The Life of Lot: Bad Decision Making

Genesis 13:10-13
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, April 24, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gregory Broderick

We will be looking at Lot for the next couple of weeks.  Lot is a perplexing character.  For despite access to the man of God, despite seeing all that God had done for and through Abram, Lot’s life is characterized by poor decision-making.  With Lot, it is one bad decision after another.

Based exclusively on the Genesis account, we would quickly conclude that Lot was false, that he was unregenerate.  But 2 Peter 2, which calls Lot “righteous,” gives us pause.  We cannot say with certainty whether Lot was saved, and we cannot conclusively say that he was unsaved.  This is an unsatisfactory outcome.  Lot’s questionable status is all the worse in view of the great light of revelation that he received in his time as a relative and compatriot of the godly Abraham.

Lot initially shows great faith by leaving Ur and Haran with Abram when God calls Abram to the Promised Land.  This is a good beginning.  God calls Abram out, and Lot goes with him.  Lot witnessed God’s faithfulness to Abram on that journey, and he sees God’s promise to Abram when they reach the Promised Land.  Lot explores the whole land with Abram, moving about with him.  And Lot sees God’s miraculous deliverance for Abram when Abram goes down to Egypt during the severe famine.  Lot is even there as Abram builds altars and worships the Lord his God.

Yet, in spite of all this, Lot’s adult life is marked by bad decision after bad decision.  Lot parts with Abram.  Lot pitches his tent near or towards Sodom.  In Genesis 14, which we will look at next week, Lot is captured in a war, rescued by Abram, and then goes back to Sodom after all of that.  Lot is dragged out of Sodom by the hand in Genesis 19, and then Lot bargains away from God’s designated refuge at that time.  God said, “Go to the mountains,” and Lot said, “Please don’t make me go.”  Only later, he runs to those mountains in fear.  Then, most famously, perhaps, Lot is duped into drunkenness and impregnates each of his daughters in a vile act of incest which they initiate.

How, then, did Lot get from such a good beginning to such an ignominious end?  Bad decision-making.  So let us examine this morning Lot’s first bad decision:  parting with Abram.

1. The Problem

Abram acquired much livestock in the Egypt debacle.  Genesis 12:16 talks about the amount of livestock that they had acquired.  Verse 2 of Genesis 13 says that Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and money when down in Egypt.  Remember, he was treated well for Sarai’s sake.  Apparently this issued in a lot of cattle and a lot of herds and flocks.

Lot also prospered, whether in Egypt or some other place, and acquired flocks and herds for himself (Gen. 13:5).  So Lot and Abram had developed a problem: too much money.  Both had developed huge flocks and herds, and soon their competing business ventures caused problems.  The land could not support all those flocks and all those herds.  So Abram’s men and Lot’s men quarreled about who was going to go where and probably who got what water (Gen. 13:6–7).

Then Abram proposes a generous solution to this problem:  “Lot, you pick a direction and go whichever way you want.  I will take the leftovers.”  Now, this probably seemed like a real problem to them, this “too much money” or “too much cattle” problem.  It probably seemed like a real problem, and this probably seemed like a really good solution, a winning solution, to Lot.  “Take the best of the land.  You pick first and go wherever you like.”  Like Abram’s solution to flee down to Egypt during the severe famine, this probably seemed like the obvious solution.  It seemed like a good deal for Lot:  Pick the way you want to go.  But before leaping to the solution, Lot should have stopped to ask, “Is there a real problem here at all?”  Exactly what problem did they have?  Too much?  That is your problem?  Only a short time before, they were in a severe famine, a “heavy” famine.  Their fear was not too much; it was not enough.  Yet God, through that severe famine, took care of them, provided for them, and prospered them.

