That Jesus' second coming will be like the days of Lot, characterized by ordinary life and a lack of spiritual awareness, leading to sudden judgment. It highlights the story of Lot's wife as a cautionary tale against looking back at the sinful world, illustrating that obedience and a complete break from sin are essential for salvation. The message draws parallels between the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah and modern societal trends, warning that judgment is imminent for those who are complacent. Ultimately, it calls listeners to escape the coming wrath by turning to Christ, likening salvation to the farmers who escaped a prairie fire by finding refuge on already burned ground.
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I want to return, if we may, please, if you have your Bible, or maybe you have your Bible and would much rather I just read the scripture. But if you have your Bible and care to turn with you, I want to read verse in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter seventeen three. I would like to commence reading verse twenty-eight. Mark why, you said to Lord Jesus, much wise also as it was in the day's lot. They did eat, they drank, they bought, they told, they started, they builded.
But the clean day that lot went out of bottom. It rained fire and stone for men and destroyed them all. even thus shall it be in the day when the son of man is revealed in that day he which shall be upon the house of man his stuff in the house let him not come down and take it away and he that is in the field let him likewise not return back remember remember lot, wife.
Whosoever shall be, to save his wife, shall lose it. And whosoever shall lose his wife, shall preserve it. I tell you in that night, there shall be two men, one in one bed, one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two shall be grinding together, the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the pill, for one shall be taken, on the other left. And they answered and said unto him, Where, O Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.
May the Lord just add his blessing to the reading of his own precious work. I think we ought to sing that chorus again, sir. I know you've sort of lowered the piano down, but I think we ought to sing. Thank you. You know they go on strike every night, don't they? It'll just about this time, they say. Well, that's it. That's it. I'll reduce their wages, you know. You get nothing now. I don't know what I give them then, but there we are. Thank you, everyone. a little children's chorus that we sang last evening and I'd like us to sing it again a simple chorus little children's chorus we've been singing away in England and if you're singing a pure American chorus it's no let's sing ours shall we if you're black or if you're white or if you're fat or ladies all love you if you're short Or if you're poor.
Or if you're in between. God loves you. Come on, let's see how well you remember the word. If you're black. Or if you're white. Or if you're. Can't hear you. Look at me now. That'll remind you. Or. Please. God love you. If you're. Or if you're. Or if you're. God loves you. He loves you when you're... He loves you when you're... He loves you when you're feeling... He loves you when you're... No matter what you... No matter what you... God loves you.
He really loves you. Well, come on. If you don't know the tune, sing la, la, la. But help us out now. If you're blank, or if you're what? Away we go. Yep. If you like, or if you like, or if you like, or if you like, for dear, if you're shorter, if you're taller, if you're in the tree, for, dear, he loves you and you're happy, he loves you and your friend. He loves you when you're feeling good.
He loves you when you're bad. No man will want you to apply. No man can want you to be. God loves you. He really loves you. God loves you. God loves you. The Bible says so. God loves you. You must believe in God. You know that by the fact. Hands up those who couldn't have done a bit better if you tried. You put all one. Oh, oh, my brother's friend's brother Jim down there. He mostly sits and doesn't think at all. Do you know, Mrs. Jim?
You're improving him. You really are. Come on then, you're ready, everyone. If you're black, or if you're white, or if you're white, or if you're black, or if you're white, or if you're Catholic, or if you're not Catholic, or if you're Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh He loves you when you pray.
He loves you when you're feeling good. He loves you when you're better. No matter what you look like, no matter what you see. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, It's true that we are God is great. Show His love. Isn't that why we weigh that tenor of God's mercy?
Trust the word of prayer. We'll be going in prayer for you. Well, God and Father, our hearts are moved. conflict together by love. What can we say to thee? We only know that you couldn't have loved us more than you did, and you couldn't have scourged in a better way than you did. We ask you tonight that once again, in your fact, that is before us, that we might realize that you still care for us, you still love, we may know by sight. And that's what then we pray for. For Jesus' sake, Amen. As you know, the general theme of these services has been taking the fact that Jesus Christ is coming back again.
