Genesis 19

I would have hated to preach lot’s funeral. He was a man who had everything and he ended up with nothing. He did not throw it away, he simply sit idly by while it slipped away. When Abraham and he split ways he was a rich man. He had great flocks and many servants. When he escaped into the mountains he had nothing but the clothes upon his back.

He was a man who had prestige and honor. He sat at the gates among the elders of the city and was treated with respect. That respect was false. When the crisis moment came, his neighbors reminded him that he was not one of them, he was a foreigner. They threatened to do worse to him than they were already planning to do to his visitors.

He had been a man with influence. But when it came time to save his family, he could not even influence his son-in-law to flee to safety with him. He had so little influence that they considered him a joke. He had a wife but he lost her. When faced with leaving everything to follow her husband, she looked back to the old life she was leaving behind.

He was a father. He had two daughters. Daughters are precious. He raised them in the midst of a city that was full of corruption, depravity and immorality. He lost his right relationship with them when they got him drunk and committed incest with him.

Lot did not have a road-map to his destruction. If he had known that his path would lead to ruin, he would not have moved toward Sodom.  We do not have a road-map to our destruction either. We can learn from Lot. The first step we take away from God is the first step toward our destruction.