And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Fil 1,9-11)

God's goal with us is not for us to remain childish, naive, blinded, as one might think of the way of following God, in the sense of "thinking teaches one to doubt, and therefore it must be limited in order to believe." But true faith does not limit, but liberates; the problem is not whether or not to think, but how. Paul, on the other hand, wants the Philippians to grow in their knowledge and deep discernment.

"To discern what matters". To recognize what matters is one of the most important things we should learn in our lives. Lot couldn't do it, and he didn't even know he was missing it. His life, until the arrival of God's messengers, had been on a track that, despite some negatives, more or less matched his expectations, and therefore he would not change on his own. He would not have left Sodom and would have eventually shared its fate.

But at the same time, this lack of knowledge of what mattered determined his life far more than he thought. It took him away from Abram, away from the community worshipping the only God, into a vibrant modern city, into a system that, while he had not entirely fallen into, he had not had the strength to leave. Gradually there was more and more things around him that he was not winning over, where it was not he who held the reins, in short, much that was "dragging" him somewhere. It's a nice term, often used for chaff driven by the wind. What is not valuable, pure, is easily carried away by the various currents.

"That ye may discern what matters, and be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, full of the fruits of righteousness..." Lot did not discern, and therefore lacked the fullness of the fruit at the moment of reckoning. On the contrary, in the cave he found himself in utter poverty in every sense of the word - despite (or because of) the fact that he had chosen prosperity for himself in the first place. He may have retained personal righteousness, but if Sodom had not burned at that time and he had lived a long life there, the fullness of eternal fruit would have been lacking in his life anyway. He would not have had it, because in the depths of his life he did not draw from God.

 ...each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. (1Cor 3,13-15)

Most of the New Testament epistles were written by the apostles in their later years. It is not surprising that their perspective does not focus on some short-term, near-term goals, but looks ever farther beyond the horizon of human life as a whole and its transcendence, toward eternity. Not that this was not the core of Christianity from the beginning; but a young Peter, Paul, or John would surely have written letters full of a dynamic message of faith and inspiration, yet different in some ways from the wide view later allowed by the wisdom that only a profound experience of life can give a person. The Holy Spirit, of course, uses man as a vessel, just as he is, but precisely in order to convey his message, man must be able to perceive it. To do this, he goes through a lifelong process of transformation; although once even a donkey could tell God's message, it was certainly not the epistle to the Corinthians. Unlike donkeys, the apostles also loved, sacrificed and struggled for those to whom they wrote. The communication of God's word is not just a dry communication of truth (information), but must be delivered by those who understand and love deeply.

We have only one direct reference to Lot in the New Testament in 2Pt 2:7, which we quoted last time. While Jesus does mention the people of his day in Luke's Gospel and warns us of the fate of his wife, the only other passage that directly refers to Lot is that of 1Cor 3. He is not named directly, but the man saved by fire, who lost everything in the process, clearly points to him.

Many today are satisfied with the gospel in the form of mere understanding the punishment of the Son of God for our sin. Understanding this information and accepting it in the life of a new believer is often the end of most efforts to follow Christ radically, even though it was intended to be the beginning of all. The mindset Paul shows here is not inherent to everyone, probably not even to most believers: namely, that one is to enter the kingdom of God with the riches of full reward, that the goal of the gospel is not the salvation of the poor ("naked") but of the rich in God! Contrary to Catholic theology, this passage also does not speak of purgatory - not man himself, but his work, his fruit, will be tested for eternal endurance. Only things of value, gold, silver, that which will stand the test of purity by fire, have the right to enter and remain. Everything else will burn irretrievably.

It is said that the fool must learn from his own mistakes, but the wise learn from the mistakes of others. Lot's end is given to us as a warning - what will we see one day when we look back on our lives? To what do we want to dedicate it? What direction will we take? And to what heights?

Let us choose well.

...and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)... (2Pt 2,7-8)

When looking back at the end of life, it is customary to reflect on the milestones that have mostly determined the course of a person's life. In Lot's case it was undoubtedly the moment of his separation from Abram.

Lot broke with him after the fiasco in Egypt. Abram was banished there in disgrace after the scandal, and his star lost its brilliance. He did get rich in Egypt, but thanks to Sarah, and so others could argue that it was almost a pointless scramble back and forth, a disgusting experience, and a return to an arid land. (Abram originally wanted to escape the famine, but had to return to Canaan earlier than planned, and the land still hasn't recovered from the drought.) Not surprisingly, Lot now viewed his uncle more critically than he ever had before. There were snide remarks in the caravan and tensions that began to flare into arguments between the shepherds. Only, if Lot had an attitude of exclusive respect for Abram, the shepherds would have known they couldn't afford it, and Lot would have silenced them. But things were different now, and Abram had no choice but to withdraw - he was guilty of it all. It was obvious he could not be relied upon 100% to always know where to go and what to do. And so, as they returned to arid Canaan and he headed for the heights again, Lot tapped his forehead. Suddenly he knew many things better than Abram did: for example, that now was the time to go elsewhere, to the irrigated places! Why is Abram making up nonsense again?

