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The Mistake of Lot
by Glenn Hall
- (Genesis 19:1-8 NIV)
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening,
and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet
them and bowed down with his face to the ground. {2} "My lords," he said,
"please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend
the night and then go on your way early in the morning." "No," they
answered, "we will spend the night in the square." {3} But he insisted
so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for
them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. {4} Before they had gone to bed,
all the men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded
the house. {5} They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight?
Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." {6} Lot went outside
to meet them and shut the door behind him {7} and said, "No, my friends. Don't
do this wicked thing. {8} Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a
man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't
do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."
his city of Sodom
and all the men from every part of the city represent the world. Lot represents a
carnal, but born again, Christian. Peter calls Lot a righteous man, who was distressed
by the filthy lives of lawless men. He says, "that righteous man, living among
[the Sodomites] day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless
deeds he saw and heard" (1 Peter 2:7-8). Lot was just like Christians today
who live in the stress of a lawless, wicked time, but fail to remove themselves from
it. He especially represents the pastors and fathers of our day who truly believe
that the Bible is the Word of God, but never learn to apply it to life. He is a type
of the man who should know right from wrong, but is yet "unskilled in the word
of righteousness, for he is a babe." See Hebrews 5:11-14.
The sad thing is that although God gave us the testimony of Lot as an example most
Christians make the same mistake as Lot. Like Lot most of us have been given virgins
to protect. Pastors have been given their flock and fathers have been given their
children. Like Lot, God has appeared to us by revealing His Word, Jesus Christ. We
have believed in Him and received the righteousness that is by faith. See Roman 3:21-22.
But we have failed to discern the men of Sodom and we have willingly given our virgins
to them to be raped, pillaged and destroyed. So, what do those men really represent?
They represent the institutions, plans, and methods of the world. They represent
our schools, our places of employment, our meeting places, and, yes, most of our
churches. They represent the beast of Revelation.
Many Christian pastors and fathers receive the LORD as their Savior, just as Lot
received the angels, yet they send their own children into Sodom daily to be molested
by the beast. This is what it means when Lot refused to send the two strangers out
to be molested by the men, but instead offered his own virgin daughters to be raped
and murdered. This is exactly what pastors do with their sheep and fathers do with
their children. They pretend to protect them. They say that they love them and only
want the best for them. But, they do exactly what the world says to do with them.
Fathers send them to the beast's schools and pastors never say a word about it (in
fact, most pastors send their children to the beast's schools too); they allow them
to date when they are sixteen (or fourteen or less); they encourage (read "force")
them to leave their homes when they are eighteen years old in order to make their
own way in the beast; they encourage (force) them to take jobs in the beast's businesses
so they can afford to rent their own apartments and buy their own cars; they benevolently
pay for and send them to the beast's most illustrious colleges.
What is the result? The virgins get raped and destroyed by the Satanic beast we know
as the world. Professing christians murder their own children and seem to not even
be aware of it! Homosexual offenders and other perverts pound at our doors for our
sons. They intrude into the beast's schools with their curricula. They parade their
sin in all the beast's public places. They overturn the set laws in order to make
their ways legal and acceptable to all. And we bold Christians cry out, "No,
you cannot have our sons. We will not let you take them and sodomize them."
Yet, all the while we send both our sons and our daughters to the beast's schools
and businesses. We pretend we are righteous; we pretend that our souls are vexed
by the evil all around us. But, when it comes to raising our children in the fear
and admonition of the Lord our God, we are more interested in personal peace and
affluence than the ways of God. This is as true for the church elder, pastor, teacher,
prophet and self-proclaimed apostle as for the new believer. Oh, that God would raise
up true elders to stand and be an example in this wicked time!
What do you think God has to say about His people who act this way? A similar account
in the book of Judges gives us the answer, I believe. There a Levite and his adulterous
wife travel and spend the night with an old Ephraimite in the territory of Benjamin.
