Genesis 19:17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for your life; look not behind you… 1. My text, in the first place, suggests urgency on the part of all those who would induce people out of their sins. Why was not the angel more polite? Why did he not coolly and formally invite Lot and his wife to leave that city? The angel was in earnest. 2. My subject also suggests that the mere starting gives no security. Lot had started out of the city, but he might have perished half-way before he got to the mountains. Men start for heaven, but do not always get there. If my house be burning, and I take a bucket of water and put out the flames in this, and that, and yonder room, while I leave the flames in another room, I might as well have wasted no strength and brought no buckets of water at all. And if a man is only half saved, he is not saved at all. 3. The text suggests further, that a man, after being persuaded out of sin, sometimes looks back. 4. My text suggests that some men, having started, loiter by the way. They tarry in the plain. They are too lazy to get on. You know that men, in order to get on in this world, must deny themselves, and work hard; must go through drudgery, that after awhile they may have luxuries. If we get to heaven it will be by gathering up all the energies of our souls and hurling them ahead in one persistent direction. In mid-ocean, on the China going out at midnight, the "screw" stopped. "What's the matter?" everybody cried. People rushed out to see why the "screw" had stopped in mid-ocean. Something wrong, or it would not stop in the middle of the Atlantic. So it is a bad sign when men voyaging towards heaven stop half-way. It is a sign of infinite peril. (Dr. Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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 mountain, lest thou be consumed. |
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