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I. REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE, AND LEARN THE PERILS OF WORLDLINESS. How terrible her fate! What could be more awful?

1. It was dreadful physically. She lost her life.

2. It was dreadful socially. Her husband was made a widower, her daughters orphans.

3. It was dreadful spiritually. She died in the very act of disobedience. Worldliness was at the root of her sin. She looked back with regret at the valuable possessions that were being abandoned. Let us beware. Prosperity is perilous. Gain and godliness are frequently divorced.

II. REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE, AND SEE HOW POSSIBLE IT IS TO BEGIN WELL AND END ILL. Some are like certain African rivers of which we have read. Rising in some secluded and rocky upland, they increase in volume and beauty as they flow along. Their course is marked by fertility on either side. But instead of rolling on till they reach the ocean and help to swell its waters, they gradually sink and are lost in the sand of the desert. Esau; Saul; Solomon; Judas. Let us not be high-minded, but fear. Let us watch and be sober.

III. REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE, AND BEHOLD THE FOLLY AND SIN OF DELAY. She lingered and perished. Had she not hesitated, she had not been destroyed. Decision is essential to success in all departments of life. "Despatch is the soul of business." A wealthy man was once asked the secret of his prosperity. His answer was significant: "I always recollect what my father said to me when I was a boy — If you have a thing to do, go and do it." No doubt this had much to do with his accumulation of riches. So, too, salvation must be gone about at once. It is no matter for delay. "No hurry " is Satan's masterpiece. It is the almost universal sin. Hear the confession of an old man: — "When I was young, I said to myself, 'I cannot give up the world now, but I will do it by and by. When I have passed the meridian of life, then I shall be ready to attend to the concerns of my soul.' But here I am, an old man. I feel no readiness nor disposition to enter upon the work of my salvation. In looking back I often feel that I would give worlds if I could be placed where I was when I was twenty years old. There were not half as many difficulties in my path then as there are now." An artist once requested that he might be allowed to take the Queen's likeness. Time and place were fixed. Her Majesty was there to the moment. He was not. When he came he found, instead of the royal lady, her message. She left word that she had been, gone, and should not return. The King of kings offers to give us His image. He wishes us to resemble Him. The Incarnate One says, "Follow Me." But He has appointed the period and the locality in which we are to obtain this Divine likeness — the present world and the present time. "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found."

(T. R. Stevenson.)

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KJV: Remember Lot's wife.

WEB: Remember Lot's wife!