Abraham and Lot - Glenn Conjurske
Abraham and Lot
by Glenn Conjurske
Abraham was called of God. That call became the foundation of his entire earthly course, and of all his conduct. The effect of that call was to take him out of Ur of the Chaldees, to make him a pilgrim and a stranger on the earth, and to fix his heart and his hopes on the heavenly city, whose builder and maker is God. By this call his faith was fixed. It was not from necessity that he walked as a pilgrim and a stranger on the earth, but from principle. His life was a declaration of his faith. “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise, for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” (Heb. 11:8-10). His tent was a declaration of his faith.
Understand, Abraham was wealthy. There was no necessity for him to live in a tent. He might have built a mansion. It was not necessity, but principle, which determined his course. “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tents.” He would not step down, even in appearance, from his high and holy calling.
And understand further, we have the same heavenly calling which Abraham had. If there is any difference at all, it lies in the fact that the heavenly call is clearly and explicitly expressed to us, whereas Abraham must apprehend it as it were in a glass darkly, by a strong faith and a keen spiritual sight. God had promised Abraham the land, not heaven. But God had also made it clear to Abraham that he was not to have the land yet, for “the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full.” (Gen. 15:16). This the Lord made known to Abraham in the midst of “an horror of great darkness,” (verse 12)—-a fit emblem of the depression which likely settled upon his spirit when he received this word of the Lord. When Abraham forsook his country and his kindred, his hopes were not set upon heaven, but upon “a land that I will show thee.” Now in this horror of darkness he learns that though his tent is pitched in that land, neither he nor his seed will receive any inheritance in it until the iniquity of the Amorites is full—-a matter not of years, but of centuries.
It may be difficult for us to guess with what force such a blow fell upon Abraham’s spirit, for no doubt his heart was set on the land. Yet he did not think of returning to his native place. His faith saw through the gloom, rose as it were above the clouds, and fixed itself upon the city whose builder and maker is God. Not that the land was therefore nothing to him. He died in faith, not having received the promise, but the promise yet stands, and will yet be fulfilled, for the resurrection is before us.
Meanwhile the faith of Abraham set him upon a life of self-denial. It was no convenience to live in a tent. Abraham was a man of like passions with the rest of the human race. His soul no doubt longed for the rest of a home—-for a place of his own—-yet his faith kept him from taking that which was within his easy reach. He could have bought whole cities in the land of promise, but God “gave him none inheritance in it, no not so much as to set his foot on” (Acts 7:5), and he therefore took none.
Lot, meanwhile, had never received any such call of God, nor any such promise of God. Yet he had faith, and was a righteous man, and that faith prompted him to associate himself with Abraham—-to cast in his lot with him to whom the call of God had come. Lot lived in a tent also. Ah! but he was not content there. It may be that he knew too little of direct dealing with God. He followed Abraham. He received the call of God and the promises of God through Abraham. No wrong in that: it was a plain necessity. But it was also a plain necessity that he should walk with God himself. All that he received from God through Abraham must be confirmed in his own soul by his own direct dealing with God. Here, perhaps, he failed. Here he was weak. He lacked, therefore, that strength of faith which dwelt in Abraham, and lacking that strength of faith, he lacked also that steadfastness of purpose.
The “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God,” loomed bright and glorious before the faith of Abraham, but Lot saw it but dimly. His faith, perhaps as bright and strong as Abraham’s when they set out from Ur of the Chaldees, grew dim and cold over the long course of “faith and patience.” His decline was gradual, but steady. It first appears in the strife between the herdmen of Abraham and the herdmen of Lot. Abraham’s faith appears in the proposal which he makes to Lot. Though the land belonged to him by promise, he knew it was not his yet. He knew also, by faith, that the God who had called him would look out for his interests. That faith made him disinterested and magnanimous, as faith always does, and he says to Lot, “If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.” (Gen. 13:9).
It was the remark of John Newton that “God is continually bringing about occasions to demonstrate characters.” So God did on the occasion before us. The strife of the herdmen, which demonstrated the brightness of Abraham’s faith, brought out also the dimness of Lot’s. The promise of God did not fill the vision of Lot, as it did of Abraham. Abraham’s self-denial was therefore irksome to Lot. He followed Abraham—-the most proper thing, indeed, which he could do—-but he had not the faith of Abraham. While Abraham, therefore, denied himself, Lot must look out for himself. “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan.”
The faith of Lot was doubtless dim already, but this was his first downward step. Alas, it was not his last. Spiritual decline is always a gradual thing. The decline began in Lot’s heart, perhaps unperceived by himself, perhaps unperceived by others. Yet this inward decline has its symptoms, and surely may be perceived. Lot no doubt left Ur of the Chaldees full of faith and enthusiasm. The same faith which moved Abraham moved Lot. He did not regard Abraham as a visionary, a fanatic, or a fool, but believed with Abraham, and cast in his lot with him. He likely loved then to speak of the promise of God, the coming inheritance, the happiness of obedience, the joy of the pilgrim pathway, the “light affliction” of the pilgrim’s self-denial. But over the long course all of this was changed. The “light affliction”—-though unchanged—-was heavier now. The “dwelling in tents” was irksome now. He had not counted upon so long a time of “faith and patience.” The tongue which before loved to speak of the happiness of obedience and the promise of God was now occupied with flocks and herds and pasture-grounds. I say, then, if Lot’s decline was not perceived, it at any rate might have been.
