Remember Righteous Lot! In case you didn’t know it, Jesus Christ is coming back very soon, and the question of the hour is, “Are you ready?” In anticipation of the poor spiritual climate that would mark the days near the time of His return, the Lord, in the midst of describing those days, said: “Remember Lot’s wife.” Here is that injunction in context with the Lord’s words concerning what I believe is our day: “In the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out; and likewise the one who is in the field must not turn back. REMEMBER LOT’S WIFE. WHOEVER SEEKS TO KEEP HIS LIFE WILL LOSE IT, AND WHOEVER LOSES HIS LIFE WILL PRESERVE IT [emphasis added]” (Luke 17:28-33 NASB). The irony of the last words in the above scriptural excerpt lay in the way and reason Lot’s wife lost her life, and why we would do well to indeed remember her. She was instructed not to look back to that which was being leveled to the ground in judgment; she did so, and consequently became a pillar of salt, someone preserved for all time in a decayed posture, solidified forever in a wanton inclination of heart state of heart. And dear God, PLEASE remember Lot’s wife! But also, PRETTY PLEASE remember righteous Lot!! For what his wife represented (those whose characters are forever crystalized in a less than ideal [by God’s design] way) Lot represents someone married to it, too close to it. Though the scriptures, in the end, speak favorably about Lot, at least characterizing him as righteous, he unnecessarily stayed too close to sin. And although God rescued him from forever being made a pillar of salt like his wife, he and his daughters produced some Ishmael-like antagonism which nearly ruined their seed forever. Though it is not sin to be tempted by sin, per se, it is living too close to those things which produce temptation to sin that is the problem. But “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death” (James 1:13-15 NASB). “If He [God] condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if HE RESCUED RIGHTEOUS LOT, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation” (2 Peter 2:4-10 NASB). Though God declares for all time that Lot is righteous, he undoubtedly also calls Lot’s uncle Abraham righteous. Both are saved; both are God’s people. But there is a distinct difference between the two. Whereas Lot was often carnal, choosing that which appealed most to his natural eye whenever occasion permitted, Abraham was often spiritual, choosing a city not made with human hands. Though both suffered the trials and tribulations inherent within the reality of all those who choose the way of righteousness, Lot suffered immeasurably more that Abraham, because he travelled the narrow way along the rough edges of its outer extent, whereas Abraham travelled it mostly right down the center. God is often likened to a storm in scripture, and like a whirlwind more specifically. Imagine God as a tornado, but a wide enough one to allow for a hurricane-like eye of the storm place in the center of that tornado. That utterly still and peaceful place dead in the center of its raging is where Abraham mostly lived; Lot lived mostly at the fringe of the center and was therefore often clipped by the swirling wind tunnel. Sure, Abraham made an Ishmael, but Lot made two inbred problems. Why suffer more than you need to? Remember righteous Lot!
Posted on: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 10:58:24 +0000
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