(Written
by Sheila Gail Landgraf)
The
next part of our story gets to be very strange indeed. It takes quite a bit of thought and
meditation to let all of the rest of this story sink in completely so that we
can even begin to make any sense of it.
This story in the life of Lot is yet another
reason to exclaim the worthiness of knowing the scriptures and looking at the
whole picture whenever we consider a portion of the bible. If you only look at one small section and
base all of your thoughts and actions around just that one incident you will
become off balance and out of order with your final conclusions about the story.
In the passage of Genesis 19 where we come to the
life of Lot after Sodom it is especially important to keep this in mind.
If we
remember this concept as we study; we
will also arrive at the same conclusion most all true biblical scholars have
formulated; that God has had a plan for mankind from the very beginning and
that all things, both large and small, are a part of that great, wonderful
plan. No decision any human makes can
alter God’s plan. He will fulfill
everything just as He has said from the beginning.
In all
of our life journeys as human beings there is the process of making choices. God grants us the ability to make our own
choices and decisions. He has a plan
that will come about no matter what we decide, but our decisions and choices
allow us to either become a part of the grand plan or to reject the grand
plan. In other words what we decide will
either keep us in the plan or remove us from it completely.
We have
mentioned earlier that it was God’s original instruction to Lot to leave Sodom
and head straight up the mountain. We
noted that Lot rejected this plan at first.
He asked to sojourn in Zoar, which he was allowed to do. That moment in time, that mountaintop
experience was totally wasted by Lot. The
whole rest of the story could have been different. Lot took a detour in time. It was allowed but not without consequences. Detours from God’s exact plan always have
consequences.
As the
sun was going down that evening they had arrived in Zoar. Lot, minus a wife who could not let go of her
life in Sodom, and his two daughters who
had never married. The scriptures do
indicate that these two virgin daughters HAD BEEN engaged and their future
husbands had chosen to stay in Sodom and not flee with Lot and his family. Once again, choices matter.
The
records and the math from the known scriptures indicate that Lot would have
been about 65 years old at this point and time in his life.
Zoar
was as bad as Sodom. Evil lurked around
every corner. Lot quickly realized he
had once again made a terrible mistake.
He noted his loss of a home and all of his wealth, his loss of two
daughters and two sons-in-law, and the future husbands of his virgin daughters,
his loss of his wife, and now he had to
learn to cope with life in another strange and evil place without the resources
of his money or the ability to lean on the reputation of Abraham. In Sodom those two things had made a huge
difference. Here in Zoar, circumstances
were very different for Lot. For Lot’s
sake Abraham had rescued Sodom once. Abraham’s
name meant nothing to the immoral residents of Zoar. Lot looked around him and soon became very,
very afraid. How long would it be before
God finished His plan to rid the earth of this evil and destroyed Zoar? He decided to keep his daughters out of this
evil city. He sat outside the gates and
wondered what to do next. He had already
refused God’s plan to go to the mountains but he began to re-think that.
While
Lot’s fears rose by the minute, the imagination of Lot’s daughters who were
left also ran wild. They had heard the
stories of the earth being destroyed by a flood long ago when the men of the
earth had turned from God. They had
heard the promise of the rainbow too; the beautiful sign that there would never
be another flood. They had also learned
that the next time God destroyed the earth it would be by fire. Everything that they had ever known had now been
destroyed by fire. They thought it was
the end of the world and they alone had survived. They thought the city of Zoar would also soon be devoured in the same
manner of Sodom. It took only a few
seconds of being there to realize that the cities were alike. Had the angel not made an exception for it
for their sake alone? They reminded
their father of the angel’s instructions.
They wanted to leave quickly and Lot thought about it and agreed.
Finally,
much too late, they obeyed God and fled to the mountain. There Lot found a cave for them to hide in
and they lived a strange life there, surviving off the land and never leaving
their cave unless they had to.
Apparently instead of turning to God, Lot let his fears take over. He allowed this to drive him to drinking on a
regular basis. It appeared that Lot’s
daughters considered the three of them to be the last people left from a burnt
up planet.
They thought they were the
beginning of the rest of the history of mankind after the end of the world. They were like Adam and Eve after they had
been cast out of the garden, but there was no Adam, only Eves and their father.
They
clearly did not want to be the last people on earth. They had never given birth or had children of
their own. They pondered this. Surely Zoar had been destroyed by now. After
they died there would be no more people left.
They devised a plan to get their father so drunk that he did not know
what he was doing and have intercourse with him in order to conceive a
child. The oldest daughter did this
first and the youngest daughter followed suit.
There
was nothing right about the reasoning of Lot’s daughters. They were operating out of human desire once
again, the way of Sodom, instead of waiting on God to show them a plan. Their drunken fearful father was not helpful
in leading them in the right direction.