Yet the decline was no doubt most gradual, and if anyone had suggested at the beginning of Lot’s decline, the depths at which it would end, he would no doubt have responded with the warmest indignation. Yet when a good man begins a downward course, there is no telling where he might end. The inward decline, which preceded the outward, may have been very gradual, but when once the downward steps began, one followed another rapidly enough. So soon as he was separated from Abraham, “Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.” (Gen. 13:12). Here was an anomaly—-a pilgrim and a stranger, dwelling still in the pilgrim’s tent, but pitching that tent toward Sodom. “But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.” (Verse 13). Lot surely knew this, and indeed vexed his righteous soul with it from day to day. Yet somehow Sodom had some strange fascination even for the righteous man—-even for the pilgrim in the tent—-and he pitched his pilgrim tent toward Sodom. Now the plain fact is, the world has a fascination for all of us. It is designed by its cunning prince to appeal to human nature in a thousand ways. Its snares are powerful—-perhaps irresistible to those whose vision is not filled with the “better thing” of which faith lays hold.
Not that Lot was taken in all of those snares. Certainly not, for he was a righteous man. But he was a weak man—-and who is not weak when his faith is dim and cold? The man whose faith flags will not jump headlong into the world, but he will begin to consider whether he may not get a little nearer to it, without sin. He will consider—-and correctly, no doubt—-that everything in Sodom is not sinful, that there is much in the world which we may use without sin. Technically true, without a doubt, and yet the man whose thoughts run too freely in that direction is certainly on a dangerous decline. While Abraham arose and walked through the land in the length of it and the breadth of it, removed his tent and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, and built there an altar unto the Lord, Lot “pitched his tent toward Sodom.” Such a move could bode no good.
And no good followed, for he who “pitched his tent toward Sodom” soon abandoned his tent altogether, and is found in a house, and in Sodom.
Yet Lot, we know, remained a “righteous man” in Sodom. His family, however, did not fare so well. His wife he lost. Doubtless Lot’s wife must follow Lot. She must dwell in Sodom if Lot did, but her heart need not have dwelt there. Her heart might have remained with Abraham, with the altar of the Lord, in the pilgrim tent, in the plain of Mamre. But it was not so. Her heart was so thoroughly settled in Sodom that she could scarcely bear to leave it, and while Abraham and Isaac looked forward to the city which hath foundations, she must look back to that city over which hung the judgement of God, and perish with that wicked city. Indeed, we cannot avoid a suspicion that it was the pining of Lot’s wife which moved him from the pilgrim tent to the house in the city in the first place, for nothing is more common than this in the church of God.
And Lot lost his children also. To his sons-in-law he “seemed as one that mocked,” when he endeavored to warn them of the impending judgement. His daughters had evidently learned the morals of Sodom, as their shame and his was to manifest by and by.
And to top all, he lost the very thing which had moved him toward Sodom in the first place. He lost his temporal ease and possessions. When he exchanged the pilgrim tent for the house in the city, he little dreamed that he would one day trade the house in the city for the cave on the mountain, but so it proved. Like Naomi, who left the “House of Bread” (Bethlehem) for the land of Moab, he went out full, but he came back empty. For in spite of the charms of Sodom and the snares of the world, there is a God in heaven who will have his own to walk by faith, and to lay hold of that for which the Lord has laid hold of them. If God has said to them, “Get thee out,” he will have them to walk as pilgrims and strangers on the earth. If he plants them in the land, he will not have them to leave it, though pressed by famine. The Lord therefore dealt very bitterly with Naomi, and very bitterly with Lot. None of the trials of the famine were equal to the bereavements of the land of Moab. None of the trials of the pilgrim tent were equal to those of the wrenching of ties in Sodom, the pillar of salt by the way, and the shame of the cave on the mountain.
And here the Scripture draws the curtain over Lot, the last mention of him being this, that “thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.” Not that this was the deed of Lot. It was the daughters’ doing, nor could they have drawn the righteous Lot into it without the aid of wine—-yet what righteous man would wish to have such daughters as these?
Now all of this is of the utmost importance in the present day, for the church of God in this generation is literally filled with Lots—-with righteous men who have forgotten their heavenly calling, exchanged the trials of the pilgrim tent for the ease of the house in the city, whose sons think of nothing higher than the pleasures and goods of the world, and whose daughters have learned the morals of Sodom.
There is, of course, a simple cure for all of this, but it may lie further back than folks suppose. To maintain personal righteousness may not be sufficient. Lot did that much, even in Sodom, but his being in Sodom at all told but too effectually against him. How can he direct his children to the skies, when his own roots are sunk so deep in the earth? His personal righteousness, even if untarnished, did not go far enough. He wanted spiritual purpose. He wanted a heavenly mind. He wanted the pilgrim tent. Not that we ought literally to live in tents. In this day that would be generally impracticable, and often illegal, and we may have reasons to have houses which Abraham never had. Yet the nature of our houses—-and especially the nature of our relationship to them—-ought surely to manifest our pilgrim character. Even under the old economy—-earthly as it was—-a man’s house served as a measure of his devotedness. Solomon was seven years in building the house of the Lord, but thirteen years building his own house. This told too surely of the declension within, which ere the close of his course saw him building a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab. And a prophet of God says elsewhere, “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house [of God] lie waste?”
It is no sin to dwell in a house. The partakers of the heavenly calling in New Testament times dwelled in houses. Though the tent is the emblem of the pilgrim life, it is not necessarily the indispensable condition of it. The tent may be optional, but that we be “pilgrims and strangers on the earth” is not. Is the eye fixed upon the verdant plain of Jordan, or the heavenly city? Here is the difference between Abraham and Lot, and here is the key to the upward course of the one, and the downward course of the other. They were both righteous men, and God would no more allow Lot to perish with Sodom than he would Abraham, but Lot must come out of the enchanting city as one saved by fire. So will many righteous men leave this world.
Glenn Conjurske