And for many different avenues and in many different ways, we have considered the great truth that the Bible teaches that Jesus said, if I go, I will come again. Now, of course, immediately people ask this question. It's the question that I find to deal with a little last evening. If Jesus Christ is coming back again, where is he coming back again? And I don't believe that that question is just idle curiosity. I believe it's a question that every one of us would like an answer to.
So let me say here and now tonight that I don't know when Jesus Christ is coming back again. When I tell you this, I so want to live my life that if he came back at this moment, I would welcome him. I would be pleased to say, Lord, I'm glad to see you. The tragedy is that most of us would have a feeling that we would like to run and hide if we knew that the Lord was coming back. But while I don't know the day, I don't know the hour when Jesus Christ comes back.
There are given to us in the Word of God persons like that are extremely interesting. Tonight we have read one more. The Lord Jesus said that when he returns in great power and glory, and please let me remind you that the rapture will precede that by at least seven years, but when the Lord returns in great power and glory, he will find in this scene the very thing he saw in the days of life. For we met together from that seventeenth chapter of Luke, likewise, also, as it was in the days of Lot, they did each, they drank, they walked, they sold, they crowded, they builded.
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and gravestone from heaven, and destroyed them all, even God. I did not say this. The Lord Jesus said, Even thou shalt it be in the day when the Son of Man shall be revealed. And so we have before the tremendous story that links the Old Testament with the New. It links the statements of God to his great friend Abraham, with the statement of God and his trust to death.
And I have a feeling that all of us find it extremely interesting to ponder again the nineteenth chapter of the book of Genesis to see how in the day in which we live, the very things that happened then seem to be lifting their head again. Things that have not been eminent. in the world at large, but things which are becoming very prevalent, especially in what we call the lands of the wet and the dead. The Lord Jesus said this, remember whatever else you forget, remember.
Oh, remember not good. It is interesting, is it not? that there are only two women that the Lord Jesus told us to remember. As a matter of fact, he didn't tell us to remember many men as he told us to remember women, and he only told us to remember two women. He dared to say, I want you to remember not twice, but I want you to remember a New Testament woman as well. I want you to remember a sinner, but I want you to remember a saint. and he tells the story or commits the story to behold on a woman that came and anointed the Lord with ointment out of her alabaster box.
She poured it upon him against the day of his burial, and she portrayed wherever the gospel is preached, that story must be remembered. That story must be preached. Is this significant? that God asked us to remember two women of such opposite character? One who had a link with Jesus Christ, one who had a task from a link with him, but turned her back on him. Remember, and it is the first one from the old text of mine that I want to talk with you about tonight. I won't say my usual three things if I may.
As I look at the story of the nineteenth chapter of Genesis, it seems to me, first of all, and you will permit me, please, to use an English colloquialism, and it may sound harsh, but I want to use it because it is harsh. I want to remind you, first of all, of a stupid woman of faith. I would choose to be courteous, especially to you ladies. But I do not feel I can use any other word that that were to none. When Jesus Christ made remember a lot twice, he dared ask us to remember a woman who was a stupid woman when you said all you've got to say.
Although the word may seem ugly, the deed that she did was ugly. Then I want you to remember not only the story of a stupid woman, but I want you to remember the story of a sure work. It seemed utterly ridiculous to Lot. It seemed utterly ridiculous to Lot's wife. It was more than ridiculous to Lot's son, to Lot's honey lord. I only know this. that God planned he was going to pour fire and crimson out of heaven upon Solomon tomorrow because of their wickedness.
And you could almost hear them say in your Americanism, oh yeah, oh yeah. What a painful thing to say that God was going to do something that no one had ever seen done anywhere else. He was going to pour down upon his knees, firing with that. But it was a sure word. And may I please remind you, it was a sure word not only because it happened then, but because in our day and generation, it is being proved that it happened.
