The Prepper Broadcasting Network - 2025.08.13 - Reliance - Fear and Disobedience

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

God bless the Menking Family. If you need to draw closer to God then enjoy this series by the one and only Steven Menking. 

Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. And he said, Here now, my lords, please turn into your servant's house and spend the night, and wash your feet. Then you may rise early and go on your way. And they said, no, but we will spend the night in the open square. But he insisted strongly, so they turned into him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. now before they lay down the men of the city the men of sodom both old and young all the people from every quarter surrounded the house and they called to lot and said to him where are the men who came to you tonight bring them out to us that we may know them so lot went out to them through the doorway shut the door behind him and said please my brethren do not do so wickedly see now i have two daughters who have not known a man please let me bring them out to you and you may do to them as you wish only do nothing to these men since this is the reason they have come under the shableness

of my roof. And they said, stand back. Then they said, this one came in to stay here and he keeps acting as a judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them. So they pressed hard against the man, Lott, and came near to break down the door. But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lott into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they became weary trying to find the door. Then the men said to Lott, have you anyone else here? Son-in-law, your sons, your sons, your daughters and whomever you have in the city, take them out of this place, for we will destroy this place because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord

has sent us to destroy it. So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, get up, get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city. But to his sons-in-law, he seemed to be joking. When the morning dawn, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment into the city. And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. So it came to pass when they had brought them outside that he said, escape for your life, do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.

Then Lot said to them, please no, my lords. Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy, which you have shown me by saving my life. But I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die. See, now this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Please let me escape there. Is it not a little one? And my soul shall live. And he said to him, see, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there. therefore the name of the city was called zoar the sun had risen upon the earth when lot entered zoar then the lord reigned brimstone and fire on so the lord out of the heavens so he overthrew those cities all the plain all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground but his wife looked back behind him and she became a pillar of salt and abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the lord then he looked towards sodom and gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain and he saw him

and behold, the smoke of the land, which went up like the smoke of a furnace. And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out in the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt. Then Lot went up out of Zohar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Zohar, and he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave. Now the firstborn said to the younger, our father is old, and there's no man on the earth to come into us, as is the custom of all the earth.

Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him that we may preserve the lineage of our father. So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, indeed, I lay with my father last night, let us make him drink wine tonight also,

and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father. Then they made their father drink wine, that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus, both the daughters of Watt were with child by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben Amai. He is the father of the people of Ammon to this day. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for each and every bit of it, which is

useful for reproof and for teaching and for guidance and that reflects God your will and what you have established. Lord, open our hearts and Holy Spirit be with us as we discuss and consider, Lord, what you would speak to us in this day from this passage. God, you are merciful and your love endures forever and you have made a way out not just for lot not just for noah and his family but for all of us in jesus you have given us the opportunity and the chance god to come to you you have made a way for us to be brought back home we love you lord we bless you we pray that you would give us insight and wisdom and discernment and that you would use this time, Lord, for your glory and for your kingdom. God, overshadow my faults, my sins, my frailties. Lord, forgive me, Lord, and help me,

God, to represent you. We love you, Jesus. We declare your holiness and your righteousness and the all-sufficient nature of your sacrifice on the cross. It is you and you alone who are Lord and King and Savior. We worship you and we declare your worthiness to this generation. In Jesus' name, amen. It's not often that we see full messages based off of Genesis 19, but I was going through my Bible reading and there was something about this passage that I couldn't get passed in terms of, you know, it just stuck out to me, the way that this living word does from

time to time when the Holy Spirit quickens something. And what struck me was actually towards the end. There's all sorts of challenging things in here, all sorts of complex and mature subject matter, difficult moral dilemmas, ongoing, challenging cultural questions. There's a lot here that we can dig into and that we can consider. But I want us to revisit the course of events in terms of how Lott responds to the situation. So he shows hospitality to the angels. He insists on showing them hospitality, which is a good thing.

