mattfivefour
Well-Known Member
The Carnal Christian: Is There Such a Thing?
Lot is an excellent way in which to illustrate this topic.
Here was an adult man who chose to accompany Abram to Canaan. He also left his people, his friends, his society, and every other thing he had—both in Ur and Haran—and headed off into the unknown with Abram. And he obviously did it because he must have believed that his uncle had truly heard from God. You don’t risk everything unless you have some belief that there is a good reason to do so. Lot had the opportunity to return to his people in Ur, had he wanted to; but he chose to go with Abram. And we know from scripture that Abram did not know what he was going to, but trusted God to provide for him.
In going, Lot showed his trust in the God of Abram. And in so doing he was greatly blessed of God. We see Lot in Canaan so enriched with flocks and herds that the land on which he and Abram settled could not support them both. But now here is where we see the difference in Abram and Lot. Abram’s knowledge of god was personal and first-hand. Lot’s was corporate and second hand. He may have known God but he did not walk with him as did Abraham. He followed Him but did not fully trust Him.
When faced with the need to separate so that they both had sufficient place for their riches of herds, flocks and people, Abram did not hesitate.
Abram was the head of the clan. He could have easily said, “Lot, you take this land and I’ll take that.” He could have easily said, “As chief, I will rightfully take the best. And I will permit you to have what I do not want.” But he did not. He gave to his nephew first choice. Why? Because he, Abram, was living under the blessing of God. All that he needed God had supplied. Even when he had failed God before Pharaoh and lied to protect himself rather than trusting God to do it. (Equally badly he had asked his wife Sarai, whom it was his duty to protect, to protect HIM. He caused her to lie and he caused Pharaoh to offend the God Most High. Yet God did what He does with His children who walk in disobedience or error: He exposed his lie and when Abram righted the wrong He then blessed him more.) Abram trusted God. He walked by faith. But not so Lot.
Lot walked by sight. He SAW that the plain surrounding the river Jordan had the richest soil and the most pleasant prospect of all. And he desired to have it. And Abram willingly let him, choosing to live in Canaan … the land first settled by Noah’s grandson Canaan whom God had cursed because of his sin. (Genesis 9:25)
And so they parted ways, Abram walking by faith, trusting in God and being further blessed by Him (Genesis 13:14-17) settled in the physically inferior plain of Mamre; Lot, walking by sight, not truly trusting God, seeking the protection of the walled city, settled in the physically superior land near Sodom. Adam built an altar to the Lord; Lot chose to build his own life.
The next thing we see of Lot is that when a war breaks out among nine kings, Lot is “collateral damage”. He is taken prisoner by the cruel king Chederlaomer. Let me tell you, when you begin to mingle with the world, you will become entangled in it and its ways. And when you walk away from God’s blessing and choose to find your own, you also walk away from God’s perfect protection. And this was Lot’s case.
He was taken prisoner, he and his entire family. And all of his belongings and herds and flocks were seized. He was reaping the wages of his disobedience and his lack of gratitude to God’s man and his disobedience to God’s desire that His people keep themselves separate and touch not the unclean thing. Walking by sight had led Lot into a pit of imprisonment to the powers of the world.
But God did not abandon Lot. He caused his uncle Abram to go after him and save him from the hand of the enemy. As Christ did for us, Abram not only sought the wicked king, he defeated him. And not merely defeated him but chased him for days until, far north of Damascus (at least a week’s hard march on foot from the plain of Mamre) Abram finally destroyed the power of that king and his cohorts and released Lot and all that had been taken with him. Abram did not cease till every vestige of the power of the enemy was destroyed and all that he had taken away was brought back.
What an awesome foreshadow of Christ defeating Satan and rescuing man! And what a good illustration of God acting in our own lives when through the lust of the eyes and the pride of life we are drawn away from our place in Him: He sets out and brings us back.
But what follows is another lesson. Lot goes right back to Sodom where he should never have been in the first place. (Genesis 14:12; 19:1) Truly a dog returns to its vomit and a pig to its mire. When we walk by sight and not by faith, when we walk in accordance with what seems right to us not what God tells us is right, we cannot escape the pits dug by the world. And we are overcome by it.
