If you have read the Bible cover to cover a few times, you will have noticed that God’s Word deals with the topic of sex … either as good healthy intimacy in marriage or sexual immorality … including using the concept of adultery in a spiritual way … more than any other topic!
If you have not seen this, it might surprise you. God even uses the marriage union of the husband and the wife depicting His union with His people. Think of the Bride as the Church and the Groom as Jesus Christ at that glorious Wedding Banquet in Glory!
It is very sad today that most parents do not teach their children about what God says about sex and rely on the children’s friends to teach them sex in a sordid way. Amongst other reasons, this is why the Departments of Education throughout the world teach sex education … and this is from a non-Biblical launchpad. Further, our society does not help at all, neither do the media or film industry. There are three huge areas in marriage where conflict is generated … Communication and the inability to problem solve, financial management and sexual intimacy.
Where most of what I have just written might not be revealed in our passage today, it is a starting point to deal with sexual intimacy. Now, remember Lot made decisions that progressed from what seemed “good choices” to becoming part of an evil lifestyle in the City of Sodom. God dealt with this city obliterating them from the landscape, yet for Abraham’s sake, saving Lot and his two daughters.
Remember, the choices of Lot led to him losing his “faith in God” credentials. His faith was so compromised that his speaking about God was a joke. As things settled after the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah and the surrounding area, Lot and his daughters settled in the mountains, living in a cave. This decision was because:
Ge 19:30 he was afraid to stay in Zoar.
Here again we find Lot making a bad choice.
Ge 19:17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! 19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”
21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of.”
The very town he was afraid to live in was the town the angels promise him security and safety. When we decide to move house or church or change employment, do we engage God? Do we ask God what His will is for us and our family? How often have we found we have made impulsive decisions or on the spur of the moment decisions or been influence or coerced by someone to go in a certain direction?
The best way to make decisions regarding big changes (or any changes) in life is to wait upon the Lord until He gives you clear guidance … and He does. One of the best ways to find God’s guidance is to find principles in the Scriptures that help you make choices based upon whether what you would like to do will glorify God, enhance your Gospel ministry, pave the way for you to be more intentional as a believer, help your family in godliness … or will it increase a bent towards secularism, materialism, being overly busy, less church and family time … leading to plunging into spiritual darkness and distancing yourself from God and His Church?
What is interesting is that Lot’s choice to be a cave dweller and not a city dweller robbed his daughters of access to marriage. Remember their fiancés we killed in Sodom. Now being mountain and cave people there was no prospect of meeting men and marrying! Into this environment the older daughter comes up with a plan!
Ge 19:31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. 32 Let’s get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father.” 33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
This was repeated with the younger daughter (v34-35). There are many things here but let me raise two.
First, Lot’s parenting skills left much to be desired. He never taught his daughters to trust and depend upon God … the result was their sordid plan … one that is expressly forbidden by Scripture! Take time to read through Leviticus 18 carefully. It might not mention sex between the father and daughter but it is implied as it deals with incest! Surely if they knew and trusted God He would have provided for their needs? The same applies to us in the Church today!
Second, Lot’s morals left much to be desired. Can anyway make you drunk? Coercion can be challenged and prevented. What was he doing permitting drunkenness with his two daughters around him? Had he not learnt from the bad morality of Sodom? Again these are just two choices … weak parenting and weak resistance … which leads to terrible disaster. Remember our choices have far reaching effects … for good or for bad. These were for bad!
Ge 19:36 So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. 38 The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.
If you think the incest was bad … the results were even worse, for the Ammonites and Moabites were a constant thorn in the flesh of the descendants of Abraham in the years that lay ahead. Desires and passions are powerful and “thinking” is insufficient protection. We need prayer. Persistent, continuous laboring in prayer until God provides a way! (1 Cor 10v13)
Dear God, as we have lifted the main points out of the passage, protect us from choices that negatively affect our future, our family and our descendants for Jesus sake … Amen.