Noah and Lot, a Case Study or a Cautionary Tale?

 

Long, long, long ago God rescued two men from similar circumstances. Noah was a righteous man in an evil generation. Interestingly, because of the long lives at the time, he could have known his great-great-great-great-great grandfather. For whatever reason, I’m going to guess because of how God made him, Noah didn’t live in sin in the same way his contemporaries did. In fact, the world lived in such sin in his day that God decided to wipe it out completely except for Noah’s family. He had Noah build a large boat, it took him about 100 years. You’ve got to figure he took more than a little ribbing over that time, but he stuck with it. Then God sent a flood which covered the earth. We tell little kids about the story of Noah and the Ark and all the animals, but what we leave out is the horror of the family sitting on the inside hearing the pounding of the people wanting in as the waters rise and they realize that this crazy guy was actually right. Fast forward to a few years after the flood and Noah gets a little too far into his cups. One of his sons decides to mock him while the others cover his shame.

Like Noah, Lot lived among a sinful people but did not participate in their sin. When put to a test by some angels, Lot passed and his family was rescued from the destruction of their city. Perhaps it was the degradation of generations, or maybe Lot was not the family leader that Noah was, but Lot’s wife was lost in the escape. Then, as they were hiding out, rather than mocking him for getting drunk, Lot’s kids get him drunk and entice him to sin. Either way, you’ve got two men who were not living according to society’s degraded norms who are saved, with their families, miraculously by God. Both of them turn to drink and are let down by at least some of their kids.

What can we learn from these stories? Did God save these men because they were perfect? No. God knew what each of them would do after they were saved, and He saved them anyways. God saved these men and their families because these men honored God with their lives. Yes, they made mistakes and they were bound to make more, but their hearts were on the right trajectory. They remind me of David, described in the books of I and II Samuel, who is spoken of as being a man after God’s own heart, but made plenty of MAJOR mistakes. The key is that he loved God and when he made those mistakes, he repented of them and returned to God.

Here’s the Thing: We’re not going to be perfect, it’s just not going to happen. We’re going to mess up. But God’s not calling us to perfection, He’s calling us to relationship. When we mess up, we’re supposed to repent. That means recognize that what we did was wrong, turn away from it and back to God. Living in that rhythm, where we’re constantly returning to God, is what keeps us healthy and sound.