Dev Ramcharan - Class 2: Saving a Brother, the Blessing of a King

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   This is the Rocky Mountain Bible School. Today being Tuesday, June 25th, 2019. This is the second class in our series. Our speaker is Brother Dev Remcherin from Toronto West Ecclesia in Ontario, Canada. His theme is Abraham Believed God, and today's title is Saving a Brother, the Blessing of a King, Brother Dev. Well, good morning, brothers and sisters. We are going to continue then in the life of Abraham.

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   You'll recall the end of chapter 12. He's just received these incredible promises from God. Then, through force of circumstances, in the time of famine, he goes with his wife and with the retinue that is with him down into Egypt. And tragedy takes place in spite of his well-laid plans, all of which were based on human reasoning, standard everyday pragmatic logic, but did not align with godly thinking.

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   They did not rely on God to take care of him and deliver him. But at the same time, we ought not to judge him, not having experienced, most of us, those kinds of circumstances in our individual lives. He comes out of the situation, and as he's leaving, Pharaoh says to him, effectively, get out of my country.

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   And you can imagine how that would have felt to him. Go your way. Get out of my country. And he leaves. Now, we know there's at least one Egyptian in that retinue. There might have been some more, but we know that Hagar is with the group, because she plays a role later on in the narrative as we go on.

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   Chapter 13, Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and a lot with him into the south, into the territory of the Negev, the area south of the region of Judah, even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Ai.

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   So there's another decision point for him. He's now brought to the same place. He's gone there of his own volition, but it's brought him to another key decision point. And this is going to be a decision point that is all about what are we going to do in a situation of great prosperity and not enough land to support our prosperity.

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   And that's a really interesting problem. It's an interesting problem for us in the most prosperous region on the face of the earth to reflect on. And in times of prosperity, we may not see it come out in this particular narrative, what begins to happen is we become shared off from each other as brothers and sisters because we're fundamentally self-reliant.

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   We have enough money, we have a place to live, we have something to drive, we have good jobs, we have money in the bank and savings, we have whatever we have that gives us the illusion of self-contained independence. A kind of independence which is as durable as clay bricks and slime. But for us, it looks like all the trappings of independence.

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   In the Philippines, there was a brother who lived in a place that was really a tin shed and who went to meeting, I understand, dragging himself because he had no legs on a little piece of wood that had four wheels attached to it along the highway to get to meeting. Sometimes he would take a sleep on the side of the highways on his way to the meeting.

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    I think of myself and us, if our car broke down, would you stay home that day or go to the meeting? In India, in the Hyderabad territory, a brother and sister came to Bible school and they were renowned and reviled in their region because they were the only people who were Christadelphians, Christians in the eyes of the population that they lived in the midst of.

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    They came to Bible school one year and went back home to find the neighbors had burnt down their crops to the ground. Everything. All their livelihood. And these were not people who had money in the bank. The money was the crop. Everything was invested in the crop. And the sister at that point in time said, well, that must have been God's will.

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    So we just accepted. That same family came to another Bible school and went back home to find that their daughter had died and been buried while they were at Bible school. And she said once again, it's the will of God. Sounds like Job, doesn't it? Sounds like Job. We can't even imagine those things with the prosperity that we have.

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    In that country, in that region of the country, and of course, many, many Indian brothers and sisters, many of whom are quite poor, some of whom are outcasts. They're people who aren't even part of the caste system. They're considered to be so unclean, a Hindu would not even touch one of them without having to have a cleansing ritual after.

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    Some of those brothers and sisters work as day laborers. They can't rely on work the next day. So what they do is, they wake up in the morning and they wait till the sun gets to a certain point on the floor of their hut. And then they know it's time to go and wait by the stop where trucks come and pick up people that will go work in a site removing boulders out of a construction site by hand, for instance.

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    And they get enough food or money to buy food for one day. Give us this day. Our food for the day. It's quite literal for them.

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    Also, what is quite literal for them is their dependence on each other. Because when you don't have any food, because you didn't get any work, somebody helps you out by giving you some of their food, though they have so little themselves. But in a world of prosperity, we become more and more self-contained.

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    We become more and more independent. And we become more and more willing to write each other off because I don't need you. I can do without you. If you're difficult to be with, then I don't need to be around you. Right. Chapter 13 says, Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

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    Now there may have already been that kind of money, those kinds of things that he owned coming out of Ur of the Chaldees. But doubtless, a lot of this came from Egypt. And so he was very, very wealthy. He went on his journeys from the south, even to Bethel, to the place he was at the beginning, unto the place of the altar.

