In Genesis 12, God commanded Abram to leave everything he knew and to head into the wilderness with all his possessions. Abram had great faith in God and he obeyed. God blessed Abram and his wealth increased greatly. The success of Abram and those with him grew to such a level that it became necessary for them to separate so as to not cause trouble between them. Abram allowed his nephew, Lot, to choose which direction he would go and live and Abram volunteered to go the other.
We get to see Lot's thought and decision process in Genesis 12:10-13, "And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD."
As you may know, Lot's choice proved deadly. You can read all about it in Genesis 19. He took his wife and daughters to live amongst a godless people. To make a long story short, God's wrath fell on the people of Lot's city. God provided Lot a way out, but it wasn't without its casualties. Lot's wife came to love the city so much that, when told that she must leave willingly, she refused and became salty about the whole thing. Lot's daughters, feeling deprived of life, took matters into their own hands and committed unconscionable sin against God. The incestual offspring that the girls produced became the Moabites and the Ammonites, the long-standing enemies of God and His people.
The moral of this story of Abram and Lot is simply this, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." (I John 2:15-17)
One of the great movies of all-time stars Robert Redford as "Jeremiah Johnson". Johnson leaves the civilized life for a wilderness one. This wilderness life is hard, but hard in a different way than life in a town. It is less comfortable and easy, but more pure and clean. Johnson embraces this life and learns to thrive in it, though it proves difficult. Over the course of the story, Jeremiah meets another outdoorsman who lives off the land, Del Gue. As the story nears its end, Del, aware of the seemingly insurmountable difficulties Jeremiah is facing at the time, suggests to him, "Jeremiah, maybe you best go down to a town, get outta these mountains." Johnson's response, "I've been to a town, Del."
May you and I remember that, due to sin and our propensity to love it, this life is hard. It is hard no matter where we are, but some places are harder than others. We cannot entirely escape sin in this life because we carry it with us, but there are places where sin runs rampant. Places where sin is not only practiced, but it is embraced and even encouraged. You and I will do well to run from such places and to protect our families from such overwhelming exposure to evil.
May we seek to live simple and quiet lives so that we might prepare ourselves and our children to strive for holiness before God in the midst of the chaos of a world gone rogue. May we stand resolved to "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret" (Ephesians 5:11-12).
May we, like Abram and Jeremiah Johnson, head toward the wilderness and say to those who invite us in to participate in evil, "I've been to a town."
Pastor Jeremy