If archaeologists have never discovered what they have discovered, I want you to understand that I would have believed the story of Solomon Gemara, because God said it and the Lord's people supported it. But it thrilled my heart I must admit. When I find that the greatest of modern scientific minds When I find now life, Dr. Wiseman has gone younger to the great country where it happened and has found abundant proof, as we will see in a moment, that the world was sure that it did happen as the Bible says it would happen.
And I want to remind you, not only of a stupid woman, I want to remind you not only of the shoreward, but I want to remind you of a serious warning, that as it was in the days of law, so it shall be. Oh, what a serious warning. First of all, then, may I say a word or two amongst this lady that I have dared to call a stupid woman. There are a number of things that stand out so clearly to any male woman that will read the nineteenth of Genesis.
The first thing that stand out so clearly is this, that here was a woman who heard the words of the Lord. She was without excuse. God spoke to her husband, God spoke to her, God sent into this scene two angelic beings that they might hasten them out of the city. She heard the word of the Lord. The second thing I want to say about her was she not only heard the word of the Lord, but she hearkened to the word of the Lord. Oh no, she was not like her son-in-law.
She did not listen to her husband, and then it was reported of her that he sounded as one and not. That's what was read about his son-in-law. They thought that father had gone round the bed, that father somehow or the other had become a little bit de-arranged. Francy coming to us in this city and telling us to escape for our life. What a ridiculous thing to say. She was not like that. She heard the word of the Lord and with her husband she actually left the city.
She actually fled from the city. But she was a stupid woman. not because she heard the word of the Lord and not because she happened to the word of the Lord but she was a stupid woman because she hesitated at the word of the Lord and she looked back the Bible says she was turned into a pillar of hope first of all she heard the word of the Lord Now, my friend, I don't want to spend time, because I do not mind its letters at all. I do not want to spend time in reminding you of the wickedness of the smotherment of mine.
I am speaking to an absurd audience, but there are boys and girls here, and so I must watch what I say. I only remind you that the trickiest problem has given to our modern language the vilest, healthiest, wickedest word that it's possible for a human being to take a body with. So wicked and vile was the sin of Solomon Gamora that one shudders even to mention. But my heart is moved. I am not an emotional man, as all of you know.
But I confess this to you, that when I read the nineteenth chapter of Genesis and I look around this world of ours today, a great love comes into my throat. I wouldn't say here as an Englishman, I never thought in my own country that the day would ever go when an act of Parliament would depart that legalize homosexuality. And I come to your country, and I find exactly the way that's happened here. We have a program on our television at home just three months ago.
I don't look at the television very much. I don't have time. And when I look at it, I get a bit disgusted and want to turn it off anyway. But this program was what we called Wacker's World. We have a man by the name of Wacker who tours the world and gives us something of what he finds in different parts of the world. And he was giving us a description of plants and plants. And there, upon the very film, upon the very television of our street, it showed us the wickedness of that dream. It showed areas that once had been poverty areas, once had been dark areas, once had been absolutely run down poverty areas that were being bought up, and they were being bought up by those that were kept within homosexuality.
They were being bought up by men like living kids, and the whole area There we saw on our own television screens as you saw, no doubt. And I suddenly remember that God said that as in the days of Lot, as in the days of Lot, as men stood outside of Lot's house and tried to break down the doors and tried to lock, give us those men that we may do what we will do. Oh, today, I'll grant your forgiveness.
I'm sorry that Paul strikes me too ugly. But you know, and I know, that this is what is happening in our Western world today. God cares to play in words of judgment that what happened to Solomon Gamar will happen to this world one day. but he gives the word of warning. He dares tend to angelic beings to laugh and say to laugh, look, escape for thy life, look not behind thee, carry not in the plane, escape from the mountain that thou might not be concerned.