My dear friends, beloved of God, the Creator of All things is a jealous God. Jealous in that all they who name His name, all they for whom He sent His Son to die, all they who claim Him as their God, are to have no other gods before Him. All things that are more important to us than God are gods. Self is a god; work is a god; sex is a god; sports is a god; entertainment is a god; golf is a god; fishing is a god; reading is a god; gardening, crocheting, woodwork, anything that we find time for before we find time for God is a god. All that is in the world, all that is of the world system is an enemy of ours when it is not submitted to the headship of the Lord God Almighty.
At one of the churches I was at a week ago, I heard a mature person in Christ say, “We need to be witnessing to this neighborhood. The people need Jesus as part of their lives.” No. No! NO!!! They don’t need Jesus as PART of their lives, they need Jesus AS their life. WE need Jesus as our life. He cannot be a part: He must be the whole. The spokes of the wheel of our life cannot be family, job, entertainment, hobbies, church … Christ can never be a spoke. If He is, then you at best are a lukewarm Christian and at worst do not know Him at all! Christ must be the hub, the center, of the wheel of our life and everything else must spring from Him. Everything else must be subordinated to His will and His purposes and His headship.
But “Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom.” And Lot entered its gates and lived there. Not only did he live there, he was a chief man, an elder. How do I know this? Because when the angels arrived in Sodom to rescue him and his family, he was sitting in the gates. In ancient custom, the rulers of a city sat in its gates to render judgment on all matters brought before them. That Lot was sitting in the gate meant that he was a judge and a ruler of the affairs of this city. Yet he knew the city’s evil. In fact, when these angels with the appearance of handsome young men said they would spend the night in the town square he warned them against doing that. He knew what would happen to them. And he eventually insisted they come under the safety of his own roof. He did not condone the sin of Sodom; but he excused it or, at least, found it safer to ignore it. How like many of us Christians today! Why make trouble? If we do, the world will kick us out of its fun places. We will be rejected, laughed at, outcasts. Let’s just let the world be the world. We don’t have to agree with their bad things. We can just not engage in those. But, after all, not everything is bad. Is it?
I find it interesting that the angels after saying God was about to destroy Sodom but they were sent to save Lot and all who were with him asked Lot who was with him beside his wife and daughters—for even his daughter’s husbands had mocked him and left their wives. The angels knew. They were making a point. Abram had had 318 trained men under his roof when the two of them had been together. What did Lot have now? He who had had so many riches of possessions that the land could not hold them all along with Abram’s possessions but the two had had to separate, he now was leaving Sodom with his wife, his two daughters and the clothes on his back. How he had fallen!
But worse was to come. And again because Lot always walked by sight. He always walked by what seemed right to him. The angels had said go to the high country (Genesis 19:17); but Lot said “I am too afraid to go to the mountains. But look, there is a nice insignificant (so its name “Zoar” means) little city; let me go there.” And God made provision to allow Lot to have his will rather than His.
God will do that. If you keep insisting on having your way, God will let you have it. And you will indeed reap the consequences. And what were the consequences for Lot? Well, they didn't end there. Even Zoar proved to be no safe haven for Lot and the last we see of him in the Old Testament is a man living in fear, hiding in a cave with nothing but his two daughters. And it gets worse. He gets drunk and has incestuous relations with them, getting both pregnant and creating two future evil nations. (Genesis 19:30-38)
Walk in your own wisdom, if you like; choose your own ways; make your own accommodations with God (so you think). But the God of this Universe, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is not mocked. Be sure your sin will find you out. And you WILL reap the consequences unless you confess it to Him and are willing to forsake it and allow Him to remove it.
So what does all of this have to do with the topic at hand? That of Christians making bad choices. After all, if we are Christ’s—truly Christ’s—then we are saved forever. Therefore, then, one who sins cannot be Christ’s. Right? Lot died lost. No?
Well, I said that that ultimate degradation of incest is the last we hear of Lot in the Old Testament. But God was not done in using him to teach us something very important about His grace and mercy.
