Songs have been sung and composed. Not surprisingly the billboard charts breakers are love songs or songs about the presence or lack of love. Love hurts, love satisfies. If it’s withheld it hurts even more.
Let’s look at the Chronicle of Love in this story. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is stinking and has come to God’s attention and presence. He sends his angels to go ad find out and declare judgment on the two towns. It’s of worth to note that in Genesis…when Lot and his uncle Abraham fought over land, Abraham, allowed his nephew to choose the place where he would settle. The Bible records that Lot chose the fertile lands near Sodom. But this started way before in Genesis 13 when Abraham and his Nephew Lot and their shepherds had started fighting. Lot knew very well that Sodom was wicked but he set up his tent near Sodom, note that he set his tent near Sodom but surprisingly in Genesis 19 when Sodom is destroyed, Lot already lives there inside of Sodom and not only does he live there he has become famous and wealthy and he has a wife and two daughters.
We are not told from where Lot found a wife but it was common practice which you see in later chapters of Genesis that Abraham’s Kin married from their own family, either uncle or a distant cousin and it was recorded. All but Lot. It’s not recorded from where Lot got his wife who interestingly throughout scripture her name is not mentioned. Even Jesus later in Luke 17:31-32
31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife!She’s just remembered as Lots wife. Having lived in Sodom, I believe Lot got his wife from Sodom. The culture and the way of life in Sodom was repulsing and sinful to God. They are a curious couple in the Bible. Remember when we talked about David delegating his battles with the Ammonites to his general Joab? The Ammonites were descendants who came from Lot’s daughters. But how did the daughters become pregnant yet according to Genesis 19 they went to hide in a cave? Well let’s find out.
So we know that Sodom was destroyed by God because their sin was great before him. We know that part of their sin was Homosexuality but that was not all. What was the sin of Sodom? Ezekiel 16:49-50 records: Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.I was shocked when I read this, I thought their sin of sexual depravity was the real reason or rather to me it looks very serious. But besides being sexually deprived, Sodom was overfed, unconcerned and arrogant. This is where Lot lived and his family. Had is family also become arrogant?
Its recorded he had great wealth before Sodom, its recorded that while in Sodom(during ) he still became rich and sat at the council (he had a leadership position) and after….he traded his daughters for his own safety and finally his daughters had their sweet revenge (or not so sweet) by doing the same thing their own father wanted to do to them. They slept with him in turns and surprisingly he didn’t know he had no clue!
We might read this story and ask ourselves where is love in this story? Where are the Chronicles of Love in this story? The truth is; we get wounded by love. And love hurts. If it didn’t hurt, then it wouldn’t feel so bad when withheld. We walk around just like Lot with wounds that we don’t know about, and like Lot we end up hurting others.
Wounded people end up wounding others and bad.We walk and do life wounded. And we can’t love or give love because we are wounded. I want us to look at 3 wounds that we pick from Genesis 19 and ask the Lord to heal us to love again but this time round, love God’s way.
Wound #1
- Places we SHOULDN’T HAVE loved.
Jesus talks about those who want to follow him must deprive themselves of these things.(Lots wife looking back at the things she loved. Lots wife had too much attachment to the things that Sodom offered. Her husband was a prominent man and being prominent meant he was very rich. Lot didn’t want to leave that behind. I intersperse this with the story of the Rich young ruler. The rich young ruler had everything. He wanted to follow Jesus. He comes to Jesus and says I have followed all the commandments since I was young. But Jesus wants more, and he tells the young man to go and sell all he owned and the Bible records that the young man was so sad because he had a lot of wealth. And he didn’t want to leave all that behind.
Lot had no business loving Sodom and what it had to offer; as a matter of fact he wasn’t supposed to be in Sodom. We find ourselves walking around with wounds of places we shouldn’t have loved. With places we shouldn’t have loved comes opportunities, friendships, habits that we shouldn’t have acquired in the first place. This costed Lot his family.
Wound #2
- People we SHOULDN’T HAVE loved.
