“He turned rivers into a desert, flowing springs into thirsty ground, and fruitful land into a salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who lived there.”
Psalms 107:33-34 NIV
We return today to The Dead Sea to gain more understanding of the ways of God. The above Psalm is a description of the state of Sodom and Gomorrah, hundreds of years after the fiery judgement of God destroyed every living thing in that plain and handed it over to barrenness and saltiness.
But just how did we get to this?
Let us have a little throwback to how things were in better times. In Genesis 13 we are given a glimpse into the days of Lot’s prosperity. Lot had travelled from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan via Haran. He had followed his uncle Abraham, the man who had the Covenant, the promises and the blessing of God upon his life. Lot had partaken of the blessing of Abraham by simply being around Abraham. The man had many tents (properties or modern-day real estate). His flocks and herds had multiplied so much that his herdsmen quarrelled with Abraham’s herdsmen over water and pasture.
Abraham, being the Father that he was, gave Lot the opportunity to separate from him for the sake of peace saying: “Please let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we are brethren.” Genesis 13:8 NKJV
Lot looks with the eyes of the flesh
The natural tendency when riches multiply is to think that we no longer need God, we can make it without Christ. After all, our hard work paid off and we got all this wealth. Lot makes a decision that severs him from his Way-maker, and his High Priest.
“And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other.” Genesis 13:10-11 NKJV
Not long after, Lot was a prisoner of war and Abraham had to come and rescue him. Still, he went back to live in Sodom. Abraham still interceded for Lot, but Lot lingered in Sodom despite the urgent warning of the angels to depart. The Lord had to rain fire and sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah, destroying all of Lot’s material wealth in order to turn his heart back to what really matters.
The only thing Lot escaped with was his family; and that should say a lot to us. God values souls far above any material gains we may have or ever make. It profits us nothing to gain this world’s goods while our souls and the souls of those around us are descending into the pit.
Someone once said, “When God gives you more money it’s not a blessing, it’s a test.” If our resources have no purpose for the kingdom of God we have become barren and unfruitful, a salt waste like Sodom and Gomorrah, The Dead Sea.
Reflect and introspect
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” Mark 8:36 NKJV
“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” 1 Timothy 6:6-7 NIV
“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” James 4:1-3 NKJV
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” 1 John 2:15-17 KJV