The Seven Steps in Lot’s Decline

Backsliding rarely, if ever, happens suddenly and completely in an instant. There is a process of spiritual drift, and a number of seemingly small decisions and actions contribute to the end result. That is so in the life of Abraham’s nephew Lot. His experience is a cautionary tale for us all. Even though he seems to have been a believer (cf. II Pet. 2:7-8), Lot made too many choices based on worldly and materialistic values. Psalm 1 could have been written about him. He walked in the counsel of the ungodly, stood in the path of sinners, and sat in the seat of the scornful. And in the end, he lost everything.

1. He chose to move near the wicked city of Sodom for materialistic reasons (Gen. 13:10-11).
2. He moved into a house in Sodom, perhaps for convenience (Gen. 14:12; cf. 19:3).
3. He gained a position of power and prestige in Sodom’s society (Gen. 19:1, where “sitting in the gate” suggests he was an elder on the town council).
4. He was willing to sacrifice his daughter’s purity and physical safety (Gen. 19:7-8). (And note that the wicked Sodomites had become “my brethren.”)
5. He was reluctant to leave condemned Sodom, and had to be dragged from the doomed city (Gen. 19:15-16).
6. He made a final attempt to cling to some of the old comforts (Gen. 19:17-20).
7. We see him last in destitution and drunken shame (Gen. 19:30-36).

Lot’s children by his daughters, were ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites, who later led Israel into idolatry and immorality (Num. 25:1-2), and into child sacrifice (to the god Molech, Lev. 18:21).