Looking Back by J. Sawyer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 7, 1874

Looking Back.

By J. Sawyer

“REMEMBER LOT’S WIFE.”

The history of Lot and his family is brief. It appears from the account that he separated his flocks from Abraham’s, and chose the fertile valleys of Sodom and Gomorrah. The fact that the people of Sodom were great sinners he must have overlooked in his anticipation to increase his flocks by the rich pasturage of the plains before him. He might have desired wealth and influence. He probably was a man of influence, for it is said: “He sat in the gate of Sodom.” He was a righteous man also, and daily felt pained at the conversation of the wicked. God saw that he had a mind to serve him, and sent angels to warn him of the approaching destruction of the city in which he dwelt.

Being aware of the destiny of the city, he left his business and warned the people. But they mocked him. They attempted even to destroy the personages who gave him the intelligence. The warning developed the true character of the men of the city. There was no willingness in them to accept the heavenly message.

When the Son of man is revealed, it will be just as it was in Sodom. We are admonished beforehand to remember Lot’s wife.” Situated as the people of God will be in the last generation, there will be danger of loving the world as Lot’s wife did, and of perishing even amid all the array of truth. “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”

Let us inquire into the cause of Sodom’s overthrow: “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness in her and her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Eze. 16: 49.

In the catalogue of Sodom’s sins, pride came first. The earth is now filled with pride all along up, from the beggar to the prince.

“It flaunts in rags or flutters in broche.” It is a god of the world and a bane of the church. It creeps into the fold of Christ and stays until by formality and extravagance

it drives out spirituality. It appears like a sheep at first, but finally it has a wolf’s clothing.

Fullness of bread was the second sin of Sodom. Powerful armies, immense navies, monied corporations, millionaire’s stocks, inflated insurance companies, combinations of railroad companies, of manufacturers, of mechanics, of tradesmen, of farmers, &c., speak out with a spirit of independence, saying, “We have enough,” we can take care of ourselves. Common laborers even have this self-sufficient spirit, and we often hear of “strikes” both in the old and new world. The spirit of “we have enough,” and unless you give us our wages, we will not work; and unless you give us our price, we will not sell—such a spirit of self-sufficiency pervades all classes. With mammoth storehouses filled with grain, rich mines of precious and useful metals, endless resources of fuel, methods of communication and commerce that would defy fire, famine, or flood, science and art that would attempt to outwit the war of elements in nature; all these, in the way they are used, are ranking the world in the second sin of Sodom.

Sodom’s third sin was abundance of idleness. It has come to pass that many view labor as degrading. They loiter away time, and when the position of honor fails them, resort to stratagem, deceit and crime to keep up appearances. Their minds are idle, and the great enemy makes them his workshop. Many, having abundance, move into cities and spend their days in jovial ease, supporting saloons, billiard halls, theaters, studying every plan to gratify pride and appetite.

Take the city of Chicago for an example. In one of the large billiard rooms you will doubtless find every Sunday evening more male persons between the ages of fifteen and forty years, than could be found at any regular meeting of any religious congregation in the city. Could the walls of her twenty-three hundred licensed liquor shops and numerous tobacco stores cry out, they could say: In Chicago is abundance of idleness.

The fourth sin of Sodom was failing “to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.” In this, the world may not yet have attained to her awful guilt. The spirit of benevolence and pity are yet in the land. How glad we are that the angel of mercy still lingers. But the selfishness and covetousness of the age, are fast eradicating a proper respect for the worthy poor.

Heavenly messengers announced that Sodom must be destroyed for its wickedness. Lot’s wife had assurance of the holy character of her visitors. A miracle was wrought in her presence.

In the last days, the evidence of retribution will also be plain. God’s word describes the landmarks in the time of the end. A wayfaring man need not err.

The Sodomites were very indifferent about the warning. Things seemed to them as usual. “They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded, but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”

Having a true knowledge of his condition, it was a serious matter for Lot to disregard the solemn injunction. Said the angels: “Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here: lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold of his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountains lest thou be consumed.”

When Lot and his family were out of the city they were thrown upon their own resources. Their faith was put to a test. Whether it was the persuasion of his family we know not, but he was not ready to obey the injunction. Had he been willing to move right along according to the direction of the angel, Satan might not have been allowed afterward to bring a deception upon him, which resulted in shame to his family and visited disgrace on his posterity for ten generations. The Lord knew what was best for him. He knows what is best for us; and when he directs his people to go forward, it is best to heed his word.

Was Lot afraid of the wild beasts up in the mountains? Did his wife and daughters think they would starve up there? Says he: “I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me and I die. Behold now this city is near, and it is a little one; Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.”

What his object was in thus reasoning we know not, but the sequel shows that this little city was no place for him. “And Lot went up out of Zoar . . . for he feared to dwell in Zoar.” He might have reasoned thus: You can spare a life of these sinners, such as are in this little city, and here will be comfortable quarters for my family. He forgot that the wicked in Zoar would soon vex him as the wicked had in Sodom. The wicked will always vex the righteous.

When the Lord finally pours out his wrath upon the ungodly, there will be no such chance for parleying. The last generation who have had the great light of former generations, cannot have a little city to flee into. Agag and the best of the sheep cannot be spared then. The people of God must move forward, or the fate of Lot’s wife will be theirs. She was told to escape to the mountains and not look behind, but she disobeyed; she looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Sodom and Gomorrah were turned into ashes, and the barrenness of the once fertile plains around them became a constant reproof unto all who afterward lived ungodly. The Dead Sea now occupies the most of the ground where those cities stood. Its waters are so poisonous that fish cannot live in them. The very air around the sea is infested with malaria.

The sad fate of Lot’s wife came from looking back. She lacked decision of character. She must have been a fair-weather Christian. Safety was in the mountain before her; but her heart was in the city behind her. Here I am, thought she, faint and weary on this plain, while back there in my parlor are nice couches; and then two of my children are yet behind me. I will just rest a little and see if anything is yet happened unto the city. Perhaps she reasoned in this way. But her looking back was a fearful enchantment.

It may do to think of the past when we call to mind the mercy of God in delivering us from some snare or pit; but to look back with curiosity to examine the place from which we were taken, to see if there be not some place of terra firma in it, is a dangerous presumption. The safe rule is given by one of experience: “But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” J. SAWYER.

Battle Creek, Mich.