And then immediately thereafter, when he's being pressed upon, he offers his daughters, which we would say is at the very least confusing and potentially just a disastrous decision. And another curiosity here is that these events appear to be contemporaneous. So he says that his daughters have not yet known a man. And then right after that he's speaking to his sons-in-law who had married his daughter. daughters. So is he deceiving people? What's what's really going on? Moving past that,

you see that Lott attempts to convince his sons-in-law to leave the city and he comes across to them like a crazy person and they didn't take him seriously. And then on the day that was promised, he lingered around. He wasn't in a big. big enough hurry to get out, to get out of the city, having received the promise that nothing could be done until he had relocated. And then, when he's instructed, escape to the mountains lest you be destroyed, he responds in verses 18 through 20 in a very interesting way. at least this is what started to stand out to me.

So the angels say the city is going to be destroyed and everywhere on this plane. And Lot says to them, please no, my lords, don't have me go up into the mountains. Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight and you have increased your mercy, which you have shown me by saving my life. But I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some east. evil overtake me and I die. And this feels very similar to the pattern that Abraham and Job display where they know that they're in a supernatural encounter. And they say, well, who am I to speak to or contradict the Lord or his messengers? But since I found favor in your sight,

let me say one more thing. I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord to not present a challenge or a test, but to present a request. It's a very fearsome type of prayer in that it's a beseeching of God for something, even to attempt to go in a different direction than what has been proclaimed. So Lot is saying, I don't want to go into the mountains. I can't escape to the mountains lest some evil overtake me and I die. See, now this city is near enough to flee to, and it's a little one, please let me escape there, and my soul shall live. So, Lott, as far as I understand it, is essentially saying, because this destruction is going to be in the entire area, saying, instead of me going all the way to the mountains, can I stay in this

small city, and can that be spared for the sake of it? Now, I don't know what the full nature of the motivation is. I don't know what the full picture is, but what really stood out to me is the nature of the character who is going to say, thank you for saving my life. Can you do this additional thing for me also? And the way that God and God's angels by proxy react to this is to say, see, I have favored you concerning this thing also, and that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there. So God had promised to spare lot and to bring his family out.

He was faithful to Abraham in this. And at the end of the day, couldn't it have been God? God's prerogative to say, who are you to question me in this, given what I've done, go to the mountains, that's a commandment. And yet there's an adjustment here because of what Lot does. Now, to me, if we dig into this, this is not the time and place for a discussion about the foreknowledge of God, the sovereignty of God, and other components and other questions, other doctrines. about open theism and all sorts of things like that.

But I say all that because it leads into this incredibly interesting part where we don't have additional details. But after Sodom and Gomorrah and everything on the plane all around was overthrown by the Lord Brimstone and Fire coming down, and Lott's wife turns back and she becomes a pillar of salt, and Abraham goes out to see it. Then we get to verse 30, where it says,

then Lot went up out of Zohar and dwelt in the mountains. And his two daughters were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Zohar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave. So I don't know why he was afraid to dwell in Zohar, but there was an original plan. and Lott was able to get a concession, the plan changed because Lott was afraid of trouble in the mountains, and then after the angel's consent and Lott follows into Zohar, he then gets afraid again and goes back into the mountains,

which was God's original plan. That was the original instruction. But the thing that he was afraid of that evil would come upon him in the mountains was actually coming to pass. That is what happened. And the result of this drunkenness and incest is the birth of two different people groups who were seen as mortal and. enemies of the Israelites. There was a distant kinship relationship here between these people groups, but there was always enmity and war and fighting. And it's just so interesting to me that the structure of this plays out the way that it does. We don't have a full picture of the

motivations, but let's abstract it for a little bit. God says, here's plan A. We push back and say, can we please do something else? Can we do this any other way? Can we go with another option instead? Now, the pattern here kind of parallels the Garden of Gassimony, where Jesus is saying, if there's any way that this cup can pass from me, then let it be so, but nevertheless, let thy will, that mine be done. And the answer to that was no. There was no way to achieve what was needed to be achieved in salvation history and in the redemption of mankind other than the cross.

