Abram, Lot, and God's Providence
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
As we continue in our study through the book of Genesis, we are reminded that God has a plan and that God calls His followers to be faithful and obedient to trust in His plan/timing rather than what our world has to offer. Sometimes people invest and trust in the wrong thing. Back in 2008 we had the Great Recession and many people lost jobs, homes, businesses, and lots of money. The global GDP went down by over 5% over 18 months and the average American household lost nearly $6,000 in 2008. The US housing bubble burst - even though many experts said that such a thing was an impossibility. Between subprime lending, millions of foreclosures, and mortgage fraud the stage was set for something big and something bad. Yet, through 2006 and much of 2007, people continued thinking that nothing bad would happen because the housing market in the US is stable and secure.
Stable and secure. These are two words thrown around quite a bit in our world as they are attractive and people long for both. MacArthur opens up with a simple question on page 15 and it has to do with choices we’ve made. We’ve all made our own fair share of poor decisions just like investors in 2007-2008! What is a decision that you made that seemed good in the moment, but ended up being very negative in the long run?
Cashing in several savings bonds to pay for gas/other expenses in high school and eventually helping pay for Lindsey’s ring! Some of these bonds were only a few years old at the time and would have collected hundreds of dollars of interest had I waited to cash them in later down the road.
What we will see in our lesson this evening is that Lot - as many humans do today - trusted in what his eyes could see. He trusted in what looked good. He trusted in the water. He trusted in the plain. He trusted in things that he thought would give him and his people security and power. Abram, on the other hand, trusted in the Lord and we will see that he calls on His name throughout this text. Abram has faith, as Hebrews 11 shares with us
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going.
9 By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise.
He has faith in God and trusts in God to provide even when things look difficult to the eye. What are some things that our world thinks will provide comfort, safety, and satisfaction?
Money. Shelter. Family. Job. Education.
Some of these are good things! But we know, as Christians, that our safety and peace can only be found through faith in Christ! This might not always be easy or make sense to those around us, but it is what we are reminded of in Scripture and it’s what we will study tonight with Abram and Lot in Genesis 13-14.
Please read Genesis 13:1-4. Abram had just sinned in Egypt. What stands out to you about his response in this passage?
He immediately goes back to Canaan - the promised land - and goes to the place where he built God an altar and called on the name of the Lord there.
Abram was by no means perfect, but we routinely see him call on the name of the Lord and worship God for all that He has done. He praises the Lord for being faithful and gracious to him.
How can we do a better job of mimicking Abram’s response to his sinfulness? What are some practical ways that we can do a better job of coming back to the Lord and calling on His name and turning from our mistakes?
We see in verse 2 that Abram was very wealthy in livestock, gold, and silver. This is a good thing in some respects, but we’re going to see in the next section that it also will bring about some problems for him and his family. How can good things sometimes bring about something negative? Livestock and money are good things and blessings from God - yet we know that they can also be a huge temptation for us. Why is this the case?
It’s a matter of our heart and trust. Are we trusting in God because of what He has given us, or are we trusting in God because of who He is? Are we only going to follow God whenever we are experiencing good things or will we trust in Him in the good and bad? Do we trust with just our eyes or is it deeper? For Lot and for many humans, it’s just in the good and just when things appear to be going their way.
Please read Genesis 13:5-9. Why do you think they had to separate and why would Abram let Lot decide where to go?
They quarreled and didn’t have enough room to both inhabit the land due to the amount of livestock and possessions they had. It is possible that Abram alone had 1,000 people accompanying him on this journey and Lot could’ve had several hundred and many livestock too. This would have taken a toll on the natural resources available in this region. Abram, as MacArthur brings out on page 18 lets Lot pick the land. He demonstrates humility and generosity in doing this because he doesn’t have to! He trusts in the Lord.
It can be hard for us to imagine being in a desert region with minimal water and our entire livelihood being around us in the form of animals, servants, and wealth. Not only do they have so many things/possessions/wealth, but there is also quarreling going on between their servants! This isn’t a good situation to be in as they are nomads in the land because the Canaanites and Perizzites are already living in this place.
What are some of the dangers facing Abram and Lot here? How would you react in such a situation?
Many dangers. Lack of water. Lack of grazing space. People who are already permanent residences in the land. Potentially people who will fight against you. We would be nervous, more than likely with all of these uncertainties!
Yet, what is the promise that God made with Abram back in Genesis 12:1-3 “1 The Lord said to Abram: Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
God promised Abram this land to his descendants.
Galatians brings this out in more detail as Paul digs into this a bit more as we’ll see in a few verses. But we know that Abram has a promise from the covenant keeping God and Abram routinely goes back to worship and praise God. He is trusting in Him to provide even though there are problems. The solution is that he and Lot must go their separate ways. Let’s read more about this in the next section.
Please read Genesis 13:10-18. Be honest, if you were in Lot’s shoes what would you have chosen?
Probably the same thing because it made the most sense from a logical standpoint. You have lots of livestock and servants and one area is better than the other so you naturally select the best option before you. This makes a lot of sense!