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    Of the altar. That altar was built to memorialize promises, to remind him of who he was, to be able to be a conduit for honoring and praising God. And for reestablishing from his side of the fence the covenant that God would have made with him. Likewise, that altar was a preaching tool because people who were of the Gentiles, the goyim outside, would see that thing and want to know, well, what's the God associated with that altar?

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    Who is this? Abraham, Abram, etc. So the altar was a touch point, a place to remember who he was, what his hope was, and the promises. The same thing for us is the memorial meeting or our getting together as brothers and sisters. It's like an altar for us. We all struggle. We all struggle to keep up with the ecclesial activities or keep plugged in.

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    I've struggled off and on. Many of us, including me, struggle with depression or depressive illnesses that make it even worse, cut us off from people even more, make us feel more of a sense of isolation that's difficult to overcome. And yet that altar for us is a place of healing, of therapy. The word therapia is used in connection with, well, the ecclesia, with Christ.

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    And so he comes to the place of the altar that he had made there at the first. And there, Abram called on the name of Yahweh,

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    called on his name. man. And you remember earlier on in the book of Genesis, then began men to call on the name of Yahweh. So it's a memorialization and a connection back to those people who believed in God and held on to that belief from the beginning all the way through. In the midst of all of this idolatry, in the midst of all of this fall through into the horrible paganism of the countries of the earth, there were still those who held on to God, to the most high God, El Elyon.

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    And so it says, Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents. Now the word tents is important because tents are transient shelters. They're the shelters of people who are not rooted but are passing through a place. So they have tents, meaning they're not inhabitants of the land. They're not tied to a country or to a town or to a city state.

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    They're passing through. They're passing through. The land was not able to bear them that they might dwell together for their substance was great so that they could not dwell together.

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    They couldn't dwell together because, well, it wasn't just money. It was all the flocks, all the herds, but it wasn't just those things. It was the flocks of attendants who were part of an extended family. We know that this group was large because it was large enough that out of it Abraham could assemble an army, a fighting force of over 300 men born as servants in the retinue around him and Sarah to deliver a lot.

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    so this was a large household and they didn't just have responsibility for themselves, they had responsibility for that extended retinue likewise. And so it wasn't easy to make decisions because you might think, well, why didn't they get rid of some of the substance so that they could live together? and that would be logical except for the dependents and their families, their little children, their wives, the elderly amongst them.

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    That was a large responsibility. And so a decision had to be made about what will we do. Now you remember that wonderful portion of what Jim was telling us about last night. So the profession I'm in largely is about project management. And project managers have a way that they get things done. They manage things by building a plan, building a schedule.

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    If you have better English, you'd say a schedule. That's not how we learned in shul. That's right. That's in shul. By the way, if you want to see a good piece of slime, this dear brother has a piece of it in a piece of plastic, a plastic bag. He has a piece of asphalt, raw asphalt, straight out of an asphalt lake in Trinidad.

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    So if you want to see what the material looks like when it's hardened, that the slime pits were made of, that's it. You can actually see it. It's pretty impressive. Right? You distracted me, brother.

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    And so schedules, or schedules, thank you sister, a schedule, a schedule is something that basically has a sequence of events that are going to occur. There may be a key milestone at the end of a phase of activities. So we're going to do lots of planning and we're going to punch out a plan.

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    And then we're going to do lots of executing activities and we're going to build the kitchen and put in the sink and put in the electrical pieces and put up the drywall and boom, we now have an assembled draft kitchen. And then we're going to do further refinements and then we're going to close the project and pay the bills.

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    That's a schedule, schedule. Right? And that kind of schedule is called a waterfall schedule. In other words, activities, activities drop. Then another phase, activities drop. The problem with that kind of a schedule is you have to wait a long time to see the end result, the finished kitchen. But what happens is in the middle of a phase you're making all kinds of changes based on new information, better materials, somebody couldn't get a piece done, somebody didn't show up, a contractor fell through.

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    And so what you're doing is adapting to change and changing and changing, but the end of that phase may not change. It's still going to be a plan is punched out at the end of the planning phase or something is executed at the end of the execution stage. So what you're doing is making all kinds of agile adjustments during the phase of a project while maintaining some kind of an aim towards, a trend towards getting the thing done that was supposed to be done.

