“Abraham settled in the land of Canaan while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now, the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.”
-Genesis 13:12–13
Far too often we toy with sin rather than fleeing from it.
Genesis 13:12–13 are so telling, because they give us a picture of Lot settling near Sodom, a place known for wickedness, known for being full of great sinners against the Lord. Now, we’ll see a few chapters from now in Genesis what happens to Sodom as a result of that. What’s so interesting here in Genesis 13:12–13 is how lot, out of all the places he could have gone, he moved his tent right toward Sodom. And I just can’t help but to think as I read that of how we oftentimes in our lives flirt with sin. We get close to sin.
I think about when I was in the youth group when I was a teenager, and the question we would always talk about when it comes to physical purity is how far is too far. How close can I get to sinning without actually sinning? That’s all I want to know, where the line is, and I want to go right up to that line. That was the thinking, and really, you just apply that in so many ways in our lives. We’re tempted to think that way. We think, “Okay, I don’t want to sin, but how close can I get to it without actually stepping over,” which is a horrible way to think about sin.
This is the fault in what happened here in Lot’s life. He moves toward Sodom in a way that ends up affecting his family and specifically his wife, drastically, a few chapters from now.
Genesis 13:12–13 Warns Us To Run Not Flirt With Sin
We can’t flirt with sin. We can’t toy with it, rationalize it. We’re so prone to rationalize sin, to get close to it and think, “Okay, we can resist it. We’re just gonna get a little bit closer to it.”God help us to run from sin. Ah, that’s what we pray. God, please help us to run from it. Help us not to rationalize sin. Help us not to flirt from it. God, we pray. We want to be pure and holy, which means we want to run towards you. We want to obey your word completely. So we can stay away from sin. We want to resist temptation, not flirt with it. We want to flee from it, so help us, we pray.
This Verse Asks God To Help Us Avoid Sin’s Temptation
I think about sins that I struggle with in my life, specific sins that people who are listening to this struggle with. God, help us to stop flirting with it. God, whenever there’s any temptation, help us not to pitch our tent in that direction in any way. Help us to run from it with zeal. Help us not to play with temptation, to play with sin. God, help us to hate it and to run from it to the righteousness that you have bought for us. Lord Jesus, we pray. Help us to be holy by running from sin, resisting temptation with everything we have. And God, we pray for that kind of grace in battles, struggles with temptation today.
In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
