Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the people of Ammon to this day. (Gen 19,36-38)

We're coming to the end of Lot's story, and unfortunately it's really no happy ending. When we see what the course of Lot's life has come to, we may find the attempt to interpret the daughters' action as a desire to become the progenitors of the Messiah all the more amusing - for the fruit left behind on this earth was the nations of Moab and Ammon. If we trace the references to them further in Scripture, then it is indeed true: no way Messiah, but often a virulent hostility towards the promised seed, the descendants of Isaac. A hostility that was like that of foreign nations who had no kinship with the Israelites.

The Moabites and Ammonites may be viewed in the same way as Ishmael: they are the product of human carnality. Nevertheless Abraham and Sarah, in spite of it, had  a longing for God and appreciated His ways at least in the end. Ishmael is thus a sign of the period when they fell into unbelief, failing the test. But because they wanted to be God's followers, they came back and later prevailed! However, we see no such thing as a desire for the things of God in Lot or his daughters, and no resit. And if we look even deeper: if Lot had not separated from Abram then, or even otherwise, if he had not at least gone to Sodom, the center of the then "world," after his separation, the Moabites and Ammonites would not be on earth.

How many things are born in our lives because our heart is pulled in a different direction than God would lead it... Lot's story can serve as a warning to us because we then have to live with our Ammonites and Moabites. Indeed, they remained unpleasant neighbors to the Israelites, just as Abraham was later unable to completely preserve Isaac's offspring by sending Ishmael far to the east.