God’s Promise and the Inheritance of Faith | Genesis 13:5-18
Brian Hedges | June 2, 2019
If I could just ask, how many of you have experienced a family feud, a family squabble. I think all of us probably have. Maybe a better question is how many of you experienced a family squabble on the way to church this morning? That sometimes happens on a Sunday morning.
One of the wonderful things about Scripture, when we study the people in Scripture, is that the people in Scripture are not the people that we should be, they’re actually the people that we are. The Bible does not give us polished, nice, and cleaned-up versions of people of faith; it gives us people of faith who fail and who fight and who squabble and have all kinds of problems in their lives. It shows us what faith really looks like in the gritty and grimy real world.
That is true with Abraham. We’re studying together the stories about Abraham, the Abraham narratives in the book of Genesis, chapters 12 through about 25, 26. This morning we’re looking at a story that all begins with a family fight, a family feud. It’s one of the three stories in the Abraham narratives that concern Abraham’s nephew, named Lot. This is the first of the three, and the story begins with a fight between Lot and Abraham or between their respective groups of people. So let me just read verses 5-7, because this establishes the setting, and then let me lead you into what I think is the meaning and the point and the application of this passage. Look at verses 5-7.
It says, “And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. And there was strife [underline that word] between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land.”
So here’s the situation. Abram and Lot are now both prosperous. In Genesis 12, last week, we saw a trial, a test of faith, as they encountered a severe famine in the land. Now they have a new trial; it’s a trial of prosperity, and the prosperity brings conflict because their herds are getting so large that there’s evidently not enough grazing ground for both of them to dwell together, especially with the Canaanites and the Perizzites still dwelling in the land. Of course, this is the land that God had promised to Abram in Genesis 12:7. So right here, once again, we’re seeing another potential threat to the promise that God has made.
In the events that unfold following this little family squabble, this feud, we get something, I think, that’s really, really interesting. We get a series of contrasts between Abraham and Lot. I think this is what we have to understand: that in the Lot and Abraham narratives, Lot serves as a foil for Abraham.
Now, in case you don’t remember high school English, let me remind you what a foil is in literature. A foil is a character in a story that contrasts with another character, usually the protagonist, and it’s a contrast there that’s given in order to highlight certain qualities in the protagonist, in the main character. So I’ll give you a couple of examples.
Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Mercutio is a foil for Romeo. Now I know you probably don’t remember this, but there’s a place where Mercutio is kind of mocking Romeo, and Mercutio is very rational, he’s logical, he has his head on his shoulders, he’s thinking straight. Romeo is starstruck, right, he has love in his eyes, he’s lovesick; and Mercutio is kind of taunting, mocking Romeo for these romantic and what turned out to be very tragic tendencies. Mercutio is Romeo’s foil.
Let me give you another example. This one may be a little more familiar to a lot of you. One of the last Star Wars movies, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, has a series of foils. You know, a lot of people did not like Star Wars: The Last Jedi because it was kind of a deconstruction of Star Wars movies.
This is the way it worked. You have three sets of characters, and the male characters are foils for the female characters. So you have Poe Dameron, who is this swashbuckling-type, Hans Solo-esque flyboy, and he’s reckless and heroic and so on; but his decisions actually end up costing the good guys a lot, and he’s a foil for the wiser, more mature leader, Princess Leia.
You have Finn, who is vengeful and angry and just wants to get back at the First Order, and he’s a foil for Rose, who is loving and compassionate and willing to make sacrifices, but only for the sake of her friends.
Then you have Luke Skywalker, who is disillusioned, grumpy-old-man Jedi knight, right? He’s a foil for Rey, who his this new and upcoming Jedi.
Now, a lot of people didn’t like that. They didn’t like it because the male characters are foils for the female characters. I didn’t mind it. I didn’t mind it because I have daughters, and I like daughters to have strong female characters on screen...and I want them to like Star Wars. And I didn’t mind it because I have known a lot of men (and I’ve been one) who have made really stupid decisions, when if we had just listened to the women in our lives we would have done better. So I didn’t mind it that they did that in the Star Wars movie.