Lot after loving an unnamed woman who he shouldn’t have loved from a foreign tribe suffered. He ended up living in a cave scared and afraid. We might look at Lot and wonder why he ended up living in a cave. But on closer scrutiny we are also living in caves scared and afraid. We have built walls too high to protect ourselves. Lot never remarried. Maybe he was scared. Actually he was afraid! Friends when we love people we shouldn’t have loved we end up with wounds and in caves hiding and scared. Nursing wounds and we will not let anyone near us even those who really want to love us. We end up being scarred and wounded that we can’t understand how being loved authentically looked like. The Bible is clear about being unequally yoked. It’s not that we don’t know….we know but we always give love a fighting chance or another smart remark like love changes people. Do not jeopardize your future and your future generations by loving people you shouldn’t love in the first place.
Wound #3
- People who SHOULD HAVE loved us.
Lot’s daughters are also unnamed. But like any other child, they expected their father’s protection. Instead their father traded their safety for a sexual orgy with the townsmen. Who by the way rejected the offer! How would you feel if your father did that? Could it explain why they revenged?Lots daughters expected love from their father. They didn’t know that the person who was supposed to love them would gladly give them up to the men of the town for a sexual orgy to save his skin. Now in those days for Lot refusing the demands of the people he was supposed to have been burnt but he figured he can please the people by giving his virgin daughters. Imagine how they felt? Imagine the self-esteem issues these daughters must have had! The person who was supposed to love them and show them what a father’s love looks like was the same person who was about to exchange them on a night of orgy by the whole town. And what’s worse…..Even then the townsmen still rejected them. Now you are rejected by the community and by the people who should have loved you.
The result is despair and rebellion.
If love wouldn’t hurt, would you still love? Why is it that love hurts so bad? Breakups hurt. Separations hurt, divorce hurts! Disappointments from those we love hurts. Out of the wounds of those we love comes out a nation that was perennially at war with Israel. Let me bring this into perspective. The Ammonites were descendants from Ben Hammi who was the son of the younger daughter of Lot who slept with his father in Genesis 19. Out of the wounds of a father who exchanged his safety by offering his daughters, came a nation that was a pain to the Israelites.We can look at this story and ask how it applies to us, but I know in this place we have many of us walking dead. With wounds of our fathers, people who should have loved us, spouses who should have known better. Until we let the Lord in our hurts to heal these wounds, we will be walking timebombs!
Grace is Available
Lot was literally raped by his own daughters, the same daughters he was giving out to the townsmen. Do you know God considered Lot righteous? Of course not because of giving his children to strangers or the children sleeping with him.
Two sons were born out of this incestuous relationship. Here is how Genesis 19 ends: 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[h; he is the father of the Ammonites[i] of today.
- Let me explain this little passage of scripture. Looking at the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Hidden in Matthew 1:5 is the name of Ruth a Moabite from the son who was begotten by Lot’s first daughter!
Ruth was a Gentile. A Moabite. Her ancestry had its origin in the incest committed between Lot and his oldest daughter. Ruth’s people were polytheistic pagans, occasionally offering human sacrifices to idol-gods like Chemosh. Through personal tragedy and loyalty she wound up at Bethlehem and in the arms of Boaz.
I simply can’t move on without mentioning the staggering fact that Ruth has a book of the Bible named after her! How did that happen? Jews were prohibited from intermarrying with Moabites (Ezra 9:10–12) — unless a Moabite renounced all that being a Moabite meant and became all that it meant to be a Jew. In the fact that one of the canonical books of the Old Covenant is named after a Moabite woman, God is shouting something about his grace.
- Lot was and is considered righteous.
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell,[a] putting them in chains of darkness[b] to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.
Friends our names can also appear in God’s books. We can be considered righteous. Out of our bloodlines however messed up they might be, our generations will be great. Our names will be mentioned in honour. Because the God who made sure that grace was available for Lot, he will make that Grace available for you today. I don’t where you’ve been, what wounds you carry and what your past looks like. But God knows and still calls you by your name.
He still calls you my child. He still calls you forgiven even when the devil lifts a finger of condemnation about where you have been.
MARKET PLACE 