wonderfully wise, to put God in your debt, if I may speak so boldly; to put God in your debt by making sacrifices for him, by choosing him above the world, by renouncing the world for his name's sake. For God always pays his debts sooner or later, and he pays with gold for your paper. Jesus promised, that no one who would forsake home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or fields for him and for the gospel would fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present world (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields -- and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. [Mark 10:29-30] But is that true? Is it so? There is not now in heaven one single saint, apostle, prophet, or martyr, who would not say to you, who would not grab you by the lapel, draw his face near yours, look you in the eye, and say with all the force and the emotion he could muster from a sinless heart, "Yes! it is true! It is absolutely and unqualifiedly true!" Take Abraham's way, not Lot's, if you would be happy now and forever! |
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