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    And I think what Jim showed us aligns with that. God's a project manager. He's the first project manager. And the first day. And the second day. Right? Josh is rejoicing because he knows he is doing the oldest profession on the face of the earth because he's a project manager. Right? God was a project manager.

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    He is a project manager. The great grand phases are exactly as described in scripture and in revelation from that time forward. And the end result of each phase doesn't change. But inside things are happening, changing. People are being brought in, pushed out. Leaders are being raised and then dumped, replaced. Countries are rising and falling at the same time.

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    All of this is happening in an adaptive way based on changing circumstances. And the angels work with us that way too. Now you have two children. You have Abraham and you have Lot. They're very different.

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    Abraham evaluates the situation and now the herdmen are fighting with each other. Such is their prosperity. The land can't support them and their dependents who are critically important to them are fighting with each other. Now remember all these dependents may be part of an extended ecclesia. Effectively you've got two groups who are in conflict with each other over the land.

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    And where will we graze? Now we were here first. Well yes but we have tended to be in the same area early before you every time. So we have a right to this area and that kind of thing. Now there's something that's pointed out which is painful actually. Verse 7 there was strife between the herdmen of Abraham's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle.

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    And the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwell then in the land. Now it seems to be a little throwaway comment as if to say well here's who lived here at this time. Why would God say that? What he might be saying is and the strangers around the Ecclesia saw the fighting in it.

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    They saw the quarreling, the backbiting, they saw the shouting, they saw the strife in the midst of the Ecclesia. It's just a thing for us to take note of brethren as we have our own issues that we wrestle with wherever we wrestle with them. The Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.

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    And Abram said unto Lot, let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee and between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we're brethren. Now sometimes older brother, you know, you might think, listen, the young brethren need to be deferring to me. I've been around longer, I've felt the hot sun on my head and back and neck longer than they have, they really need to defer to me, and I'm older.

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    And scripture does say, it does say, that the younger should submit to the older. So I'm going to wait until they come and defer to me, or come and apologize to me. Abraham is clearly the older of the two.

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    And maybe the closest thing to his son he has, apart from Eliezer of Damascus, is Lot, his nephew. And he sees what's going on, and he sees it's because of how wealthy they've become, because of how much they have. And rather than saying, look, I let us out of here. I'm the one God talked to.

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    God gave me promises. Sorry, I don't remember him mentioning you. You are a lot younger than I am. In fact, you're my kid in many ways. So why don't you just go away someplace, and I'll stay, you know, I'll take the better land. Doesn't do anything like that at all.

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    He treats Lot the way Jim described the angels interacting with us last night. In his mind, it's almost as if Abram works through, Lot is a part of my family. God will look after him. No matter how bad things look right now, God will be there for him as he is with me.

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    I don't need to be in any special place. That land does look good, but I'm prepared to defer to my younger relation so that he can do something that is better for him and makes him happy.

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    And so he says to him, is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, for me. If thou will take the left hand, then I will go to the right. If thou will go to the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.

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    Lot's thought as he looked at Lot's thoughts as he looked at the land. You know, that looks like the garden of Eden must have looked like. It looks like the land of Zoar as you're coming into Egypt. He'd seen that coming into Egypt.

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    Lot has a problem. And the problem is he's a very modern man. He's split down the middle. On the one hand, he is a believer. He's a believer. We know that. We know that because Peter calls him a righteous man whose soul was vexed by the things he saw happening in Sodom from day to day.

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    But on the other hand, that's where he goes. And that is maybe the word Jordan, a clue of the progression or the regression that Lot goes through. Because the word means the descender. The descender. So he looks at this land to his eyes, to the eyes not of faith, but of flesh. It looked so good.

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    It looked so good. There may be also something operating inside of Lot. It was a terrible struggle. Those people who got together to build the Tower of Babel did it because they thought there was safety in integration in cities. And that by being in a city, you had safety, defense, a wall, a gate.

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    Access egress could be controlled. Who came in, who went out, was known. You would have the ability for armies to develop that could defend you in a city. There was security in a city. Well, that was what their thinking was.

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    And our brother Lot had that thinking too, you know. We know that because when the angel is taking him away with his two daughters, all that was left of his extended family, he asks us, isn't there a city, a little town, even a little town that you could take us to? Because in his mind, my security is in the safety of this world.

