16T
MAY 1943
Do you believe the Lord Jesus Christ is coming soon? Do you act like it, or are you concentrating your interest in a world which you say is to be de stroyed?1Is this not ,inconsistent? Do you live as though you believe He is coming soon? The testimony to His near' return is to be one of action, not merely words. ; J S;:' 2. It was a worldly home. I suspect Lot’s wife was unsayed, perhaps a woman of Sodom. Her heart was in the world she loved, and hef later fate of being .turned into stone was the symbolic demonstration of the true condition of h e r heart. Lot’s daughters were to marry Sodomites, who were, no doubt, men of good posi tion in the city. Position meant more than piety to Lot and his wife, and this same motive sways many Chris tian parents today. They look for mert of property, of good earthly prospects, rather than for men of probity and professing godliness. Many Christian parents fling their girls into the arms of ungodly men for the price of a good position. So planned Lot This home of his was uncongenial to the heavenly messengers. Though invited to enter, they declined, and fi nally only with great reluctance did they agree. Is your home one into which the Lord Jesus can enter with contentment? Would He feel at home as He looked at the books on its shelves, the magazines on its table, the pictures on the walls? Would He enjoy listening with you to your radio programs, and sitting in the group when your visitors make a social call? Even though you are a church mem ber, is yours a worldly home where no prominence is given to Him? 3. It was a dangerous home. On the night Lot entertained the two heavenly visitors, his home was besieged. Men -of Sodom attacked it, demanding that the visitors be thrown out to them. Lot, shocked " at this suggested betrayal of Eastern hospi tality, volunteered to sacrifice his daughters to the lusts of Sodom. It was a new thing to find Lot’s door locked against Sodom. Hitherto any Sodomite had been welcome. Lot’s motto was “peace at any price.” Today as the light of the glory of His coming begins to break through the clouds, we can see a remarkable similarity in Christian homes. They, too, are besieged by men and women of the world who pound at the door yelling, “Bring them out.” The calls of the world come over the radio, the telephone, through the mail, in its music and- its literature. The modern Sodom wants to drag out and prosti tute the heavenly messengers to oui own souls. It wants to put an end to the daily prayer, the Word, the wor- { Continued on Page 198]
live and die. Wars, f l o o d s , earth quakes, and famines interrupt for a time; movements—educational, politi cal, commercial, religious—all enliven its tedium; then the curtain falls and all is over for that generation. The universe is spiraling its way at in credible speed into the unmeasured voids of eternity, but only man is un ready for the finale! | And Christians? Many, just as un ready as Lot, are clinging to these passing and rapidly dissolving ele ments of the world as though they were eternal. What fools men are! II. IS L O r S HOME TYPICAL? God would have us look into that home. We may see much to remind us of our own. If so, it presents a call to repentance, a real house-cleaning and preparation for that great Day. 1. It was a religious home. Peter tells us that Lot was “vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked” (2 Pet. 2:7) among whom he dwelt. Then why did he live there? No one was to blame but himself. Lot had a good upbringing. He had trav eled fo? some years with his uncle Abram and had been taught in the things of God. But a prosperous world appealed to his carnal soul, and he turned aside and settled d o w n in Sodom. He became one of its elders and judges, a politician in fact. He concentrated his attention on its prizes and positions. He was the Old Testa ment equivalent for modern-day Chris tians. Then when the crisis came, he found that his life had undermined fils testi mony. Warned by the angelic mes sengers of the approaching doom of Sodom, he hurried to the young men who were to marry his daughters, to urge them also to flee from this city of destruction. But they laughed. And rightly too. Lot talked to them of a day in which “the world will be de stroyed.” Some of us talk just as pious ly of the coming of the Lord Jesus. Lot talked in his way, as we do in ours, and with as little effect. They laughed. Did it look as though Lot believed his own words? If he did, why busy himself accumulating its treasures, seeking its positions, picking its rich eligibles as husbands for his daugh ters? Obviously he talked one way and acted another.
tions; the honor of its positions; the whirl of its excitements; the comfort of its wealth; the tragedy of its griefs; the shame of its crimes, and the acute ness of its poverty. We live so near these things. They fill our horizons and seem so real. We concentrate our thoughts upon them, and live our lives' in their pursuit But how do they look to God? He is the all-wise One and sees all these things from the standpoint of His un derstanding. His thoughts are not our thoughts. I visited an insane asylum in Tokyo on one occasion. A girl sat in a patch of sunlight, singing away without a care in the world. Sorrow did not exist forher; she was perfectly happy. On6 mah complained to me of the jealousy 'of the royal family. He said they had placed him in that institu tion (he realized where he was) be cause of the marvelous discoveries he had made. He spoke perfect English and had climbed to education’s high est heights. I met one who said he was a famous general, and who was proud of his military exploits al though he actually had had no expe rience as a soldier. Another wept in cessantly; life was one long and un broken sorrow to him. I looked on them all pityingly, realizing that their various emotional reactions could be, traced to a delusion. The delusion viewed here is npt the only form of misconception seen in the world today. When Christians dis play a lack of balance concerning the things of this passing world, this also is the product of a delusion. “For the wisdom of this world is foolish ness with God” (1 Cor. 3:19), “And the world passeth away and the lust thereof” (1 John 2:17); its joys, sor rows, education, exploits, and posses sions are all doomed as the Sodom of old. Yet Christians cling to, concen trate on, and seek after these things as though they are the only realities in life. . 3. How impermanent it is. This world is all passing away; it will not last. Men clutch a bubble, and find it as impermanent as the picture on the movie screen. The story flickers for a few brief moments and then it is gone. And thus go the af fairs of this impermanent world, its history, the rise and fall of empires. Some strong man grasps power for a brief decade, dictators come and go, the peoples are oppressed, and men
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