Transcription, summary, and outline generated by AI—comment if there are errors.
Sermon Summary: Lot's Losses (Genesis 19)
This sermon examines Genesis 19, focusing on Lot and his series of losses that resulted from aligning himself with the wickedness of Sodom rather than remaining faithful to God. Despite being described as a "righteous man" in the New Testament, Lot's choices led to devastating consequences.
Outline of the Sermon
Introduction to Lot and Context
* Lot was Abraham's nephew, son of Haran, who traveled with Abraham to Canaan
* Initially blessed through his association with Abraham, becoming prosperous
* In Genesis 13, Lot chose the well-watered Jordan Valley, overlooking the wickedness of Sodom
The Five Losses of Lot
1. Loss of Distinction from the World (verses 1-3)
* Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom, indicating his high position in the city
* Unlike Daniel who maintained his distinctiveness while in power, Lot had assimilated
* He had compromised his principles to gain acceptance and power
2. Loss of Moral Compass (verses 4-11)
* When the men of Sodom demanded the visitors, Lot recognized it as wrong but offered his virgin daughters instead
* Lot completely failed as a father in his willingness to sacrifice his daughters
* His only objection was based on hospitality, not the deeper moral issues at stake
3. Loss of Credibility (verses 12-14)
* When Lot warned his sons-in-law about God's imminent judgment, they thought he was joking
* His lifestyle had so undermined his testimony that even family members didn't take his warnings seriously
4. Loss of Urgency (verses 15-22)
* Despite angels urging him to flee, Lot lingered in the city
* He negotiated to stay closer to civilization rather than fleeing to the hills
* He failed to grasp the seriousness of God's judgment and the urgency of obedience
5. Loss of His Wife (verses 23-26)
* Lot's wife looked back longingly at Sodom and became a pillar of salt
* Her heart was still connected to the wickedness they were leaving behind
Abraham's Perspective and Application
* Abraham interceded for Lot in prayer, and God remembered Abraham's prayers
* Christians should:
* Pray fervently for those making destructive choices
* Recognize when prayer alone is not enough (1 John 5:16-17)
* Be willing to speak difficult truths as faithful friends (Proverbs 27:6)
* Pursue those who are straying, as Jesus described the shepherd leaving the 99 to find the one
Conclusion
* We must have wisdom to know when to be silent and when to speak
* We should always be diligent in prayer for those headed toward destruction
* God uses His people to pursue and rescue those who are straying
The sermon emphasizes the consequences of spiritual compromise and the responsibility Christians have toward those making destructive choices.
Transcript
I've removed the timestamps from the transcript and formatted it into paragraphs while preserving the original wording:
We're going to be in Genesis chapter 19. This is one of the more infamous passages in all of the Bible.
And the central character we've been looking at, the central character in this broader section of Genesis is Abraham. But here in Genesis 19, the focus shifts to his nephew Lot.
And who is Lot? Before we get to Genesis 19, we don't have a ton of information about Lot. Initially, he comes to us. The first place we read of him is in chapter 11, verses 27 and 28, where he is said to be the son of Haran, the grandson of Terah, which makes him Abraham's nephew. And one of the first things we learn about his father, Haran, is that Haran died while Lot and Abram still lived with Terah in Ur of the Chaldeans. So Lot is this orphaned son of who ends up moving with his grandfather and his uncle when they start traveling towards Canaan, but then end up stopping in the land of Haran that he dwells there with him.
But then in chapter 12, when God calls Abram to leave his father and to leave his home and to head towards the land of promise, the land of Canaan, Lot travels with him. And so there seems to be this attachment that Lot has to Abram or who becomes Abraham and Even there seems to be a faith that Lot has in the God of Abraham.
Later on in the New Testament, Lot is going to be referred to as a righteous man. And as we look at this text this morning, that's going to be hard for us to believe. But we need to keep that perspective in mind. He does have faith in the Lord. And that faith is counted to him as righteousness because his actions sure are not.
Lot was blessed by his attachment to Abraham in chapter 13. He has become so prosperous along with Abraham that there are conflicts arising between the workers that are employed, taking care of their flocks, their herders. And so Abraham comes to Lot with his plan to say, hey, let's split up. Let's go in different directions. There's no reason for us to be in conflict with one another when the Lord is pouring out his blessings upon us. So let's go our separate ways. You can choose where you want to go, and I'll go the other direction.