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    As Jim pointed out, the angel doesn't lambaste him or lambast him and say, don't you know anything about the truth yet? Don't you know who God is? I am an angel leading you out of danger. Do you think I'm just going to let you in the mountain get destroyed? How can you not even believe?

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    Are you a spiritual dunce after all these years? Not a single word of rebuke. But he works with his weakness. He works with his frailty.

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    And he accommodates his request. The outcomes are tragic. But the point is, Lot had a struggle between reliance and trust on the material security of this world and all it has to offer. Its money, its savings, its pension plans, right? All of those things that we associate with security and faith and trust and complete belief in the living God.

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    It was a struggle that was going on continually in him. A struggle that led to him compromising himself in such a way that through a steady erosion of where he put himself in relation to those who were so nakedly, obviously, harshly opposed to God and his ways. But over time, who he was and what he was, was eroded.

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    And there was a kind of an inconsistent confusion embedded in his life. as modern people in this age, we know what that feels like. We know that tongue and pull of the world around us and the world of scripture and of the truth that pulls in the opposite direction. We look at Abraham and he seems so lofty, such a glorious believer, and he is.

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    We see his mistakes but we see the overall trend of his life and he is amazing to us. And we are not at all surprised that he is the friend of God, but we look at Lot and most of us see ourselves in him, in Lot, not in Abraham. But God loved Lot too.

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    And God would save Lot. Well, after Lot whose name means a veil, a covering, it almost indicates as if there's an eyesight problem, an insight problem, from a spiritual perspective that Lot struggled with all his life.

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    He says, it says, then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan, Lot journeyed east, they separated themselves, the one from the other. Now that's Abraham looking at this happen.

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    Silent reflection, sadness, a quiet grieving. He's lost a beloved son going in a different direction. He knows for the sake of prosperity and maintaining the communities that both are responsible for. Some kind of separation has to occur. But there's a worry and a concern for his beloved Lot.

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    He looks and in all of this sadness it says Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan in the plains. Lot goes into the mountainous areas of the cities of the plain and he pitched his tent towards Sodom. Now it's towards Sodom. It's as far as Sodom. It's basically with Sodom in its sight.

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    Things will get worse than that as time progresses. And it says but the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. Sodom Lot felt that he could keep himself separate. That he could live a life that was spiritually strong while at the same time being in the midst of these people.

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    Yet Peter describes the effect that living in their midst had on him. It vexed his soul daily. Daily distress. Daily distress. There's a point in time when he's one of the elders in the gate of the city of Sodom. Sodom. And the wickedness of this city is great but the land is beautiful and it always is.

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    The country around it is glorious. Yahweh said unto Abram after that Lot was separated from him at this moment of heartbreak of loss of quiet grief for Abraham or Abram God comes and talks to him. He says look lift up your eyes look from the place where you are northward and southward and eastward and westward for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth so that if a man can number the dust of the earth then shall thy seed also be numbered thousands of thousands described in Revelation arise walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it for I will give it unto thee and Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre which is in Hebron and He built there an altar unto the Lord an altar to remind Him an altar to worship Yahweh through an altar to show the inhabitants of the land this this is who I am and then there's a battle that breaks out and a war that occurs in chapter 14 and this chapter this section of the war has been summarized by many brothers Jim Cowie most recently as a cameo of the battle of Armageddon an army from the north comes down against a confederacy in the south and there is a battle that occurs between them Abraham delivers his natural brethren and then he makes a solemn and a dangerous vow at the end of that process why dangerous because the vow that he

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    makes makes the king of Sodom a potential bitter enemy of his an open rebuke to the king of Sodom the king of the foulest city in the entire region so he would not have been a high integrity individual he wouldn't have been an individual who honored his agreements but the overweening pride that he would have had would have made it that he would never forgive the insult of the rejection of Abraham but we'll see that later on as we go through and so it says came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar Ariok king of Elessar Kedolamer king of Elam and so on and so forth all these were joined together in the vale of Sidim which is an assault sea twelve years they served Kedolamer and in the thirteenth year they rebelled and the fourteenth year came Kedolamer and the kings that were with him and smote the alliance and a terrible battle occurs and says they returned verse seven and returned to Enmishpat which is in Kadesh and smote all the country of the Amalekites and also the Amorites that dwelt in Hazazon Tamar and the meanings of all these names well they're interesting meanings they tell a story in and of themselves some interesting ones for instance Ariok means venerable but it also can mean lion like lion like Kedolamer Kedolamer is an interesting one and it means it means let me just find it with my eyes here in my notes see now that I'm 57 I can't even read what I've written in the margin of my Bibles so young men if there are any young men

