LOT.

One reason why I take up this character is because I believe he is

a representative man, and perhaps there is no Bible character that

represents so many men of the present day as Lot of Sodom.

Where you can find one Abraham, one Daniel or one Joshua you can find a

thousand Lots.

Lot started out very well. He got rich, and that was the beginning of his

troubles. He and Abraham, his uncle, went down to Egypt, and they came

out of Egypt with great wealth. The next thing we hear of is strife among

their herdsmen.

But Lot could not get up a quarrel with Abraham. Abraham said to him:

“You are my nephew, and I can not quarrel with you; but take your goods

and go to the right and I will go to the left, or I will go to the right

and you go to the left.” And they separated.

Right here Lot made his mistake. He should have said, in reply to

Abraham: “No, uncle! I don’t want to leave you. The Lord has blessed me

with you, and I do not wish to leave you.” But, if he had been determined

to leave his uncle, he should have asked Abraham to choose for him.

Instead of that, he lifted up his eyes and saw the well watered plains of

Sodom, and that decided him.

No doubt Lot was very ambitious; he probably wanted to become richer.

Perhaps there was a little spirit of rivalry toward his uncle. He wanted

to excel Abraham in worldly goods--to become rich faster. So he saw and

determined upon the well watered plains of Sodom. If he had asked Abraham

he would not have gone there. If he had asked God, Lot would never have

entered Sodom; no man ever goes into Sodom by God’s advice. He determined

for himself, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. I do not know how long

Lot lived upon those well watered plains, but no doubt the men of those

days said of him when he had settled down: “There is a shrewd man; he is

a smart man. Why, I can predict that in a very short time he will be a

wealthier man than his uncle, Abraham. Look at these well watered plains.

Why, he is a great deal better off than is Abraham now.”

Lot is in a position in which he can soon become a rich man. How long he

remained on those plains I do not know, but the next thing we know is

that he got into Sodom. We are told that Sodom was very wicked. Lot lived

near it, and he went into it with his eyes open, for he knew all about

it. The wickedness of Sodom was coming up to God. He was going to destroy

it soon. Do you think, if Lot had asked Him, He would have permitted the

nephew of Abraham to enter that city?

All the years that Lot was in Sodom we do not read that he had any family

altar. He must have known it meant ruin for his family to take them in

there. But he did not look at that. It was business that took him there.

He might have said: “Well, I’ve got a large family. I’ve got a great

many dependent upon me, and I must get rich faster; so I will go into

Sodom. Business is the first consideration, and it must be attended to.”

So he goes into Sodom, and the next thing we hear he is in trouble. Sodom

had got a war on hand, and when he went into the city he was forced to

take its side. In the war he was taken captive. It is a great mercy he

was not killed in battle.

The first thing Abraham did when he heard of his nephew’s trouble was

to set out after him. When Lot was captured in battle he was liable to

be taken into slavery, and his children also. He might have died in

slavery if Abraham had not gone after him. But Abraham takes his servants

and sets out and overtakes the warriors who had taken Lot captive, and

brought him back, with all the property that had been taken.

Now, you would think Lot would have kept out of Sodom. You would expect

to hear of his saying: “I have had enough of Sodom; I will not go near

it again.” You would think that men, when they get into this and that

difficulty and affliction, would keep out of Sodom; but they will not. It

is one of the greatest mysteries to me why men will remain in their Sodom

when they have continual trouble.

So Lot went back. Probably he said: “I’ve lost a great deal, and I must

go back and try to recover it. I must go back and make it up for my

children.” And he prospered in Sodom.

If you had gone into Sodom before these angels came down you would

probably have found that no man had got on so well. If they had a

Congress, perhaps they sent him to represent Sodom, because no man had

done better in business. That is the way of the world. Possibly they

might have made him Mayor of Sodom. If you could have seen his “turnout,”

it would have been one of the very best. Mrs. Lot must have moved in the

most select society of the city. The Misses Lot were looked upon as the

most fashionable people there. They got on well.

Perhaps Lot was a judge and had great influence. When the angels got to

the gate they might have heard of the Honorable Judge Lot. It sounded

pretty well. He might have owned many corner lots. He might have owned

many buildings with “Lot” printed all over them, and on account of his

property he might have been a very high man in Sodom. That is the way the

world looks at it. No doubt the dispositions of those people were exactly

as they are today. Human nature has been pretty much the same always.

But time rolls on, and Lot, while sitting at the gate one evening, saw

two strangers upon the highway. They are coming toward Sodom. Likely

these Sodomites did not know them, but twenty years before Lot had been

in the company of Abraham, and he had seen these men at his uncle’s

house--had seen them sitting at his uncle’s table. So he knew these

angels when they approached, and he bowed down and worshiped them; he

bowed down to the ground, and then invited them into his residence. But

it was a sink of iniquity, and they would not enter in. Lot pressed his

invitation upon them, and finally they accepted.

