Based on Genesis chapters 13 and 14
Abram to the Rescue
‘Hello, I'm Abram. Last time I told you how me and my wife Sara had left our hometown and come to live in this beautiful land of Canaan. (P) Yes, I'd made some pretty big mistakes along the way. I'd stopped trusting God when there was a famine. I'd thought I could deal with it myself by going down to Egypt. But that wasn’t what God’d wanted, and when I’d started to tell lies about Sara being my sister and not my wife, I’d almost lost her to King Pharaoh. It was only when God stepped in to help that I got Sara back - even then we were still all kicked out of Egypt - and I came back to Canaan like a dog with its tail between its legs!'
‘But I’d learnt from my mistake. I’d apologised to God and, although I didn't deserve it, He’d forgiven me. However, it wasn't long before I had to face another test. And this time I was determined to do the right thing and trust God.’
‘We were back in Canaan with my nephew Lot. The Lord had really looked after us, and He’d given us lots of animals, wealth and servants, but between us we had too many animals for the land to support. And this led to fights between our shepherds. I couldn't let it carry on - so I called Lot over for a chat.’
'Come on Lot,’ I said. ‘We need to talk about this. We can't allow this fighting to continue. - I think I have a solution.
‘We can't share the same land, as there’re too many animals, so my proposal is this. You choose where you’d like to go. If you choose to go to the right, then I'll go left. If you choose left, then I'll go right.'
‘Lot was a smart man, but he hadn't learnt from the mistakes Sara and I’d made. He didn't ask God where He wanted him to go! With his own thinking, and without talking to God, he made a decision that later - he was to bitterly regret. (P) Lot looked around and saw a beautiful river valley with more than enough pasture for all his animals, and decided to go there. - But unfortunately, in that river valley were some cities that were filled with people who were very wicked. Lot saw how evil the people were, and the way they behaved upset him. (P) At first he pitched his tents in the valley a little bit away from the evil cities. But as time went by, his tents moved closer and closer until the day came when Lot and his family actually ended up living in one of those wicked cities.’ (PAUSE)
‘After Lot had gone, God spoke to me again.’
GOD 'Abram, look around at this land. This is the land I'm going to give to you and your descendants forever. You will have so many descendants that, just like the grains of dust that cover the earth, no one will be able to count them. Take a walk through this land and see what I'm giving you.'
‘I did what God said, and moved to another area, but all the time I was thinking about that word - 'descendants'. God was promising us ‘descendants’ and yet here we were in our old age without any children at all! (P) But even so, I knew one thing for sure, if anyone’s able to keep their promises, it’s God. So I carried on trusting Him.’ (PAUSE)
‘However, all was not well with Lot. There were stories of war and rebellion. For 13 years the city where Lot lived had been ruled over by a foreign king, King Kedorlaomer. But the people of that city, along with four other cities, had rebelled against this king. Within a year Kedorlaomer and his allies came to put the rebellion down. The two armies met in the beautiful river valley, while Lot and those not involved in the fighting waited for news.’
‘But the news, when it came, made even the strongest man shake with fear. It’d been a rout! Kedorlaomer was far stronger than the rebellious army. The soldiers from Lot’s town and the other four towns were so badly beaten, they’d turned and run without even looking where they were going. The valley where they were fighting had lots of tar pits in it and, as the frightened soldiers ran for their lives, quite a few of them slipped to their deaths in the tar...
