Joel M Bradshaw

8Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. 9Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” 10And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. 12Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. 13Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD.

14The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, 15for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.” –Genesis 13

I’ve never pondered this question before this morning, but it interests me. The heart of the matter is God’s knowledge and sovereignty. Many people believe that God has perfect foreknowledge and therefore his sovereign plan takes all of people’s future choices into account. If you are more of a classical Arminian you hold this view. Therefore, God doesn’t predestine people to salvation as much as knows what they will choose and therefore saves only the ones he knows will choose him.

If you are more Calvinistic you land your plane on God’s sovereign choice and not your own. If I am the chooser then God is in someway dependent upon me and my choice, and I don’t believe God needs any of us to help make his decisions.

Did God simply know Lot was going to choose the one side and that Abram would therefore get the other? What if Lot chose Canaan and Abram was left with the other? What we do know is that in the previous chapter, God had already spoke to Abram of the matter.

 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” (Genesis 12:5-7)

Some people wonder if God knows all that they are going to do and choose. I find that the better question is Does God know all that HE is going to do and choose? Because if that answer is YES then my choices aren’t as important to the equation. God already knows how his sovereign plan is going to unfold.

So did Lot affect everything? Some reading our passage today might see God’s unseen hand in verse 10 as if God made the land so desirable for Lot that he would choose that one instead of the other. Others might limit God and say that God was waiting for Lot to choose. Those same people might picture God pacing the corridors of Heaven in the early chapters of Genesis wondering if Eve was going to eat the fruit or not!

How you answer today’s question affects your view of God’s sovereignty. I hold to a soft-determinism or a compatible free will. My choice is therefore compatible with God’s choice. I freely choose what God has sovereignly chosen for me to choose. Unless God had intervened by choosing me, I would always have chosen what my sin nature and desires dictated. Because of the Fall, my sin nature limits me. I will never apart from the choice of God choose God in faith. My choice to do so is based upon God’s previous choice.

Lot was not choosing otherwise, but more important, neither was God. God only has a plan A and never a plan B. Otherwise, God would be dependent upon my choices in some way. Theology is fun.–JMB