And here is a woman that stands and listens for the message that these men brought to her husband and to her. straight to the mountains. Oh, please, I'm not going to allow my imagination to run with me. I'm not going to suggest to you that that mountain speaks of Calvary Hill. I'm not going to suggest to you that there is another mountain where God in his great James is come to die for our sin. And I am going to ask you this. If it doesn't speak of that, what does it speak of? all my fellow travelers will turn.
Is it wonderful that while God hath issued a word of warning against that which is violent, let it be? He offers also a word of counsel to every one of us. He dares to say, whoever we may be, there is a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. There is a door that is opened and all may go in. The Calvary prophecy where you begin, when you humble the sinner to Jesus, tells us that there is mercy with the Lord that he might be heard. He heard the word of the Lord.
Have you heard the word of the Lord? If there is one thing I am free to acquaint it of, it is said that during the past evenings the people I've been speaking to, are people who mainly go to a church. They mainly go away to a church building and listen to the word of God. And you are familiar with these things. You know that God has said to you a state for their life. I said she not only heard the word, she heartened the word. Intelligent with her husband. She left Sodom. She left your home.
She left part of her family for the only two daughters with them. I only know this. But as they went it their way, I took Sodom and Gomorrah. She was heartening. She was saying, Lord, you said, I'm going. How many men and women have I met like that, even in these last words? Men and women have taken the first step, as it were. You said to yourself, I ought to trust Christ. I ought to yield my life to him. I'm coming back again. I'm going to hear the word of God. I'm going to listen to what God has to say. You've spoken to the word. But all my friends, your heartening isn't enough.
Your heartening isn't enough. God wants you and I to completely obey him. for this pardon the word again, but I must use it. This beautiful woman, she heard, she heartened, but oh, she hesitated. She hesitated, though angelic beings came in the form of men and took her by the hand to lead her in. Tell me, my friend, How many angels have come to you?
Oh, I know this, that if suddenly there appeared to you an angel like the picture we often see of angels, you would be like me. You would be most afraid. Oh, if I was to see an angel like that, my knees would not. I've got a feeling I'd say, Oh, mercy. Oh, dear. Oh, I think I would. I want to say this to you. I've had many an angel laid hand on me. Many an angel. Here I suggested, some of you were here on Sunday when I gave my temper.
Here I suggested, when first I heard the gospel and saw a little salvation army laughing, standing in front of a crowd of drinking men in a pub, singing the old rugged cross, Now I suggest to you that an angel came that day and said to me, Have faith for thy life. Tomorrow you think, would you like to know how many hours? My wife's arriving. Oh, I sometimes call her an angel, but, you know, there are all sorts of angels. But there we are. I know this.
But when that girl stopped me in the road, he gave me a trap and got me to go into the tent where I was converted. An angel came and laid his hand on me. I'm speaking to men and women here tonight. Maybe a godly mother. Maybe a godly wife. Maybe a godly husband. A son came in and said, Mom, I trusted the Lord. But I did to my own mother. an angel had spoke and said to you hasten out of the city a state for thy life the judgment of god is real some of you heard of psalm some of you heard of psalm some of you heard it prayer and your heart was touched And you couldn't give a reason for it.
You couldn't stand in front of me and give me a good reason why you knew that was an angel speaking to you. Somehow or the other God spoke to you about that. Maybe to a star. Maybe to a sermon. Maybe to a prayer. You heard God say a place for my life. Gradually it was this. The woman that heard and the woman that heartened was the woman that hesitated. He turned back. Oh, I can understand her. Please, I can understand her.
I don't want to stand here and just be critical of her. Her home was there. She had children there. But she thought more of a home than more of her children and more of the streets in which she'd lived and more of the shops in which she had traded. Then she called from the dog and said, Escape to thy life. I wonder how many of the servants tonight were like that. Is the Bible just an old passion story? Or is it not true that there are men and women today who dig more of their home than of God?
More of their business than of cars? Time for pleasure, time for business? but that Christ was crucified, not a place that he can enter in the heart for which he died. Oh, my fellow traveler, to eternity! This is the story of the nineteenth of Genesis, but Jesus says it's the story of our day. As in the days of Lot, so, so shall it be. We think together So I know in Christ that some day, for all the other years of life, have you.