Now, I digress. The point that I’m trying to make here is what a foil is. A foil is a character that is there to show the qualities in another character, and in the Abraham and Lot stories, Lot is a foil for Abraham. What you see, in this story in particular, as you look at how Abram and lot handle this crisis, what you see is a series of contrasts, and maybe the best way to say it is this, that it shows us the difference between walking by faith and walking by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). We walk by faith and not by sight. Abraham shows us what it means to walk by faith; Lot shows us what it looks like to walk by sight.
So, let’s draw these out. There are three contrasts, and I want to give them to you in the form of questions, okay, just to push the application deeper into our own hearts.
1. Are you large-hearted or self-centered?
So the first contrast we see in this passage is between Abram’s magnanimity (I know that’s a big word; I’ll explain it) and Lot’s self-centeredness. Abram is a magnanimous person. That’s a great word, it’s a word that we don’t use very often, but it’s a great word, and the reason I’m using it is because I just came across it again and again and again as I was reading the commentaries on this passage. They’re highlighting Abram’s magnanimous quality.
What does it mean to be magnanimous? It means, literally, to be large-hearted. Here’s a definition: “To be generous or forgiving, especially toward a rival or less powerful person.” The word magnanimity comes from two words in Latin, magna, which means big, and animus, soul or spirit. It means to be large-souled, large-hearted, someone who has a big, generous heart.
You know, Bunyan in The Pilgrim’s Progress actually has a character called Mr. Greatheart, and that would be a good nickname for Abram in this story. Abram is Mr. Greatheart.
Let me show you how you see this in the passage, in verses 8 and 9. It says, “Then Abram said to Lot…” Okay, they’re in conflict, they’re having strife, Abram is the senior partner in this business, he’s the patriarch, he’s the head of the family. Look at what he does. “Abram said to Lot, ‘Let there be no strife between you and me and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand then I will go to the right, and if you take the right hand then I will go to the left.’”
This is amazing! This is the land that God has promised to Abraham, and yet, rather than trying to secure this land for himself, rather than trying to find the best piece of the land for himself, when there is strife he has a large, generous heart - he’s magnanimous - and he says to Lot, “Listen, take your pick, and I’ll go wherever you don’t want to go. I’ll go the opposite direction.”
Have you ever met someone like this? Someone who is large-hearted, someone who has a generous soul, a generous spirit? Here would be some things you would notice in a person who is large-hearted: they prioritize people over things, they are slow to anger and swift to forgive, they think the best of others, they are not quick to assume the worst (they give people the benefit of the doubt), they don’t think they deserve first place, they don’t have an entitlement mentality, they are eager to serve, they are quick to give, they are happy to see others prosper, even at their own expense, just as Abram is here.
Another way of putting it is they’re not always calling dibs, right, or shotgun! You guys ever have that? If you have kids, you have people calling shotgun. In our family, they’re regularly reminding each other of "the rules of shotgun," right? You have to be in view of the car before you can call shotgun.
Well, we all need to learn a lesson about being large-hearted and generous and not putting ourselves first. That’s what Abram does here. In a minute I’m going to dig down a little bit to try to show you why he does that, but I just want you to see on the surface of the text, this is Abram’s stance, this his posture; he is large-hearted towards Lot. He has a generous, generous posture.
In contrast to that, look at Lot’s self-centeredness, verses 10 and 11. It says, “And 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. [Verse 11] So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other.”
Now, on one hand Lot’s choice seems natural, it seems logical, it seems rational. There is a kind of self-interest going on here, and, you know, not all self-interest is wrong. I mean, it’s right to take care of yourself. Lot certainly is doing that here; he’s taking care of himself. Abram has said, “Hey, you pick,” and so Lot picks. And what does he do? He looks around and he tries to find out, “Okay, where’s the best land? Where’s the water? Where are my herds going to have the best grazing?” Then he makes his choice.
