The Fruit of Compromise Text: Genesis 19:30-38
Introduction: The Bottom of the Slope
There is a peculiar kind of modern Christian who believes that he can dance with the world, get close to the fire, and not get burned. He believes he can pitch his tent toward Sodom, then move into the city, then take a seat on the city council, and somehow maintain his spiritual integrity. He is a master of negotiation and compromise, always looking for that respectable middle ground between faithfulness and worldliness. Lot is the patron saint of such men. And this passage is the inspired record of where that kind of thinking inevitably ends. It ends in a dark, damp cave, with righteousness in a drunken stupor and the next generation perpetuating the family line through a desperate, pagan act of incest.
We must not read this story as though it were some bizarre, disconnected episode that dropped out of the sky. This is not a random tragedy. This is the bottom of a very long, slippery slope that began way back in Genesis 13, when Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the well-watered plains of the Jordan, which looked like the garden of the Lord, and chose them. He chose by sight, not by faith. He chose what looked good to the world, and he got the world, good and hard. The destruction of Sodom was God's severe mercy to him, a violent extraction from the world he loved. But the problem is that while God got Lot out of Sodom, He did not get Sodom out of Lot, or, as we see here, out of his daughters.
This passage is a stark, unflinching look at the generational consequences of spiritual compromise. It is a warning against the folly of thinking you can raise a godly family in a godless culture without that culture seeping into their bones. Lot failed as a man, he failed as a leader, and he failed as a father. And the result was the birth of two nations, Moab and Ammon, that would become thorns in the side of Israel for centuries. Sin is never just a personal matter; it has a history, and it has a future. It bears fruit, and that fruit is often monstrous.
The Text
And Lot went up from Zoar and stayed in the mountains, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters. Then the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our seed through 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. Now it happened on the following day, that the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve our seed through our father." So 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 Lot conceived by their father. And the firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. As for the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of Ammon to this day.
(Genesis 19:30-38 LSB)
The Fearful Retreat (v. 30)
The story picks up after the destruction of the cities of the plain.
"And Lot went up from Zoar and stayed in the mountains, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters." (Genesis 19:30)
Remember how Lot got to Zoar. He had begged the angels to spare that little city for him because he was afraid of the mountains. "Behold, this town is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Please let me escape there... and my life will be saved" (Gen. 19:20). He negotiated his way out of God's original plan, which was for him to flee to the mountains. Now, we find him leaving the very town he begged for because he was afraid to stay there. This is the psychology of compromise. It is a life governed by fear, not faith. He feared the men of Sodom, then he feared the mountains, now he fears the men of Zoar. A man who will not fear God will fear everything else.
So where does he end up? Right back in the mountains God told him to go to in the first place. But he doesn't go in faith; he goes in fear. And he doesn't build an altar, as his uncle Abraham would have done. He finds a cave. This is a picture of utter regression. He started as a wealthy herdsman, became a prominent citizen in a sophisticated city, and now he is a caveman. He has lost his wife, his wealth, his home, his sons-in-law, and his standing. All he has left are two daughters who grew up in Sodom. This is what the world gives you in the end: a cave and a legacy of shame.
A Godless Piety (v. 31-32)
In this isolation, the daughters reveal how deeply the world's logic has infected them.
"Then the firstborn said to the younger, 'Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our seed through our father.'" (Genesis 19:31-32 LSB)
Listen to their reasoning. It is a perverse mixture of pragmatism and panic. Their central concern is to "preserve our seed." This sounds almost pious, doesn't it? It's the language of covenant, of legacy. But their method is entirely pagan. Their premise is that "there is not a man on earth to come in to us." This was obviously not true. They were not the only three people left on the planet. But in their isolation and fear, they had adopted a worldview of scarcity and desperation. They could not imagine God providing for them. They had seen fire and brimstone, they had been rescued by angels, but their immediate response to difficulty is not prayer or faith, but carnal calculation.