But here there's a bit more flexibility. So plan A mountains. Lot says, no, please, I'm scared of plan A. Can we go with plan B? There's an ascent to that. Okay, go with plan B. And then after Plan B is ongoing, Lott gets afraid of Plan B and goes back to Plan A, and Plan A results in bad things. So the lesson for us and the question I would have for you is, was that the original intent of Plan A?

presumably not, presumably not? Or is this the result and the consequence of having a spirit of fear and of thinking about our own selves instead of prioritizing the obedience of God? Has it ever been the case for us? or anyone we know, where there was an original call, an original vocation, an original opportunity to serve, to bless, to do something. And did we, because of fear or challenge, back away from that and end up going in a different direction? And did God bless us even in that place, even though it wasn't the original plan?

And then, because of this, did we end up reverting and going back to the original plan only to find that that door was now locked, that that blessing was now removed, that the vulnerability that we were originally afraid of was there now. So from a narrative structure standpoint, it's extremely compelling because we see this in our own lives. And it's one of those components where if we try and take control of the timing of things and we try to impose ourselves upon God's plans and God's situations, then we will not end up where we need to be. And even if we go back to the original plan, so to speak, or we say, okay, God, well, now I'll follow you.

where you were originally calling me, the same kind of blessing, the same kind of harvest, the same kind of fruitfulness may no longer be there. And we've said this before, that if you make a decision, and it would be the right decision, but it was made at the wrong time, then it's not the right decision. And so I suppose you could ask here, well, what should Lott have done? I think the easiest thing to say is he just sort of gone to the mountains in the first place. and then we'd have a different version of scriptural history, but presumably God was originally calling him to go to the mountains to be clear of all of this so that he would be safe,

so that he would be spared. And yes, he still kept his life, but there was a great evil done in the mountains after he goes back there after it was no longer the plan after he rejected or pushed back against the plan originally because of fear so it was fear that drove these different things this back and forth this divided mind this first one step now the other and perhaps if we had the full measure of the story if we had playback and we could understand everything we might even say Well, perhaps some of the fears are explicable and even deliberate and potentially even rational. Like, in the plain text of Genesis 19, it's certainly not super friendly to Lott. He comes across kind of insane.

Like, he's all over the place. Of course, this is an extremely traumatic and dynamic moment. There aren't many things quite like this in scriptural history in the, in the, the book of Genesis, a book that is replete with incredibly vivid and impactful and historically determinative situations that are described. So when we see these things and when we come to the character of Lot here, the person of Lot, from my standpoint, I do want to caveat at this with the principle that we're not here to cast aspersions and we're not here to stand in judgment. What I think we should be here for is to say this is a pattern that is built into us

that when we are fearful and when we are not going with God's initial plan and we try to take things under our own control, that things just don't go the way. that they should and maybe everything would have been fine if lot stayed in zoar but he got afraid again and i think the message that we're trying to draw from this is that when we are in obedience it removes many of the vectors and sources of fear that can creep into our lives and fear and disobedience beget more fear and more disobedience, right? If we've ever tried to keep a secret, then we worry about the secret being exposed, and we do other things to cover up the secret.