You see, God returns to the subject of Lot once more … in the New Testament. Through Peter’s pen, the Holy Spirit says this:
You and I would have said Lot was lost. No way that man doing those things was God’s. Yet he was. We see it here. He was “righteous” in God’s eyes. Even though he chose to live his way, he did know God and was tormented by the things he saw. knowing them to be an affront to God. Lot was a recipient of God's promise, just as you and I are. He had been raised by Abram under the promise of God and had acknowledged both God and God’s promise as an adult. Yet he had been drawn away by his own lusts. Nevertheless, as God shares with us here, Lot was continually vexed by the evil around him. It tormented him. But relying on his own strength and imprisoned by his own desires, he did not have the strength to overcome. But while he was justified by his position; he was not sanctified in his condition. Lot is the very picture of a carnal Christian. Remember that but for the sacrifice of Christ and the grace of God you and I would be no different from Lot! In fact, as sad as it is to say this, the majority of people in church pews today are Lots.
Thank God that the grace of God is greater than any sin of man. Thank God that as low as I might go, His grace will always reach deeper! Oh how the Pharisee hates that thought! O, how the legalist fights against that truth! But it is God’s truth! My failure will never negate His faithfulness; my poor performance will never negate His perfect promise; my dereliction of obedience will never negate his determination for my soul. I thnbak god that He did not wrap up the story of Lot in the Old Testament, placing the information about his spirit being vexed by the sin around him there. Had He done so, we could see "Well, that's Old Testament. It doesn't apply in the New." But god in His wisdom placed the rest of the story in the New Testament: thus ensuring that we would see it indeed applies to today.
But that said, let me issue a most severe warning ... because I know there are some godless people who will say that I am condoning sin and that I am saying God winks at it. He does NOT. And if you say I have said that, then the Lord rebuke you!.
Paul wrote on the subject of the capacity of grace always surpassing the compass of our sin: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer in sin?” (Romans 6:1-2) God is not mocked. Be sure your sin will find you out. You WILL reap what you sow. As surely as God exposed Abram’s lie, He will expose yours. And He will do it because He loves you. I know. I have lived it. I have manifested Abram’s breakdown in trust. And I have also wandered after the error of Lot. But God in His mercy has always exposed me, and saved me, and brought me back to the right path. He will always do the same for you.
“But,” you may say, “Lot did okay. He’s in Heaven. So what’s the problem?” Well, there are three.
First Lot did NOT do okay. He did for a while, but he lived with seeing it all taken from him. Everything he had, he lost. Everything. God was not going to allow one of His people reap a reward from sin; rather, He ensured he would receive only its wages. Lot had NO reward here on earth as the blessings evaporated. He reaped a most unhappy life.
Second, Lot's sin caused his daughters to sin in a most dreadful way and resulted in generations of misery to follow. Make no mistake: your sin will harm others. You may think of it as a secret sin, as a self-involving sin, but it WILL impact others. It will affect them because it will affect YOU. You will not be the man or the woman of God He has called you to be; and thus you will not be the man or the woman of God that your family, your neighbors, your co-workers, the lost, the wounded and the straying need to see. And because of that their pain will continue longer and they are more likely to be overcome of sin themselves. Sin is the ultimate selfishness. And the ultimate opposite of God and His love.
Third, Lot has no reward in Heaven. For the sake of a few fleeting years of fleshly pleasures he is spending eternity saved but with no crowns, and no rewards that those around him are enjoying. He is absent from the "Faith Hall of Fame" in Hebrews 11; and he is present only on the very lowest rung of that glorious city, the Heavenly Jerusalem.. And while being in Heaven is glorious, how much more glorious to live there in the fullness of the rewards that are laid up for us there and which can never be taken away! Even if you could live the richest, greatest life on earth for 150 years with every single thing you could ever want, it would be as nothing in the face of an eternity— not 150 years, not 150 thousand years, or 150 million, or billion, or trillion … but an eternity that never ends and in which the rewards or lack of them will never end. Think on that the next time you desire a momentary pleasure. (And please understand I am not necessarily speaking only of gross sins of the flesh; I am speaking of ALL sin, everything that puts self first.)
