November 15 Sermon: A Shameful Thing

Consider these questions as you listen to this week’s message from Genesis 19:30-38:

1. How does Lot's decision to leave the city of Zoar and live in the hills with his daughters reflect the consequences of his choices in his life?

2. What lessons can we learn from the desperate actions of Lot's daughters and the long-term consequences of their actions in this passage?

3. How does this story from Genesis relate to our own lives in terms of the importance of our location and the consideration of both short-term and long-term consequences of our choices and actions?

Transcript:

With the holidays coming up it causes us to think about family doesn’t it. We go back to memories of gatherings when we were younger. While we tend to focus on the good memories it is likely that these get together’s exposed some of the issues in our families. You put a bunch of people in a confined space and mix in variables such as lost sleep or discussions on politics or religion and you had the potential for some fireworks.‌

While I’ve been stuck at home for the last week I have been re-watching one of my favorite sitcoms: The Middle. If you are not familiar with the show it is a lower middle class family in the middle of the United States and each episode we were invited into the lives of a regular family of five trying to make ends meet.‌

Like many shows they have holiday episodes and as I was watching through I came upon a Thanksgiving episode. As is usually the case in those kinds of shows their Thanksgiving weekend together was a complete disaster. Serious arguments and accusations. One in-law staying in the room working all weekend to avoid family. The height of the conflict comes when the main character and her sister bring up issues from their childhood and they end up wrestling and she ends up holding her down by sandwiching her in the air mattress their family has been sleeping on.‌

Of course, things get resolved. The two sisters have a good cry in the middle of the night when they meet going to raid the fridge for leftover stuffing. The whole episode has been a comedic disaster but things resolved in the end. The final scene is the family pulling away in their beat up station wagon and the main character says to her husband “I told you it would be the perfect Thanksgiving”.‌

I stopped watching after that episode to do some stuff around the house and it sort of stayed stewing around in my head and at the same time I had wondering what I was going to do with this difficult passage rolling around between my ears too. Then something clicked. We often have the same experience with the Bible. We tend to gloss over some of the difficult passages and focus on the good but the Bible doesn’t do that itself. It is brutally honest about sin and the pain it brings in the world. It is also honest about the transgressions of some of its greatest heroes. As we journey through Genesis we see some amazing things and plenty to emulate but this is truly a book of the Bible where we see the people of God, warts and all. One example of this that we’ve already seen is the story of the drunkeness of Noah. We learned that even though Noah was righteous in his day he was not the righteous one. He was fallen and sinful and he was not the promised messiah.‌

Of all the difficult passages in the book of Genesis and maybe the entire Bible this might be the toughest. Still, it is my hope that we will come away not only learning something about God but also finding a way that we can apply this passage to our lives.‌

We will divide the passage up into three points again today to help us navigate everything that is going on in the passage.‌

First we will see that Lot leaves the haven that he was provided in Zoar. This is something I had never noticed in this passage before until I went through to prepare. We don’t know for sure why he did this but it leads to a rather precarious situation for the continuation of his family because the men who were going to marry his daughters were wiped out when Sodom was destroyed.‌

Secondly, we will see the shameful thing that the daughters of Lot plot and carry out. If you weren’t aware of that this story was coming up here in Genesis you were likely taken aback when the passage was read. As I mentioned we have seen interesting situations. There is deception, drunkeness, and incest in this passage and it seems that it is the consequence of Lot moving away from God and being more concerned with the things of the world.‌

Lastly, we will see that this event has long term consequences. We have seen many genealogies in the book of Genesis and the offspring of Lot’s daughters here might be the shortest one we read but we see that it has consequences. The offspring of Lot’s daughters end up being enemies of the people of God.‌​

Genesis 19:30–31

 ESV

Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth.‌

With those three points laid out, lets get into this with verses 30-31.‌

We continue the story of Lot here after the desolation of Sodom and this is the last time we are going to see him. After we get the details of this story we never see him again. It’s kind of sad, really. After the previous two times we hear about Lot we would like to think that maybe he sees the judgment of God and learns an important lesson but that isn’t the case. Lot just can’t seem to settle in anywhere and have positive results, can he.‌

If you will remember Lot was told to head for the hills prior to the destruction of Sodom but he didn’t want to go there. He was afraid that they wouldn’t make it so he asked for God to spare the small city of Zoar and God mercifully granted his request.‌

But now, we see that he moved to the hills. When I think about this apart from the rest of the story I kind of see some humor in this. Normally, you would move to the hills, find a cave, and start a prepper stash in expectation of something apocalyptic happening. Lot actually heads for the hills and holes up there after an apocalyptic event. He’s got it backwards.‌

Anyway, we don’t know what’s going on here. We can only speculate. Is there a stigma in having been from Sodom and being the family that survived? Is he depressed that his wife was caught up in the destruction and he’s gone into seclusion? We don’t know and can’t know but notice again where he is not. He seems to be unable to get things together to be a part of the community surrounding Abraham. A place that we have seen is close to the presence of God and a place where there is security. We don’t why he can’t make peace with being near Abraham but it is a persistent problem.‌

And it leads to a bigger problem. The unbelief of the men his daughters were to marry caused them to be caught up in God’s wrath and so they not only lost their future husbands but they now also live in a cave in the hills. They didn’t have dating apps, they couldn’t go to the singles night at church, and they weren’t going to have any gentlemen asking them out in produce section of the supermarket.‌

You see where this running from civilization and more specifically Abraham’s community has landed them. Now this isn’t to condone in any way what they are going to do because it sinful and terrible. But it is important that we see the issues. There were plenty of men for them to marry with Abraham. There would have been security and a future but the rejection of that community of people has landed them without hope. It has put them in a place of desperation and that is never a good thing. They have not only been isolated from people in general but they have been isolated from the people of God.‌