And here is where we get our first hint that things might be going wrong with Lot. Because Lot lifts up his eyes and he sees the Jordan Valley. And it says he sees that it is well watered like the garden of God, like Eden itself. And so God... lot rather he looks at this valley and he sees that this is a place where i can grow this is a place where i can increase my glory on this earth and and it's not wrong again like we said when we we looked at genesis chapter 13 it's not wrong for a lot to see the material abundance there and to go that's a good place that the place has opportunity the problem is not what he saw it's what he overlooked
And what he overlooked, there it says in chapter 13, was the character of those cities. Verse 13 of chapter 13 says, Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord. And we get a foreshadowing there back in chapter 13 of the kind of thing we're going to see here in chapter 19.
Chapter 14, he's captured along with the men of Sodom and Gomorrah when the kings of Mesopotamia come down and conquer them. He's carried captive, and Abraham has to go rescue him. And then, here in chapter 18, as we looked at the last two weeks, God comes to Abraham and reveals to him his plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham pleads for the city, and yet it seems that Abraham Abraham's pleas, they don't fall on deaf ears. God agrees to everything Abraham asks. However, Abraham had overestimated Lot's influence on the city because there were not even 10 righteous people here that God might spare it.
Again, Lot is described in the New Testament as a righteous man. But what we're going to see in chapter 19 of Genesis is that he chose to align himself with wicked Sodom. And as a result, he loses everything.
The title I have there in the bulletin is The Five Losses of Lot. For my own outline, I shorten that to Lot's Losses. And it really is all-encompassing. He loses everything he has because he chooses not to align with the Lord, but to align with the wickedness of Sodom.
He begins, first of all, by losing his distinction from the world around him. We see that in verses 1 through 3. The two angels came to Sodom in the evening. And Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he arose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way. And they said, No, we will spend the night in the town square. But he pressed them strongly, so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
So the angels arrive here in the city of Sodom, and we know from chapter 18 that they are coming, as it says, for God to see with his own eyes the city and to decide whether he's going to destroy it or not, whether the outcry against it is really as bad. Like if things really are as bad as everyone around says Sodom is in their prayers to the Lord.
And the angels arrive, and initially, Lot's actions compare favorably with Abraham in the previous chapter. The beginning of chapter 18, when the three strangers arrive at Abraham's doorstep, what's he do? He kills the fatted calf. He has Sarah bake bread with water. whatever we decided was like 25 pounds of flour like massive quantities of bread he brings out milk and curds to them he he spreads a feast before them and here lot begs the men the messengers the angels come into my home do not stay out here in the town square come into my home he prepares a meal for them and so at first it seems like he is he's acting hospitable in the same way that abraham was but we should notice
Where did the angels find Lot? There in verse 1, Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. And there's been this transition throughout Lot's life where he was living with his uncle Abram, then Abraham, who was out in the fields, who never built a home in the land of Canaan. And then he goes down into the valley. And then when he's captured and taken away with the men of Sodom, he apparently comes back and sets up shop in town. And the gate, the city gate, was the place where the rulers of the city sat. He was apparently one of the most respected men in the town.
And that, again, is not in and of itself wrong or bad, right? We can think of great biblical characters who had deep convictions. who rose to high places in wicked governments. Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they're brought into the land of Babylon, one of the most notoriously wicked governments that the world has ever had, and yet they rise to places of power.
But if you read that story, if you read the book of Daniel, and you see how that happens, it happens in through them making decisions and taking stands that put them in conflict with the wickedness around them.
So at the very beginning in chapter one of Daniel, they refuse to take the meals, the food that's been offered to idols. And the Lord blesses them in spite of a water and vegetables diet. The Lord enables them to thrive on that as they stood apart.
And then you remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refusing to bow before the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar made to himself out of gold. And he is so furious that he has them thrown into a fiery furnace and God preserves them.
So they rise to high levels of power. Daniel serves in multiple administrations in Babylon and then in Persia. But he does so in spite of the fact, and we might say because of the fact, That he's willing to stand on the word of God regardless of the consequences.
