The top picture is of me with Moises. Pray for him. He´s briliant, kind, funny, and has an EQ through the ceiling. I imagine his IQ is even higher. Wish I could help him more. Pray that we can finally get that orphanage-old folks home-sustainable farm permit, and the funding to go with. There´s a thousand kids I could bring in, and old folks, right now. The only hold back is funding and a place to put them. Before I can get permission I need to show them I have the resources to do it responsibly (Many missions got permission in the past, and then couldn’t adequately take care of their responsibilities. That’s why we have the problems we are having now.) We don’t get the funds from donors until we actually have it up and running and all the permits in place. It’s a catch 22.
Lot
2 Peter 2:7 And (God) delivered just Lot.
It’s not saying that God delivered ‘only’ Lot from Sodom. God delivered Lot’s daughters as well. The Bible is saying that Lot was righteous. Lot was saved! I’m teaching Genesis 19 right now as we are going through the Bible again. Except for leaving his home and following his uncle Abraham, Lot had shown nothing redeeming in his life. There was no sign he was a believer except that he went to the ‘mission field’ with Abraham because God asked Abraham to go and he followed his uncle. If Lot being counted just isn’t shocking to you, let me refresh you why this amazes me.
In Genesis 12-19 you will read about Lot and his uncle Abraham. Both heard from the Lord and obeyed. They left their wealthy homes in Iraq. They were obedient to the Lord. They both believed and were saved, from that moment on. Did they live happily ever after? Nope! Did they live holy lives? No at all!! Were they good testimonies? Not on your life! Did they stop sinning? No way! They actually lived bad lives and the only thing that saved their souls was the fact that they believed.
Genesis 15:6 And he (Abraham) believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
Abraham is known as out spiritual father of the faith. God made a covenant with Abraham that makes us saved through believing in his bloodline (Jesus). Yet Abraham’s life AFTER he followed God to the mission field was blemished by the sins of circumventing and doubting God, adultery, lying, cowardice and lack of faith. Any mission board would have fired him immediately. Plus he kept getting richer and richer with every passing year. Any religious person will tell you that a true Christians should live in abject poverty. But God loved Abraham and blessed him in all ways.
Abraham at least had a prayer life, which was far better than Lot. Abraham made horrible mistakes which would hurt his bloodline to this day. (One of his sins produced Ismael, the father of the Muslim faith). But Abraham did believe, and that was what made him righteous (right) with God. He left his home and went to foreign countries in obedience. All along the way he stopped and built altars to the Lord (which was a way of praying). He talked to Jesus (in a Cristophanie) and called Him Lord. You can only call Jesus Lord if you obey Him. Calling Him Lord and not obeying Him is a lie. Abraham gave Lot the first choice of land when it was time to separate, which was a Godly thing to do. And when the rubber met the road, he offered up his legitimate son, Isaac, on the altar of sacrifice. He was intent on doing so because the Lord had to stop him as he was ready to plunge his knife into Isaac’s heart.
Genesis 22:12 And he (God) said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
That was Uncle Abraham. You could see his faith and righteousness in spite of his constant sinning and foul ups. Abraham was holy and righteous only because he believed God. There are only two types of people in this world. Believers and non-believers. Believers go to heaven. Non-believers go to hell. I believe, therefore I am holy and righteous, irregardless of what my friends and family might tell you haha! Our own righteousness is like wearing a filthy rag, like the guy that showed up at the wedding not dressed for the wedding, he showed up in dirty clothes and Jesus said he was thrown out. Basically it showed what happens when people try to go to heaven by their good works.
When the king asked, “Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?” the man was silent (Matt 22:12); therefore, the king said: “Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Our works of going to church, being a minister or missionary, of not sinning, not lusting, not swearing and not drinking might be able to fool human beings but you can’t fool God. He knows our acts and even things we don’t do are not even close to making us righteous. The only thing that gives us a clean robe of righteousness is believing that Jesus died for our sins and rose again on the third day. Believe that, and confess that, and you loose your filthy rags and put on your spotless wedding garment and will be received into heaven. Hallelujah!
Zechariah 3:4 (NIV) The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.”