I'll be telling a few moments, there is no more words. I've always had a moment to look at how I might look at my mind. But if modern science has never been able to prove that what happened at Solomon tomorrow if it happened I would still believe it happened I'd rather believe God than anyone I have listened so frequently to some of the things that men have said and I often look at them and say listen my friend I'd rather believe them miraculous than ridiculous when I mean vibrals, and then suddenly I find that modern scientists have discovered the danger of death.
Oh, have I had your voice. Dr. Weissman is the head of Egyptian study in the Great Credit Museum. Some years ago, he went away with a party of archaeologists to examine what they do to be, the area where Sodom and Gomorrah was found. He came back with evidence that every university in the world expressed. They do not come to the same conclusions necessarily that he changed, but they accept his evidence because they can do nothing but.
But with a party of British and American archaeologists, they perched the area which we know of Sodom and Gomorrah. And suddenly he found that Sodom and Gomorrah had been built over an oil well. Now there's no need for me to remind you that Sodom and Gomorrah is the very center of the oil fields of the world. and most of the economic trouble today arises from those oil wells, not yesterday, but today. But not only did he find that Solomon Damara has been built over an oil well, but he found that the oil well had been completely burned out.
Completely burned out. And there was the evidence not only of oil being there, but bronze oil being there. They not only found that Solomon Gomorrah had been built over a bronze oil well, but they found that in that area there was indeed a platter of soil, of earth, of growth, where there were poor. In other words, there was abundant evidence that there had been and there could yet be an earthquake in that particular part of the world.
And then they found something more. They found that in that area, all around the area for some hundred miles, they are lying deep a layer of tall rock. Now please, I am not suggesting this is what happened. This is the conclusion that Dr. Weizmann came to, the head of his department in the British Museum, the greatest man in his field in the British Empire. He came to the conclusion that there was an earthquake.
That Earthquake engulfed the cities of the plague. They were engulfed. They were swallowed up, the Bible says. That Earthquake engulfed the cities of the plague. The outcome of the Earthquake was somewhat similar to what you have seen and read of in your own country in the last few days. A few weeks may be out there. The outcome of that Earthquake was first of all that the pressure of the earthquake reacted upon the oil field. The oil field coated the crack in the soil as though its drill had gone through to pump a well or to make a well, and up on the earth there came the oil which ignited.
The Bible says God, fire sent down fire and crimson upon Solomon that the wise men came to the conclusion, that just there, in your eruption on the west coast, just days ago, so there came out of the ark, this garter of pork block. And being pork block, it would immediately break into dust. just as houses and people have been covered in dust joining our days in the west coast.
So the woman that refused to run to the place of safety was covered with salt, and she became a pillar of salt. Those are the conclusions of one of the leading characters in the world today. I have not the academic knowledge to come to those conclusions. This is the conclusion I come to. That God reigns upon Solomon tomorrow, fire and spring thrown out of heaven.
That what voice turned and became a pillar of soul. And do you, O Craig, remember Lot's voice? I only know that that which in my youth was lost upon as being utterly ridiculous is accepted in every place of learning today. A sure word Friends, if that word was sure and seemed to be proved, does it not add certainty to the word that Jesus used?
As in the date of life, so it shall be. I see and see the social happening in the date of life. We read that here were people that ate the track, the court, the troll, the county, the children. In other words, they did detract and the wayless men and women are doing today the ordinary things of life. But with them there was a dark tragedy, a boil bit. I look around the world today and thank God It's not everyone that's living in vile sin.
Thank God that's true. But let's remember there are some who are. But Jesus says it's not everyone who's going to be like that. It's going to be as in the James of Lot. When there are those that do the ordinary things, they eat and they drink, they buy and they sell, they sell. and they thought, in other words, they expect everything to carry on just the same as it was yesterday. Isn't that what people are doing today? And Jesus said, that's the thought of my return.
