THE IMPORTANCE OF A CHOICE
by Alexander Maclaren
'And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife,
and
all that he had, and Lot with him, into the
south. And
Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in
gold.
And he went on his journeys from the south even
to Beth-el,
unto the place where his tent had been at the
beginning,
between Beth-el and Hal; Unto the place of the
altar,
which he had made there at the first: and there
Abram
called on the name of the Lord. And Lot also,
which went
with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents.
And 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. And there was a strife
between
the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of
Lot's
cattle; and the Canaanite and the Perizzite
dwelled then
in the land. 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 be brethren. Is
not the
whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray
thee,
from me: if thou wilt lake the left hand, then I
will
go to the right; or if thou depart 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 every where, before the Lord destroyed
Sodom and
Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like
the land
of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot
chose him
all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east:
and
they separated themselves the one from the
other. Abram
dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled
in the
cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward
Sodom.
But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners
before the
Lord exceedingly.'-- GENESIS xiii. 1-13.
The main lesson of this section is the wisdom of
seeking spiritual
rather than temporal good. That is illustrated on
both sides.
Prosperity attends Abram and Lot while they think
more of obeying
God than of flocks and herds. Lot makes a mistake,
as far as this
world is concerned, when he chooses his place of
abode for the sake
of its material advantages. But the introductory
verses (vv. 1-4)
suggest a question, and seem to teach an important
lesson. Was Abram
right in so soon leaving the land to which God had
led him, and
going down to Egypt? Was that not taking the bit
between his teeth?
He had been commanded to go to Canaan; should he not
have stopped
there--famine or no famine--till the same authority
commanded him to
leave the land? If God had put him there, should he
not have trusted
God to keep him alive in famine? The narrative seems
to imply that
his going to Egypt was a failure of faith. It gives
no hint of a
divine voice leading him thither. We do not hear
that he builded any
altar beside his tent there, as he had done in the
happier days of
life by trust. His stay resulted in peril and in
something very like
lying, for which he had to bear the disgrace of
being rebuked by an
idolater, and having no word of excuse to offer. The
great lesson of
the whole section, and indeed of Abram's whole life,
receives fresh
illustration from the story thus understood, which
preaches loudly
that trust is safety and wellbeing, and that it is
always sin and
always folly to leave Canaan, where God has put us,
even if there be
a famine, and to go down into Egypt, even if its
harvests be
abundant.
But another lesson is also taught. After the
interruption of the
Egyptian journey, Abram had to begin all his Canaan
life over again.
Very emphatically the narrative puts it, that he
went to 'the place
where his tent had been at the beginning,' to the
altar which he had
made at the first. Yes! that is the only place for a
man who has
faltered and gone aside from the course of
obedience. He must begin
over again. The backsliding Christian has to resort
anew to the
place of the penitent, and to come to Christ, as he
did at first for
pardon. It is a solemn thought that years of
obedience and heroisms
of self-surrender, may be so annihilated by some act
of self-seeking
distrust that the whole career has, as it were, to
be begun anew
from the very starting-point. It is a blessed
thought that, however
far and long we may have wandered, we can always
return to the place
where we were at the beginning, and there call on
the name of the
Lord.
Note how we are taught here the great truth for the
Old Testament,
that outward prosperity follows most surely those
who do not seek
for it. Abram's wealth has increased, and his
companion, Lot, has
shared in the prosperity. It is because he 'went
with Abram' that he
'had flocks, and herds, and tents.' Of course, the
connection
between despising the world and possessing it is not
thus close in
New Testament times. But even now, one often sees
that the men who
_will_ be rich fall into a pit of poverty, and that
a heart set
on higher things, which counts earthly advantages
second and not
first, wins a sufficiency of these most surely.
Foxlike cunning, and
wolf-like rapacity, and Devil-like selfishness,
which make up a
large portion of what the world calls 'great
business capacity,' do
not always secure the prize. But the real possession
of earth and
all its wealth depends to-day, as much as ever it
did in Abram's
times, on seeking 'first the kingdom of God, and His
righteousness.'