Their solution is to act "after the manner of the earth." This is a crucial phrase. They are admitting that their standard is the world's standard. The world says that if you want something, you take it. The world says the end justifies the means. The world operates on survival of the fittest, not on the promises of God. They had no category for waiting on God, for trusting Him to provide husbands from their kinsmen back with Abraham. Their father had modeled a life of looking to the world for solutions, and now they were simply following his lead. The plan is hatched by the firstborn, the one who should have been setting an example of honor. The failure of headship is total. The father is passive, and the daughters take the lead in this wicked scheme.
The Abdication of Fatherhood (v. 33-35)
The execution of the plan is as sordid as its conception.
"So they made their father drink wine that night... and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose... So they made their father drink wine that night also... and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose." (Genesis 19:33, 35 LSB)
Lot is not an active participant here; he is a passive object. He is plied with wine until he is in a stupor. Twice, the text emphasizes his ignorance: "he did not know." This is not to excuse him. His drunkenness is his sin, and it is the culmination of his spiritual abdication. A man who should have been the guardian of his daughters' purity becomes the instrument of their sin, precisely because he has checked out. He is no longer leading, protecting, or teaching. He is simply there, a warm body to be used for their godless plan.
This is a picture of what happens when male headship collapses. When a father is spiritually passive, drunk on the wine of the world, whether literal or metaphorical, a vacuum is created. And into that vacuum will rush the desperate, sinful plans of those he was meant to lead. The daughters' sin is heinous, but it was conceived in the environment of their father's catastrophic failure. He taught them to accommodate the world, and they learned the lesson all too well.
The Legacy of Sin (v. 36-38)
The consequences of this night in the cave are not private. They are historical and geopolitical.
"Thus both the daughters of Lot conceived by their father. And the firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. As for the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of Ammon to this day." (Genesis 19:36-38 LSB)
The plan "works." They preserve their seed. But look at what that seed is called. The firstborn names her son Moab, which sounds like the Hebrew for "from my father." The younger names her son Ben-ammi, meaning "son of my people." These names are not subtle. They are permanent memorials to the sin that produced them. Every time a Moabite or an Ammonite said his nationality, he was, in effect, rehearsing the story of his shameful origin.
And this is not just an embarrassing family story. This is the origin of two nations that would be a constant source of trouble, temptation, and outright war for the people of Israel. It was the Moabite women who seduced the men of Israel at Baal Peor (Numbers 25). It was the Ammonites who oppressed Israel in the time of the judges. God specifically forbade Moabites and Ammonites from entering the assembly of the Lord, even to the tenth generation, because of their hostility to Israel (Deuteronomy 23:3-4). Lot's compromise in one generation produced enemies of God's people for a thousand years. This is how sin works. It is never contained. It ripples outward, creating structures of rebellion that last for centuries.
Conclusion: No Neutral Ground
The story of Lot and his daughters is a brutal but necessary part of God's Word. It is a warning written in large, bold letters. It teaches us that there is no neutral ground between the church and the world, between faith and compromise. The man who tries to live in both worlds will ultimately lose them both.
Lot's story is a tragedy of "almost." He was a righteous man, Peter tells us, who was vexed by the lawless deeds he saw (2 Peter 2:7-8). He had some faith, but it was a weak, timid, negotiating faith. He wanted God's blessing, but he also wanted a nice condo in a gated community in Sodom. He wanted to save his family, but he had raised them on the world's curriculum. And in the end, the world he courted destroyed him. He stands as a permanent warning to every Christian father who thinks he can lead his family from a position of compromise, and to every believer who thinks that pitching his tent toward Sodom is a low-risk proposition.
Yet, even in this darkness, we see the strange providence of God. From this sordid line of Moab, God would one day bring forth Ruth, a woman of noble character and faith. And Ruth the Moabitess would become the great-grandmother of King David, and an ancestress of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. God can and does draw straight lines with crooked sticks. His grace is greater than our sin. But this does not make the crookedness of the stick a good thing. God's ability to redeem our failures is a testament to His power, not an excuse for our compromise. The lesson from the cave is clear: Flee Sodom. Flee Zoar. Flee the whole mindset of the world. Flee to the mountains of God's faithfulness, and build your altar there. Do not negotiate. Do not linger. Do not look back.