Not only had God taken care of them, but Abram had taken care of Lot personally.  It is apparent from the text that Lot went down to Egypt with Abram and came back with Abram (Gen. 13:1).  Abraham did not abandon Lot in times of scarcity.  Is it logical to think that he would mistreat Lot in times of plenty?  What was the need for Lot to have all this independent wealth?  It says Abraham was very wealthy, and Abraham had always taken care of Lot.  He had always looked out for Lot.  Remember, in Genesis 11, we saw that Lot’s father had died early, probably in Ur, and maybe Abraham adopted Lot in some way.  But whatever the case, Abraham had long served as Lot’s substitute father and protector.  Moreover, Abraham was clearly the man of God with the word of God, and God had appeared to Abraham at least twice by this point (Gen. 12:1, 7).

There was no real problem here at all.  There was no need for Lot to acquire great wealth.  Lot was not required to look out for himself.  Abraham had looked out for them, and God had looked out for Abraham.  Lot did not need all this great wealth.  Abram, and the God of Abram, would supply all that they had needed, and He had always done so.

The application for us is to be careful in analyzing the problem before jumping to the apparent solution.  Instead of looking at “How does this advance my goals,” we should start with “What is my purpose in life?”  It is not to become wealthy nor to accumulate lots of livestock or real estate or money or to make a great name for ourselves.  Our purpose in life, as Question 1 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism reminds us, our chief end—in other words, our highest purpose in life—“is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”  Therefore, we do not ask, “What advances my goals or my desire, or what seems right to me?”  Instead, we ask, “What is the will of God in this situation?”  Only by knowing and doing God’s will can I glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.

So against this correct view, we see that too much cattle is not a problem at all.  You don’t need all those cattle.  You need God, and you need God’s chosen man.  God fed you in the severe famine; He will continue to take care of you, and Abram too.  If the problem is too much cattle, then get rid of the cattle.  Don’t get rid of God.  Don’t get rid of the man of God.  Sell those cattle.  Eat them.  Give them away.  Whatever it takes.  More cattle is not the need.  We need more faith in God, more grace of God, more word of God, more understanding of God and God’s will for us personally.  For most of us, the problem is not a desire for cattle.  For most of us, it is money, houses, career, politics, husband, family.  But the principle remains the same.  Whatever it is we think that we need, we should stop and ask, do we really need that thing?  Do we need more of that thing?  We should evaluate the problem in light of God and in light of eternity.

2. The Decision

Having misunderstood or misconstrued the supposed problem, Lot makes a bad decision.  Lot parts ways with Abraham, the man of God.  Verse 10 tells us that Lot chooses the well-watered plain.  It is good for livestock.  You can produce much livestock on the well-watered plain and feed them.  Verse 12 tells us Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom—perhaps good for commerce, perhaps good for worldly attractions, but also, as verse 13 tells us, full of wicked men who were sinning greatly against the Lord.

It makes no difference that the decision to part company was suggested first by Abram in verses 8 and 9.  This was a test for Lot, a test not from Abram but from God.  Would Lot choose God and God’s land and God’s man, or would he choose cattle, wealth, and worldliness?  Lot clearly failed this test and chose based on cattle.

The first reason for this decision is that Lot failed to pray.  He failed to seek the will of God.  He looked up and he saw that well-watered plain.  It probably had green grass.  And he chose based on his own understanding.  We are never told in this text that Lot prayed or that Lot sought God’s direction directly.  He made a decision based on his own understanding.

The second problem with Lot’s action is that he failed to seek counsel or direction from the man that God had placed over him; in this case, his own uncle and protector, Abram.  Abram had been Lot’s pastor for a long time, and he had cared for Lot through many troubles.  God had appeared to Pastor Abram and directed Abram’s steps and Lot’s all the way from Ur to Haran, and again when they went down to Egypt and back up to Canaan, all for their own good.  They had traversed what was, for them, the whole world.  And God had taken care of them and directed their steps all the way.  Surely, this Abram had wise counsel for Lot, or, at least if Abram did not, surely Abram could have sought God’s direction for Lot on Lot’s behalf.  So, yes, Abram raised the idea of separation, but in context it appears as a generous, perhaps conciliatory, offer, not as the best counsel of the man of God.  Lot could have and should have asked Abram, “What is your counsel for me?  Should I go?”  Or he should have asked, “What is God’s will for me?  What is the Lord speaking to you that I should do, Abram?”  But Lot did not.  He saw that opportunity, that well-watered plain, and he jumped on it.  He grabbed the well-watered land, he took his cattle, and he left.