Lot wasn’t like his uncle. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about Lot in Genesis 19 and 20. He was a lousy witness, a bad husband, a failure of a father. Totally unspiritual. No evidence of belief. The first 20 or thirty times I read it, I couldn’t understand even why God had this story in there. In contradicted everything I knew about how to live a victorious Christian life. Then I saw it through the eyes of grace. God used Lot to make a point. The only thing that will save us from the brutal tribulation and hellfire is if we believe in Him and His Word. Nothing more. Lot only believed, just barely enough to follow Abraham out of his home country. He was more a trouble to Abraham than he was worth. He never prayed along the way. He got himself kidnapped. (A side note, I know of several situations in Colombia that I just barely escaped kidnapping because I was in prayer, and God showed me to run). Lot was what you could call a marginal, luke warm Christian at best. He had zero spiritual life. No walk with the Lord. It was revealed when he pitched his tent towards Sodom. He yearned to live in cities. To settle down. Abraham was a tent dweller, he knew he was just passing through. Lot wanted a home in Sodom. Remember from a few weeks ago, the real sin of Sodom was rejecting God. One of the many byproducts of this rejection of God was homosexuality, but it was only one of many sins there.
Lot loved the world and the things offered by it. Although Lot himself was getting richer and richer by the day because he chose to follow Abraham and God (vicariously). God blessed Lot, in spite of Lot. Just like Demas though, he left Abraham to live in a nicer place. He got sick of being a traveler. He wanted to settle down. Christians will settle down when they go home, to heaven. Lot wasn’t guided by prayer. He was guided by laziness, desire of the flesh and lust of the eye.
2 Timothy 4:10, KJV: For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.
If Demas and Lot had prayed more they would have never made such a terrible mistake. Lot first pitched his tent facing Sodom, then moved his whole family there. And they prospered.
Lot was soon accepted into their lifestyles. You can’t be accepted into a lifestyle if you are sitting on a fence. This past two years has taught me that it is impossible to sit on the fence anymore. The hatred and deceit that is dividing the United States (not by half but maybe 75% / 25% makes it impossible to sit on a fence. The 25% will attack you til you have to say ‘you are wrong and in sin’. The days of sitting back and trying to live in peace with all men are over.
Lot became a leader, sitting at the gate, overseeing events, politics, parades and promotions. Life was exciting for him and his family, but God was slowly eroding from their lives, as was his Godly leadership of his family and his discernment. He knew Sodom was bad, but he was trying to ‘change things from within’ (famous last words outside of the Kingdom of God).
The 2 angels appeared (not Jesus). Remember the Christophany with Abraham the chapter before, there were 3 men (one was Jesus). He talked to Abraham because Abraham was not in Sodom but Jesus did not visit Lot because Lot was kind of loving the sin there. If you are watching filth on the internet, or flirting with a girl in the office or cheating on taxes, stop it right now! If your prayers aren’t being answered, something’s rotten in Denmark.
Psalm 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:
Lot was fitting in nicely. His family too. When we were living in Cancun Mexico my daughter Winnie Joy was learning to read. I loved Cancun. There were bad things there but were easy to overlook. One day we were in traffic and Winnie Joy read a bumper sticker ‘good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Cancun’. We left several weeks later to live in Nicaragua. Lot and his family lived in the Cancun of the time. But he didn’t move. And it cost him. Uncle Abe was interceding for his nephew with Jesus, ‘ if there are 50 righteous will you destroy Sodom? No Jesus said, 40? 30? 10? Jesus said no, if there were 10 righteous He would not destroy Sodom. Well, turned out there were only 3, and all questionable at best.
The 2 angels came, and the whole town tried to rape them. Lot said ‘brothers’ don’t rape these guys!! What?? Lot is calling a bunch of homosexual rapist brothers?????? Was he starting some kind of wierd church or religious movement?? Then Lot offered his two virgin daughters to be raped instead……say what??? SAY WHAT????????? Then he agreed to leave and his sons in laws laughed at him (0 cred in the house anymore because of compromise to sin. Then the angels had to take his hand and pull him out cause he was still lingering (RAPTURE?). But he was lingering. Didn’t want to go. Then when the angels said run to the mountains he argued with them because he was scared of getting hurt there. What was Lot’s problem???? He sure didn’t act saved or SOZOD as I explained last week.
God forcibly saved Lot and two of his daughters from sin and you’ll see later that they kept sinning, horribly and kept doubting God despicably. Again, like Abraham’s sin of Ismael bringing in the Muslims as a scourge of Christianity and Judah, Lot’s sin brought in the Ammonites and Moabites who were almost as bad. Yet God saved Abraham and Lot. Liars, incestual, fornicaters, cheats, cowards, faithless and fearful. And yet righteous!!! Just like ourselves, and our backslidden kids, friends and family. Good thing Gid isn’t like us!!! God’s mercies are new every morning.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
With much love in Jesus,
Dean and Winnie Peters