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    over there write big enough so that you can read what you've written in your Bible Kedolamer means I find it Kedolamer a handful of sheaves handful of sheaves which reminds us of a heap of sheaves the valley of contention doesn't it Armageddon right so so here is here's a man whose name means a heap of sheaves handful of sheaves right at the beginning of the conflict and then the conflict breaks out warring groups one against the other and what happens in the process we won't go any further with the word meanings lest I lose you and me as I try to read my notes which are very small on this page but one of the terrible things that occurs in this great conflict that is taking place regionally is that Lot and his family are captured now for many many many years it was felt that the Amraphel that is referred to at the beginning of chapter 14 might have been Hammurabi the great recent scholars feel that the evidence in favor of that is tenuous but you may still find in many commentaries the reference to the fact that this may be Hammurabi who would eventually take all of these small territorial towns and draw them into the alliance that would eventually be called Babylon Babylon the uniter and the creator of Babylon like Alexander the great had done with all of the warring and in conflict city states of the Greek and Macedonian region welding them all together into one single empire right now the belief is that that's not Hammurabi but there might still be evidence out there that he is in

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    fact Hammurabi and the final analysis after all this has occurred there is going to be an alliance together that becomes Babylon which will then be replaced by the Medo-Persians and so on and so on as Daniel's image in chapter 2 describes to us as we go into that part of the story that says verse 11 they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their vittles and went their way and they took lots Abram's brother's son who dwelt in Sodom and his goods and they departed now something that we might be able to infer from scripture is that what was most important to Lot was his goods and security in a town or city and so everything that he's worked for is now taken away from him it's taken away from him you know that ultimately when that angel leads him by the hand his wife is turned into a pillar of salt and the city of Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah are burnt to the ground but he'll have absolutely nothing nothing left nothing left now remember when Abraham is negotiating with the angel who represents Yahweh and he gets it down well if there are ten people ten is the smallest number he can think of how many people went into the land with Lot well it wasn't just his family and his relations that's what we sometimes think Lot his wife his daughters maybe their husbands unless they got their husbands in Sodom but it's not just them it's all the servants and their children that have been keeping company with him so many a number that the land could not bear

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    him and them together with Abraham and his so it was a large group of people how many well we don't know a hundred two hundred three hundred Abraham had three hundred and eighteen soldiers alone born in his house could it have been five six hundred let's say conservatively three hundred out of three hundred people how many survive three three people come out of Sodom can you imagine three people came out of the ecclesia of Sodom alive just three and the narrative then tells us there came one that had escaped and told Abraham the Hebrew he's the first character in scripture to be called a Hebrew has a connection point with Eber in chapter ten he's the first one to be called a Hebrew and that word means well cross her over it means someone who came from a foreign place but it was also a word that was used in a pejorative sense as a dismissive racial slur he brought this Hebrew in to our place and look at what he's done says Potiphar's wife a Hebrew using it not as a positive term an identifier of someone's background but a pejorative word he brought this unclean worthless Hebrew into our midst Abraham is a Hebrew Abraham the Hebrew Abraham the cross are over or to the people in the land Abraham the foreigner and he comes and he tells him what has happened and he says the story to Abraham and it describes Abraham in this way he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner now Mamre means strength or fatness so it is land it is land

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    that is able to provide for the needs of flocks and of herds and that word Hebrew is used in connection with him in this particular land now that's who we are we forget I forget every day we're sojourners pilgrims foreigners foreigners in the land we all have friends we know in the world that we care about that we love but we know every one of us as a Christadelphian as a brother or sister in Christ you hit a glass wall in conversation after which you can't get past it because on the other side is everything having to do with the truth the most important things to us they can't relate to those things sometimes you can talk about them but most often you hit that glass wall and so you know you're a foreigner in that conversation and in that land at that moment in time also when war breaks out and you have to make a decision between fighting in battle for the country in which you live or being a conscientious objector and generationally my generation has not yet been tested our children have not yet been tested that way but that's another point another inflection point where either you fall away into the world or you nail your colors to the mast and say well this is what I am like Jonah in the bottom of that ship this is what I am and who I am and so he is a Hebrew a foreigner across or over in the midst of these people yes he is sustaining his flocks and he is continuing to experience his prosperity but that's not the