He ends up being thrown into a lion's den. And God preserves him and brings him out. And he remains a friend of the king. A wicked king. But God uses him in those high places as he stands on God's principles.
Here Lot has risen to the highest places in Sodom. But he apparently has not stood there. on principle he has assimilated into the city and this is a temptation for people today it's it's easy if you are grasping for power to start to say yeah but i can let that principle go aside or i'll let it sit for a while and then i'll get serious about it when i actually have the power to change something or to affect things if you're worried about the power itself and the prosperity itself
that god will end up ruling you whereas if you are faithful to god and being diligent in what he has called you to do he may well lift you up to a high place proverbs 22 verse 29 says do you may see a man who excels in his work he will stand before kings he will not stand before unknown men so the cream does rise there's nothing wrong with that
but if you are grasping for that position it puts you in a dangerous place lot has lost his distinction from the city he brings the men into his home but what we see in verses 4 through 11 is that he also has lost his moral compass but before they lay down the men of the city the men of sodom both young and old all the people to the last man surrounded the house
And they called to Lot, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him and said, I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.
But they said, stand back. And they said, This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them. Then they pressed hard against the man Lot and drew near to break the door down. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out, groping for the door.
This is... one of the most infamous scenes in all of the Bibles, one of the two classic Sodom and Gomorrah scenes, along with the destruction that's going to come later, where these men, the men of the city, down to the last man, it says in verse 4, come to Lot's house and say, let us in. We want to know the men who came here, and they don't want to sit down and have a tea party with them, right?
There's at least three levels where the... The wickedness of Sodom is on full display. And the first is probably what's most obvious to a modern reader is the violence of the act. You have a mob here who is coming to violently violate the men who have entered into Lot's house.
And that wickedness is clearly worthy of the destruction that's going to be coming. Even in our modern world, as sexually turned upside down as we are we would recognize that if you get a gang of people together to take advantage of two helpless victims like that's a problem that's not okay we can see that even in our world today the second level is what's classically been seen here i mean there there's a term for it based on the city of sodom's name sodomy and while many many
Many people want to say that's not a problem anymore, that even God has changed his mind. One prominent biblical scholar, even in the last year, has changed his mind from the book he wrote in the 90s where he said, well, God said it was wrong.
The clear... theme of scripture all the way throughout is that sexual activity is only legitimate in the complimentary way that he designed it between a man and a woman within the confines of monogamous marriage. That's the only place that it's legitimate.
And the problem with what these men are about to pursue is not simply that there's no marriage involved. And we fixed that with a burger file, right? Well, you can have marriage here, but marriage is in God's definition, necessarily male and female.
It's complementary in the way that he designed it. We talked about that in our marriage series back in September. There is an ordering of human sexuality towards the production of children. Not that that's what every act must move towards, but there is an ordering, a shaping of the structure of human sexuality that this deviates from.
And so over and over again, in both the Old Testament and the New, God calls this an abomination. It's something that is offensive to him.
So there's that second level. And then there's the third level here, which would have been immediately obvious in a Near Eastern context. And it's apparently the only level that registers with Lot as a problem. It's not very hospitable to treat guests this way.
And so Lot, he's so assimilated into the culture that he says his argument against this action is, brothers, you can't treat the guests this way. Here are my two virgin daughters. And you can see like, okay, yes, Lot, you should want to protect your guests.
That is absolutely correct. You have a responsibility that comes before that to take care of the vulnerable in your own home. Those who are born under your house, not just those who have come to take shelter in your house.
Lot here is in some sense recapitulating, but even worse, the sin of his father, Adam, in Genesis 3, who did not take initiative to protect his wife against the attack of the serpent.
Here, these servants of the serpent are coming to his door, and instead of protecting his daughters, he is offering to throw them out to the wolves. Worse than wolves. Wolves would only eat them, right?
This reads as repugnant to us, and it should. Lot is colossally failing here as a father to protect those in his charge.
Thankfully, God is more concerned about the safety of his daughters than he is, because as the men say, well, how dare you judge us? You're not the boss of us. You don't say what's right and wrong. And they press against him to break down his door. The angels reach out, grab him, shut the door behind him and strike them in with blindness.
