THE DEVIL'S DRINK

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”

That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.”

So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

Genesis 19:30-38

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As we have followed the story of Abraham’s nephew, Lot, in the Book of Genesis, we have viewed him in a good light.

He was the negotiating Lot who was willing to work out an agreement with Abraham on where they would settle with their respective peoples after quarreling arose between their herdsmen.

He was the hospitable Lot who met the angels of the Lord, took them to his home in Sodom, and shared fellowship with them.

He was the protective Lot who faced the wicked mob outside of his home as they demanded to have the two men inside.

And he was the saved Lot who was rescued from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, settling near the town of Zoar (you’ll remember that Lot’s wife never made it there because she disobeyed the command to not look back toward Sodom and Gomorrah and was turned into a pillar of salt).

Yes, Lot was quite the man of faith but as we see in today’s scripture, he wasn’t without flaws, just like every other person we read about in the Bible. In our passage today, we read of the last of Lot and his story doesn’t have a happy ending.

Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”

That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.”

So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

The scriptures tell us that "Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar.” Within the mountains, he and his two daughters “lived in a cave." Not the greatest of living arrangements but it seemed to work for them, that is until Lot’s daughters schemed to exploit him.

Instigated by the older sister, their plan involved getting Lot to have sex with them so they could become pregnant and knowing their father would never sin by consenting to have sex with his child, they decided to intentionally impair his judgment.

“Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”

And so it was. The two girls used alcohol to get their father drunk and then did their evil deed. Unfortunately, their sinful plan went just as planned for we read where Lot drank the offered alcohol and drank so heavily that he never knew he had entered into sexual relations with either daughter.

He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

The end result was that both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by him and gave birth to boys. From that point on, God’s Word never mentions Lot again. We never know what happens to him and all the good he had done was suddenly overshadowed by getting drunk to where he didn’t control, or even know, about his behavior, a sinful behavior which was fueled by the overindulgence in alcohol.

Of interest, the sons of Lot’s two daughters, Moab and Ben-Ammi, would become the progenitors of the Moabites and Ammonites, both of which became fierce enemies of the nation of Israel.

Here within the closing chapter in Lot’s story, we find the scriptures sending a stern warning that we all need to heed:

Use alcohol responsibly or risk putting yourself in a place where sinful behavior will take place through an impaired, compromised judgment.

Personally, I don’t drink nor have I ever in my sixty-five years of living but that is my personal choice and preference. Drinking alcohol in and of itself is not illegal and people in the Bible partake of it without condemnation unless they overdid it. Of critical importance, a person who drinks needs to fully understand and always remember the negative impacts that alcohol can bring. There are two immediate effects that need highlighting.

First, alcohol reduces a person’s ability to make right decisions and choices. For example, a man would typically never choose to pick a fight with someone bigger than them because more times than not, it would lead to them getting hurt.

But if you give the same man too much alcohol, they can experience what has been called “liquid courage” and all of a sudden, the big man doesn’t seem as big or tough anymore while the smaller man who had been drinking all of a sudden feels tougher and stronger. Under the influence, he feels confident he could now win a fight against the bigger man. So, he chooses to go that route and ends up getting beat up. The alcohol led the man to make a choice he wouldn’t have otherwise made and subsequently, he gets hurt.

In our scripture, Lot wouldn’t have ever had sex with either of his daughters while sober but he got so drunk that he never even remembered them laying with him or getting up. While drunk, he had no defense against the advances of his daughters. He had sex without even knowing who he was having sex with and so the alcohol didn’t just steal away his judgment. It erased his memory as well.

Don’t think that the same thing doesn’t happen to people today. Just look into all the statistics on drunken driving tragedies where innocent people are killed on the highways. In many of those tragic stories, the drunk driver doesn’t even remember anything about the accident or events leading up to it once they sober up.

Further, how many times do people wake up in a strange bed next to someone they met at the bar and ended up going home with, even though they never remember going to that strange bed or what they did once they got there?

It happens, more times than you may imagine.

The other thing dangerous about the effect of alcohol is that it lowers or removes a person’s inhibition. There are people who would never go out and have an affair on their spouse while sober but after a few drinks they give into the temptation and commit an act of adultery that is as destructive as it is sinful. In my view, I have always felt that a person who commits adultery had always harbored lust for others in their heart but were able to hold back the temptation, never acting on it. But as soon as they consumed alcohol, their inhibition disappeared and unchecked, they carry out the lusting that had burned within.

Now, I stated before that I had never drank alcohol so you’re probably wondering how I can speak on this subject with any sense of authority. To overcome this opinion, I need to add that I served as a Drug and Alcohol Program Advisor for the United States Navy within my 28 and a half years of service, watching Sailors that were good performers when sober end up doing a lot of terrible things while under the influence of alcohol. In fact, many of these Sailors ruined their careers through their actions while drunk. Still others ruined the lives of others in the process.

In these cases, the common denominator was that every incident could have been prevented if alcohol had been removed from the equation.

In the end translation, I have really never seen alcohol do anything good for anyone. Rather, I have only seen it make good people do horrible things after overindulging, things they later regret.

This is why I have labeled alcohol, "the devil’s drink." It certainly ended up that way for Lot and I pray it will never end up that way for you.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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