We cannot avoid temptation; but we CAN deal with it. You see, Christ won the victory for us over everything at the Cross. When He said, “It is finished!” it was finished indeed. All that we need for salvation and sanctification was accomplished there. And we appropriate it to ourselves by faith. Just as we are saved by faith, we are sanctified by faith.
When battling besetting sins, we need to stand in faith, understanding and believing that we already have the victory over it through what Christ did. Then if we are overcome by the sin, we immediately confess it. We do not deny it; we do not lessen it; we do not make excuses for it. We state simply to God that this is my sin and it is mine alone. I do it because I like it. But I also know that this is not good for me or pleasing to You. And I am caught between pleasing myself and pleasing You. With my mind I want to please you but my flesh is too strong for me. I cannot win this by anything I can do myself. I believe that Christ has already given me the victory over this thing; therefore my own weakness cannot undo that victory. I will not heed the evidence of my eyes or my experience or anything said by anybody. I will believe only that Christ has given me the victory and that You will work that victory out in my life. Therefore, no matter how many times I will fail, I will set my heart to obey You and trust completely that You will do the work in me as I maintain my faith in that victory being real.”
That, my friends, is living by faith. And only by faith CAN we live. (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38) When, by faith, we stand on Christ’s victory, believing that it WILL be evidenced in our own life, it WILL happen! God the Father will command it because He always honors His Son and rewards faith in Him. Jesus will ensure it because He always intercedes for those whose faith is in Him and what He did at Calvary. And the Holy Spirit will do it because He works within the parameters of Christ’s finished work on the Cross and when we evidence that faith He can work.
So examine yourself. As I do myself. Do you want to be a carnal Christian?
First of all, a word of caution. Lot may have been carnal but he knew who God was and in his spirit he was tormented by the evil around him. He may have been lukewarm but he knew God hated evil. And his own soul was vexed by the evil around him. If you are not vexed by evil, if you are not disturbed by sin, then I suggest you are not Christ’s. If you have God the Holy Spirit dwelling inside you, you WILL be disturbed by sin: you will never be able to simply accept it or disregard it … whether in others or in yourself. It will torment you. Measure yourself against this, then, and make sure that you are saved. You measure not by outward performance but by inner desire. If the performance is there as a result of God working in you, awesome! If it is not but the desire is there and you truly trust Christ and desire to walk with Him and please Him, then you are on the right path. If you could not care less—you just want to avoid an eternity in hell—forget it. You do not know Christ and you have not been born again. Repent for real and turn to Your Savior and He will save you and you will KNOW you have been saved by the fresh and clean desire in your heart. You may be weak in the flesh but you will not make allowances for it and you will desire to see a God-pleasing life manifested in your being.
But if you know that you know that you know you are saved, then what are you doing back in your vomit and back in your mire? You do not belong there. And the God who moved heaven and earth and spared nothing to save you will spare nothing to also sanctify you. He will certainly not spare your soulish life. If He loves you He will chasten you and it could cost you everything. But if it anchors your faith in Him and enables you to receive the eternal rewards He has laid up for you in Heaven, then it will be worth it.
But why not make it easy on yourself? Why desire unnecessary chastening? Why not desire to live the life that God has in His will for you? THAT will be “your best life now.” Not the godless, fleshy, worldly “best life” that Joel Osteen speaks of, not the elevated self life that the Name it and Claim It preachers speak of, but the resurrection life in Christ by which you will enjoy an increasingly close walk with Him on earth, increasing usefulness in His service here, and the resulting rewards and blessings that will be yours in eternity when this life is over.
The decision is yours. Today is the day of decision. You are not guaranteed a tomorrow. Eternity is too long to regret a bad decision now.
Lot is an excellent way in which to illustrate this topic.
Here was an adult man who chose to accompany Abram to Canaan. He also left his people, his friends, his society, and every other thing he had—both in Ur and Haran—and headed off into the unknown with Abram. And he obviously did it because he must have believed that his uncle had truly heard from God. You don’t risk everything unless you have some belief that there is a good reason to do so. Lot had the opportunity to return to his people in Ur, had he wanted to; but he chose to go with Abram. And we know from scripture that Abram did not know what he was going to, but trusted God to provide for him.