It's in the very well-known political saying, the cover-up is worse than the crime. And so the cover-up creates additional disobedience, which creates additional fear about that being discovered, and there's no end to that cycle. And so from Lott's position, I think for our own purposes, we need to be extra careful and sure that before we are proceeding with something that we are in obedience to the will of God, with an understanding that if we are not, then there's going to be more temptation and more influence to fear, and that can lead us to make even worse decisions in terms of our obedience, even if it looks like the decisions are going

back to the original plan to begin with. It may be that now the circumstances have changed. It may be that we need in every season that we have a properly new and up-to-date word from the Lord about what we should be doing. Today's mountains may not be yesterday's mountains. We may not be called to go there anymore. It doesn't say that Lot because of his fear went to the Lord to pray, got a word, got direction, and then went up into the mountains with the Lord's blessing. No, it said, then Lot went out of Zohar and dwelt in the mountains and his two daughters were with him for he was afraid to dwell in Zohar. He said, let's get out of here. There's no inclination that the Lord was sought here. And maybe he thought back to the

original conversation where he said, okay, well, you know, God is calling me out of Sodom and he's calling me out of this entire area and he wants me to go up to the mountains. And he remembered saying no to that and hearing the word from God that he could indeed go into Zohar. And maybe that was his last reference point, his last reference point. And so fear drives him back to his last reference point, but it's now no longer a safe place, no longer where he needs to be. He's making the decision for the wrong reasons. And again, this is not to cast stones at lot, so to speak, this is for our own purposes. Can we not learn from this? Have there not been times in our lives where we felt a little bit lost or a little bit fearful and we went back to what we thought was

safe ground, only for it to not be safe anymore. And we didn't consult the Lord, and we should have just gone through. We should have sought the Lord for fresh guidance, fresh direction, to resettle ourselves. And hopefully, this should motivate each and every one of us to say, if we are feeling fearful, number one, to know that the Lord has not given us a spirit of fear so that this fear that we are experiencing is not from the Lord. And what it should motivate us to do is to say, okay, I'm experiencing things such as fear that I'm not supposed to be succumbing to because the Lord hasn't given me a spirit of fear. So this must be coming from someplace else. So I need to find a resource and strength to fight against this. So I have to go to God. I have to seek the Lord.

I have to figure out his will. I have to pray and break through and stay in the Word. and fast or however the Holy Spirit calls us to fight that battle so that I can get the spiritual resources, the bread, the nourishment, the strength that I need to stand where I am and to declare the promises of God and to win that victory. And of course, easier said than done. The fear that people experience can be crippling and damaging and chaotic and hurtful and personal and all of these different components. But if we're experiencing something that God has not intended for us to experience, then we should go to God for our resource. And what should we ask for? Not just God take away this fear, but God, show me how I can get in line with your will. Because when we are in line with

the will of God, the calling of God, making no assumptions about, oh, well, let me go back to this thing that God called me to prior. We need a word from God about where we are to be situated in every season of our lives. And it doesn't matter if the season was last week. God could have something different for us to do someplace different. Our safety may be in a different spot. Our tabernacle may be in a different spot. When the cloud and the fire moved, the tabernacle moved in the wilderness. And when it stopped, it stopped. And they stayed there as long as the presence of the Lord was there. So if we're following that model, lot was certainly not in that sense.

What happened to Lot was that he lost where the cloud and the fire were and he ran back to the previous place that he had had them, even though he was the one who himself said, I want to go to a different place. Will you follow me, essentially, and was blessed in that? And what he found in the original spot that we went back to, in this case the mountains, was nothing good. In fact, it was the birthright of a long line

of centuries and centuries and generations and generations of conflict, of strife, of pain, of loss, and of destruction. And so our fear and our disobedience can bring about much more damage, much more damage than we could ever imagine. And so that's why it should be incumbent upon us to say, if I'm experiencing fear, it better be the fear of the Lord for me to say, I will not rest until I have direction from the Lord on something. And I've been guilty of this myself,

and I've had to repent of establishing my own plans, thinking, oh, this is a decent idea? And then going to God and saying, God, is this a good idea? Like, will you bless these? Will you help me in this? You know, quoting, you know, quoting scriptures about the, fruitfulness and blessing the work of my hands and other things like that, but the order is