The men of Benjamin have become as depraved as the earlier Sodomites. They bang on
the home's door and demand to have sex with the traveler. Instead of giving his guest
to the Benjamites the old man offers his virgin daughter and the traveler's concubine
to them. Only the adulteress is sent out and she is raped to death by the wicked
men. See Judges 19.
In this historical parable I believe that the Levite priest represents the LORD and
the old man represents the semi-faithful pastor, the babe in Christ, just as Lot
did. He is willing to give his virgin daughter to the brutes outside his door. But,
the LORD is not willing to give the virgin away. He only gives his unfaithful wife
to the beasts outside. This adulterous is a type of the harlot Babylon in Revelation,
As the beast destroys Babylon (Rev. 17:16) so the Benjamite beasts destroy the harlot
wife.
This is a also a prophetic picture for the church at the end of the age of grace,
the church on the eve of the 3rd Millennium. The virgin daughter represents the virgin
bride of Christ, the members of the Philadelphian church of Revelation 3. Just as
this virgin stayed in the shelter of the righteous priest (symbolizing the actual
presence of the Lord), the overcoming Christians of God's Church (Philadelphian believers)
will be kept in the presence of God and protected from the great tribulation to come.
"Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from
the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live
on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take
your crown" (Rev. 3:10-11). The virgin daughter represents all Christians who
will be kept from the persecution and suffering of the great tribulation, probably
by a first fruits rapture.
Similarly, the adulterous bride represents the unfaithful Christians of Laodicea
and those believers pictured by "that woman Jezebel" of the church of Thyatira.
Just as she was thrown out to the evil doers, so will the unfaithful of God be thrown
out to the world to be persecuted in the great trial to soon come. This trial will
be necessary to purge these believers of sin-stained lives. If we are unwilling to
judge ourselves, then we force God to judge us. "But if we judged ourselves,
we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined
so that we will not be condemned with the world" (1 Cor. 11:31-32). Today is
the day of repentance. We wait to repent and continue to sin at the risk of being
judged like Jezebel! "And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and
she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery
with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds" (Rev 2:21-22
KJV).
Brethren, are you sending your children to the public schools? Are you encouraging
your children to move out of your house when they turn eighteen? Are you allowing
your teenagers to date? Are you making that big sacrifice to send them to that prestigious
college? Why? Don't you know that to do so is to send your children into the very
bowels of the Satanic beast called this world? Don't you know that to forsake your
babies this way is nothing less than offering them to Chemosh as Israel did? When
will you repent? When will you listen to the words of your God?
Again, what do you set before your eyes? Every blasphemous and adulterous movie and
sit-com that comes through the air waves? The latest pornographic magazine or internet
site? What do you allow your children to watch? What do you listen to? What are your
children allowed to listen to? Who has authority over your child's room? Do you always
know where your children are? When will you listen to the words of your God?
(Deu 6:4-9 NIV) Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. {5} Love the LORD
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. {6}
These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. {7} Impress
them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along
the road, when you lie down and when you get up. {8} Tie them as symbols on your
hands and bind them on your foreheads. {9} Write them on the doorframes of your houses
and on your gates.
We listen to the many "prophecies" coming forth these days, but it is time
to listen to the Word of the Lord from the Scriptures as it relates to our daily
lives. We cannot live as we have in the past and expect all to go well. Hear the
word of the prophets, "Flee from Babylon! Run for your lives! Do not be destroyed
because of her sins. It is time for the Lord's vengeance; he will pay her what she
deserves" (Jeremiah 51:6). "Come out of her, my people, so that you will
not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins
are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes" (Revelation 18:4-5).
Brethren, it is time to leave Babylon and the beast. Leave your worldly possessions
and desires just as Lot left Sodom. Leave your adulterous and apostate churches and
leaders. Leave your watered down, faithless Christianity. I am not saying to leave
the fellowship of the saints, only apostate leadership. Drink of the holy and pure
waters of God's Word, but go beyond Lot. Do not give your virgins to the beast like
he did, for God will hold you accountable and you yourself may feel the stinging
in your flesh of the beast's mighty jaws.
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