In going, Lot showed his trust in the God of Abram. And in so doing he was greatly blessed of God. We see Lot in Canaan so enriched with flocks and herds that the land on which he and Abram settled could not support them both. But now here is where we see the difference in Abram and Lot. Abram’s knowledge of god was personal and first-hand. Lot’s was corporate and second hand. He may have known God but he did not walk with him as did Abraham. He followed Him but did not fully trust Him.
When faced with the need to separate so that they both had sufficient place for their riches of herds, flocks and people, Abram did not hesitate.
“So Abram said to Lot, ‘Please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me; if to the left, then I will go to the right; or if to the right, then I will go to the left.’” (Genesis 13:8-9)
Abram was the head of the clan. He could have easily said, “Lot, you take this land and I’ll take that.” He could have easily said, “As chief, I will rightfully take the best. And I will permit you to have what I do not want.” But he did not. He gave to his nephew first choice. Why? Because he, Abram, was living under the blessing of God. All that he needed God had supplied. Even when he had failed God before Pharaoh and lied to protect himself rather than trusting God to do it. (Equally badly he had asked his wife Sarai, whom it was his duty to protect, to protect HIM. He caused her to lie and he caused Pharaoh to offend the God Most High. Yet God did what He does with His children who walk in disobedience or error: He exposed his lie and when Abram righted the wrong He then blessed him more.) Abram trusted God. He walked by faith. But not so Lot.
“Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. So Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward.” (Genesis 13:10-11a)
Lot walked by sight. He SAW that the plain surrounding the river Jordan had the richest soil and the most pleasant prospect of all. And he desired to have it. And Abram willingly let him, choosing to live in Canaan … the land first settled by Noah’s grandson Canaan whom God had cursed because of his sin. (Genesis 9:25)
And so they parted ways, Abram walking by faith, trusting in God and being further blessed by Him (Genesis 13:14-17) settled in the physically inferior plain of Mamre; Lot, walking by sight, not truly trusting God, seeking the protection of the walled city, settled in the physically superior land near Sodom. Adam built an altar to the Lord; Lot chose to build his own life.
The next thing we see of Lot is that when a war breaks out among nine kings, Lot is “collateral damage”. He is taken prisoner by the cruel king Chederlaomer. Let me tell you, when you begin to mingle with the world, you will become entangled in it and its ways. And when you walk away from God’s blessing and choose to find your own, you also walk away from God’s perfect protection. And this was Lot’s case.
He was taken prisoner, he and his entire family. And all of his belongings and herds and flocks were seized. He was reaping the wages of his disobedience and his lack of gratitude to God’s man and his disobedience to God’s desire that His people keep themselves separate and touch not the unclean thing. Walking by sight had led Lot into a pit of imprisonment to the powers of the world.
But God did not abandon Lot. He caused his uncle Abram to go after him and save him from the hand of the enemy. As Christ did for us, Abram not only sought the wicked king, he defeated him. And not merely defeated him but chased him for days until, far north of Damascus (at least a week’s hard march on foot from the plain of Mamre) Abram finally destroyed the power of that king and his cohorts and released Lot and all that had been taken with him. Abram did not cease till every vestige of the power of the enemy was destroyed and all that he had taken away was brought back.
What an awesome foreshadow of Christ defeating Satan and rescuing man! And what a good illustration of God acting in our own lives when through the lust of the eyes and the pride of life we are drawn away from our place in Him: He sets out and brings us back.
But what follows is another lesson. Lot goes right back to Sodom where he should never have been in the first place. (Genesis 14:12; 19:1) Truly a dog returns to its vomit and a pig to its mire. When we walk by sight and not by faith, when we walk in accordance with what seems right to us not what God tells us is right, we cannot escape the pits dug by the world. And we are overcome by it.