We have to be careful here to not give Lot too much hate because there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with his decision. We’ve talked about this before, but just because Lot chose to live near the wealthy people doesn’t mean that he was sinning. There are wealthy people who are Christians - we see two examples in our text! What is the danger with Lot’s pick, though? Kenneth Matthews shares this, “The “plain of the Jordan” is likened to the well-watered “garden of the Lord” and “like the land of Egypt” (v. 10), whose beauty attracted Lot but also distracted him from the wickedness that lurked there.” The beauty of the area and its resources looked really good to the naked eye, but it also hid some serious problems.
Have you ever been in a situation where you have looked at something and you’ve been deceived into thinking that something is safe/good when in actuality it’s very dangerous?
We’ve been studying some of these types of “false fruits” on Sunday evenings over the summer for one and from a personal standpoint, I’ve been tempted to think that some circumstances were safe when in actuality there was some intense danger. As a child, my family would go to St. Louis Cardinals games a couple times a year it seemed. I loved the Cardinals and I still do - I can’t wait to take Gabriel to Busch Stadium and to watch a game and eat a hot dog and some peanuts because they just taste a little bit better at the ballpark! With that said, whenever I was a kid, I just assumed that all Cardinals fans were incredibly nice Christian people like my parents and I’d talk with people at games that I’d never met before and likely would never see again. Normally this was ok, but I’m sure that I was a little too trusting of others than I should’ve been. I thought that the environment I was in was safe when in actuality it was pretty dangerous. The Cardinals and my fandom blinded me to some of the dangers all around me. The water and grass blinded Lot of the danger that Sodom and Gomorra presented!
We see that God makes yet another promise to Abram in verses 15-16 after he and Lot go their separate ways. Why do you think God waits to give this promise to Abram after he and Lot separate? What stands out to you about this promise based on the text and what MacArthur brings out on pages 19-20?
MacArthur shares that the Israelites reading this would have been in Moses’ generation and on the verge of the promised land. This would have been important to remember that God promised their ancestor, Abram, that this land would be theirs! Also, it is important to reinforce with Abram that even though things might not be good now, that God would stay true to His promise to make Abram’s descendants great and mighty and numerous.
Not only will Abram’s physical offspring be numerous but his spiritual offspring will be even more numerous as Christ grafts us into the tree as Romans 11 shares with us. MacArthur shares from Galatians 3 that through Christ, we are heirs of this promise as well and Genesis 12:3 truly is fulfilled through the coming of Christ and all the nations of the earth are blessed through God’s covenantal promise with Abraham.
16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say “and to seeds,” as though referring to many, but referring to one, and to your seed, who is Christ.
29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.
Abram ends in verse 18 by once again pausing and praising the Lord by building an altar. This is something we see consistently done by the patriarchs - they make public statements to others about their faith in God.
What are public statements people make today about the things they worship?
How can we visibly see what people worship? We can see that people worship sports, work, hobbies, vacationing, and even family. We see these through pictures, actions, words, and other public displays. To Abram, he wanted people to know that he belonged to and worshiped God.
Please read Genesis 14:1-12. We see a lot of specifics in these verses. Why was Lot taken during this battle?
Because he was living in Sodom!
Why was Lot living in Sodom? Go back to the separation in chapter 13 and he’s looking at the water and the ability to have the choicest selection of grazing land for his animals and land for his servants and now he’s living in Sodom - a city that is incredibly wicked. Why live there?
MacArthur brings out these points further on pages 24-25. There are consequences for associating with evil.
Have you ever been falsely accused of something you didn’t do simply because of the company you were around?
This happens with kids in school many times. There will be a group of students who act out or who are talking and they get in trouble and more times than not one or two of the kids in the group are relatively innocent but they get in trouble because of the people they are sitting next to. They don’t normally talk or act out, but because they are surrounded by students who do, they act the same way and get in trouble.
20 The one who walks with the wise will become wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm.
It is important for us that we continue to strive to be like Christ and allow Him to work in us rather than us looking like the world around us. There are temptations all over for us to go the way of the world and fall into its comfy pleasures and promises like Lot did. Rather than doing that, we have to stay on the narrow path as Abram did.
Do you think Lot set out to live in a wicked city that did terrible things? That probably wasn’t his intention from the get go - but whenever we take our eyes off of Christ and His plan for just a moment, we can slip. After we slip once, it can be easier to slip again and again until we’re in a foreign place that we never wanted to be in.
Please read Genesis 14:13-16. Why would Abram take the risk to save Lot?
Why risk his 318 soldiers to get his nephew back after he had disrespected him and left him in an unfavorable position? Because Abram loved his nephew and they pursued the evil kings. Abram and his Amorite allies work together to accomplish this task and they defeat these kings and rescue Lot from captivity.
Abram demonstrates superior military knowledge as they defeat the enemy at night and likely are outnumbered along the way - similar to the story of Gideon later on.
What we see next is the priest/king of Salem come onto the scene and bless Abram and Abram give Melchizedek 1/10th of everything - a tithe. While this isn’t in our study guide, we’ve talked about this mysterious Melchizedek several times during our study in Hebrews and this is the instance we’re introduced to him in Genesis following the conclusion of this battle and the recapture of Lot.
How do Abram’s and Lot’s choices impact other people? pg 23
Lot and his servants are taken captive and they dwelt in Sodom while Abram and his servants stayed off in the wilderness as nomads.
Can our choices impact others?
Should this be a helpful reminder to us as we pray about how we should act? Yes!
Questions on pages 22-26?