But here's how wicked the city is. Verse 11. After they've been struck with blindness at the entrance of his house, the men, both small and great, are groping. They wore themselves out groping for the door. They're still trying to get in. They're still trying to carry out their wickedness, even though the angels have just struck them blind.
Lot lost his moral compass by dwelling in this city. And again, God calls all of us to live in the world, right? In a world that's full of sin. And yet, how does he call believers to live here? He does not call us to live like the world. He calls us to live different than the world and to live in some sense.
I mean, there are people who are called specifically to be missionaries, right? But there is a sense in which anyone who is following Christ is going to be living in opposition to the principles and the systems of the world. That's why Paul tells Timothy that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted because if you line up as best as you can with God, you are going to at times be in opposition to the principles of the world.
Lot had lost that. And in losing that, he also lost his credibility in speaking of eternal things. We see that in verses 12 through 14. The men said to Lot, men here referring to the angels, have you anyone else here, sons-in-law, sons, daughters, anyone in the city, bring them out of the place. For we are about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.
So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, up, get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city. But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting, to be joking.
Funny ha-ha, Pops. God's going to destroy this place? It seems pretty likely, given that verse 4 said, down to the very last man, they were lined up at the door, that these men who were to marry his daughters, he's having to go back out into the crowd, like sneak out the back door to find them out of the crowd and say, hey guys, I know you were just trying to beat down my door to take advantage of these men, but they're going to destroy the city, and so you should probably come with us as we leave. And they think it's just a joke.
When you speak of eternal things, Are you living a life that says to people, that's serious, he's not joking around, or is this, that's just his weird quirk. He talks about stuff like that sometimes, but it doesn't really seem like it matters that much to him, so it's kind of funny.
I think about a lot of my spiritual conversations with people in my high school years and somewhat even into my early 20s, and they go like, I think they just kind of took it as a joke because I was, for the most part, living just like them. and so okay he goes to church his parents went to church yeah he's going to talk about weird stuff like that sometimes but it doesn't really matter he's not really that serious about it it's one of the most it's not the most damning thing here but it's pretty bad that when he speaks of the judgment of god that's obviously needed his sons-in-law those who know him best in the city think he's telling a joke
Verses 15 to 22 show us that Lot also lost his sense of urgency. But he lingered.
So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand and the Lord being merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought him out, one said, escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.
And Lot said to them, oh no, my lords, behold, your servant has found favor in your sight and you've shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there. Is it not a little one? And my life will be saved.
He said to him, Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there. Therefore, the name of the city was called Zoar.
Zoar simply means little. Verse 8, when he's casting his offering to cast his daughters to the wolves is pretty bad. Verse 14, where he seems to just be joking, that's pretty bad.
But here, the morning has dawned. The angels are saying, come on, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. He lingers.
Lot is so interwoven with this community, so interwoven with this wicked place, His priorities are tied up more with what is happening here than with the coming judgment of God that he chooses to linger. He is not urgent at all to get his family out of harm's way.
Even as the angels drag them out of town and say, okay, now get into the hills and do not look back. He says, well, but bad things can happen to me in the hills. So could I just go over to this little city? Which apparently was part of what God was going to destroy. He says, okay, I'll spare that little city. You know, it's not as wicked as Sodom. There's not as many people there.
Can I just stay there? Okay, go, hustle, and don't look back. I'm not going to destroy anything until you get there.
Multiple times over, you see in this passage, Lot just doesn't sense the imminent danger to himself and to his family, to himself and to his wife, to himself and to his children. He doesn't have a sense of the weightiness of what is about to happen.
And I wonder, do you have that same light or lackadaisical attitude towards your sin and the sin around you? Romans 8, chapter 13. The first part of the book of Romans, chapter 8, is talking about the war that is existing between the flesh and the spirit.