They went the way of all the people they had seen growing up. They made their own plan. There was no mention of them praying or
consulting God. This was incest, it was
not right. There is no way to know if
they even believed in God or if they simply knew He would not approve of their
plan and they were determined to do it anyway.
They were living the way they had learned to live while growing up in
Sodom. Lot had given them nothing to
hold on to. He had not instilled the ways of God into
their hearts while they were young.
All of
this sounds very odd and you have to read between the lines to come up with
this particular telling of the story that is widely known from the Hebraic
sages. The oddest part is the fact that
Lot was so drunk both times that he had no memories of what happened. Does that make Lot once again innocent by
default? Not of the sin of
drunkenness. The other question is
debatable, but never the less, it happened.
There is a story in the Midrash that suggests why this happened the way
it did.
Most
men would die before they let harm come to their wives or daughters. Lot did just the opposite – he offered his
virgin daughters willingly to the men of Sodom to do with as they pleased in
order to spare the lives of the angels (who could easily defend themselves) from
the men of Sodom. The Midrash (Tanhuma,
Vayera 12) points out God’s displeasure with this. It explains that Lot’s punishment from God
would be according to his own actions.
Instead
of Lot’s daughters becoming the unwilling victims of abuse, he would eventually
fall to this same abuse himself by his daughters. Lot would have to bear the shame that his
daughters were offered. His daughters
taking advantage of his drunkenness was simply a reversal of what he had tried
to do to them. Even the giving of the
name of Moab to the oldest daughter’s son would always bring shame to Lot every
time the name was mentioned.
Whatever
the cause of what happened, we learn that Lot’s oldest daughter gave birth to a
son and named him Moab, which means “came from my father.” The youngest daughter also gave birth and had
a son which she named Benammi.
Moab
became the founder of the Moabite people.
Benammi became the founder of the Ammonite people. Both of these two nations that came from
their descendants became continuous enemies of the nation of Israel that sprang
from the descendants of Abraham. In
spite of all of Abraham’s efforts to keep peace, Lot created a situation that
caused division and adversity.
Yet,
this was a part of the history of The People of God. God takes our mistakes and misdeeds and
weaves and works with them until they become a beautiful part of the tapestry
of Heaven. He uses what we intended for
evil and changes it for good in the end.
That is because we serve an unbelievably merciful and gracious God. He would not have His people living in shame
forever. God is so gracious! He is constantly making all things new.
The
lineage of King David, from whom came the lineage of the family of Christ, The
Messiah, was shameful and full of shadows.
David’s Father descended from Moab yet Moab was the product of incest
between Lot and his eldest daughter. The
lineage also came to David through Ruth a Moabite convert who married Boaz.
When
things look the darkest and the most hopeless, God comes through for His
people. When his servants are humble and
repent and turn from their wicked ways God changes and cleanses and makes whole
again and again.
Lot’s
daughters were neglected and abused. They never had a real chance at life. Their father wasted their youth in an evil
place where they learned evil ways. They
were not taught right from wrong. God is
merciful in that he took the blameless and shameful mess of their lives and
eventually made something wonderful and awesome and perfect come from it.
Many
think this a quite unusual miracle, but those who have eyes to see notice it
happens every day. It happens every time
a hopeless person turns to Christ and submits themselves to the ways of God. Eventually God can take the most vile and
evil parts of us and change them into something pure and good. It is a very common miracle, simply because
the evil of this earth has almost reached the heights of Sodom and the earth is
full of Lot’s daughters. Yet; there are
still 10 good and godly men in some cities and God is busy using them to change
the hearts of their own children as well as the hearts of the children who have
become like Lot’s daughters. Sometimes
this is a process that takes generations, one heart at a time, but the process
must begin today if we are to have hope for a future.
This is
the last time we hear of Lot.
It is
said that people can reach a point where they become completely wicked and
cannot return to being righteous. The
heart becomes hardened and there is a point of no return. The Apostle Peter referred to Lot living in
Sodom and brings up the fact that at one point Lot was a righteous man who
resisted the evil acts of Sodom. One has
to wonder if this righteousness lasted. If
you sit in sin day after day you become conditioned to it. It is possible if you try very hard to resist
and seek God's help that you can walk away. Peter’s statement seems
to indicate that it was possible. He
does not say that Lot never sinned; he only refers to the fact that he resisted
the sins of Sodom for a time. He does
not say how long this went on, and one has to wonder if this last sin of
drunkenness where Lot made yet another huge mistake was the point of no return
for him.
Did Lot
become so filled with shame and regret and bitterness at that time that he
allowed himself to give over to total depravity and wickedness for the rest of
his life? Did he totally quit seeking forgiveness from God and give in completely to a life of sin?
We have
no way to know. The scriptures become
very silent about Lot at this point and we never hear his name again.
