Lesson 33
TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THE WEBSITE BIBLE STUDIES!
(www.growingtogetherinchristslove.org)
Bible Study 1 - Genesis 12
Series # 4: FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF FAITH
Lesson 33: Genesis 13:5-18 THE DECISIONS OF A CARNAL MAN
Genesis 13:5-13 (KJV) "And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. 6 And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. 7 And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land. 8 And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. 9 Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: 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. 10 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. 11 Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. 12 Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. 13 But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly. 14 And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: 15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. 16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. 17 Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee. 18 Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD. "
INTRODUCTION:
There needs to be the understanding that this Bible Study is a little more intense and personal than most because it speaks to a wide variety of people all around the world where this website is studied. Not everyone who reads this true story are Americans, nor are they from what is considered from the “Bible Belt” of the Southern United States. Also, not everyone who reads and studies this Scripture is familiar with the story and events like some are who have been studying the Bible for a long time. Therefore, my approach is to try to be as clear as possible to all religions, teachings, and beliefs worldwide. The study of Abraham is so very important for so many reasons and I want to be sure to make it as understandable, historically accurate, and practical as possible so that the application will be used by the Holy Spirit to all who study it.
There was no city on the face of the earth as wicked as Sodom. However, the Bible says "Lot ... pitched his tent toward Sodom." I want us to think about THE DECISIONS OF A CARNAL MAN. (Carnal means - relating to or given to crude bodily pleasures and appetites or worldly – having an obsession toward worldly possessions.) Our life is but the sum total of the decisions that we make. In the story about Lot we are going to find the tragic story of a man who made some terrible decisions. We are going to see how the decisions he made affected his life, and also how it affected the life of those that he loved.
In this story we have a contrast between Abraham and Lot. For the purposes of our study, I want us to portray Abraham as the Spiritual Christian (One who desires that which is Godly), and I want us to portray Lot as the Carnal Christian (One who desires that which is worldly.) As I read this episode in Genesis 13 I notice three important things about the decisions of this Carnal Christian man named Lot to which we need to pay close attention. There is his CHOICE, his CHARACTER, and his CALAMITY. Now we must remember that Lot was a child of God because the Bible tells us in 2 Peter 2:7-9 that he was a righteous man. God “… delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:” I want to make sure you very aware that Lot was a Godly man at the very beginning, because after you refresh your memory of this story we are about to revisit, some of you will begin to wonder if this man could have truly been righteous at all, considering what he got himself into.
INTERPRETATION:
IT ALL BEGINS WITH CHOICE.
Let me review the background a little bit. Abraham and Lot are now a cattlemen because they now have flocks and herds, cattle and sheep, whereas God’s original plan was for Abraham to only have flocks and sheep so that there would never be this kind of problem. There's not enough grazing land while the sheep ravage the grazing area to the ground with their teeth leaving very little grass to feed all these cattle so there begins to be a range war. Abraham's cowboys and Lot's cowboys begin to get at one another's throats. Abraham comes to his nephew Lot and says, "Now Lot, we are brothers because we both love and serve the same God. Lot the Canaanite's and the Perizzite's are dwelling in the land and it will never do for them to see us arguing. So Lot, you just choose which way you want to go and I'll go in a different direction." The Bible says that "Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere" and Lot made a decision based upon materialism. The Bible says, "Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom."
I SEE A SELFISH CHOICE.
Genesis 13:11 "Then Lot chose him..." That is, Lot chose this land for himself, not thinking about God, not thinking about uncle Abraham, and not really even thinking about his own family. He was more interested in his gold than he was his God. He was more interested in his cattle than he was his children. He was more interested in his fortune than he was his family. Therefore, Lot just simply chose for himself. So in verse 12 the Bible says "he pitched his tent toward Sodom." Sodom was a terrible place to raise the family, but that was not his main concern. It didn't matter to Lot that Sodom was exceedingly wicked, he just saw that green grass of the Jordan. One of the marks of carnality is "Me First" - taking Christ Jesus off the throne and putting self on the throne.
