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.