Bad company corrupts good morals. Lot's drunken incest

Lot was afraid to live in Zoar,  to which he and his daughters had fled. So they lived in a cave in the mountains. Because his daughters were husbandless and childless, they conspired to get their father drunk and to lie with him.  As a result they each had sons, and the  two brothers born became the fathers of Moab and Ammon (Genesis 19:30-38).  Those two nations would cause Israel no end of trouble.

When Abram and Lot separated, Abram had given Lot the choice of going to the left or the right. Lot had “lifted up his eyes” and seen,  and then chosen the fertile valley where Sodom and Gomorrah lay (Genesis 13). We're not told where Lot's wife was from, but she was likely from Sodom. And as we saw yesterday she had “looked back,” meaning she had turned back. It was one thing to take the wife out of Sodom, quite another to take Sodom out of the wife. And of course we are seeing her influence and that of Sodom here,  on her daughters. This may be the very reason Abraham was cautions about choosing a wife for Isaac, the son who was soon to be born (Genesis 24:2-4).

There are a couple of things that come to mind. Firstly from 2 Corinthians  6:14 “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what partnership has light with darkness?”  A yoke was a wooden beam used between a pair of oxen to enable them to pull together.  The main application is to marriage and business partners. The believers priorities need to be first God,  then family, then work. Unbelievers obviously don't have those priorities,  and if we partnership with them,  we will find ourselves being “pulled away” from those priorities. By the way we will love our spouse more if we love God first, for then His love will flow through us to our spouse.  The verse in the heading is related  “Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good character" (1 Corinthians 15:33).

The second thing is about  balance. Paul writes that we should not “keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world” (1 Corinthians 5:9, 10). The principle is summed up by saying we are to be in the world, but not of the world. Paul goes on to say we should not keep company with believers who are like this – to not even to eat with them  (verse 11).   

We cannot be salt and light to the world if we isolate ourselves, as many have done. We must not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, but if we don't befriend them we will never win them for Christ. We need wisdom. Someone just escaping from alcohol addiction should not go to the bars drinking Pepsi. We need to be strong before we do that. On the other hand there is strength in the fellowship of the recovering.  

Lord Jesus You invite us to take Your yoke upon us (Matthew 11:29, 30). We need to be lead by Your Spirit Lord,  or we'll get this wrong and out of balance. Balance is likely to be messy, but “where there are no oxen the stables are clean” (Proverbs 14:4). Help us to be wise as serpents and as harmless as doves Lord. In Your precious Name Amen