It was no wonder that the tension and loss of respect had resulted in their parting. The fact that it wasn't quite smooth was evidenced by the fact that they apparently didn't see each other much after that, and might not even see each other anymore.

And it was this watershed moment that determined what Lot would definitively lose, and what he would gain, later in life.

For he definitely lost contact with his uncle, the tribe that was then the only place where the true God was worshipped in Canaan. Abram was certainly not perfect, but he was seeking God. Lot did not have a living relationship with God, and so from then on he lost the motivation and guidance to God that being with Abram gave him. Slowly but surely, he has moved to a form of living by inertia, with a belief in an admittedly honorable moral culture, but one that no longer has the inner power to further transform, nor can it influence his own descendants or those around him.

He never lost prosperity, and may even have gained from it by parting, for i Sodom he was in more fertile places than before. He also gained a house in this Beverly Hills of that time and fellowship with its inhabitants, which he evidently greatly desired.

But Scripture is mercilessly true: he also gained a lifetime of tribulation. "Day by day his soul was afflicted," Peter says. Always, with no escape. If Lot took looked back now in the cave, the sight was pitiful. The part of his life that he had been most proud of so far, the part that was sovereignly his own, that he could make happen and didn't need Abram to do it - that had been taken away from him completely. Perhaps his eyes were now opened to see that, in the end, apart from the blissful moments of enjoying his wealth and hanging out with his neighbours, it had brought him nothing but misery, the disintegration of his family and the loss of his wife. What kind of life was it, anyway? Wasn't I a bit of a fool when I lived it?

But if the past was depressing, what is the present? As Lot looked around, it occurred to him that it was as dark as this cave.

 

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.

Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave. Now the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us as is the custom of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.” (Gen 19,30-32)

It is remarkable (and sad) to see the generational progression of spiritual decay when parents lose a living relationship with God. What would not have been acceptable to them becomes normal for the children. First, the person stops actively living out his faith and freezes in a certain state where he does not do much good, but neither does he do much evil; he still has some notion of God and a basic moral discernment. But then come another generation or two in which the reins are loosened and not only are they lacking any consciousness of God, but the moral ruin is plainly visible.

The laws of Mesopotamia of Abraham's time, the earliest Assyrian principles, and the later Code of Hammurabi, regarded incest as an abominable thing, especially between mother and son. But even for incest between father and daughter, the guilty party could be excommunicated. It is therefore somewhat amusing to encounter even an interpretation of the actions of Lot's daughters that claims that they resorted to incest because they "desired to be in the line of the Messiah," since Lot was of the tribe of Sheth, to which the Messiah was promised. This is an interpretation a la "wish fathered by thought", for there is really nothing to suggest it when looking at the whole story. Lot's daughters cannot be seen as following God's ways, quite the opposite. Lot had a clue about morality, he once lived in Sodom internally separate from Sodom and did not accept her ways. But his daughters no longer consider them forbidden if they see no other way out. They may have come out of Sodom, but they took Sodom with them. Even if they did not do so for pleasure, they still saw it as legitimate to resort to such abominable ways if it appeared to be the way to solve their problem. Not that such things didn't occur then, but they were mostly despised. They didn't even try to talk to their father about it, they straight away got him drunk.

Of course, Lot himself certainly viewed his family's plight with a sense of hopelessness and despair. In the cave, isolated from the surroundings, he ended up living there alone with his two daughters, without much chance of a reasonable future. He was certainly struggling, and the contrast between his rich life (and rich social life) in Sodom and their present reality must have been glaring. Lot suffered, but he did not resort to the same means as his daughters, deception and incest. There is a kind of despair, a depression if you will, that leads to throwing off one's inhibitions, as the epistle of Ephesians 4 puts it: ...having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. (v. 18-19)

 We have already said that Lot may not have been a worse man than Abraham. At least, we can't make any judgment about that from the Scriptures, but we certainly don't see that Lot did anything wrong. He was an excellent farmer, a good citizen, and the father of a family that he managed to provide for and protect well until that fateful evening. How is it that there was such a difference between his end and Abraham's end, how is it that the goodness of good people does not in itself ensure that they turn out well before God?