Here’s the problem, though, with self-centeredness: it always looks natural to the self-centered person. When you’re only looking out for number one, it looks like the right thing to do, right? It looks natural, it looks rational. Here’s the problem. Self-interest, when it is not governed by God’s word, God’s blessing, and God’s promise, self-interest will always go wrong. That’s what happens with Lot, as we will see. He makes a choice in his own best interest, he thinks, and it’s going to lead to disastrous consequences in his life. It’s because he makes these decisions based on a wrong set of convictions.
That leads us right to the next question.
2. Do you have an eternal mindset or a time-bound perspective?
What I want to do here is try to get underneath Lot’s choice, underneath Abram’s large heart. I want you to see here that Abram has an eternal mindset. Now, I’ll acknowledge this is implicit in the narrative, it’s not overt; but I think it’s there, and I think it’s there when you remember the story so far.
What’s happened? You have God’s call of Abram (12:1), God’s promise (12:2-3), Abram’s obedience (12:4-9), Abram’s failure (we saw that last week in chapter 12:10-16), God’s intervention and rescue (12:17-20), and then Abram’s recovery and return in the first four verses of this chapter. That’s what Abram has experienced so far, and I think when we find him here we find him as a chastened pilgrim. He is someone who has believed and has obeyed and then has sinned and failed and has been restored, and it has given him perspective.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes people who are really messed up in life and then have come back to God are more compassionate, more generous? They have a larger heart for others! That’s what you see in Abram here. I really believe what’s going on is that Abram has tried fixing things on his own, he’s tried making decisions for himself, irrespective of God’s word and God’s leading and God’s direction. He’s tried to secure the promise for himself; that hasn’t worked. I think Abram now is beginning to learn how to trust God and to keep the promises in view, to live with a larger, eternal perspective.
I think the key to understanding this is Hebrews 11:9-10; it reveals the secret principle behind Abram’s large-heartedness and his choices and his mentality. Notice what it says. “By faith he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” However faintly this was happening, Abram was beginning to understand that the promise was bigger than he had first thought it was, and he’s developing this pilgrim mindset, this eternal perspective, a longer-term mentality.
In contrast to that, you have Lot's time-bound, short-term, immediate gratification mentality and perspective. You see it in verses 10 and 11 if you just follow the verbs. Lot lifted up his eyes, Lot saw, Lot chose. It echoes Genesis 3:6, where Eve saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the trees was desired to make one wise, and she took its fruit and ate. Over and over again you see in Scripture that when people make choices on the basis only of what they can see, they end up making bad choices.
There are clues here in the text that Lot is operating with this very short-term paradigm. Look at verse 10. It says, “Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan valley was well-watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord…” Now at first that might sound good, because the garden of the Lord, the garden of Eden! Wow, that sounds good! It’s fertile, it’s abundant, there’s lots of fruit, it’s a well-watered place. Remember there were these four rivers coming into the garden of Eden. That seems like a great thing! But don’t forget the garden was also a place of temptation and sin, and Lot is just careening straight towards temptation in his life.
Then the next phrase says it was like the land of Egypt. Well, they’d just been in Egypt. Egypt also was a place of abundance, it was the breadbasket of the Eastern world; but it was also a place of idolatry, it was the place of compromise. Maybe Lot just liked Egypt a little too much, and so he’s looking for the place on the borders of the Promised Land, and what becomes pretty clear, we think, from the geography is that as Lot starts moving he’s moving to the edges, he’s moving to the borders, which theologically is telling us that Lot is moving away from the blessing. He’s moving outward, away from Abram, away from the blessing, away from the promise.
Let me give you another illustration. This one’s Indiana Jones. (Is that okay to do Indiana Jones and Star Wars in one morning?!) It’s so good, I think this will make a good point. You remember in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when they’re looking for the holy grail? And you remember they finally get into this temple, and there are all of these chalices and cups and goblets, and they’re guarded by this old knight, right? This guy’s an old man, and he’s guarding the grail, and he tells them, “You have to choose. You have to choose one of the cups.”
