Remember Lot’s Wife by E. O. Hammond

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 15, 1873

“Remember Lot’s Wife.”

By E. O. Hammond

This injunction of our Saviour is often thoughtlessly read, as though it was of no very great importance. But a careful examination of the Scriptures cannot fail to convince us that these words are full of solemn import, and have a special application to the latter days. They were called forth by a question of the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God should come. Jesus sought to correct their false impressions by giving them to understand that it would not be set up until his second advent. This discourse of our Lord, recorded in Luke 17, is mystically applied to the destruction of Jerusalem, by modern theologians, who seem to be as much in the dark in regard to many very important Bible truths as were the blind Pharisees.

When the kingdom of God shall come, symbolized in Dan. 2 by the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, then all earthly rule and authority will be put down. The wicked nations of the earth will be broken in pieces and become as the chaff of the summer threshing floor, and the wind shall carry them away. But just previous to the accomplishment of these solemn events, is a time of great peril, a time prefigured by the days of Lot, when men are in great danger of having their minds all absorbed by worldly interests, to the exclusion of those things which pertain to a preparation for the final Judgment. Oh! solemn time, in which we live. Lord help us to watch and be sober. Jesus, in looking forward to this very time, gives us a solemn command to “Remember Lot’s wife.”

Let us look for a moment at the case of this unfortunate woman. It will enable us to see more clearly the dangers to which we are exposed. The Lord had determined on the destruction of Sodom, that exceeding wicked city, but he sent his angels to deliver just Lot and his family. All their worldly possessions were in Sodom and its vicinity. They were commanded to forsake them and flee for their lives. Here their characters were brought to the test. The sequel shows which Lot’s wife loved most, obedience to God, or her worldly possessions and interests. The angels brought them forth and set them without the city, and said, “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.” But this poor woman’s affections were on the perishing things she had left behind, and she looked back wistfully in the direction of her idols, and perished.

Let us learn the lesson our Lord teaches by this allusion to Lot’s wife. Our camp-meeting season is right upon us. Some of our brethren will frame excuses to justify themselves in staying away from these yearly feasts. Some will plead that they are in debt and must employ all their time in accumulating means to pay what they owe; others, that their growing crops demand their attention. Poor souls! If they allow these things always to keep them at home, Satan may manage to keep them always in debt, and thus ruin them at last. How easy a matter it is for the Lord to send blasting and mildew upon our harvest fields, and destroy a thousand-fold more than we could accumulate in the little time spent in going to camp-meeting. On the other hand, if we move out by faith, how easy a matter for God to bless us, in basket and in store, as he did ancient Israel when they went up—not once, nor twice, but—three times in the year to appear before God in the place that he chose to put his name there. Deut. 16:16.

There may be cases where brethren are excusable; but such cases are rare. Let it be a fixed fact in our minds that we are going to camp-meeting, the Lord willing, and then let us arrange our worldly business accordingly, and let us not go up to these meetings in debt to the Lord; but bring our tithes into the storehouse and prove him therewith, if he will not open us the windows of Heaven and pour us out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. Let us “remember Lot’s wife,” and not allow the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches to come in and shut us out of the kingdom of Heaven.

E. O. HAMMOND.

Monroe, Wis.

[The above was laid up with other accepted articles, and the local reference forgotten; but as it will apply to other camp-meetings yet to come, we publish it now.—Ed. Rev.]