My dear friends, beloved of God, the Creator of All things is a jealous God. Jealous in that all they who name His name, all they for whom He sent His Son to die, all they who claim Him as their God, are to have no other gods before Him. All things that are more important to us than God are gods. Self is a god; work is a god; sex is a god; sports is a god; entertainment is a god; golf is a god; fishing is a god; reading is a god; gardening, crocheting, woodwork, anything that we find time for before we find time for God is a god. All that is in the world, all that is of the world system is an enemy of ours when it is not submitted to the headship of the Lord God Almighty.
At one of the churches I was at a week ago, I heard a mature person in Christ say, “We need to be witnessing to this neighborhood. The people need Jesus as part of their lives.” No. No! NO!!! They don’t need Jesus as PART of their lives, they need Jesus AS their life. WE need Jesus as our life. He cannot be a part: He must be the whole. The spokes of the wheel of our life cannot be family, job, entertainment, hobbies, church … Christ can never be a spoke. If He is, then you at best are a lukewarm Christian and at worst do not know Him at all! Christ must be the hub, the center, of the wheel of our life and everything else must spring from Him. Everything else must be subordinated to His will and His purposes and His headship.
But “Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom.” And Lot entered its gates and lived there. Not only did he live there, he was a chief man, an elder. How do I know this? Because when the angels arrived in Sodom to rescue him and his family, he was sitting in the gates. In ancient custom, the rulers of a city sat in its gates to render judgment on all matters brought before them. That Lot was sitting in the gate meant that he was a judge and a ruler of the affairs of this city. Yet he knew the city’s evil. In fact, when these angels with the appearance of handsome young men said they would spend the night in the town square he warned them against doing that. He knew what would happen to them. And he eventually insisted they come under the safety of his own roof. He did not condone the sin of Sodom; but he excused it or, at least, found it safer to ignore it. How like many of us Christians today! Why make trouble? If we do, the world will kick us out of its fun places. We will be rejected, laughed at, outcasts. Let’s just let the world be the world. We don’t have to agree with their bad things. We can just not engage in those. But, after all, not everything is bad. Is it?
I find it interesting that the angels after saying God was about to destroy Sodom but they were sent to save Lot and all who were with him asked Lot who was with him beside his wife and daughters—for even his daughter’s husbands had mocked him and left their wives. The angels knew. They were making a point. Abram had had 318 trained men under his roof when the two of them had been together. What did Lot have now? He who had had so many riches of possessions that the land could not hold them all along with Abram’s possessions but the two had had to separate, he now was leaving Sodom with his wife, his two daughters and the clothes on his back. How he had fallen!
But worse was to come. And again because Lot always walked by sight. He always walked by what seemed right to him. The angels had said go to the high country (Genesis 19:17); but Lot said “I am too afraid to go to the mountains. But look, there is a nice insignificant (so its name “Zoar” means) little city; let me go there.” And God made provision to allow Lot to have his will rather than His.
God will do that. If you keep insisting on having your way, God will let you have it. And you will indeed reap the consequences. And what were the consequences for Lot? Well, they didn't end there. Even Zoar proved to be no safe haven for Lot and the last we see of him in the Old Testament is a man living in fear, hiding in a cave with nothing but his two daughters. And it gets worse. He gets drunk and has incestuous relations with them, getting both pregnant and creating two future evil nations. (Genesis 19:30-38)
Walk in your own wisdom, if you like; choose your own ways; make your own accommodations with God (so you think). But the God of this Universe, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is not mocked. Be sure your sin will find you out. And you WILL reap the consequences unless you confess it to Him and are willing to forsake it and allow Him to remove it.
So what does all of this have to do with the topic at hand? That of Christians making bad choices. After all, if we are Christ’s—truly Christ’s—then we are saved forever. Therefore, then, one who sins cannot be Christ’s. Right? Lot died lost. No?
Well, I said that that ultimate degradation of incest is the last we hear of Lot in the Old Testament. But God was not done in using him to teach us something very important about His grace and mercy.