He says, “Be warned, because just as the true grail will give you life, the false grail will take it from you.” So there’s a character, and she looks at all of the goblets and these chalices and she chooses one that looks so rich and ornate, it’s covered in gold and encrusted with emeralds; she hands it to Donovan (he’s the bad guy) and he dips it into the well and he drinks, and do you remember what happens? He just starts aging really fast. His hair grows out and turns white and his face kind of begins to shrink back and his eyes glaze over with cataracts and his fingernails grow out. He just grows old in 30 seconds and dies and turns into dust. Dust to dust.
Then you have the most understated words in cinematic history. The knight says, “He chose . . . poorly.”
Then, of course, the true grail ends up being a very unassuming, earthenware cup. That’s the one that Indiana Jones chooses, of course.
I think that little story, that little scene, is a fitting parable for a life that is filled with short-term, time-bound choices and pursuits, while neglecting that which is truly eternal. It’s a good image, I think, for what’s going on in Lot’s life. He chooses what looks good, but he’s neglecting the promises of God.
That leads us right to the third question.
3. Are you trusting in God’s promised blessing or in what this world can offer?
So here’s the third contrast. You have a contrast between Abram’s trust in God’s promises and Lot’s pursuit of the world. This time I want to start with Lot.
I want you to just notice here the unfolding tragedy of Lot’s worldliness. As I said, this is the first of three stories about Lot; there’s another one in chapter 14 (we’re looking at that next week), and then six or eight weeks down the road Genesis 19, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. As you know, his story does not turn out well. It’s tragic at almost every turn. Lot makes bad decision after bad decision after bad decision.
But the details in this passage foreshadow that tragedy. Look at verses 12 and 13. They tell us that Abram 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.”
This is the very first mention of Sodom and Gomorrah in Scripture, and right here in Genesis 13 you learn two things about Sodom and Gomorrah. You learn, first of all, that the Lord destroyed the cities. It says that in verse 10. The Lord destroyed the cities, and you see the reason why in verse 13; because “the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.” Now, we’ll wait until chapters 18 and 19 to get into the details of that, but here’s what you have to get: Lot is headed this way! That’s where he’s headed! He sees this well-watered valley, he sees these cities, and he’s moving exactly that way.
I think the point of the narrative here is that Lot is moving further and further away from Abram, from Abraham, and therefore he’s moving further and further away from God’s blessing. The further he gets from Abram, the more trouble he finds himself in. He will soon be a prisoner of war and Abram has to come rescue him, and then he will be a resident in a city that is awaiting the fiery judgment of God, and the only way he escapes is because Abraham intercedes for him. Even when he escapes, he just barely escapes, and he escapes into more tragedy.
We could say that Lot is the patron saint of the worldly Christian. Here’s the amazing thing - this is both encouraging and kind of sad - the New Testament, when it talks about Lot, it just almost blows your mind, because you read the stories of Lot and he does not look like a good man. He makes lots of bad decisions. But I want you to listen to what 2 Peter 2 says about Lot, the New Testament portrayal of Lot. 2 Peter 2:7-8 tells us that “God rescued righteous Lot…” Righteous Lot! He doesn’t look righteous, but the Bible says he’s righteous Lot. “God rescued righteous Lot, who was greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked. For that righteous man lived among them day after day. He was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard.”
It’s comforting because, even with all of his mistakes, the Bible says he’s righteous Lot, and God saved him. God rescued him. But it’s sad, because here’s a man who chose to live a somewhat worldly life, and he was tormenting his soul.
I think that is so descriptive of so many Christians. There are people who know Jesus and they love Jesus and they’ve been changed by Jesus, but they’re pitching their tent in Sodom, and they are tormenting their souls by living a world life. They’re not sold out, they’re not really living by faith, not deeply, not in the details of their lives. They’re saved, but only as by fire, to use the language of 1 Corinthians 3.