The news was soon noised around the streets that he had two strangers

there, and it was not long before a crowd was around the door, and wanted

to know whom he had inside.

Lot came out and endeavored to pacify them, but he was met with the

derisive query: “Who made this fellow a judge over us?” He was dragged

back into the house, and the door was shut against the mob. His influence

was gone. He had been in the city twenty years and had not made a convert.

I suppose Lot lived in a marble front house there, and his heart was away

from God. Then these men said to Lot: “Whom have you got here beside

yourself? What is your family? Have you got any others beside yourself in

this town?”

Well, the father and mother had to own up that they had married their

children to some of the Sodomites. That was the result of his going into

the city. You go into the world and live like the world, and see what the

result will be. How many fathers and mothers are now mourning on account

of marrying their sons and daughters to Sodomites! Marrying them to death

and ruin!

These angels said to Lot: “If you have got any, get them out of this

place, for God is determined to burn it up. Tell them this, and if they

will not come, escape for your lives and leave them, for He will surely

destroy the city.”

Now, all these twenty years we do not know that Lot ever had a family

altar. He could not call his children around him and pray to his God.

They had all become identified with Sodom and its people.

Look at that scene. There are the men at the outside of the door,

groping about to find it, and the door opens and Lot starts out to tell

his son-in-law of the coming destruction. I can see the old man, head

bowed down, passing through the streets of Sodom at midnight.

He goes to a house and knocks. No sound; all are asleep. He knocks again,

and likely shouts at the top of his voice; and the man gets up and opens

the window. He puts his head out and asks:

“Who’s there?”

“Lot, your father-in-law.”

“What has brought you out of bed at this hour? What’s up?”

“Why, two angels are at my house, who say that God is going to destroy

Sodom and every one who shall remain here.”

“You go home and get to bed.”

They mock Lot. He has lost his testimony. They all think he is deluded.

I can see him now, going off to another daughter’s house. I know not how

many daughters Lot had. He might have had as many daughters as Job. He

goes to them, and they mock him, too.

There is that old man, in that midnight hour, plodding along those

streets of Sodom to urge them to flee from the city, and they mock him.

He had been long enough with Abraham to know that every thing that came

from God could be relied upon.

Now he starts back home. You can see him--his head bowed down, his long

white hair flowing over his bosom and tears flowing from those aged eyes!

The world calls him a successful man; but what a miserable end is his!

Look at him tonight! He had achieved his ambition, and was wealthy. He

obtained what he longed for, but with it came leanness of soul.

Next morning the angels take him by the hand. He and his wife and two

daughters are led out of the city. And they lingered. How could they do

otherwise than linger, when they had left their sons and daughters in the

city and knew they would be destroyed?

Yes, they linger. I do not blame them. They had, probably, a faint hope

that the threatened storm might be stayed, and they could get their

children out. But the angels took them by the hand and hastened them out

of the city.

Poor mother! Ah, how sad when God came in judgment! I can see that mother

hesitating, but God orders her not to look back. “Flee for your life;

escape or you will be destroyed.” “No man having put his hand to the

plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Mrs. Lot gets out of Sodom, but she looks back, and judgment falls upon

her. And I believe that the condition of Lot’s wife is the condition of

millions today. They have come out of Sodom, but their hearts are in the

world. They ask: “Have I to give up the world? Have I to give up all and

follow Christ?” They linger and look back, and judgment will fall upon

them.

We are told in the Scriptures that the people were eating, drinking,

buying and selling, planning and building until the very moment Lot went

out of Sodom. Perhaps not a man in all Sodom took any account of his

going out. It might have got rumored around that he was going because he

believed the city was about to be destroyed, but no man believed it. His

sons and daughters did not believe what their father said to them, and

the Son of God says they were all destroyed--great and small, learned and

unlearned, rich and poor. All alike perished.

Bear in mind that if you live in Sodom destruction will come upon you.

The world may call you successful, but the only way to test success is to

take a man’s whole life--not the beginning nor middle, but the whole of

it. If a man is in Sodom, he will find at last the fruits of his life to

be

“Nothing but leaves--nothing but leaves.”

Lot spent his life in gaining worldly goods for his children, and he lost

all and his children besides.

How many men of the present day can only say they have the same object in

view that Lot had. They went into the city to make money. They have built

no family altar. They recognize only two things--money and business.

They say: “My sons may become gamblers and drunkards and my daughters

may go off into ungodly society and marry drunkards and make their lives

miserable; but I want money, and I will have all I wish if I get it.”

My friends, was Lot’s life a successful one? It was a stupendous failure.

Let us not follow in the footsteps of this man Lot. Let us keep out of

Sodom.