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Abram’s father, Terah, had three sons: Abram, Nahor and Haran. Haran got sick and died, but he had a son named Lot. Because Lot didn’t have a father to take care of him anymore, Abram’s father Terah took care of him. One day Abram’s father came and told Abram and his wife Sarai, and Lot the son of Abram’s brother, and Abram’s brother and his wife, that they were all going to move to a place called Canaan. So they packed all their things and moved but when they came to Haran, a town on the way to Canaan, they stayed there. Maybe they couldn’t go on because Abram’s father was very old and getting sick. He died there. After Abram’s father died, Yahweh told Abram to leave Haran and his father’s house and his brother’s family and to go to a land that Yahweh would show him. Yahweh told him that He would make him a great nation and bless him and make his name great, and Abram would be a blessing, Genesis 17:6. Abram loved and trusted Yahweh so much that he just gathered up all his things and went. He had a lot of things to take with him. He had tents, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. Lot also had tents and flocks and herds to take.
One day Yahweh spoke to Abram telling him that all the land he could see in all directions would forever belong to him and his descendents, whose number would equal to the number of specks of dust on the earth, Genesis 13:15-16. Lot and his family put their tents near the city of Sodom in the rich Jordan Valley. Lot thought he had chosen the best place; but he did not know what the people were like. They did not live the way Yahweh wanted them to. Shortly after Lot moved close to Sodom, war broke out between the kings of the five cities of the Jordan Valley and the four kings of the land where Nimrod began his kingdom. The four distant kings won the battle. The people of the two main valley cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, were chased into the mountains, where some of them had escaped. Lot didn’t escape. He and all he had was taken away as prisoners by the kings from far away.
The Kings of Sodom came to honor Abram for what he had done. They didn’t know that the reason that Abram did that was because of Lot. Melchizedek, king of Salem also came out to meet Abram. Salem is now called Jerusalem. Melchizedek was a priest of Yahweh and he brought out bread and wine for Abram and he blessed Abram. "Melchizedek" means "King of Righteousness," Hebrews 7:1-3. Some years later, when Abram was living peacefully in his tents in the hills above the Jordan Valley, Yahweh spoke to him in a vision. Yahweh told him again that because he was obedient he would become the father of a great nation. Abram was puzzled by Yahweh’s promise because Abram and his wife Sarai didn’t have any children and they were becoming too old to have any, Genesis 15:1-3. Yahweh told Abram that his heir would be his own son and that if he could count the stars on a dark night he would know the great number of people who would descend from that one son. Abram believed Yahweh and Yahweh blessed him for his belief, Genesis 15:6 and Romans 4:20-22. Yahweh told Abram he would keep the promises He had made with him the year before. Yahweh had informed Abram that his name would be changed to Abraham, which means “Father of many people,” and Sarai’s name would be changed to Sarah which means “Princess,” Genesis 17:3-6. Yahweh had promised Abraham that Sarah would surely have a son, although she was already eighty-nine years old. Their son’s name would be called Isaac, Genesis 17:15-16, 19. Not long after that, three men came to Abraham’s tent. One of them told Abraham that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had become so evil that the city would have to be destroyed, Genesis 8:2, 20. Abraham was afraid because his nephew Lot lived there so he asked Yahweh, “What if you find fifty righteous people there; would you still destroy it?” Yahweh said, “If I find fifty righteous people in Sodom, I will not destroy it.” Abraham then asked if Sodom would be destroyed if only forty-five righteous people could be found. Yahweh said if forty-five righteous people would be found there, He would not destroy the city. Abraham kept asking about this matter each time the amount getting less and less until, finally, Yahweh told him that if only ten righteous people could be found in Sodom, it would not be destroyed, Genesis 18:23-33. Because Lot was living in Sodom, two of Yahweh’s messengers went down to Sodom to tell Lot what was going to happen. They told Lot that if he had relatives in the city that he wanted saved he was to go and tell them to leave. Lot went to the men who were going to marry his daughters and said, “Hurry up and get out of here! Yahweh is going to destroy the city.” But they thought he was joking, Genesis 19:14. In the morning, the angels tried to get Lot to hurry. “Quick,” they said, “Take your wife and your two daughters and get out so that you will not lose your lives when this bad city is destroyed.” Lot hesitated, so the angels took Lot’s hand and his wife’s hand and his daughters’ hands and led them out of the city. Then one of the angels said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back and don’t stop in the valley. Run to the hills so that you won’t be killed.” Lot told them that the hills were too far away and he would be killed before he got there. He said, “See that little town there, it is small enough.”
Lot’s wife was thinking about the city they had left behind them so she stopped and looked back. Just as she was thinking, “Oh! My house and my friends!,” she turned into a pillar of salt! The sun was up when Lot reached Zoar. Suddenly Yahweh rained burning sulfur on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed them and the whole valley along with all the wicked people and everything that grew on the land. Early in the morning Abraham looked down at Sodom and Gomorrah and saw the whole valley smoking like a huge furnace. Yahweh destroyed the cities of the valley where Lot was living but Yahweh kept Abraham in mind and made sure that Lot escaped to safety. Yahweh knew that Abraham loved and obeyed Yahweh and lived to please Him so Yahweh took care of Lot because Abraham loved Lot. Memory Verse
HalleluYAH! |
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Abram didn’t question Yahweh. He did just what Yahweh
told him to do. Abram and Lot went on to the land of Canaan; but because there
was a famine in Canaan, Abram didn’t have enough food for all his family and his
servants and he went to Egypt to find food for them. After the famine, they went
back to Canaan to live. Abram was very rich. He had a lot of gold and silver and
cattle and sheep. Lot, who was now a grown man, also had a lot of cattle.
Because there were so many people and so many cattle in one place, Lot’s
herdsmen and Abram’s herdsmen had some arguments about whose cattle should go to
the water first and whose cattle should get the best grass. Abram wanted
everyone to be at peace so he told Lot to decide where he wanted to live and he
said that whatever place Lot wanted to live he would live somewhere else. Abram
should have had first choice because Yahweh had promised the land to him, but he
was not selfish so he let Lot choose first. Lot looked at the rich soil in the
Jordan River valley and told Abram he would like to live there. Abram agreed to
that and moved to the area in the hills and they were both satisfied, Genesis
13:5-12.
One of the men who had escaped came and told Abram that
his nephew Lot was a prisoner, Genesis 14:13. When Abram heard about this he
went out to help Lot. Abram had only three hundred and eighteen men to help him,
Genesis 14:14. It took a lot of courage to face an army with so many more men
than he had. Abram prayed to Yahweh for help because by himself he could not
win. Yahweh did help by giving him a chance to quietly sneak up on the camp of
the four kings by night. Their soldiers were taken by surprise. Because it was
dark, they couldn’t tell how many men were attacking them and they fled to the
mountains leaving behind all the prisoners and all the things they had taken
from the people in the Jordan Valley, Genesis 14:13-16.
The angel told Lot that he could go there but that he
was to hurry because he couldn’t do anything until Lot got to the town. Because
Lot said it was a small town, it was named Zoar which means “small.”