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    heart of his life the heart of his life is emphasized by the fact that he is a Hebrew a foreigner in the land of all of these Gentiles he is going but there is a confederacy he has made an agreement with these men through force of circumstance they made an agreement with each other that if anything happens they will defend each other they will help each other and no doubt Abraham Abraham at this point would have preached the truth as he understood it to these men they may likely have been influenced by what he taught them they may well have and when Abraham heard that his brother was taken captive he said alright young man see how smart you are you didn't want to listen to me didn't ask my advice didn't defer to me you thought you knew what you were doing you thought you knew how to run the ecclesia you thought you could be a recording brother you thought you were strong enough and knowledgeable enough to lead this committee or that committee you thought you knew where this problem would be headed and how to manage it you never even thought to ask my advice now you're in the trouble that you're in I'm gonna let you live in it because you brought it on yourself now how does it feel that's not what he says it says when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive he armed his trained servants now that's not what the revised version says it's even more powerful in the revised version translation he led forth his men born in his house 318 and pursued

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    as far as Dan now you know that Abraham is a man of faith and Abram at this point is a man of faith but was it clear to you that he was also a brilliant general that he was able to work out tactically and strategically how with an inferior force of men he might be able to do a guerrilla activity and deliver a lot some of you are old enough to remember the raid on Entebbe when a tiny little group of Israelis commandos went in and basically delivered a plane load of people on the ground in Uganda where crazy Edie Amin Dada generalissimo PhD etc.

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    etc. was outfoxed by Jews here is Abram with trained skilled servants he's a man of faith but he's also taken some precautions now this does not give us any legitimate right to say well you see therefore Christadelphians should fight in wars no it doesn't but he's it's a particular circumstance at a particular time and what Abram is doing is delivering a member of God's anointed God's people and this is how he did it at that time but in its totality scripture does not give us the defense to come to the armed defense of the countries that we're in he goes down and it says he divided himself against them by night he and his servants and smote them and pursued them unto Hobah which is on the left of Damascus and the word Hobah by the way means hiding place and Damascus itself well brown driver breaks and please look at different lexicons to see if there are different meanings indicates that it means silent is the sackcloth weaver which is a pretty long translation of what that name could mean so you want to check it out but this is brown driver brings suggested meaning for Damascus but he brought back all the goods all the goods of the people of Sodom that were taken and also brought back again his brother Lot now it's important that it's in that order all the goods meaning Abraham is at a decision point between Ai and Bethel he could take all the goods and say this is forfeit to me because I've saved these people's lives and in fact the king of Sodom will acknowledge that

76. 49:06

    that's the rules of the game at that time that's how it worked he brought back all the goods of Sodom and he didn't take a single scrap of anything which meant he did not tie himself to the world in which he lived he didn't compromise his principles he didn't compromise his principles it says also he brought again his brother lot and his goods and the women also and the people the new English translation in that Bible translates that for clarity sake and the rest of the people and the rest of the people and so what he does is he brings back his nephew and all his nephew's goods together with the goods of Sodom the women and the family of lot and the rest of the people whatever the captives were from the city of Sodom now lot had made a progression it was very sad because in the particular narrative which starts off with the division of the land where they're going to go Abram in one direction lot in another direction it says lot pitched his tent toward Sodom but when you look at verse 12 it says they took lot Abram's brother's son who dwelt in Sodom and that word dwelt means to dwell to remain to sit to abide he was now living he was now living as a landed immigrant in the city state of Sodom that's what he was while at the same time being a believer and he was a believer he was a believer because God saw him as righteous through his connection to Abram and his belief in the promises though he was not someone who

77. 51:33

    had the strength of belief of Abram now thanks be to God that we have both Abram and Lot for us to see because then we can look at them both and learn from them both see shadows of ourselves in both and be encouraged but he dwelt in Sodom he had he had interlinked his life with the life of the city to the point that he now dwelt in it you could not dwell in a city without subscribing to its laws and the responsibilities of its citizens you couldn't dwell in it you might be able to pass through and Sodom what kinds of compromises did brother Lot have to make and for him to be an elder in that city well it just goes to show you what that Jordan like descent was into the Dead Sea for brother Lot descent so many of us experience in our lives sometimes often and it goes on verse 17 the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Kedolau we're past the end time for this class so we'll stop it here and pick it up again tomorrow at this point my apologies Week ! Week