11 So Lot CHOSE FOR HIMSELF the whole plain of the Jordan and set out towards the east. The two men parted company: Genesis 13
We saw last week that Abram and Lot parted company, really because of God’s blessings upon them. The land couldn’t sustain their flocks and herds together and their herdsmen quarrelled, so they separated. There’s not a great deal more said about Lot in the Genesis account, but interestingly he is mentioned twice in the New Testament. Firstly by the Lord Himself in the Gospel of Luke and later in the second epistle of Peter.
Lot whose name means ‘veil or hidden’ is a sign, along with Noah, of the difficult times before the Lord returns. The Bible tells us that the condition of society then will be the same as in the days of Noah and Lot. They will not be easy times for believers to live Righteous Lives, because sin will be so prevalent among the people of that time.
26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage (MARRIAGE REMAINS DESPITE THE ATTACK ON IT TODAY) up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. Luke 17
There are four couplets which people will be will be engaged in right up to the time of the Lord’s return;
Eating and Drinking
Marrying and being Given in Marriage
Buying and Selling
Planting and Building
These things will continue in society and people will think they’re safe, but suddenly the Lord will return.
30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.” Luke 17
In the last letters before Revelation, two by Peter and three by John, Lot is spoken of again.
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned … 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) – 9 if this is so, THEN THE LORD KNOWS HOW TO RESCUE THE GODLY FROM TRIALS and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. 2 Peter 2
Despite the difficulty of those days Peter reassures us that the Lord is able to rescue His people from all that’s going on and Lot is the example chosen to remind us of that. Lot kept his righteous standing before God in very trying circumstances and his faithful stand was honoured twice in New Testament writings.
God bless and keep you today. Immanuel, God is with us.