We have said many times that Lot did not actively seek God and subordinate his judgments and ways to anything higher than his own benefits. If we have two similar people at the beginning of the journey, then by them both then operating in different internal settings, (a "mode" if you will), their mindsets and actions gradually change. As Emperor Marcus Aurelius once rightly said, "our life is the result of our thinking", and this is where things start to break. Lot stayed with his family in the mindset of consumerism, Abraham, after all, was getting into the mindset of a worshiper of God, and that (interesting to note) never ended in his life. There wasn't some set benchmark that he was to reach, to have enough and be done with seeking God - we will yet witness him moving higher and higher on this journey. He actually reached the highest points of his pilgrimage at the age of a hundred years or even later!

Lot, on the other hand, was going no higher; rather, he was spinning in a vicious circle. From an unchanging, carnal mindset, this led to an incomprehension of God; as a result, he was blind to the situation and the times, so that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and had no comprehension of it. Consequently, he did come to a reluctant obedience to come out, but no longer to where he was instructed to go. Bargaining with God ensued, going to Zoar, until perhaps in a cave on a mountain he finally realized how wrong he had actually been about everything in his life before God. Perhaps then he glimpsed what the fruit of his life really was. However, can we expect that he got an insight, and then lived differently - that he changed his internal "mode"?

If only he had, but we know nothing of this; the Scriptures do not reveal it to us. For the question whose answer we would need to know is not whether he saw it, but whether he personally acknowledged it and deeply regretted it, so that it led him to an inner transformation. It seems to me, however, that if this had happened, the Scriptures would not have failed to give us at least a brief mention of such a happy ending. This, however, is sadly lacking here.

Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave. (Gen 19,30)

Do you remember how Lot convinced God that he wanted to go to Zoar, not to the mountain where God was sending him? He thought he knew better, or at least that even though God was giving him a very specific instruction, it didn't really matter if he obeyed it, he thought he had a choice. Lot hadn't learned in his entire life to obey God and put His will above his own. As long as he didn't get into a crisis, he could go through life paying no price for this ignorance of the higher ways. It might even have seemed to him that Abraham, on the contrary, was paying too great a price for it by avoiding the cities and remaining on the uncomfortable mountains. But in the end it was just the opposite: it was Lot who paid with all he had.

So Lot arrived in Zoar, but very quickly left from there - but where to? To the very place where God had originally sent him, to the mountain. Why did he leave the city? We don't have an answer to that, except that the Scriptures tell us that "he was afraid to settle there." We can only surmise that it was most likely for one of the following two reasons.

Lot, on arriving at Zoar, may have found that the city was in exactly the same condition as Sodom, whose final destruction he had experienced the night before. For God told him: "I have favored you concerning this thing... I will not overthrow this city" (19:21), which means that Zoar was on the "black list" with God, and the moral conditions there must have been very similar to those in Sodom. Lot may have realized upon arriving that the same thing was likely to happen here sooner or later, and he feared the destruction of the city.

Or he may simply have noticed shortly after his arrival the clear indications that he could very quickly become a target for violence similar to what God's messengers had experienced in Sodom and fled quickly.

In any case, Lot left Sodom reluctantly; he was reluctant to admit that God was right about the change of destination and that it was a waste of time to argue about it. And in the end, he was just as reluctant to get to where God had wanted to take him from the beginning. Something like this can hardly be called a path of pursuit of God, only a virtue out of necessity. And if only at least some virtue...

So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. (Gen 19,29)

One is almost breathless: God remembered... not Lot, whose life was at stake, but Abraham! Lot was a righteous man, and did not have just some showy form of piety. Scripture says he was "afflicted" by the reality of Sodom (2 Pet. 2:7). Not only did he have the façade of a better man, but we have already seen that while he believed in God, we do not see in him a living relationship with Him, a familiarity, or a conscious willingness to obey. Lot resembles a believer who is morally higher than those around him, he does not commit iniquity, people see his righteous exterior; but unlike with Abraham, no longer the substance from which it flows.

But how shocking is the discovery that Lot would not have been saved because of this righteousness! Until a man knows God (not in moral doctrines and commandments, but as a person), such a world view must be repugnant to him, because it is contrary to simple human righteousness. Will not the better among us be saved? And am I not one of them? (He usually says it differently: I am certainly not among the worst. They may belong in the burning hell, but me? Who else could possibly go to heaven, if not me?)