And the spirit, not in like some ethereal sense, but the Holy Spirit and his desire to drive us to live in accordance with the word of God, right? So there's the way of life that's driven by the spirit. driven by the word inspired by the holy spirit and then there's the way of life driven by our lusts by our sinful flesh and those two things are at war with one another and the one who is living in the flesh cannot please god paul says in romans 8 and then in romans 8 13 he says put to death the deeds of the body the deeds of the flesh and you will live
That there's an urgency, a war-like language that we need to have towards our sin. We need to hate it so much that we would kill it. Not just coddle it, not make room for it, not laugh like, ah, it's not really that big a deal. You know, I've got this little faux pas. Or, you know, this is just kind of the way I am.
God's not cool with just the way you am. He's... He's not. Just the way you are is why Jesus died on the cross.
Your your sin is deadly serious, no less serious than God's judgment coming on Sodom and Gomorrah. We are not like our our sin might not be quite that far up the scale, but it's of the same nature. It's offensive to God and deserves his judgment.
And so if we have trusted in Christ for the payment for our sins, the forgiveness for our sins, we shouldn't say, ha ha, it's already paid for. Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven. We should hate that sin still lives in our lives. That the thing that Christ died for is something we would coddle and linger with.
There should be a hatred towards our sin. 1 Timothy chapter 6, Paul's writing to Timothy, who is a pastor, and has given him this list of sins. And in verse 11, he says, flee from these things.
Everyone needs this warning to run from your sin and into the arms of Christ. Lot didn't have that urgency. He lacked patience. Urgency, and this is probably the reason he has lost his credibility, and it was one of the major factors for his greatest loss.
Verses 23 to 26, Lot lost his wife. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zohar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground. But Lot's wife behind him looked back and she became a pillar of salt.
Lot, again, he had been told to go into the hills. And if he had gone into the hills, probably would have been pretty easy to not look back at the city. He could have just got on the other side of the hill and not been looking at the valley. But instead he says, no, let's just go to this small city that's down the road.
And his wife is still so in love with probably her hometown This wicked place, she loves it more than she loves obedience. She loves it more than she loves God. And she looks back, apparently with some kind of longing for that place. And God condemns her with it. He turns her into a pillar of salt.
Lot, by aligning himself with this wicked city, loses everything he has. He was grasping for prosperity. He sought to gain the world. And not only did, maybe he didn't lose his soul. But he sure lost everything else.
We'll see next week. It gets even worse for Lot from here, as hard as that is to believe. It gets worse for him. And next week, I want to consider how to not be Lot.
But as we wrap up here, I actually want to shift back. The text here for a moment shifts the perspective back to Abraham. So I want to think from Abraham's perspective, how do we relate to the lots in our life?
We rightly see Genesis 19 as a warning about the wages of sin. Lot disregarded spiritual priorities in search for earthly glory, and he lost it all. But what does God say of Abraham in this text? Verse 27, Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord, the place where he had been praying with God the previous day.
And he looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley and he looked and behold smoke of the land went up like smoke of a furnace so it was that when god destroyed the cities of the valley god remembered abraham and sent law out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which lot had lived i think we can all relate to abraham here we have all seen lives go up in smoke and very often we have seen it coming you have seen people make decisions like law that disregard
the right priorities and they make foolish decision after foolish decision and it ends with their life in ruins what do you do when you see that happening with someone you love someone in your church someone in your family someone that you're friends with what do you do the first thing here is the example that we have with abraham he pleaded with god in prayer very often we will say we are praying for people when what we're actually doing is just being frustrated with them annoyed with them
or worrying about them but we're not actually pleading with the god of all the universe to wake them up you know so often we can be tempted to say well all we can do is pray it's one of my least one of my most annoying phrases like the one of the phrases that just drives me up a wall all we can do is pray all you can do is pray all you can do
is ask the almighty God of the universe who made heaven and earth to help. That's all you can do. I don't know what else you're going to do that's better than that.
And that's what Abraham does here. And this is why, this is the sole reason why Lot is saved from the destruction that came. He should have burnt up with Sodom. But he was interceded for by Abraham.
Abraham was bold last week. We talked about friendship with God. Abraham saw God as a friend and was willing to plead with God on behalf of Lot and even the city of Sodom where Lot lived.
Sodom was too far gone, but God in his mercy removed Lot. It says here, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out.
So, Come before God and pray for those you love who are in desperate situations or who are making foolish decisions. And God may in his mercy spare them at least some of the consequences of their decisions.
