Journey to Disaster: Lot's Foolishness

How did two men leave from the same point on the map and end up going totally different directions? What spiritual compass directed their steps? Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken," reminds us of the two roads Jesus defined: the broad road and the narrow road. Most people don't take the narrow road, even though, despite its rough and forbidding appearance, it leads to pure delight. The broad road is smooth and well-traveled, offering multiple exits for entertainment and convenience along the way. What travelers can't tell you, though, is that it ultimately leads to a trap--a dead end. No one returns alive from the journey to disaster.

Lot's journey to disaster--the spiritual Dead Sea where all hopes of success and security are toppled in a day--happened by degrees. It began innocently enough when he joined his uncle Abram in his journey to Canaan. Abram was one of three sons, his father being Terah, a descendant of Shem, and his two brothers being Nahor and Haran, the father of Lot. Haran died before his father Terah, in Ur of the Chaldeans, leaving Lot to the care of his grandfather and, later, Abram. After Haran's death, Terah began the journey to Canaan with Abram, his grandson Lot, and Sarai, Abram's wife, but they stopped in Haran (now, modern-day Turkey), where Terah eventually died. Why Terah led his sons to leave Ur in the first place, we do not know.

Ur was a thriving port city in southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) on the Euphrates River, teeming with trade and wealth and famous for numerous technological and cultural advancements, from an intricate canal system to the study of mathematics and geometry. Most famous, of course, was its ziggurat, a massive pagan temple. Haran was also a prosperous city at a vital trade juncture along the road between Nineveh and Carchemish. Both Haran and Ur were known for their idolatrous worship of the moon god, Sin (what a name!). Perhaps Lot found all this quite exciting and always longed to return to city life, once he had decided to join Abram.

After traveling with Abram for a period of eight years, including Abram's sojourn in Egypt during a time of severe famine in Canaan, Lot begins getting the idea that the grass is greener on the other side. When his herdsmen quarrel with Abram's herdsmen, Abram selflessly initiates the offer for Lot to choose the best land and to separate from him--just to keep the peace. "Please . . . no strife between you and me" (Genesis 13:8). Given God's initial directive to Abram to leave his country, his kindred, and his father's house, we feel that this separation from Lot is long overdue--a feeling that is confirmed when Lot lifts up his eyes and sees the plain of Jordan, well-watered everywhere "like the garden of the LORD" (Genesis 13:10). We know the script: "Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other" (Genesis 13:11). The words, "Lot chose for himself," seem to say it all. He leaned on his own understanding and seems to have gladly separated from his altar-building uncle. Perhaps Abram's spirituality even annoyed Lot, who seems to have been entirely a man of the world, both severely practical and selfishly impractical.

Following the broad road to success, "Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the LORD" (Genesis 13:12-13). Why Lot preferred the company of these wicked men over the companionship of his godly uncle we cannot imagine. Only one reason explains his choice: he coveted the best for himself. His cutthroat business decision left no trail of qualms. And yet just here he begins his own undoing, as history reveals all too graphically. And how could Lot justify having "room" to take his abode near Sodom, when he did not have "room" to live near Abram? Wouldn't he feel crowded living in the suburbs of a twin city, with Gomorrah being most likely just a few miles away? Was his choice to move closer to Sodom an excuse to distance himself even further from Abram?

It would appear that Lot's covetousness led to a life of mere convenience. By pitching his tent "as far as Sodom," Lot gave himself access to the comforts of society amid the challenges of shepherding. Lot's search for success turned into a search for security. But this sense of security doesn't last long. When four Mesopotamian kings end up warring with five Canaanite kings, including Bera king of Sodom, things get tricky in a hurry. The five Canaanite kings--Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (Zoar)--are defeated by the four Mesopotamian kings--Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations. And as these five defeated kings attempt to flee, some are nabbed by the asphalt pits in the Valley of Siddim. We do not mind imagining them rolling around in the slime they later come to epitomize morally.

But while these five kings are thus most ingloriously delayed, the four Mesopotamian kings take all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah for themselves and also capture Lot, "who dwelt in Sodom" (Genesis 14:12). When and how this move to the inner city happened, the narrative does not reveal. Perhaps like grazing sheep who wander further and further away from their shepherd, Lot just kept following his physical appetites until one day he found himself a citizen of one of the worst cities in Old Testament history. From the plains of Jordan to the suburbs of Sodom to the inner city of Sodom, Lot had wormed his way deeper and deeper into failure and insecurity. He who succumbed to the "lust of the eyes" now dwelt amid rampant and abominable "lust of the flesh" and had borne Sodom's fate with it. We wonder in what shape Lot's "pride of life" is struggling when "Father Abram" fights for his rescue. Compromise has left Lot weak in every sense of the word--and by not seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things have been subtracted from him.