But if there was a stupid woman, and if there was a short word, please, There's a mysterious one. Remember what happened to the woman who heard and hearken, but who hesitated. Remember Lot twice. Isn't it wonderful that Jesus says that? Sir, I could understand if Jesus had said, Remember Lot. Remember Lot. Remember the man who didn't take despite his sin. I can understand that but he didn't say that and says you remember the person that could have escaped but didn't don't you be like her then please if I'm going to listen to this serious warning if I'm going to remember her then surely surely The very use of the word tells me that I ought to do something.
Remembering Lot's wife doesn't just make me bow my head and say, oh, what a foolish woman. What a stupid woman. Remembering what Lot's wife to me makes me say this, I don't want to do the thing she did. I don't want to be found like she was found at the end, away from the presence of God. So what must I do? Well, there's no doubt about it. Let me read it to you again. A chance for my life. Look not behind me.
Either say thou in all the praise, but pray for the mountain, let thou be consumed. Poor friend, when I say it again, there is a mountain. I would not suggest, please, I would not suggest that there in the nineteenth chapter of Genesis God is pointing on to Calvary but he is pointing on to something he's pointing on to the past that he is willing to be merciful he is willing to be gracious he is willing to be loving he is willing to be kind he's pointing on to the past that there is mercy with the Lord He might be healed.
O thou tender of all time and space, Thou throne of God, thou kind of grace, Thou meet in Christ with birth and heaven, Thou lightning rod meet God's love with him. Thou fair where Christ died for me, my soul pollutants. Albert, Albert, friend, did you come by faith in Albert?
The wrath of God will not fall upon that place again. For God will not quite command, won't let my bleeding short be panned and meditized. Well, I'll come to Christ. I will find faithless potential. May I borrow, please, one of Mr. Moody's stories of all of you a purnite Mr. Moody and one of his great Germans told of an occasion away in Canada in the autumn of the year when the harvest had been gathered in the work completed but they're gathered in a home away in the back of the prairie a crowd of friends from their wives, farmers from the distance.
The men were going hunting. The women, well, with their children, enjoying company one with another, the loneliness of the past month's time. But suddenly, as these men went out to hunt, they looked and they saw, sweeping towards summit forty miles an hour, a prairie fire. I've never seen a prairie fire. I've seen a forest fire. I was away in the blue mountains in Australia when they caught the light. And I tell you, I don't know if I'd ever been more frightened than I was then.
But I've never seen a prairie fire. I only know this. The ghost farmers gazed at that prairie fire sweeping towards them at forty miles an hour, knowing that their horses could not run far enough or fast enough to keep out of it. But they knew what to do. They jumped on their horses' back. They covered their horses' heads with specks and then gave themselves went ahead and set the prairie alight. And the wind that brought a fire towards them at fourteen miles an hour, it took a fire away from them, eventually at that speed.
And when the ground, the prairie, that they had burned themselves, had cooled, they led their horses onto the ground that was burnt, and they stood and waited. Fire swept down on them. No chance for any of them to live. Suddenly as the fire came to the ground that they had burned, there was nothing else to burn. And the fire went out. Those farmers standing on ground that was burned already. Praise God.
retain. Do you come with me to that man where the fire of God's wrath dealt with pain? Has it dealt with Jesus Christ? He who put my sin in his own body to the grave. There I say fire of the rock of God will never fall there again. There's nothing else to burn. Hallelujah! There's nothing else to burn. They're facing at the cross.
My friend, won't you come to that place of faith tonight? The Lord said, as in the days of Noah, Oh, but we might find safety by trusting Jesus Christ for his name. Amen. I wonder if in closing, please, we could sing together. Amen. number one hundred and forty eight one hundred and forty eight we sang it one evening during the week I felt that God was speaking to some harm as we sang it I would like you to see it tonight no it's not one hundred and forty eight let's see what number was it sir one five eight I say, isn't it awful when you can't read your own figures?