IT WAS A SMALL CHOICE.
However, it appears that to Lot this decision didn't seem to be that bad at all, as a matter of fact it looked pretty good to him. The Bible says in Genesis 13:10 "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 the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt." You know "Egypt" in the Bible is a type of sin, and represents sin. Now Lot had his appetite built up for Egypt when he went with Uncle Abram down into the land of Egypt. Now he said, "Boy, this is perfect. Here is a little bit of Eden and a little bit of Egypt." That is what a Carnal man tries to do, the Carnal man tries to live in both worlds. Lot said, "I can go down there because it's a little bit like the Garden of Eden and it's a little bit like Egypt. After all, I'm not going all the way down into Sodom. I can have my little bit of heaven right here and I can have my little bit of the world right here at the same time. I'm going to take hold of God with one hand and I'm going to take hold of the world with the other hand." His choice seemed like a very small thing, it didn't seem like a bad thing, after all, he wasn't moving all the way into Sodom, he was just moving to the suburbs of Sodom. Lot just pitched his tents toward Sodom.
This is just my mind working and my imagination going. You may have a totally different idea about the matter. It is very possible that Mr. Lot and Mrs. Lot had a little conversation about the move toward Sodom and Mrs. Lot might have asked her husband, "Honey, do you really think this is the move we ought to make?" Mr. Lot might say, "Well, we could send the kids to Sodom High, I hear it's a very good High School." Mr. Lot might say, "I know we would never become a part of that city, but I understand they really do have some very fine entertainment in Sodom. We could be down town Sodom in less than a half an hour. We don't have to move into Sodom. It's really just a small thing that we are doing. We're just moving to the borderlines of Sodom. We'll have our Eden and we'll have our Egypt all at the same time." To Lot it seemed like just a small choice to move toward Sodom.
IT WAS A SHORT-SIGHTED CHOICE.
Before long, we are going to find that Lot has not just moved toward Sodom, but Lot has moved all the way into Sodom, and Lot is living in Sodom. In Genesis 19:1 we find that Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. That means that Lot became a public official of some kind in Sodom. At first, Lot had just pitched his tent toward Sodom, but now he is now a vital part of the life of Sodom and one of the officials.
Folks, that's the way sin works in the life, it starts out so small an innocent but it ends up very big and dangerous. Proverbs 20:17 says, "Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel." Lot thought that he could live on the suburbs of sin and get along just find and get by with it. We all need to understand that we can never ever judge a situation by where it is. We must always judge a situation by where it is heading. Here was a man who saw something that seemed so small, but it wasn't small at all. Growth, experience, and obedience as we walk with the Lord teaches us that the time to deal effectively with sin is when it first rears its ugly head. At the point before Lot ever pitched his tent toward Sodom, Lot should have said without hesitation, "NO!" Someone unknown poet once wrote "Who is it that knocks so loud? A lonely little sin. Slip through I answered, and soon all hell was in."
Why do you suppose all of this entire event took place in the life of this righteous family of God?
EXPLANATION:
I SEE A SECRET CHARACTER..
All the choices that Lot made just revealed his inner hidden character. When God wants to know what is in your character do you know what He does, He just gives you a test. Have you ever gone out after a storm and seen a tree that has been blown over on the ground that looks so strong? As you got up closer and looked at that tree you probably found out that that tree was rotten in the heart and it fell when the hard storm came. Before the storm came you couldn't see the rottenness that was on the outside of that tree, but if it was possible for you to have some kind of X-ray vision you could have known that the heart of that seemingly strong tree was rotten. The storm did not cause that rottenness, all the storm did was to reveal that rottenness that was already there. When God wants to reveal our character, God will send a test into our life which will lead us to make a choice that could change our world and the world around us. That choice that we make will be God's way of revealing to us and the world our character. God doesn't do all of this in one great big test. The way God examines us is in a series of small choices. Our lives are being examined right now, and today we are going to make some choices and those choices may seem so very small, but the choices we make will determine our character and destiny as a Christian for the rest of our journey in this life. Our choices can be that of Godly obedience, being sold out to God regardless of what the world, the flesh and the devil tempts us to do and they can reveal a Godly character or we can let the weakness of the flesh lead us and reveal a secret selfish, self-centered, character that will be more costly than we can even calculate. The decisions that Lot made very graphically revealed the weakness of his character. Unfortunately Lot decided to go with the former rather than with the latter and the results were devastating.