The third problem in Lot’s decision-making is that Lot chose based on the wrong priorities.  Lot picked based on “What will make me rich in this world?”  Lot had worldly wealth and enjoyment in view, not eternity and not the things of God.

It is true that Abram had raised the idea of “Let’s separate.”  But Naomi had said the same thing to Ruth.  What was the response of our Christian hero Ruth?  “Don’t urge me to leave.  Where you go, I will go.  Your God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16).  Ruth’s interest was not, “What is best for me in this situation?”  She did not know where she was going.  She did not know what was up ahead.  But she knew that this Naomi had God, and that this God would take care of them.  Or consider Jesus when he asked his disciples, “Don’t you want to leave me too?  Don’t you want to join all those who are departing me?”  The godly man Simon Peter replied, “To whom should we go?  You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).  You see, priorities are critical, and our unstated or unthought of priorities often lead us to make bad decisions.  So we have to keep our priorities straight, and we have to keep them in view at all times.

What is our priority?  “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33).  We should judge according to our five offices as a Christian.  This is a sermon that Dr. Swickard has preached many times.  We should judge in order of priority in those five offices.  First, I am a Christian and God is my first priority.  Then I am a churchman, in the church where God has placed me to grow and to prosper in His word.  Then I am a husband or a wife.  Then I am a parent.  Then I am an employee.  Don’t become better at your worldly employment if it costs you in your higher priorities of Christian, churchman, and so on.  You can list the priorities in the right order all you want, but if what you do reveals that all your priorities are backwards, then it tells where your priorities really are.

Pastor Mathew has summarized these priorities in three concentric circles.  We give this counsel all the time:  three-circle living.  In the center is the church that preaches the word.  It is not easier to find that today than it was in these Old Testament times.  So we find a church where God’s word is preached because that is how God is going to raise us up and bring us closer to Himself.  The next circle is to find a home around that church so that we can participate in covenant community life together, so that we can know and be known, and so that we can sharpen one another as iron sharpens iron.  If you choose money or cattle, but it takes you away from the church where God has placed you, then you have the wrong thing as the center of your circle.  The last circle is to get a job around the home and around the church.  So you see the church in the center, the home next, and the job around that.

Lot failed to put first things first.  He failed to put the central things in the center.  He chose money and so-called culture over the things of God.  He chose the well-watered plain over the water of the word of God.  He chose the things of this world over the one thing needful.  He chose the temporal over the eternal.  Wrong priorities, godless priorities, lead us to godless solutions.  They are godless in substance, as to what we choose, and they are godless in process, that is, how we go about choosing.  When you make decisions that are godless in substance and godless in process, you end up godless, living in Sodom (Gen. 14:12) and living like Sodom, as we will see later in Genesis 19.

Maybe you are looking at yourself and saying, “I am not quite as bad as these Sodomites living all around us.”  But you are far, far from where you are supposed to be, Lot.  You are far from what you are called to be as a descendant of Shem and as a follower of Abram and the God of Abram.  Though you may be tormented in your soul by the wicked acts of the lawless deeds of these men all around you, as it says in 2 Peter, you are not tormented enough to leave, not tormented enough to go back to Abram the man of God and repent and say, “I should never have come here in the first place.”  Decisions made with godless priorities in a godless manner leave you in a godless place, or at least in a severely backslidden place.  That was Lot’s decision.