You see, God returns to the subject of Lot once more … in the New Testament. Through Peter’s pen, the Holy Spirit says this:
[SUP]“ 4 [/SUP]For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; [SUP]5[/SUP] and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; [SUP]6 [/SUP]and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; [SUP]7 [/SUP]and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men [SUP]8 [/SUP](for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), [SUP]9[/SUP] then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, [SUP]10[/SUP] and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.” (2 Peter 2:4-9)
You and I would have said Lot was lost. No way that man doing those things was God’s. Yet he was. We see it here. He was “righteous” in God’s eyes. Even though he chose to live his way, he did know God and was tormented by the things he saw. knowing them to be an affront to God. Lot was a recipient of God's promise, just as you and I are. He had been raised by Abram under the promise of God and had acknowledged both God and God’s promise as an adult. Yet he had been drawn away by his own lusts. Nevertheless, as God shares with us here, Lot was continually vexed by the evil around him. It tormented him. But relying on his own strength and imprisoned by his own desires, he did not have the strength to overcome. But while he was justified by his position; he was not sanctified in his condition. Lot is the very picture of a carnal Christian. Remember that but for the sacrifice of Christ and the grace of God you and I would be no different from Lot! In fact, as sad as it is to say this, the majority of people in church pews today are Lots.
Thank God that the grace of God is greater than any sin of man. Thank God that as low as I might go, His grace will always reach deeper! Oh how the Pharisee hates that thought! O, how the legalist fights against that truth! But it is God’s truth! My failure will never negate His faithfulness; my poor performance will never negate His perfect promise; my dereliction of obedience will never negate his determination for my soul. I thnbak god that He did not wrap up the story of Lot in the Old Testament, placing the information about his spirit being vexed by the sin around him there. Had He done so, we could see "Well, that's Old Testament. It doesn't apply in the New." But god in His wisdom placed the rest of the story in the New Testament: thus ensuring that we would see it indeed applies to today.
But that said, let me issue a most severe warning ... because I know there are some godless people who will say that I am condoning sin and that I am saying God winks at it. He does NOT. And if you say I have said that, then the Lord rebuke you!.
Paul wrote on the subject of the capacity of grace always surpassing the compass of our sin: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer in sin?” (Romans 6:1-2) God is not mocked. Be sure your sin will find you out. You WILL reap what you sow. As surely as God exposed Abram’s lie, He will expose yours. And He will do it because He loves you. I know. I have lived it. I have manifested Abram’s breakdown in trust. And I have also wandered after the error of Lot. But God in His mercy has always exposed me, and saved me, and brought me back to the right path. He will always do the same for you.
“But,” you may say, “Lot did okay. He’s in Heaven. So what’s the problem?” Well, there are three.
First Lot did NOT do okay. He did for a while, but he lived with seeing it all taken from him. Everything he had, he lost. Everything. God was not going to allow one of His people reap a reward from sin; rather, He ensured he would receive only its wages. Lot had NO reward here on earth as the blessings evaporated. He reaped a most unhappy life.
Second, Lot's sin caused his daughters to sin in a most dreadful way and resulted in generations of misery to follow. Make no mistake: your sin will harm others. You may think of it as a secret sin, as a self-involving sin, but it WILL impact others. It will affect them because it will affect YOU. You will not be the man or the woman of God He has called you to be; and thus you will not be the man or the woman of God that your family, your neighbors, your co-workers, the lost, the wounded and the straying need to see. And because of that their pain will continue longer and they are more likely to be overcome of sin themselves. Sin is the ultimate selfishness. And the ultimate opposite of God and His love.
Third, Lot has no reward in Heaven. For the sake of a few fleeting years of fleshly pleasures he is spending eternity saved but with no crowns, and no rewards that those around him are enjoying. He is absent from the "Faith Hall of Fame" in Hebrews 11; and he is present only on the very lowest rung of that glorious city, the Heavenly Jerusalem.. And while being in Heaven is glorious, how much more glorious to live there in the fullness of the rewards that are laid up for us there and which can never be taken away! Even if you could live the richest, greatest life on earth for 150 years with every single thing you could ever want, it would be as nothing in the face of an eternity— not 150 years, not 150 thousand years, or 150 million, or billion, or trillion … but an eternity that never ends and in which the rewards or lack of them will never end. Think on that the next time you desire a momentary pleasure. (And please understand I am not necessarily speaking only of gross sins of the flesh; I am speaking of ALL sin, everything that puts self first.)