APPLICATION:
I SEE A SAD CALAMITY.
I want you to recall the calamity that came as a result of Lot's choice. At first there didn't seem to be any calamity at all. If we could have come up to Lot at the first and looked at him we would have said, "Boy, you are really a successful man. Here you are an official in Sodom. You seem to be living in a very beautiful home. You have a lovely wife. Your daughters have married some of the leading citizens of Sodom. My what a success you are Mr. Lot. My you look so prosperous!" However, in the eyes of God, he is an utter and enormous failure. In Genesis 19 there is a story that shows how Lot failed God. God is so fed up with Sodom and Gomorrah that God sent two angels to warn Lot to flee from that city. When those two angels came to warn Lot they materialized as men. When the sex perverts in Sodom saw those two men they wanted to mix their filthy abominations upon these two visitors from heaven. There they were and Lot brought them into the house, and those evil citizens of Sodom are banging on the door with their unsatisfied lust saying, "Let us in!" Now here was Lot on the inside with these two visitors from heaven and his 2 unmarried daughters and listen to this failure of Lot because of his initial poor choice. Genesis 19:7 “Lot said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.” [There Lot was calling these filthy Sodomites his brothers.] Gen 19:8 “Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man;” [That is, I have two virgin daughters] “let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes:” [That is, Lot was going to sacrifice his two daughters upon the altar of their lust.] “only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.” Gen 19:9 “And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door." Now, I'm not going into any more of this sordid story right now, but what a tragedy. I TOLD YOU WHEN I BEGAN THIS BIBLE STUDY THAT IT WOULD BE HARD FOR YOU TO BELIEVE THAT THIS MAN LOT WAS A MAN WHO KNEW GOD!
But here is what had happened - Lot had become so much a part of Sodom, Lot had sunk so low, Lot had made some decisions so wrongly, that he now lost his ability to make any decisions rightly. Lot's mind had become warped and twisted by sin. Here was a man willing to sacrifice his own daughters to the perversion of the Sodomites. How in the world could something like this have happened?
Friends, it does not matter if you are a Christian, sin will twist your mind. There are 3 people in the seat we are sitting in right now: (1) There is the person we are right at this moment. (2) There is the person we could be for God. (3) There is the person we could be for evil. I'm not sure that there is a one of us here who really realizes the inclination potential there is for evil that is in our human heart when we get outside of the will of God in disobedience. You may say, "I've been a Christian for a long, long time and I have matured in my Christian faith and I have grown past that." You had better be careful! Those who think they stand may be the first to fall! If you are proud of your standing before God and the world remember that “Pride cometh before the fall!” Well friends the Bible says, "that which is flesh is flesh." When we are saved we become a new creation in Christ, but we all still have that flesh with us. I want to warn you, that if you take your eyes off of the Lord, if you start making the wrong decisions in a small way, the things you may end up doing will amaze and shock you and devastate many around you.
In the Old Testament there is a man named Doeg, who was an Edomite, the chief herdsman to Saul, King of Israel. He is mentioned in 1st and 2nd Samuel where he is described as being responsible for the deaths of a large number of priests. It was prophesied of him that he would commit certain evils like ripping up pregnant women and so forth. Once Doeg said, "Am I a dog that I would do such a thing?" and then he did it. Doeg had no idea of that evil, vile, inclination in his flesh. If we take your eyes off of Jesus Christ there is probably no limit to the vileness to which you can sink. David was a man after God's own heart and look at the vileness that got into David's heart. That's the reason the Bible says, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." I'm amazed that over in the New Testament, the Bible calls this man Lot a man who had been justified and a righteous man. What a horrible story it is that he had lost the ability to see right from wrong.
