A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and each time expecting a different outcome. Sometimes this thinking is stuck in a closed and repeating loop because the mind is simply unaware of the worlds and vistas that are beyond it’s borders. This unawareness can be because the mind was never aware of them. It can also be the result of forgetfulness.
When Abram left his father Terah to head for the land the Lord had spoken to Abram, he took his nephew Lot with him. Lot was Abram’s nephew. They were family. When the Lord called Abram out of everything he knew, the Lord told him to “go to a land I will show you”. So, Abram departed, not knowing where he went. He departed in faith. What was in Abram’s heart was not simply to satisfy his corporeal wants and needs. Abram wanted to go wherever it pleased the Lord to take him. Lot had not set his ambitions nearly so high, or long term. This is prophetically revealed in the eventual separation of Abram and Lot. (I encourage any reading this, to go search out and read these things in the book of Genesis. Digging in the scriptures is your right and also critical to you, for only in so doing, is the thinking of the Author revealed. Opening of our understanding to understand scriptures is a gift to all disciples. But it is dormant until the scriptures are read. The casual bible student will receive casual knowledge. The ones who show more interest will be shown more results). In a picture of the brewing and inevitable parting of ways of Lot and Abram, it tells us that both households had become quite large, and the land simply could not bear them both. There was not enough pasture for them both to graze, and so dissension and strife sprang up between the herdsmen of Lot and the herdsmen of Abram. This too is prophetic. There is one scripture. One word inspired of the same Spirit of God. It professes to have one topic and subject. Jesus Christ. The same word tells us that in any great house, there are vessels unto honor, and vessels unto dishonor. Vessels of gold and silver, and vessels of clay and wood. Those who graze the word of God seeking eternal things will eventually find strife and friction with them who graze the same word seeking things of this life and age. I know for an absolute fact, that the scriptures are they that testify of Christ. That is how I approach them. They are not to me, merely a carnal how-to manual. The thinking and expectation of both Abram and Lot were revealed in their inevitable parting of ways. Abram pointed out that they were brethren, and it was not good that there be strife between them. He suggested that Lot look around and choose where he would want to dwell. Abram said that he would choose from wherever Lot did not go. Lot saw the plains of Jordan that they appeared green, lush, well watered…as the garden of God, before God destroyed the place. By appearance, Lot chose a place that offered the easiest life, with the least difficulty. Lot chose the cities of the plain. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan. It does not say he chose it. He still was following the Lord…looking for the land the Lord would show him. These two different mindsets and expectations are seen today.
After that Abram had separated himself from Lot, the Lord said to Abram:
“Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever”.
It is of note that this did not happen while Abram was still journeying with Lot. The scriptures are also like that. Lift up your eyes…seek those things which are above, not things in the earth… It is in the ensuing days that Abram came to be shown Christ, seeing His day, and rejoicing in it (John 8:56). Abraham came to understand that all the promises of God were to his seed, not seeds. They were to one who would come out of him, not to all. (Galatians 3:16). They were and are, to Christ. In Him, Christ, every word is “yea and amen”. And through faith in Him, are we joint heirs in all the fullness of God, not heirs in our own right. I don’t have much interest in God’s plan for me. His plan and purpose is in Christ. And only in Christ can I find it and have anything to do with it.
So, Lot came to sit in the gate of Sodom. To “sit in the gate” has strong meaning in scriptures. It means he became important enough, and influential enough, to have a place as a judge in the affairs of the city. It is this thing that the Apostle Peter would describe when he wrote of Lot, that God eventually:
“delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed [his] righteous soul from day to day with [their] unlawful deeds;)”
The KJV translates Strong’s G2669 in the following manner:oppress (1x), vex (1x). Outline of Biblical Usage [?]
- to tire down with toil, exhaust with labor
- to afflict or oppress with evils
- to make trouble for
- to treat roughly
How many today are “vexed” on a daily basis, with a steady diet of “seeing and hearing” the filthy proceedings in the world today? How many are reduced to meddling in the affairs of Sodom, in an effort to make it less offensive to their own desires and sensibilities? Lot had completely lost sight of why he ever left Terah to begin with. Lot completely forgot why Abram brought Lot with him in the first pace. Lot had long since ceased to set his sights high, as Abram had done. Lot now wanted what Lot wanted. And he wanted it in a place where it did not really exist. And it is evident that Lot, having forgotten so much concerning his initial journeying with Abram, never successfully passed any of it along to his wife, sons and daughters. His family could not “remember from whence they were fallen”, because either they were never told it in the first place, or they had forgotten it.
When God eventually burned up everything Lot had come to love and fight for, he was told to flee the place with what was left of his family. He had sons and daughter who had married into the place, but the warning to leave was a joke to them, which they dismissed out of hand. And in finally fleeing, Lot and his remaining family were warned not to look back. Because Lot’s wife had children in the place who would not hear the truth, she looked back, and was destroyed. In speaking of this time, Jesus closed His admonition with the words, “Remember Lot’s wife”. We too have loved ones, acquaintances and brethren, who will not hear.
When Sodom and Gomorrah were torched, Lot’s daughters reflected the mindset of many who profess Christ today. “There is not a man left in the world to preserve seed to our father”. So they got him drunk and lay with him, producing Ammon and Moab. You can get Lot and the remnant of his family out of Sodom, but it seems it’s harder to get Sodom out of them and their reasoning. Did it never occur to these two that Abraham would have gladly received them? and provided them with a family to continue their line? No, it never did. When Sodom flamed out, everything they knew and loved was gone. Even watching the destruction was perilous to them. But Abram watched it and took no effect at all. He had nothing of interest in the place. Jesus remains Lord. Our unshakeable inheritance is intact. It never was part of this world. Jesus said “As it was in the days of Lot” and “As it was in the days of Noah”, so would it be in the days (plural) of the Son of man.
When the world they knew had been destroyed, Lot’s daughters were in a desperate state of mind. Whether they had ever been taught about why their father had journeyed with Uncle Abram, or they had been taught and forgot it, I don’t know. But their desire to preserve seed to their father Lot was disastrous. Because they had no knowledge of the one seed of all promise that God had revealed to Abram. If one knows the message and topic of the whole of the scripture, one knows the one seed and heir of all things is Christ.
Why the title “INSANITY”?
If the world and nation, and all religious expectations are shifting sand, dissolving under foot, any repeated attempts to resurrect the seed of failed expectation, over and over, while never producing anything, is insane. It is thinking that does not take into account that what Christ has done, is finished. All preservation of anything and anyone who will find preservation, is in the Seed that was raised. Building on sand is insane. It is commendable to desire equity, peace, brotherly love, and all such things. It is commendable to desire peace among nations and freedom. But without Christ, where these things are found, they will never be realized. Take heart. Whether one sees it or not, Jesus has overcome the world. God has set the bounds of the raging sea of humanity, and to it’s chaotic, pounding waves, has said, “You will come so far, and no farther”.
As a closing thought, note that Abram was not called a Hebrew, until he separated himself from Lot. “Hebrew” means “From the region beyond”. In the world, but not of it, if you will. The journey of faith is described in the Book of Hebrews 11:
“Therefore sprang there even of one( Abraham), and him as good as dead, [so many] as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of [them], and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that [country] from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned”.
This is a Hebrew. A true Jew. One that is inward and born of the Spirit, not outward and of flesh and blood. Such is a stranger and a pilgrim in the earth and not mindful of what he or she was called out of. What you read above that sprang from Abraham, is talking about Christ. It sprang from what was in Abraham by faith. That is the same who is in you by faith. Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Mythology Buster 