3. The Outcomes

The outcomes were all bad.  Lot chose based on cattle.  It did not work out well for Lot, and it did not work out well for the cattle.  Sodom was destroyed by burning sulfur from the Lord, along with the whole plain and all the vegetation, and, I would think, all the cattle.  Lot ends up not just near Sodom but living in Sodom.  He becomes like one of them.  We will see him later, sitting as an elder at the town gate.  He lives like them.  He begins to adopt their morals, offering his daughters in marriage to two godless men, then offering his daughters up to protect himself and his guests.  That is not what God called him to do.  He ends up shamed and disgraced and dragged out at the last moment.

It also ended badly for Lot’s family.  So it was bad for Lot, but it was also bad for the people of Lot.  Most famously, it went badly for Mrs. Lot.  She violates the angelic command, “Don’t look back,” and God strikes her down, turning her into a pillar of salt.  His two daughters, apparently raised in godless Sodom, lean on their own understanding and, later, after the plain is destroyed and they are hiding in the mountains, they get Lot drunk and lie with him while he is unaware.  They think there is no other way to procreate, that there are no other people around, so they engage in the most vile action.  Just like Lot, they leaned on their own understanding, and they made a bad decision.  And Lot’s descendants are cursed.  So bad for Lot, bad for Lot’s immediate family, and bad for his descendants.  The incestuous spawn become the Moabites and the Ammonites, generational enemies of God’s people; enemies who oppose Israel militarily and spiritually for generation after generation.  It was all bad for Lot and his family.

What about those cattle that I mentioned?  What about those goals that Lot chased into Sodom?  Well, when we last see Lot, he is in a cave, living in fear.  He has no possessions and apparently no cattle.  It seems that he grabbed little on the way out of Sodom and headed out—maybe enough to get some subsistence in Zoar before he flees to the hills.  But he does not have those big flocks and those big herds anymore.

So we have to ask ourselves:  In the end, what was it all for?  What did he achieve by this?  Was it worth it?  Was it worth chasing the cattle and the money and the status?  Lot would have been better off, Lot would have been blessed, had he stayed with Abram, the man of God who was blessed by God.  Lot should have learned from Abram and Abram’s way:  Seek God, obey God, and be blessed.

Points of Application

1. Commit Your Whole Life to God

The first application is that you must commit your whole life—all of life all of the time—to God.  In the end, life is not about the accumulation of things.  As the Lord Jesus said, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his soul?” (Mark 8:36).  And I hate to disappoint you, but you will not gain the whole world anyway.  Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates combined have almost $600 billion.  It is a lot of money.  (GTB)  That accounts for about 0.1 percent of net global assets.  So here are the three richest people in the world, who have $600 billion combined, an imaginable sum of money to us, and yet 99.9 percent of the world’s assets are somewhere else.  So you are not going to gain the whole world.  And even if you did, at the end of this life, we will all die and we will all face judgment (Heb. 9:27).  Your balance sheet will not help you then.  Your political power will not help you then.  The number of grandchildren you have will not matter then.  What will matter, the only thing that will matter, is whether you trusted in Christ alone for your salvation, whether you received and accepted His free offer of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Whatever assets you have in this life will not carry over to the next.  Even if you could take it all with you, if you could somehow take your giant balance sheet with you, it would never be enough to pay the price.  Psalm 49:8 tells us, “The ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough.”  So you cannot take it with you, and it wouldn’t help you, if you could.  God is infinite, so our sin against Him runs up an infinite debt.  Only the infinite God-man Jesus Christ, our sinless Savior, could pay that infinite price in full in our behalf.  And He did pay it in our behalf.  He declared, “Tetelestai!  It is paid!  It is finished!”  He paid it all on our behalf, and then He offers it free to all—to all who will trust in Him by faith, to all who will confess Him as Lord and Savior.