Amazingly, the Lord gives Lot a gracious exit from this disaster--an exit leading to the opportunity to take spiritual inventory and to evaluate his choices to date. This "exit" is made possible through the military prowess of Uncle Abram, whom Lot had shaken off approximately thirteen years earlier. The minute Abram hears of Lot's fate, he rallies his 318 trained men born in his own house (Genesis 14:14) and fights against great odds to free Lot. Marching 240 miles one way from Sodom to Dan, Abram directs the military maneuvers for a nighttime pursuit and fights alongside his younger men (Genesis 14:15). The four kings whom five kings could not defeat are routed by Abram--and Lot comes home. Abram's yet-again selflessness comes to Lot's rescue for no good reason at all, except that, as the narrative reads, he is "his brother" (Genesis 14:14).

A close-up contrast with Abram is in order here. On his way home, Abram sacrifices a tithe of all his possessions to Melchizedek, the priest of God Most High, as the spiritual token of his physical sacrifice to rescue his "brother" Lot. We wonder how Abram can stomach his covetous nephew, whose compromise for convenience' sake has put both of them in destruction's path. Yet, when he has a chance to scoop up earthly rewards as compensation for his exertion, Abram refuses even a "thread" or "sandal strap" of the king of Sodom's offered goods, "lest you should say, 'I have made Abram rich'--" (Genesis 14:23). With his hand uplifted as if taking an oath, Abram insists, "I will not take anything that is yours" (Genesis 14:23). That's narrow indeed, some would say. Isn't that overdoing it just a little?

We cannot help remembering the Lord's words in II Corinthians 6:14-18, not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers (as Lot most certainly was) and not to touch the unclean thing. "Come out from among them. And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you." Abram's willingness to be separate down to the finest scruple not only sets him apart from all these kings but gives him divine authority over both them and their enemies. And yet Abram uses this authority, not for his own advantage, but in intercessory prayer in the upcoming crisis of Lot's near demise. Thus does Abram's sterling integrity serve as foil to Lot's tinsel timidity. For all his selfish aspirations, Lot is a pleaser in bondage to Sodom.

Lot could not say with Abram that Sodom had not made him rich. Indeed, Lot himself almost seems to belong to Sodom, for this king requested that Lot be given back to him in exchange for the goods he offers Abram (Genesis 14:21). This is strange enough, and we cannot imagine what the fellowship could have been between these men on any level whatsoever. But Sodom's debauchery is no secret to Abram, and his resounding rebuff of even a thread of Sodom's goods shows a courage we have not seen in him before this episode. But, having come from the fresh dew of blessing at the hand of Melchizedek, who blessed also God Most High, the "possessor of heaven and earth" (Genesis 14:19-20), Abram knows exactly where his wealth comes from, as he says to the king of Sodom, quoting directly from Melchizedek's blessing from the "LORD, God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth" (Genesis 14:22). What Lot accepts by investment, Abram rejects by vow. Lot resides in Sodom, but Abram is seeking a city "whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10). And only a very narrow road will take him there.

Lot, however, will pay with every syllable of his life and reputation for his covetousness, his convenience, and his compromise. Rescued by hand from Sodom--on the one condition that he not look back (which we know his wife does), Lot escapes the destruction of fire and brimstone only to flee to a cave of corruption--a cave from which he never emerges again in the narrative. His father-figure uncle had interceded for him even here--but Abraham cannot interfere with the judgment due to a foolish soul who always chose the glitter of Babylon over the gold of Zion. Against Lot's corruption, we see Abraham's sanctification. As his own journey unfolds, we see his sacrificing spirit eventually leading him all the way up the narrow road to Mount Moriah with his own son, whom he would willingly have sacrificed to keep his heart pure before God.

And I wonder just how much this story mirrors the state of the church today. Is anyone taking the narrow road up Calvary's mountain--the road that makes all the difference, ending in delight at God's right hand forevermore? And are there any Abrahams left to intercede for the wandering Lots who slip foolishly along the broad road, not realizing that it ultimately slopes below sea-level towards Sodom? What of the progressive mindset determined to "include" Sodom's ways into the life of the church? This slide into depravity will not end well. Abraham prayed for the justice of God to prevail on behalf of "ten righteous," but Sodom barely had even one. Was Lot really righteous? It stretches the outermost boundaries of our imagination to think so. To Abraham's prayer, we would say that we really do not know what lurks in the heart of the covetous man. For personal gain, he will end up losing his soul. May the Lord give us clarity, kindness, and courage as we confront the present-day Lot's journey to disaster.