Open Tent Flaps

“Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched [his] tent toward Sodom.” (Ge 13:12 AV)

My mind went back to the days of old when a phrase like that above would generate a great Bible camp meeting sermon.  The good old days when the preacher preached on sin and worldliness.  It seems like those days are gone.  It really is sad, though.  We need them more and more, not less and less.  Questions like: “Have you pitched your tent toward Sodom” would be thrown out there.  Or: “exactly what do you have your front door open to?”  Perhaps, “How deep and permanent is your life as you face the temptation of the world.?”  These questions and more would bellow forth from the sacred desk.  The altar would be full of those renouncing worldliness.  Sin would be confessed.  Wickedness would be forsaken.  Worldly pleasures would be burned at a bonfire, pledges made and kept, and a great movement of the Holy Spirit would run a course through the congregation.  No longer do we hear revival messages like that.  The cause has not abated.  Worldliness is a sickness that will always plague the body of Christ.  What is missing is the same thing that was missing on Lot’s day.  There simply is no concern.  No care.  No worry that the world would harmfully influence the family and the individual.

Lot lost everything.  He lost his home and his family.  All he had left were two daughters who got him drunk and laid with him.  He fathered two nations with his own daughters.  When it was all said and done, the Bible does list Lot as a righteous man.  But barely.  Lot is a type of the raptured church.  We are saved, yet so as by fire.  We are getting out of here having lost much.  The questions above become important because they become personal.  Have I staked my tent facing Sodom?  What is it that is allowed to influence my home?  How much like the world have I become?  Have I considered separation as a serious Christian principle?  Do I use the cause of evangelism as an excuse to be like the world?  If the LORD would blow the trumpet tonight, how much of what I value would be left behind?  How much of my extended family will miss the rapture because I allowed myself to be more like the world than like Christ?

Where we decide to define ourselves matters.  What we focus our attention on matters.  Lot may have been a righteous man, but he lost much.  Lot may have been protected by the angels of the LORD, but they could not protect his wife or married children.  God may have honored Abraham’s prayer, but Lot lost more than he could bear.  All because he pitched his tent toward Sodom.  Where have you pitched your tent?  What is your front door open to?  What comes into your home that would be better left out?  From whom are you separating and unto whom are you joining?  If Lot could have kept his herdman under control, none of this would have happened.  If they separated because of failure to control Self, then their situation would be compounded by joining with cities that we invested with revelry.  What do we pitch our tents toward?