We cannot avoid temptation; but we CAN deal with it. You see, Christ won the victory for us over everything at the Cross. When He said, “It is finished!” it was finished indeed. All that we need for salvation and sanctification was accomplished there. And we appropriate it to ourselves by faith. Just as we are saved by faith, we are sanctified by faith.
When battling besetting sins, we need to stand in faith, understanding and believing that we already have the victory over it through what Christ did. Then if we are overcome by the sin, we immediately confess it. We do not deny it; we do not lessen it; we do not make excuses for it. We state simply to God that this is my sin and it is mine alone. I do it because I like it. But I also know that this is not good for me or pleasing to You. And I am caught between pleasing myself and pleasing You. With my mind I want to please you but my flesh is too strong for me. I cannot win this by anything I can do myself. I believe that Christ has already given me the victory over this thing; therefore my own weakness cannot undo that victory. I will not heed the evidence of my eyes or my experience or anything said by anybody. I will believe only that Christ has given me the victory and that You will work that victory out in my life. Therefore, no matter how many times I will fail, I will set my heart to obey You and trust completely that You will do the work in me as I maintain my faith in that victory being real.”
That, my friends, is living by faith. And only by faith CAN we live. (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38) When, by faith, we stand on Christ’s victory, believing that it WILL be evidenced in our own life, it WILL happen! God the Father will command it because He always honors His Son and rewards faith in Him. Jesus will ensure it because He always intercedes for those whose faith is in Him and what He did at Calvary. And the Holy Spirit will do it because He works within the parameters of Christ’s finished work on the Cross and when we evidence that faith He can work.
So examine yourself. As I do myself. Do you want to be a carnal Christian?
First of all, a word of caution. Lot may have been carnal but he knew who God was and in his spirit he was tormented by the evil around him. He may have been lukewarm but he knew God hated evil. And his own soul was vexed by the evil around him. If you are not vexed by evil, if you are not disturbed by sin, then I suggest you are not Christ’s. If you have God the Holy Spirit dwelling inside you, you WILL be disturbed by sin: you will never be able to simply accept it or disregard it … whether in others or in yourself. It will torment you. Measure yourself against this, then, and make sure that you are saved. You measure not by outward performance but by inner desire. If the performance is there as a result of God working in you, awesome! If it is not but the desire is there and you truly trust Christ and desire to walk with Him and please Him, then you are on the right path. If you could not care less—you just want to avoid an eternity in hell—forget it. You do not know Christ and you have not been born again. Repent for real and turn to Your Savior and He will save you and you will KNOW you have been saved by the fresh and clean desire in your heart. You may be weak in the flesh but you will not make allowances for it and you will desire to see a God-pleasing life manifested in your being.
But if you know that you know that you know you are saved, then what are you doing back in your vomit and back in your mire? You do not belong there. And the God who moved heaven and earth and spared nothing to save you will spare nothing to also sanctify you. He will certainly not spare your soulish life. If He loves you He will chasten you and it could cost you everything. But if it anchors your faith in Him and enables you to receive the eternal rewards He has laid up for you in Heaven, then it will be worth it.
But why not make it easy on yourself? Why desire unnecessary chastening? Why not desire to live the life that God has in His will for you? THAT will be “your best life now.” Not the godless, fleshy, worldly “best life” that Joel Osteen speaks of, not the elevated self life that the Name it and Claim It preachers speak of, but the resurrection life in Christ by which you will enjoy an increasingly close walk with Him on earth, increasing usefulness in His service here, and the resulting rewards and blessings that will be yours in eternity when this life is over.
The decision is yours. Today is the day of decision. You are not guaranteed a tomorrow. Eternity is too long to regret a bad decision now.
Thank you Pastor Adrian for that powerful teaching from the Holy Spirit.
And you and I will reach it because it is HE who guarantees it. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. As long as we are truly in the faith in the first place we will make it. And I have no doubt we will, because it is in His hands. Glory to God!
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