Learn A lot from Lot

Genesis 19:1 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.

 

Lot is another puzzle. He is Abraham's nephew and comes into a pile of wealth when he chooses the well watered plains as his new home. Or it seems that he has robbed his uncle Abe blind when he takes that land. However, just after that episode, God promises it all to Abraham. 

Lot goes directly to the two worst possible choices to raise his family, Sodom and Gomorrah. He started out by "pitching his tent toward Sodom" and in the above text he's one of the community leaders. "Sitting in the gateway" in that culture was the same as saying that he had become a leader in the city. 

The question here is, how does a leader of a city that God destroyed with fire and brimstone come to be called righteous, again in the book of Hebrews? Two God sent angels have to literally drag the family from the condemned city and this after his sons in law think that he is joking when he tells them that the city is doomed. Lot's wife becomes a pillar of salt as she longingly looks back to the burning metropolis. Wow. 

Later on his tarnished story becomes even more grotesque when his two daughters get him stone drunk and have sex with him to produce the two future enemies of Israel, Moab and Amon. 

In any other scenario we would call this guy a loser. Times were terrible and losers like Lot were used as examples for us. What lessons can we learn from his tragic life? Allow the word of God guide you and not your own wicked desires. Your heart is the most evil part of your existence. Your "heart" is you, not that blood pumping organ in your chest. Wicked hearts do wicked things. Only when we are totally controlled by the Holy Spirit will we be able to make wise and God honoring decisions. We can learn a lot from Lot.