Only when we are Christ's are all things ours. They
are ours, not by
the vulgar way of what the world calls ownership,
but in proportion
as we use them to the highest ends of helping us to
grow in wisdom
and Christ-likeness, in the measure in which we
subordinate them to
heavenly good, in the degree in which we employ them
as means of
serving Christ. We can see the Pleiades best by not
looking directly
at, but somewhat away from, them; and just as
pleasure, if made the
direct object of life, ceases to be pleasure, so the
world's goods,
if taken for our chief aim, cease to yield even the
imperfect good
which they can bestow.
But now we have to look at the two dim figures which
the remainder
of this story presents to us, and which shine there,
in that far-off
past, types and instances of the two great classes
into which men
are divided,--Abram, the man of faith; Lot, the man
of sense.
Mark the conduct of the man of faith. Why should he,
who has God's
promise that all the land is his, squabble with his
kinsman about
pasture and wells? The herdsmen naturally would come
to high words
and blows, especially as the available land was
diminished by the
claims of the 'Canaanite and Perizzite.' But the
direct effect of
Abram's faith was to make him feel that the matter
in dispute was
too small to warrant a quarrel. A soul truly living
in the
contemplation of the future, and filled with God's
promises, will
never be eager to insist on its rights, or to stand
on its dignity,
and will take too accurate a measure of the worth of
things temporal
to get into a heat about them. The clash of
conflicting interests,
and the bad blood bred by them, seem infinitely
small, when we are
up on the height of communion with God. An acre or
two more or less
of grass land does not look all-important, when our
vision of the
city which hath foundations is clear. So an elevated
calm and 'sweet
reasonableness' will mark the man who truly lives by
faith, and he
will seek after the things that make for peace.
Abram could fight,
as Old Testament morality permitted, when occasion
arose, as Lot
found out to his advantage before long. But he would
not strive
about such trifles.
May we not venture to apply his words to churches
and sects? They
too, if they have faith strong and dominant, will
not easily fall
out with one another about intrusions on each
other's territory,
especially in the presence, as at this day, of the
common foe. When
the Canaanite and the Perizzite are in the land, and
Unbelief in
militant forms is arrayed against us, it is more
than folly, it is
sin, for brethren to be turning their weapons
against each other.
The common foe should make them stand shoulder to
shoulder. Abram's
faith led, too, to the noble generosity of his
proposal. The elder
and superior gives the younger and inferior the
right of option, and
is quite willing to take Lot's leavings. Right or
left--it mattered
not to him; God would be with him, whichever way he
went; and the
glorious Beyond, for which he lived, blazed too
bright before his
inward sight to let him be very solicitous where he
was. 'I have
learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be
content.' It does
not matter much what accommodation we have on
ship-board, when the
voyage is so short. If our thoughts are stretching
across the sea to
the landing at home, and the welcome there, we shall
not fight with
our fellow-passengers about our cabins or places at
the table. And
notice what rest comes when faith thus dwindles the
worth of the
momentary arrangements here. The less of our
energies are consumed
in asserting ourselves, and scrambling for our
rights, and cutting
in before other people, so as to get the best places
for ourselves,
the more we shall have to spare for better things;
and the more we
live in the future, and leave God to order our ways,
the more shall
our souls be wrapped in perfect peace. Mark the
conduct of the man
of sense. We can fancy the two standing on the
barren hills by
Bethel, from one of which, as travellers tell us,
there is precisely
the view which Lot saw. He lifted up his greedy
eyes, and there, at
his feet, lay that strange Jordan valley with its
almost tropical
richness, its dark lines of foliage telling of
abundant water, the
palm-trees of Jericho perhaps, and the glittering
cities. Up there
among the hills there was little to tempt,--rocks
and scanty
herbage; down below, it was like the lost Eden, or
the Egypt from
which they had but lately come.
What need for hesitation? True, the men of the plain
were 'wicked
and sinners before the Lord exceedingly,' as the
chapter says with
grim emphasis. But Lot evidently never thought about
that. He knew
it, though, and ought to have thought about it. It
was his sin that
he was guided in his choice only by considerations
of temporal
advantage. Put his action into words, and it says,
'Grass for my
sheep is more to me than fellowship with God, and a
good conscience.'
