Chapter 19

In chapters 19 & 20 we have a good look at believers out of fellowship and the things that characterise their lives. In chapter 19: characteristics of a believer out of fellowship: operation Lot.

First characteristic: The believer out of fellowship emphasises time instead of eternity, reform instead of regeneration.

Verse 1 – “sat in the gate” is an idiom for a judge. Lot is a believer out of fellowship. Lot thought he could turn the tide. He thought that all he had to do was occupy a prominent position and things would change in Sodom. You cannot change the world by reform. This is the issue of the social gospel versus the Bible gospel—regeneration. Lot is like the breakers at the beach; he dissipated his life in trying to reform a city. He spent all of his time trying to change things through human reform. The changes that count are eternal changes and this refers to regeneration. Abraham is up in the mountains leading souls to the Lord, stressing regeneration. Up there he has tremendous impact. Lot is down in the cities of the plain trying to change everything. He is a judge. A believer out of fellowship always has the wrong scale of values.

Second characteristic: The believer out of fellowship has an unpleasant household and a poor domestic life—verses 2 & 3.

Verse 2 – “turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house.” These two angels stopped and spent the day with Abraham, and they enjoyed it.

“Nay; but we will abide in the street all night” – they would rather be in the street all night than to be in someone’s home where there is a lot of bickering and fighting. They don’t want to stay with Lot, he is a man out of fellowship. Lot’s wife is out of fellowship and Lot’s children are out of fellowship [the two who are believers; there are also three married daughters and they are not even saved]. A believer out of fellowship, if he happens to be a family man, has an unpleasant household and a miserable domestic life.

Verse 3 – Lot finally persuades them. But they didn’t want to. The believer out of fellowship does not having anything whereby people can come in and be at ease.

Third characteristic: The believer out of fellowship has no sense of responsibility to his family.

Verse 4 – “both old and young.” You can always tell when you have a really lecherous society, the old ones are there too. These people are homosexuals. They had seen these two men go in and they wanted the men for homosexual type operation.

Verse 5 – “that we may know them.” Literally, ‘that we may have sexual relationship with them.’

Verse 6 – Lot has had experience. He shuts the door behind him so that they can’t get in.

Verse 7 – notice, he calls these people brethren. Once you start reforming the world you get into this universal brotherhood thing. Here are these inflamed homosexuals and he calls them brethren.

Verse 8 – he tries to lead them off the track, to entice them with a couple of lovely girls: his own daughters! But they will not be drawn away from what they consider to be two beautiful men and even girls do not interest them. “I have two daughters.” Here is a man who has tremendous responsibility toward his family and he is going to throw his two daughters out in the street to these men, only they won’t take them.

“who have not known man” – this would make them highly desirable, they are virgins.

“bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.” In other words, if you do something to these two men I will lose face as a judge in this town but you can take my daughters and you can do anything you want with them. You begin to get the drift; this man is out of fellowship. He has no sense of responsibility.

Verse 11 – “so that they wearied themselves to find the door.” In other words, these lecherous individuals continued to try to find the door even though they had been smitten with blindness. They are so inflamed by a long malpractice without restraint of any kind that even though they were blinded and physically hindered they still tried. It can be seen why Sodom needed removing from the earth. But the point here is that we have a believer out of fellowship, and a believer out of fellowship has no sense of responsibility to his family.

Fourth characteristic: The believer out of fellowship has no testimony to the unbeliever—verses 12-14.

Verse 14 – Lot warns his sons-in-law. “But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.” They didn’t pay any attention to him. This tells us that he has no influence, no testimony, no impact, and his word means nothing to the three men who married three of his daughters. This is because he has had the wrong scale of values, he has emphasised reform, and now reform has come back to slap him down. Even his relatives will not listen to him.

Fifth characteristic: The believer out of fellowship is disciplined but never judged—verses 15-17.

God had been spanking Lot for a long time. He is a miserable person and the Greek of 2 Peter 2 tells us that he was, all of this time that he was out of fellowship. While he was still being disciplined he was not going to be judged. Sodom was filled with unbelievers. Unbelievers will be judged and destroyed; Lot will be preserved and disciplined.

Sixth characteristic: The believer out of fellowship faints mentally with fear and worry—verses 18-19.

Here he has been delivered by the Lord and Lot is afraid that something is going to happen to him now and that he will die. The same thing is expressed again in verse 30—“he feared.” Even though the Lord had delivered him and had graciously cared for him and protected him in the most awful situation he is afraid. This is typical of a believer out of fellowship. God is faithful to believers out of fellowship and He delivers believers out of fellowship, and He cares for believers out of fellowship, yet always they are afraid. A believer out of fellowship is a frightened person, a worrying, anxious person.

Seventh characteristic: The believer out of fellowship has no resistance to any type of sin—verses 31-36.

As long as Lot lived in Sodom he deplored the phallic cult, the child sacrifice, all of the systems of degeneracy which were used, but as soon as he gets into a cave and away from all of those people he does exactly the same thing—incest. If you don’t live in the Word, if you don’t use the grace of God, you are just going to go right down the hill.

Verse 31 – “…Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth.” That is, there is no one to have sexual relationship with us so that the seed can be perpetuated.

Verse 32 – they rationalise.

From this incident with the two daughters we have a race which constantly cursed Israel and constantly caused them trouble, the Moabites and the Amonites.