inverted. We should really be established and convinced this is the will of the Lord, this is the way I should go, and we should be empowered by the Holy Spirit to walk in that path, to walk in that trajectory. And I think that if we can really take this to heart, then it would do so much for countering the fear that is so besetting and so strong in the lives of so many believers. A lot of people experience fear in dramatic ways, in direct, dramatic, potent, powerful ways. And I think if we were fully convinced in our own mind because of legitimate, biblical, scripturally sound, encounters with the Holy Spirit, and leading from God,

if we knew that we were walking in God's will, then fear would, not have the same kind of power over us. It would not have the same kind of ability to sway us in different directions, even to potentially point back to things that God had called us to in the past. And it would not have the power to open up these doors. It would not have the power to move us in such a way to think selfishly. It would not have the power to infect the entire situation that we find ourselves in. So let's learn what's perhaps a little bit of an unusual lesson to learn from Genesis 19.

And that is that obedience provides a defense against fear, but that fear can in many cases spur on additional disobedience. Fear and disobedience are a powerful and dangerous cycle, a spiral to get into, and the source of much strife and damage and hurt and pain in our world today. When we are committed to following the Lord, we know that the Holy Spirit has led us into something, there's no more room for fear because we are prioritizing. obedience. And it makes it so much easier to stand on the promise that God has not given us a spirit of fear. If His Holy Spirit is leading us and we are filled with the Holy Spirit,

then the spirit of fear finds it much more difficult to gain a foothold. But our disobedience are taking things into our own hands, are trying to impose a measure of control for whatever reason, stated or unstated, these things bring about ambiguity and challenge and mixture and weakness and a toll hold for fear to come in and for disobedience to come in and for evil to come in. So in this challenging chapter, I would encourage you to reflect on the trajectory that Lot took. He was motivated by fear and he was overcome bias. And as a result, disobedience happened. As a result of that, there was greater fear.

As a result of that, there was greater disobedience. And then there was the seed of conflict that would unfold over many generations and bring about it much death and strife and violence. We, brothers and sisters, cannot afford. We cannot be the ones that similarly bring about. the kind of fear and disobedience cycle that dominates over so many. This is a prison that Jesus died to set us free from, and he will bring liberty to the captives. The Holy Spirit will provide a way out.

We must pray, we must read the word, we must focus on asking the Lord to find out and to expose if there is any of this dynamic in us, any tendencies, any things that have not been repented of, let's clear the decks today so that we can get back to obedience and encouragement and protection against fear, the kind of fear that would displace us and put us on the wrong path. So, Father, thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you for showing us in the pages of scripture and in the tenets of history that God, there is a pattern for us to follow. And it does not involve disobedience. It does not involve fear. But Lord, we have all been weak to

these things. We understand the dynamics that psychologically and spiritually could have pushed lot to do what he did. And we see them in ourselves, Father, operative, perhaps in different ways, but with the same kind of patterns of fear and disobedience. So God, we repent of these things. we repent of what we have done to give place to these forces of spiritual darkness and these things that would pull us away from your perfect will for our lives. Restore us, replenish us, Lord, in your mercy and your forgiveness and your grace. Place us on solid ground. Help us to see, Lord, in our own hearts, in our own minds, in our own thoughts.

God, what needs to change so that we can be obedient to you so that the spirit of fear can be cast out and removed and so that no foothold would ever be retained for it? Lord, help us to be obedient. We need you, God, to lead us in this generation. Only you, only you have the power to guide us the way that we need to be guided. We can't do it ourselves, Lord. But we know that when we are weak, you are strong and that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Let it be so, Lord, let it be so in our lives. Let us see it. Let us see it in our lives and all around us, God. No more fear, no more disobedience. Break that cycle now in Jesus' name and help us to repent, to come to you, to seek and receive forgiveness

that was purchased by your blood and is subject to your steadfast and eternally secure promises. We love you, Lord. We praise you and we thank you for setting the captives free and for establishing us. God, only you can do it. Establish us in this generation and help us to be obedient to the call that you have placed on our lives to bring glory to your precious name. In Jesus' name, amen.