That’s Lot. That’s Lot. His life is a tragic life. It’s the tragic story of someone who, I think we can say, was one of God’s people, but someone who made a lot of mistakes.
Then in contrast to that you have Abram. Remember, Lot is the foil for Abram, for Abraham. I want you to see Abram’s trust in God’s promised blessing in verses 14-18. Listen; when you’re reading the Abraham stories in Genesis, this is the key to all of the Abraham stories: its God’s promises and Abram’s faith in God’s promises. These come up again and again and again, and every time you have a mention of the promises the Scripture’s adding some new dimensions to it. You certainly have that here.
Look at verses 14-18. Verse 14, “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Life up your eyes…’” Remember, Lot had lifted up his own eyes and he had looked, trying to find the best land for himself; now God tells Abram, “‘Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.’” And Abram believes that promise. Abram responds with worship. Look at verse 18. “So Abram moved his tent and came back and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord.” Another altar from Abram.
Now, do you see what’s going on here with the promise? God is giving him essentially the same promise he’s already given. He’s already said, “I’m going to give you a son; through you and your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed.” He’s already said that in chapter 12:2-3. He’s already said, “I’m going to give you the land” (12:7), but now God not only confirms the promise, he expands it. He amplifies. He put the magnifying glass on it. He shows him more.
Look at what’s going on here. He’s essentially saying, “Abram, it’s not just land, it’s not just a plot of ground, but look, look in every direction. Look north and south and east and west and as far as your eyes can see; it’s yours. Walk it, and everywhere you walk I’m going to give it to you. I’m not going to just give you a son, but try to count the grains of sand, try to count the dust, and that’s what your offspring is going to be.”
You see what God’s doing? He’s saying, “Abram, this isn’t just land I’m giving you; I’m giving you a kingdom. It’s not just a son; I’m giving you a dynasty.” In fact, when you look at all that Scripture has to say, when it connects all the dots to these promises and then those promises fulfilled in Christ in the New Testament, what we see is that God was making a promise to Abraham, and it was the promise that would result in the kingdom of God itself, where Abraham’s greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the true seed of Abraham (Galatians 3) will be the one who will bring renewal, not just to the land of Canaan, but will bring renewal to the whole world so that there will be a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Scriptures tell us that “ear has not heard and eye has not seen the things that the Lord has prepared for those who love him,” and that he is “able to do far abundantly, above all that we ask or think.” Like Abram, we have to learn that the scope of God’s grace and the measure of his mercy and the proportion of his promises far transcends anything that we can understand right now.
That’s part of what it means to learn to walk by faith: to not make decisions and to not make judgments based on what we can see and hear and feel right now, what we can understand right now; but to keep our eyes on the promises of God and to look for the city whose builder and maker is God, to have an eternal perspective, an eternal mindset. Like Abram, we struggle to do that. Our minds just can’t quite grasp what the Lord has for us.
I’m reminded of an illustration that C.S. Lewis used in a sermon he gave one time called “Transpositions.” He constructed a fable, and here’s how the fable went. He said to imagine a woman who’s in a dungeon, she lives in this dungeon, and while she’s in the dungeon she has a child, she has a son. He’s never been out of the dungeon, there are no windows except for a skylight at the very top, so all he can see are the dungeon walls and the straw they sleep on and a little patch of sky through the grating in the ceiling.
But this woman is an artist, and she does happen to have (for the sake of this illustration) a pad and she has some pencils. She never loses hope of deliverance, so she’s teaching her son, the best that she can, about the outside world and what it’s like, and she does it by drawing him pictures. She takes her pad and her pencils and she draws pictures of mountains and trees and of the open sky, and she tries to draw all these various things in the outside world. She’s trying to give him a portrait, an idea of what awaits him on the outside. She’s trying to keep hope alive so that when they’re finally released from the dungeon, he will know what to expect.
It seems like he’s getting it, until one day she realizes that he’s had an entirely wrong idea about what the outside world is like. He thinks that it looks just like the pictures, these two-dimensional drawings drawn in pencil. He says, “What? No pencil marks there?”