So the first counsel, the first point of application—to commit your whole life to God—is an urgent urging to trust in Him today.  He will mark you down as “Paid in full” if you trust in Him today.  Do not be like Lot, throwing away the one thing needful to chase after the deceitful and ultimately worthless worldly goods and riches.  Do the opposite of Lot.  Give up worldly wealth, which you cannot keep, and cling to eternal life in Christ, which you cannot lose.

2. Count the Cost

Just because salvation is all of God, just because salvation is free to us by grace alone, does not mean that it is cost-free.  You cannot pay for it.  You cannot contribute to it.  But there is a cost.  Jesus himself said so (Luke 14:28–33).  What is that cost?  The cost is everything.  You must give up everything and follow Christ.  You must renounce all to be His disciple (Luke 14:33).  So you may have to give up your cattle.  You may have to give up your dream of this kind of life or that kind of life.  You may have to give up your deeply, deeply held desires like family or home or job or reputation.

You will certainly have to give up your sin.  You will certainly have to give up any desire for autonomy.  God cannot tolerate sin, so we have to give up sin.  God’s eyes are too pure to look upon evil.  We cannot take our sin with us into God’s presence.  We have to leave it behind.  And as to our supposed autonomy, don’t worry about giving it up.  It is an illusion anyway.  You are either slaves to sin or slaves to Christ.  So the choice is not between autonomy and God; the choice is between slavery to sin or slavery to Christ.

We are to be slaves of Christ (Eph. 6:6).  The good news is that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt. 11:30).  It is a slavery in the sense of total obedience, total dedication to the Master’s desire.  But it is not a miserable, plodding slavery.  It is a joyful slavery where our will and His will are aligned, and we experience joy as we do His will in this life.  When we confess “Jesus Lord,” every decision is already made for the rest of our lives.  We only have one question left:  “What is the will of God for me in this situation?”  We already decided when we said “Jesus Lord” that we are going to do whatever God wants us to do.  So we do not have to ask, “What is the best thing for me to do?”  We only have to ask, “What does God want me to do?”  It is the same question.  “What is the will of God for me in this situation?”  Then we do it with joy, not leaning on our own understanding, but trusting in God’s promise to work all things for the good of those who love Him.

I want to make clear, and we have to understand, that there is a cost.  So make sure that you know that there is a cost to following Christ, and make sure that you count that cost, consider that cost, and then choose rightly.  Many so-called preachers will tell you that life with Christ is a cost-free endeavor.  They preach a false gospel of health and wealth.  “Come to Jesus,” they say, “and your life will be easy.  He will solve all your problems like a magic genie or divine butler.”  Some will even say, “Keep your sin and go to heaven.  There is no cost.  You do not even have to give up your sin.”  That is what they are selling.  It is all a lie.  Jesus said there is a cost.  Jesus said that you must let go of your sin.  God’s inviolable word says there is as cost, and it may cost you everything.  It may even cost you your own earthly life, as in the cases of Paul, Peter, and James.

It will, of course, be different in degree and kind for every person.  Not everyone is called to martyrdom.  There is a different cost that each of us must pay.  But make no mistake:  There is a cost that each of us must pay, and there will be a cost for you.  So count that cost.

3. It Is Worth It

Count the cost, but then pay that cost.  It is a good trade.  It is the best trade.  Temporary things for eternal things—a good trade.  Hell for heaven—a good trade.  Eternal death for eternal life—a good trade.  It is an infinite return on investment if you make this trade.  Think about it this way, if you are financially minded:  Would you trade one dollar today to get $1,000 a day for the rest of your life?  The only hesitation you would have is that you would think this is some kind of a scam, that it is too good to be true.  But would you trade a dollar today to get a thousand dollars a day for the rest of your life?  Sure!

But I am telling you that this is a better deal than that.  We are trading an infinity in hell for an infinity in heaven.  We are trading infinite wrath for infinite joy—joy unspeakable and full of glory.  Words fail to describe it.  And we did not have to do anything other than confess Christ and follow Him.  Confess Him as Lord and Savior and live for Him for the rest of your earthly life.