No doubt he would have had salves enough. 'I do not
need to become
like them, though I live among them.' 'A man must
look after his own
interests.' 'I can serve God down there as well as
up here.' Perhaps
he even thought that he might be a missionary among
these sinners.
But at bottom he did not seek first the kingdom of
God, but the other
things.
We have seldom the choice put before us so
dramatically and sharply;
but it is as really presented to each. There is the
shameless
cynicism of the men who avowedly only ask the
question, 'Will it
pay?' But there are subtler forms which affect us
all. It is the
standing temptation of Englishmen to apply a money
standard to
everything, to adopt courses of action of which the
only
recommendation is that they promote getting on in
the world. Men who
call themselves Christians select schools for their
children, or
professions for their boys, or marriages for their
daughters, down
in Sodom, because it will give them a lift in life
which they would
not get up in the starved pastures at Bethel, with
nobody but Abram
and his like to associate with. If the earnestness
with which men
pursue an end is to be taken as any measure of its
importance in
their eyes, it certainly does not look much as if
modern average
Christians did believe that it was of more moment to
be united to
God, and to be growing like Him, than to secure a
good large share
of earthly possessions. Tried by the test of
conduct, their faith in
getting on is a great deal deeper than their faith
in getting up.
But if our religion does not make us put the world
beneath our feet,
and count all things but loss that we may win
Christ, we had better
ask ourselves whether our religion is any better
than Lot's, which
was second-hand, and was much more imitation of
Abram than obedience
to God.
Lot teaches us that material good may tempt and
conquer, even after
it has once been overcome. His early life had been
heroic; in his
young enthusiasm, he had thrown in his portion with
Abram in his
great venture. He had not been thinking of his
flocks when he left
Haran. Probably, as I have just said, he was a good
deal galvanised
into imitation; but still, he had chosen the better
part. But now he
has tired of a pilgrim's life. There are men who cut
down the
thorns, and in whom the seed is sown; but thorns are
tenacious of
life, and quick growing, and so they spread over the
field and choke
the seed. It is easier to take some one bold step
than to keep true
through life to its spirit. Youth contemns, but too
often middle-age
worships, worldly success. The world tightens its
grasp as we grow
older, and Lot and Demas teach us that it is hard to
keep for a
lifetime on the heights. Faith, strong and ever
renewed by
communion, can do it; nothing else can.
Lot's history teaches what comes of setting the
world first, and
God's kingdom second. For one thing, the association
with it is sure
to get closer. Lot began with choosing the plain;
then he crept a
little nearer, and pitched his tent 'towards' Sodom;
next time we
hear of him, he is living in the city, and mixed up
inextricably
with its people. The first false step leads on to
connections
unforeseen, from which the man would have shrunk in
horror, if he
had been told that he would make them. Once on the
incline, time and
gravity will settle how far down we go. We shall
see, in subsequent
sections, how far Lot's own moral character suffered
from his
choice. But we may so far anticipate the future
narrative as to
point out that it affords a plain instance of the
great truth that
the sure way to lose the world as well as our own
souls, is to make
it our first object. He would have been safe if he
had stopped up
among the hills. The shadowy Eastern kings who
swooped down on the
plain would never have ventured up there. But when
we choose the
world for our portion, we lay ourselves open to the
full weight of
all the blows which change and fortune can inflict,
and come
voluntarily down from an impregnable fastness to the
undefended
open.
Nor is this all; but at the last, when the fiery
rain bursts on the
doomed city, Lot has to leave all the wealth for
which he has
sacrificed conscience and peace, and escapes with
bare life; he
suffers loss even if he himself is 'saved as dragged
through the
fire.' The world passeth away and the lust thereof,
but he that
doeth the will of God abideth for ever. The riches
which wax not
old, and need not to be left when we leave all
things besides, are
surely the treasures which the calmest reason
dictates should be our
chief aim. God is the true portion of the soul; if
we have Him, we
have all. So, let us seek Him first, and, with Him,
all else is
ours.
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