This is Lewis; he says, “And instantly the whole notion of the outer world becomes a blank. He has no idea of the waving treetops, the light dancing on the weir, the colored, three-dimensional realities which are not enclosed in lines but define their own shapes. The child will get the idea that the real world is somehow less visible than his mother’s pictures; in reality, it lacks lines because it is incomparably more visible.”
You and I can’t quite imagine what heaven is like. We can’t quite imagine life after death. We can’t quite conceive what it means to live forever and in a new heavens and new earth, in a world that’s made new. We maybe get a little concerned when we read things in Scripture about there being no marriage in heaven, and we start wondering, “Am I going to know people?” We get nervous about things, but you know, we’re like that little boy. We’re so limited in our perspective, because we only have images, we only have pointers, we only have the promises. We don’t have the reality in hand yet, but walking by faith means that we believe the promise and it means we act on the promise.
When that promise really sinks down into your heart, when you really get it deep, deep down, into the pores of your soul, you know what it does? It expands your heart. It gives you a larger heart. It gives you a wider outlook. It gives you an eternal mindset. It gives you an eternal perspective. It gives you a magnanimous character. And it changes the way you handle conflict, it changes the way you make decisions, it changes the way you live in the world. Walking by faith rather than walking by sight.
Let me end in this way. In this story, Abram is certainly a model for us. He is a model of walking by faith, and that’s how I’ve used the story and interpreted the story so far this morning. But there’s one other angle that we could take on the story, because in a sense Abram in this story is also a Christ figure, because Abram is the man of blessing. He is the man to whom God has made the promises.
Lot is, in many ways, like us; we’re in many ways like Lot. The only way Lot gets any blessing is by his attachment to Abraham. If Lot is close to Abraham, he’s going to be blessed. The further he gets from Abraham, the more problems he’s going to have. When Lot gets into trouble, guess who has to come running? Abraham. When Lot is in danger of judgment, guess what he needs? He needs an intercessor; he needs Abraham.
Isn’t that exactly our situation in relation to Christ? Here’s the deal: the closer you are to Jesus as a Christian, the more blessing you’re going to experience. The further you are from him the more danger you’re going to be in. The more you get into the outskirts in your relationship with Jesus, the more you move towards Sodom, to the cities on the edge; the more you do that in your life, in your choices, in your decisions, in your family, in your life; the more you do that, the further you are from the blessing!
But if you get close to Jesus, if you live close to Jesus, if you’re trusting in Jesus, Jesus will take care of you. It doesn’t mean you will never be without trials, but it means that you will be under the shadow, under the shade of his blessing, and you will learn what it means to walk by faith and not by sight, and you will learn what it means to hold Jesus and all that he promises as your treasure, as your inheritance.
In just a moment we’re going to sing these words - it’s a good way for us to end this morning:
“Riches I heed not,
Nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance,
Now and always.
Thou and Thou only,
First in my heart,
High King of heaven,
My treasure Thou art.”
Can you say that this morning? Can you say that Christ is your treasure? Are you living close to Jesus? That’s the call, that’s the challenge. Let’s pray together.
Gracious and merciful God, we acknowledge this morning that too often we are more like Lot than Abraham, that we are living by sight, living by our senses and by our feelings and the things that we can understand, rather than really building our lives on your promises. So right now we come before you and we pray that you would give us repentant hearts, we pray that you would open our eyes to see the glories of what you’ve promised us in Jesus. We pray that you would draw us near to the Savior and that we would live close to Jesus. We pray that you would teach us what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.
As we come to the Lord’s table this morning, we ask you to nourish our hearts and our souls with the good food of your gospel. Your word is the gospel made audible to us, the table is the gospel made visible, and so, as we come to it, may we taste and see that you are good. We ask you to work in our hearts and bring renewal to us this morning as we draw near to you. We pray it in Jesus’ name and for his sake, Amen.
Brian G. Hedges