So make the deal.  It is a good deal, but you have to make the deal.  Make it today while there is still time to make it.  You may die today, or He may return tomorrow, and at that point, the offer expires.  It will be too late to make the deal.  But the deal is available today, so make it today.

For those of us who have confessed Christ, make sure that you are in Christ.  This is a frequent point of application:  Make your calling and election sure.  It is frequent because it is important.  It is the key thing for us to do.  And it is a common error.  Many people do not make their calling and election sure.  Do not presume that you are in Christ because you prayed some prayer.  Do not presume that you are in Christ because you made some confession, or because you were born and raised in the church.  After all, Lot was in the church.  He moved about with Abram, we are told in Genesis 13:4.  He came out of Ur and Haran and Egypt.  He went to the Promised Land.  He was close to the man of God, and yet he still walked away.  He still made bad decision after bad decision after bad decision.  He still went to Sodom and lived among the wicked and evil men.  He resisted God’s gracious command, His lifesaving command, to leave Sodom.  And Lot ended up in the cave in disgrace.

As I said before, perhaps Lot was false, or perhaps he was merely backslidden.  Either way, it is not good.  Examine yourself today and look at the fruit that you are producing today.  Maybe you will see that you used to produce fruit, but you have not produced much fruit today.  Or maybe you see that your fruit is there, but it is the wrong kind of fruit.  I hope that we will examine ourselves and see if we are producing the big, juicy fruit of obedience to God today.  Don’t rely on past actions.  Don’t rely on the fact that you were born into this church or some Christian family or on whatever past actions you took.  Make sure that you are in Christ, and not merely moving about with the people of God, as Lot seemed to be.  Ask yourself:  Am I walking in holiness today?  Am I prioritizing the things of God today?  Am I seeking His will and doing it today?  Am I doing it today, not fifteen years ago?

Lot fell far—very far—and so can we.  Let us continually ensure that we are walking on the narrow way that leads to glory.

4. Know What Is Your Cattle

For Lot, it was literal cattle and perhaps worldly life in Sodom.  It may be all that for you too.  It may be that you are interested in chasing money, power, worldliness, culture and so on.  Maybe it is all that for you.  Or it may even be something more subtle than that.  Even good things can become idols for us that displace God.  An idol is anything we place above or choose instead of God.  So it could be our career.  There is nothing wrong with a career.  It is good to have a good career.  But if our career makes its way too far up the five offices—it should be number five—if it makes it too far up your priority list, then it is out of order, and you risk it turning into an idol.  It could be the desire for a husband or a wife or a home or children or grandchildren or your reputation or ease of life or position or fun or sexual sin or greed or whatever.  It can be anything.  Know what is your cattle.

5. Prepare for Temptation

We must prepare for temptation.  Your temptation will be different from my temptation, and my temptation will be different from her temptation.  Everyone’s will be different.  But we must prepare for it.  We must know what our temptation is, because the world, the flesh, the devil, and false brothers will all come and try to lure us away in the opportune time with the opportune thing.

Perhaps they will come and offer you that long-held desire that you have.  Perhaps they come and offer you the whole world.  Satan did that to Jesus.  He offered Him the whole world.  Notice, Satan offered it, though he did not have it to give.  Satan always lies.  That is what he does.  He will offer you anything that he thinks will get you to take the deal.  You may get that thing; you may not get that thing.  He offered, in a way, to Lot.  He offered Lot all the cattle.  Where did all the cattle go in the end?  Lot did not have them.  So Satan will offer you anything—perhaps that long-held desire, perhaps the whole world, perhaps something that we think we cannot bear to lose or live without.  Perhaps our child will reject the faith.  Perhaps I will lose my long-held position, and I say, “I could tolerate anything but not that.”  If that is the case, that thing is your cattle.  Whatever it is, know what it is and be prepared to let it go.  Be prepared to forsake it all.

