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THE STORY OF LOT

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 7, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 37.

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THE STORY OF LOT.

By D. L. Moody

If we let the Lord choose for us, He will choose better than we can for ourselves. But Lot wanted to choose for himself. I will venture to say, when he left Abraham if you had talked to him about going to Sodom, he would have said, Oh, no! Go into Sodom! Do you think I would take my wife into Sodom! Do you think I would take my children down into Sodom, into that great wicked city, with all its temptations? Not I. But he pitched his tent toward Sodom—he looked toward the city—and it was not long before his business took him in there. He went down there perhaps to sell his cattle, and found there was a good market. Some of the leading men wanted him to go there. He could make a great deal of money; he could make it faster. When a man pitches his tent before Sodom, and looks in, it won't be long before he gets in, tent and all.
His business took him there. Business must be attended to, you know. But then it will ruin your family. Oh, well, I am going to get money, then get out of it. When I get enough to retire, I will move back, and live on the plains of Abraham. But I must attend to my business first. Many a man puts business before his family. Business must be attended to to get rich, let the consequences be what they will, let ruin come upon the family. One must accumulate wealth while he has the opportunity.
Undoubtedly Lot reasoned in this way as a great many do. Now he ought to have kept out of Sodom. He ought to have stayed on the plains, with the tent and the altar; because all
the time he was in Sodom we never hear of his having an altar there, nor of his calling upon Abraham's God. He was there to make money, and not to worship.
In the sight of the world Lot was a successful business man. He held office. His sitting at the gate was a sign that he was an officer. The world honored him. He was a man of great influence. He was a man the world delighted to honor. But he was in Sodom twenty years and never had a convert. That is the man of influence.
How many souls are the worldly Christians winning to Christ? Are they the men that are building up Christ's kingdom? I tell you such men are doing more to tear down than any other class.
Lot was so much like the men of Sodom that when he came to testify for Abraham's God they would not hear him. Not a word.
Men tell us they want to get an influence over the world, and are going to influence it by being worldly-minded. Do worldly Christians reach the world? Do they reach it in that way? No, the world reaches them, and pulls them down. They don't pull the world up. It is the separated man that is going to do Sodom good; not the men living like Sodom. Separation is what we want to-day. We want the people of God to come out from the world.
Think of it, two of Lot's daughters had been given to the Sodomites! He had got rich; but two of his daughters had to be given to those wicked men, men living in such awful sin and wickedness.
To-day we see fathers and mothers giving their daughters to ungodly men, but they have a little money, and hold a high position. Professed Christians! And that is not the worst of it. Lot professed to be a servant of the Most High God, and yet he lived in Sodom.—D. L. Moody.