But is that all to do? I just said I hate that phrase. All we can do is pray. You cannot do anything that's greater than praying for someone. You can't. But God may at times call you to do something besides simply praying for them.
I've always been haunted, perplexed by 1 John chapter 5. I feel like probably even just in the last year or two, like this text has started to make sense to me, and it makes sense in relation to Genesis here.
1 John chapter 5, verse 16 and 17. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. Now, he's not speaking in like in the overall spiritual sense of like there are some sins that don't actually lead to hell. This isn't like a mortal venial sins comparison here.
This is just saying like, yes, all sin leads to eternal death and separation from God. But there are sins that you commit in this life that don't have as great of like earthly consequences as other sins.
And when you see someone struggling with some sins, you shouldn't be nagging them about it. You shouldn't be pestering them about it. You can just stand back and go, Lord, please help them figure this out. Help them see that what they're doing isn't wise, that it's not productive, and just help them see.
And that's the right response to, I would say, probably most of the sin that we see around us. You don't need to be the sin police. That's the Holy Spirit's job. You can just pray for people.
But there is a sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin that does not lead to death. As he's saying, some people start sinning to a point where you stop praying for them.
That would be perplexing when you consider the example of Jesus who from the cross prays for those who are crucifying him. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. OK, that's a pretty bad sin. Murdering the only innocent person to ever live.
So so I don't think Jesus is saying you or John is saying you stop praying. I think he's saying that there are times when prayer alone is not all that you're called to.
Jude chapter, Jude's only one chapter, verses 22 and 23 talk about plucking some people out of the fire, hating even the clothes that are stained by their flesh.
And I think when we put these together, what you start to see is that there are times when you are called not simply to get down on your knees and ask God for him to help them. There are times when we are called to say hard words to people.
This is the picture in Matthew 18 with church discipline where you go to the offending brother and you present to him his fault, his error. This is the commandment of Paul to the church in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 when this man is living in gross sin. And Paul reprimands the church for just tolerating it instead of going to him and confronting him.
that there are times when we are called to speak wounding words to people. Proverbs 27 and verse 6 says that wounds from a friend can be trusted, or some translations say faithful are the wounds of a friend. An enemy multiplies kisses. If all you have around you are people that pat you on the back, you probably don't have any real friends.
And if all you ever do is speak positive and encouraging words to those in your life, especially people who are walking in wickedness or walking down a path that will lead them to that. You are not being a faithful friend to them.
I think this is actually one of the One of the subtle things that the author of Genesis Moses is showing us about Abraham is that he is not aggressive enough. He's very often passive. And in allowing Lot to head towards Sodom, he was being generous in the sense of letting him have the better land. But he probably should have taken a more active role in steering his impressionable nephew where to go.
And there are times when we must... Risk offending people, risk losing a relationship in order to do that person spiritual good. And oftentimes not just spiritual, like practical good.
It is tempting to minimize sin, not just in ourselves, but in those around us. To look the other way, to let ourselves be plagued with annoyance or like, I just wish they'd figure it out. Don't just let those thoughts sit there.
First of all, take them to the Lord in prayer and ask him to help. And if he convicts you that like you have more to do here than be on your knees, go open up your mouth, then pray that he would give you the boldness to do so.
Second Corinthians chapter five and verse 20. We'll finish here. Paul speaks of himself and his comrades as those who are ambassadors for Christ, making pleading with those around them to be reconciled to god and that is our role in this life god has people in your life that he doesn't just want you to pray for that he wants you to speak to and help save them from the the choices that they would make like lot so pray and pursue those who are straying around you jesus says
That the Father is like a shepherd who would leave the 99 who are in the fold in order to go chase down the one. How does he do that? He does it through his people. He does it through us pursuing and chasing down those who stray. May God help us.
Father, we need your help. We can't do that on our own. It's risky. It's emotionally costly. And sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes we get ignored. And sometimes people choose... to just walk away from you and we can't do anything about it. But Father, do not let that fear stop us from doing the good that you have called us to do. Help us to be honoring to you and loving to others by having the wisdom to know when to be silent and when to speak and to always be diligent in prayer. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