We will hear probably in a few weeks about Abraham and Isaac.  There was his long-held desire for a son and an heir, someone to pass everything on to.  Then it comes, and Isaac is growing up, and Isaac is becoming a young man.  Then what does God say?  Give him up.  “Take your son, your only son, your son Isaac, the son you love, and kill him, and burn him up.”  And Abram, unbelievably almost, has the great faith to do just that the next day, and, of course, God spared Isaac.  If Abram could do that with God’s grace, then we can do it with God’s grace too.

The way Mr. Perry put it is this:  God is not interested in the ninety-nine things you put on the altar, but in the one thing that you held back in your pocket.  Look for that one thing that you don’t want to put on the altar.  That is your idol.  That is your cattle.  Take it out of your pocket and put it on the altar before God.  And Rev. Buddingh’ improved on this once in a counseling meeting I was in.  He said, “Put it on the altar and make sure that it does not end up back in your pocket somehow.”  So put it up on the altar and keep putting it up on the altar.  God may take that thing away if that is what is best for you eternally, or God may leave it with you if that is what is best for you eternally.  Either way, you have to put it on the altar before God.

6. Trust God to Provide

If God is with you, everything will be all right.  He will provide; He is Jehovah Jireh.  You do not need those cattle or that money or the children or the husband or anything else.  You don’t need anything because we have everything.  If we are in Christ, we have God.  He is our everything.  He is our inheritance, our portion (Ps. 119:57).  And we are His inheritance by His free choice.  So we have need of nothing else if we have God.  Anything we need temporarily in this life, anything we need to mold us for that life in eternity—anything we need—He can and will provide always, and only with our eternal good in mind (Rom. 8:28).

So you do not need all the cattle or whatever else.  If you do not have any money, if you are worried about money or food or whatever, know that God Himself fed Elijah in the desert by the raven couriers.  He fed the five thousand from a few loaves and a few fish, and He fed millions in the desert after the exodus from nothing.  He provided the Christ, His own beloved Son and very God, to save us from the just and eternal hell that we deserved.  Now, if He has provided all that, how much more will He provide us with everything we need for life and godliness!

Trust God to provide.  We are tempted to fear.  We are tempted to think we need these things for this action.  But let us trust God to provide us everything we need, everything that is good for us, in the right place at the right time.

7. Rejoice

Christian life is not doom and gloom.  It is joy unspeakable and full of glory.  Yes, sorrows will come, but with God, joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5).  That other life over there that looks easy, that other life that looks pleasurable, that life of sin—that is a life of sin and slavery to Satan.  That is doom and gloom and misery.  Look at those people.  Are they happy?  Oh, they might seem happy for a moment.  But do they seem happy on the whole?  The answer is no.  They are miserable.  They believed Satan’s great lie of joy apart from God.  They took Satan’s offer:  Do this, and I will give you all these things.  Satan is good with the promises, but not so good with the follow-through.  Those people are miserable now, and they will be miserable in eternity if they do not repent and turn to Christ.

Look again at Lot.  Was he happy apart from God?  Was he happy apart from God’s man?  No.  Everything was misery, frustration, and difficulty for Lot.  And he is not the only example.  Look at Judas or Achan or Balaam or the rich young ruler or the rich man of Luke 16.  Misery, misery, misery.  The devil will offer you many things, but the only thing he has to deliver is misery.   So reject the devil’s lie.  Reject the devil’s misery.  Live for Christ and put it all on the altar.  This is the life of happiness, the life of peace, and the life of joy.  This is the life of love—love for God and love for God’s people.  This is the life of victory—victory over sin and hell and death.  Life eternal and life with God is what He has to offer.

Do not make a bad decision like Lot.  Let the cattle go and live for Christ.  And I promise you, it will be worth it all.  It will be well worth it.  You will gain eternal worship of God with God in glory forever.  Amen.