Lessons from the Life of Lot
2 Peter 2:6-9
Intro: There are three basic ways to learn.
Everything you and I learn is learned one of three ways.
A. By Exhortation – this is when the teacher stands in front of you and teaches.
B. By Example – this is when you observe others and learn what to do and not to do
C. By Experience – this is when you learn by the school of hard knocks
When we look at the life of Lot, we discover that Lot was not very bright.
He was a slow learner.
He didn’t learn from any of the three ways.
The life of Lot gives all of us much to consider.
He made a lot of mistakes. That’s not the problem.
The problem is he made more mistakes; made more bad choices than he made right ones.
They just kept piling up!
He kept making bad decisions. One or two is bad enough. But he made bad decisions for years!
If the Bible didn’t tell me otherwise, I’d think Lot was lost.
As I read his life, I recognize how many of his mistakes could have been avoided.
I also see people today making the exact same mistakes – not learning from Lot’s mistakes.
And Lot made a lot of mistakes.
He messed up so many times it’s a miracle he lasted as long as he did.
The Bible is clear – he was vexed day to day by their unlawful deeds.
Yet he never left Sodom. He never walked away.
He never moved his family. He stayed there. Day after day after day.
I look at Lot’s life and there is a host of lessons we can learn that he didn’t learn.
What is shocking to me is how many church members make the same mistakes that Lot made.
They have read the story, heard the messages, and turn around and make the same mistakes!!
Hopefully, we can learn from his mistakes.
After reading this story, I hope to God that I would not make the same mistakes.
I hope I would have enough sense to make the same mistakes; to do something different.
1. Don’t walk away from a man that can get ahold of God. – Gen. 12:1
SEE also Gen. 12:4; 13:4, 14; 15:1, 4, 18; 17:1-3; 22; 18:1, 33
2. Don’t let one disagreement with the brethren get you out of the will of God. – Gen. 13:7
STRIFE: controversy, dispute, quarrel
3. Don’t look at anything that looks like Egypt. – Gen. 13:10-13
NOTE: Satan is an expert at getting a place that looks like Egypt to look like the garden of God.
NOTE: If it looks like Egypt, it IS like Egypt. Nothing that is of God looks like Egypt.
4. Stay with the crowd that can help rescue your family. – Gen. 14:12-15
Lot was blessed to have people nearby that loved his family enough to risk their lives.
Abraham loved Lot and his family.
Lot’s decisions got his family in a serious mess.
Abraham helped him get his family back.
But Lot didn’t go back to Abraham!!
5. Learn how to fight for your family so others won’t have to. – Gen. 14:16
Abraham had taught his trained servants to fight and armed them.
Apparently, Lot didn’t know how to fight. He had servants too.
They all fell prey to the enemy.
If it was me, I’d learn how to fight to save my family and not have to depend on others to do it.
6. Don’t seek a place of prominence in Sodom. – Gen. 19:1
Why would Lot be sitting in the gate of a hellhole like Sodom?
He was either in a place of leadership or he was seeking it to be in the gate.
7. Don’t give perverts access to your children. Gen. 19:8
Do with them as is good in your eyes… Seriously???
8. Don’t live so that your children will mock your warnings. – Gen. 19:14
Daddy; the day your warnings to your children fall on deaf ears, you’ve lost all your influence.
When you can’t get your children to listen to you, you’ve made some major mistakes.
It can be restored, but it will take you making a lot of right choices over a long period of time.
9. Don’t drag your feet when your family is in danger of destruction. – Gen. 19:16
The Bible says “while he lingered…”
He had just been told that he and his family would be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
Yet he had to be dragged out of town by the angels.
I watch parents sit in our churches, week after week, never heeding the passionate warnings.
What will it take for you to get up and get moving??
Hebrews 11:7 “Noah, being warned of God MOVED WITH FEAR to the saving of his house…”
10. Don’t turn your back on your wife when she needs you the most. – Gen. 19:26
His wife needed his leadership more than she ever had before.
He had let her down so many times she lost count.
But the one time she needed a strong, decisive leader, he turned his back on her.
The Bible is clear – she was behind him. She looked back FROM BEHIND HIM.