But to be saved it is not enough to be a good person outwardly, but to enter into a specific relationship with God in which one experiences forgiveness and transformation. A friend of mine once pondered the question, who will actually be in heaven one day? A simple answer came to him: only those who want to be there can be sure. And therein lies the fundamental difference between Abraham and Lot. Not in the external level of morality they held. Perhaps they were very similar in this, and perhaps Lot was even outwardly better, as we have already mentioned, because he had not yet committed so many blunders. But Abraham, in spite of his failures, wanted to be where his God led him, on the heights where he found Him, and when he lost Him, sought Him again. Lot made no choice toward God in his life because he had no living relationship with Him, no desire for Him. He stayed where it suited his disposition - in a place of comfort and ostentatious luxury, far from the God he did not miss, for whom he did not thirst. If he consoled himself that he was morally superior to his surroundings, and God must respect that, it appeared that in the moment of judgment this alone would not save him - nor any other man.

And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace. And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt. (Gen 19,27-29)

Abraham returned to the place of his remarkable prayer, where he had last spoken face to face with God. We know that the patriarchs were in the habit of erecting an altar at some of the places of their encounters with God, but we cannot simply conclude that this is always the way to do it because "it is in the Bible." For even Old Testament figures did not always have the correct theology - after all, their lives, if they were positive examples at all, show us the gradual transformation of idolaters in mind or soul (or both) into worshippers of the living God. They commemorated those places for various reasons - sometimes as a reminder of that precious moment, sometimes out of a (maybe rather superstitious) belief that God dwelt in a special way in certain places on earth (while the whole earth belongs to Him Ps. 24:1), and often simply because it was their confession against the deities of the surrounding tribes. The people always erected sacred signs to their idols, especially on the tops of mountains. "Our God is here too," the patriarchs meant to say - and unlike yours, He is indeed alive.

Abraham came back, and it is not wrong for us too to return to the moments when God last visited us. It's worth reflecting on whether it ultimately had the meaning for us that God intended. Abraham went to see what was going on in Sodom because he foresaw its fall. And indeed - he saw its destruction in the far plains. It was like seeing rocket missiles falling on a city where we would have relatives today - his heart suddenly clenched at the thought of Lot and his family. At that moment, he didn't know if he was dying there at the moment. Was he looking to God for an answer? Had he been assured of his salvation? Although the text doesn't say so, we can rightly assume that he did. For we know that God revealed His mind to him as to His friend and told him of His intention to destroy Sodom. If there was anything Abraham needed to know now, it was what would happen to Lot. That was the most important thing concerning Sodom to him, and very likely he was looking to God for reassurance in his spirit.

But "when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow..." This phrase is a unique evidence that God did indeed bring out Lot mainly for Abraham's sake, as we have mentioned several times. - Only eternity will tell how many of those who would not have gone out on their own were saved because of the intercession of God's friends.

See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.” And he said to him, “See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” (Gen 19,20-22)

"I can't do anything..." What is meant by "can't"? Isn't he God, so he can do whatever? Of course he can, but he won't, because he has placed the principle of the salvation of his people above the principle of the judgment of the world. See 1 Peter 3:20 - until Noah stepped aboard the ark, the world was not flooded. Until Lot came out of Sodom, it would not be destroyed.

But God can't either because a friend stands in the way. Abraham pleaded for the salvation of Sodom up to the number of ten righteous. They were not found, and therefore Sodom will not be saved, but God will not let his nephew perish, whom Abraham no doubt had in mind. God limits his will because he has respect for the will of his friend. So the word "I cannot" here more accurately means "I do not want". God's friends influence events on this earth, even though they are mostly unknown to the world. After all, who then knew of Abraham's prayer on the high place above Sodom? No one who was concerned - none of the Sodomites, but not even Lot himself. And it is possible that he may even never have known about it.

Certain things will be different in the world if God's friends cry out to God. But that order cannot be skipped. First one must become a friend; then he comes and asks. It doesn't work the other way around, simply because a friend pleads like no one else - out of familiarity, out of a closeness that a stranger doesn't have.

Lot wandered out of Sodom at the end of the night, from "morning to dawn." He was ascending to a city that was, in his words, "near." The climb was not easy, but it certainly seemed easier to him than going up the mountain where God had sent him. But God rarely sends us on a journey about which we exclaim: sure, this is easy, why not give it a go? We often think: and why only not somewhere closer? Isn't there a more comfortable way? And why not somewhere else that's not so high?

A group of four people were leaving the city, but none of them with joy in their hearts. As its destruction began, Lot's wife, who (as characteristically described) "walked behind", looked back at Sodom. That was where her heart remained, her life belonged there, and she wanted no other. The pillar of salt into which she was transformed remains a memento that without consciously stepping out, one does not escape the fate of this world.