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A Man From Whom We Can Learn a Lot
May I share with you an observation?
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, the observation is this: The precision of Bible is nothing short of awe-inspiring.
A precision that goes down to the level of its individual words and phrases.
Case in point—The. Precise. Phrase that Peter used here in 1 Peter 2:11 to describe us as committed followers of Jesus. Peter wrote, “You are foreigners and strangers on this earth.”
As you will hear, a most remarkable statement, the depths of which we will only begin to plumb in this message.
Let’s begin by reading this passage with a little bit more context:
Dear friends, you are foreigners and strangers on this earth. So I beg you not to surrender to those desires that fight against you. 12 Always let others see you behaving properly, even though they may still accuse you of doing wrong. Then on the day of judgment, they will honor God by telling the good things they saw you do. (1 Peter 2:11-12)
Now, to bring even more context to this passage, I want to draw your attention to the second shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus’ own words in Luke 17:32,
“Remember Lot’s wife.”
Talk about an ominous, cryptic warning.
You see, Lot and his wife did not see themselves as foreigners nor strangers on this earth, but citizens in a sin-filled community, despite the fact that he was a sincere believer in the one true God. In an ideal situation, he would have changed his city for God’s glory, but instead, the city changed him.
Lot was Abraham’s nephew. They went into “the new land” together, but while Abraham remained a foreigner and a stranger, Lot made himself at home and assimilated into the region’s corrupt culture. He was conflicted… tormented even, by the collision of his worldview and that of his neighbors. Yet, in time, he conceded. He ended up loving this world and the things that it offered. If only he had John’s word written down and taped to his refrigerator:
15 Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. 16 For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. 17 And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever. (1 John 2:15-17)
Regrettably, the only way to gain a real understanding is to go through Lot’s story. We will pick it up in Genesis 13, where we learn that while Abram (Abraham) and Lot’s people, herds and families were traveling together according to God’s instructions, they got to the point where there was simply too many bodies and too little land.
But the land could not support both Abram and Lot with all their flocks and herds living so close together. 7 So disputes broke out between the herdsmen of Abram and Lot. (At that time Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land.)
8 Finally Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not allow this conflict to come between us or our herdsmen. After all, we are close relatives! 9 The whole countryside is open to you. Take your choice of any section of the land you want, and we will separate. If you want the land to the left, then I’ll take the land on the right. If you prefer the land on the right, then I’ll go to the left.”
10 Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram. 12 So Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain. 13 But the people of this area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord. (Genesis 13:6-13)
Lot knew that the people of this area were in active, continual, extreme rebellion against God, but he settled there anyway because he saw an “easy life”, living amongst the green, fertile soils of the region.
Now, fast forward 20 years into Lot and Abraham’s lives. After two decades, the conflict that Lot once felt between his own moral compass and that of his neighbors had eroded away.
Sadly, there is not enough time to trace through the story to its end, where we learn the role that Lot’s wife plays and why we are instructed to never forget her.
But, so as not to leave you on too much of a cliffhanger, as we push pause on this story until next week, here’s a peed at the very end of the story, in case you worry that Lot’s fate was sealed by his bad decisions:
6 Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. 7 But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. 8 Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. 9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. (2 Peter 2:6-9)
(This podcast is by Dewey Bertolini. discovered by Christian Podcast Central and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.)
