By Lee Roy Anderson
Jesus uses two periods in history to show us what world conditions will be like just prior to his second coming. These two periods were the days of Noah and the days of Lot. Luke 17:26-30.
Study the signs of the time during Noah’s and Lot’s day as it was so shall it be when the son of man is revealed. Noah’s day was an age of violence. Genesis 6:13. Corruption was another sign marking the days of Noah. Genesis 6:12.
Many are following Lot’s philosophy as they pitch their tents toward Sodom, rather than the example of Abraham who looked for a city whose builder and maker was God. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, chose the well-watered plain. He should have considered his uncle Abraham first. To get to the gate of Sodom, he pitched his tent toward Sodom the world. He found his way into Sodom. He is sitting at the gate a prominent influential post in Sodom.
To sit at the gate is a great desire of man. Some sit at the gate as leaders to answer questions of those who need help. At the gate beautiful sat a beggar to receive, not to give, advice. By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country. Not so Lot. Lot did not sit at the gate by faith. He was there by choice and to confront the problems of Sodom. Abraham and Lot started out together but each went different directions and reached very different goals so far as their public testimony was concerned.
Lot, no doubt saved but so as by fire his work was surely all burned up. Abraham had an abundant entrance into the kingdom. When choices were settled, Lot chose the plain and Sodom and Abraham got the promise God as far as his eyes could see. The Lord communes with Abraham while three angels have a difficult time to get into Lot’s house then had to blind the men who wanted the angels for sodomite purposes. The angels rejected Lot’s invitation by saying, nay, but we will abide in the street all night. What a rebuke to Lot. No food. No fellowship even from angels; what a rebuke to Lot.
When the angels came to Abraham to tell him of Sarah’s giving birth to a son they ate and drank with him. The Lord, we might say, has no sympathy with the worldly minded. It was Lot’s love for the present evil world that let him first to chose then the pitch his tent toward then to enter then to sit at the gate. It is said, he was vexed with the filthy communication of his circumstances and the people.
Study the signs of the time during Noah’s and Lot’s day. Luke 17:26-30. Prior to Christ’s second coming.
