For all practical intents and purposes Abraham was Lot’s father. Early on Abraham had assumed responsibility for Lot (Gen. 11: 31-32; 12: 4-5) and was obviously the father figure in his life. Lot no doubt owed his salvation to Uncle Abraham. He owed so much else as well and yet Lot does not seem to have been the most grateful nephew. A rivalry develops between the herdsmen of Lot and the herdsmen of Abraham over pastureland. It is Abraham who takes the initiative to resolve the dispute. Though he was certainly in a position to invoke authoritative privilege, Abraham chose instead to permit Lot the choicest of grazing lands. Lot chose the most luscious and moved his family into the fertile Jordan Valley near Sodom. Abraham settled contently for what was left over and worshiped God there (13: 18).
When Lot found himself in trouble (chp. 14) it would have been simple for Abraham to have smugly concluded that Lot had gotten exactly what he deserved and left him to his own devices but that is something a parent’s heart does not permit. Abraham acted heroically by mobilizing his forces and rescuing Lot from his enemies. Once again Abraham had done the right thing. Abraham would do the right thing again in chapter 15. He would listen to God and believe God’s message to him. So here is a father figure who leads his “adopted son” to faith, sacrifices significantly for him, comes to his rescue, refuses to be compensated for it (14 : 23) and maintains a historic walk with God throughout their relationship and yet the story of Lot is infamously sad. Lot is just as synonymous with failure as Abraham is with faith.
You can do everything right in this sin crazed world and have everything go very bad! Some of you parents need to let yourself off the hook today. If you brought your children up in a godly home and they rebelled they must reckon for their sins. Some husbands and wives also need to free yourselves today. You may have done everything you could have possibly done to preserve your marriage and yet your mate decides to leave. Life is not lived on autopilot. Nothing is automatic. Pity the people who think that you just fill in the blanks with the right answers and everything works out like a fairytale at the end. The Bible is not a fairytale! Good people do very good things in the Bible and sometimes very bad things happen. Maybe it has happened to you. If so forgive yourself and thereby free yourself to live in our Lord’s grace today.
Before I let you go today I should point out something in order to be balanced. Abraham may have done something very unintentionally to point Lot in the wrong direction. The Bible says, Lot looked out and saw that the entire Jordan Valley…was well-watered…like…the land of Egypt (13: 10). Is it possible that Abraham’s disobedient detour into Egypt in chapter 12 stimulated a lust in Lot which resulted in his desire for the lowlands of Sodom? We’ll have to wait till heaven for the answer but it is often true that what we do in moderation our children do in excess. If as parents we have genuinely made mistakes that facilitated our children’s failures lets confess them and then like Abraham do the right thing even if the right thing does not happen as a result.