I once read somewhere that a leader of a correctional institute for boys said: "One of the great problems that we have in this school is that the boys that come to this school have absolutely no concept of right or wrong."
CONCLUSION:
We watch the news on television daily and read the papers in frustration. We watch our government and its seeming inability to govern our country correctly. No one seems to trust anyone any more. We see unrest, protests, hate, threats, and violence from all sides in all ethnic groups here in America. The Land of the Brave and Land of Peace is now threatened like never before in its history and people everywhere are on edge and many are afraid. We are watching our once rich Nation drowning in unsustainable debt. People everywhere are expecting everything to be given to them rather than work for it. The family unit is fading fast. There are some who are doing all they can to completely take God out of the equation of daily life in any and every form. There is friend against friend and family member against family member concerning everything under the sun. People are anxious to bite the hand that feeds them. Some of the greatest minds that have ever walked among men in our lifetime are trying to calculate solutions to our problems. The America we thought we once knew seems to be fading fast. We scratch our heads and wonder what is going on and what is happening? It is no surprise when we think about those who have never known the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and the Son of God. However, it is absolutely puzzling when we look at those who at one time professed Jesus as Savior and Lord. Folks we have a lot of people in our generation right here in this County and every County who have absolutely no concept of right or wrong! Something has happened that has destroyed that distinction between right and wrong! Some think all that is going on in the Middle East began during the time of some certain Governmental Administration and they are to blame for all the unrest and the threats we face from overseas. But if you read your Bible and study it closely you will learn that it really began back in the days of Abraham and will continue until Jesus returns to set up a new Heaven and a new Earth and the old is passed away. There will be NO PEACE until the PRINCE OF PEACE comes again!
THE BIBLE STUDY IN A SENTENCE:
But for now in our lives the conclusion is not a simple one but it is a very serious one.
The problems that we face in this life personally and collectively can usually be traced back to some Carnal Decisions that have been made where some selfish, small, short-sighted choices coming from the hidden secret characters that were rotten on the inside of the heart when everything looked great on the outside exposed a life that could not stand the test of time when the storms came and the results ended up in a tragic calamity that devastated the lives of many because one’s eyes were taken off of Jesus and the life had been lived in disobedience to God’s will.
Folks, the Bible tells us that "If we judge ourselves we shall not be judged" and that is a privilege that God has given us and that's what we all need to do. Many have professed to be a Christian who have never possessed The Lord Jesus Christ as their Personal Savior. Being in a Christian family or Christian Country does not make me a Christian any more than being in a Garage makes me an automobile. Being a Christian is much more than affiliation with a certain group of people, having certain political views, being a part of a certain religious formality.
Jesus Himself said as recorded in Matthew 7:7-23, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not ever one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
DO YOU NEED SOME HELP?
To find more help in receiving Jesus Christ as your personal Savior please go to the Bible Study Title Page “ETERNAL LIFE.” Please send me an email and let me know about any decision for Christ you make so that I may pray for you. Feel free to send me any questions, comments, or responses you may have as well. For those who are already Christians I invite you to also please let me know of any decisions you make in your Christian life for Jesus. Please send me your questions, comments, or responses and let me know if the Bible Studies are helping you.
<rfdenning1951@gmail.com>
ALWAYS REMEMBER!
The support of your local Church ministry and the ministry of your Pastor should be the first priority of your Christian life and your service to the Lord. Be faithful to prayerfully prepare and attend Sunday School and Worship Service this Sunday and participate in worship as your Pastor preaches the Word. Do not forget to give the Lord at least your TITHE through your local church from your gross income – that is your first fruits. Any other other giving is an offering to a ministry unto the Lord. Honor the Lord in all you do and with all that you have. Always remember that everything you have and all you are belongs to the Lord. It is on loan to you – so manage it well! There will be an audit one day! Make sure the Books Balance!
All Bible Studies Are Prepared by Pastor Frank Denning And May Be Be Used By Permission.