We see how extreme their concern has come. They are living in a very small and isolated world. Notice what they say “there is not a man”. They’ve become convinced that their are zero prospects for marriage and childbearing.‌

Now they know this isn’t true. They could see the edges of the destruction. They were in Zoar and had to have seen other people there but yet their isolation has created an attitude of hopelessness and desperation.‌​

Genesis 19:31–35

 ESV

And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. Then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father.” So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.‌

Now as we move on to our next section we see the shameful thing that this desperation leads to. Last week I drew out the similarities in the way the story of the flood was told and the way the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah is told. As I’ve already alluded to we had the story of Noah’s drunkeness and now we have another story of drunkeness being told. There was plenty of stuff that happened in the lives of Noah and Lot after they were delivered from judgment but under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit this story is a part of Holy scripture for a reason to help us see that continued sin and depravity will happen, even when we think it is purged from the earth. It is a persistent reminder that the messiah has not come yet. None of these people in Genesis are perfect and the world is still broken.‌

As we look at this incident we see deception and manipulation that leads to incest. There is nothing about this situation that is redeemable. And on top of it all, it is repeated a second time. The desperation that these sisters feel to fix their problems leads to a shameful thing.‌

As I’ve said many times so far, we don’t know all the circumstances surrounding this but clearly there are issues here that remain unaddressed. We don’t know if the daughters expressed their concern for their futures to their father. We don’t know if they did and Lot was so caught up in his own stuff that he ignored them. Regardless, the way that things are supposed to be handled didn’t take place and as a result we see bad things happening. This is an extreme reminder to us that we need to be deliberate to address the issues before us. When we don’t things can happen that lead to all kinds of trouble and as we move on to our third point we see that the consequences of this incident have long term and far reaching effects.‌​

Genesis 19:36–38

 ESV

Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.‌

You’ve probably been thinking about what a bizarre story this is to have in scripture and we’ve addressed some of the reasons it is there but as we come to these last few verses we see why this is being told. The daughters have children and we learn their names. The oldest daughter has a son and names him Moab. Now for us we name our children because we like the way it sounds. The meaning of the name is probably an afterthought. You grab one of those baby name books and like the sound of a name and after that you look up the meaning and fortunately there aren’t going to be too many names in a book like that where there will be a negative meaning. It’s not like someone chose a name and the meaning is smelly charlatan or something like that. Choosing names based upon their meaning just isn’t really on the radar for us. That wasn’t the case for people in this time. The names they chose were deliberate in their meaning. So, we have two sons born out of this event and in order to really understand what is going on we have to take a look at the names given to them.‌

First we have Moab which means father. Then we have Ben-ammi which means son of my people. Both of these names acknowledge how the children were conceived. In other words, there is no shame in the daughters. They didn’t try to hide it, in fact they memorialized what they did in the names of their children.‌

And as we look at this we see that these men have families and they come to be a large people. And as you continue through the stories in the Old Testament you will see that they will be enemies of the Israelites. In Deuteronomy and Nehemiah we see that they mistreat Israel and so they are rejected by God but interestingly enough Ruth was a Moabite and by faith she is brought into the people of Israel. A glorious reminder that no matter the circumstances God grants mercy. And while there are long term consequences from this story the final word is always from God and by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ people from all tribes, tongues, and nations are brought into the family of God.‌

And so we’ve navigated this passage and seen a progression of desperation to clear sinfulness that leads to a people group who are enemies of the people of God. We see how it fits in the story of redemption but how does it apply to our lives. What can we come away with that we can take into our lives in the coming week.‌

I want us to be challenged with two specific applications this morning.‌

First, we need to consider our location. Have you assessed if where you are is where God would have you be? The problems we saw in the life of Lot all seem to have a root in the fact that he was moving away from the presence of God. Remember back to when Lot and Abraham split. They just couldn’t seem to get along and from there we see multiple issues in his life. All of them very serious. First his life was in danger from a military conquest and Abraham has to come and rescue him. Then we see his needing to be saved from the wrath of God at Sodom and now we have this. None of these things would even have been an issue if he would have found a way to remain with the covenant people of Abraham.‌

I’m sure if we look back on our lives we can remember times when who we were with or where we were led us away from the presence of God. The call on our lives to be holy is difficult and it is particularly hard if we keep ourselves from where we should be. Are we hearing the word? Are we putting ourselves in a position to be encouraged in our faith? Who are we interacting with? Are they building up our faith and encouraging us or are they a drag on our spiritual lives? Now, obviously, I’m not saying you should isolate yourself from the world but you’re smart. You know the relationships and the places that are an impediment to your pursuit of holiness. The key is being honest with ourselves and taking action on those things. May our prayer be that we will fully understand the mercy God has shown us in Christ and may the Spirit give us a desire to pursue holiness.‌

Secondly, it is important that we consider not only the short term ramifications of our sin but the long term consequences as well. Sin is alluring and part of its allure is that it will give us what we want in the moment. This story shows us that sin has long term affects. It can affect not only us but those who come after us. But I don’t want to just dwell on this in the negative. We need to also consider how our pursuing holiness can also have long term consequences. We find it easy to think of how this is good in the short term but I think we need to dwell on how our pursuit of holiness today will help not only ourselves today but how will it affect our family for generations to come. We see a promise from God regarding this in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 5:9 and 10 we read that God visits the iniquity of the fathers to the third and fourth generations but show steadfast love to thousands who love him and keep his commandments.‌

And so as we step out this week may we remember the grace that we have been shown in the Lord Jesus. We have been given the gift of faith and our sins have been forgiven and may this guide us and motivate us to live a life of holiness that we might be blessed not only today but for generations to come by the covenant faithfulness of almighty God. Amen.