By Gipsy Smith
Gen. 13:10 -- "And Lot lifted up his eyes."
Lot's mistake and the consequent loss of his wife and possessions and family followed, when he pitched his tent towards Sodom.
You remember that interview with his uncle Abraham. They were living together and their stock and herdsmen were becoming too many to live together peaceably. Lot was the younger of the two and should have revered the opinions of his old uncle. Abraham said unto him, "Choose." He gave him the choice of the watering places and fertile grazing fields. Why didn't Lot say to his uncle as he should have said, "Uncle, give me your advice; you are an older man than I." But he didn't do that -- he settled it himself. He looked toward the well watered plains of Sodom and selfishly chose them. He pitched his tent towards Sodom and in that way lay danger.
Don't pitch your tent towards Sodom -- the next step you will be in Sodom. No man who professes to believe in Jesus Christ can go into Sodom without one of two things happening: either you must make Sodom better or Sodom will make you worse. You can settle that once and forever. Either you will uplift Sodom or Sodom will lead you far from the path in which you can walk and talk with Jesus.
And to begin with, if you are a Christian, you have no right in Sodom unless you go there to preach the gospel -- unless you go there to preach and interpret God's mind and word.
But that was not Lot's purpose in going to Sodom. He went there because his heart was there. He liked the ways of the people of Sodom. He liked the glitter and the flash and the sparkle of society there. The Bible calls Lot righteous later on. If he is called righteous, it is because when God forgives a sin, he does it wholly and completely. Lot showed very little of virtue in Sodom. He did not hurt himself trying to make it a better city.
If you take your family to the Devil, do not be surprised if the Devil damns them. Don't tear God from the hearts of your children and be surprised some day if the Devil gets the vacant place.
I have known many a mother come to me and ask me to pray for her boy. And I know she is living a worldly life, and how can she expect her boy to become a dutiful Christian? "How old is your boy?" I asked that woman. "He is about twenty-one years of age," she said. "How did you live when he was a little fellow?" I asked her. And I knew that she was not the mother she ought to have been. If you mix up with the doubtful and the frivolous things, don't be surprised if some day you wake up to find you are the parent of half-damned children.
The other night I was spoken to by a woman who said, "I am the mother of four children; my husband was unconverted when I married him." I replied, "You were a contracting party; you were disobedient. What right had you to marry an unconverted person when God had said distinctly and definitely to you, 'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked.' "
If people will choose their own way and pitch their own tents toward Sodom, they must expect trouble. And if you don't expect it, it will come. The unalterable law of disobedience is the hiding of God's face.
If you pitch your tent toward Sodom, you are going to have trouble. If you choose the well watered plains of Sodom, because it will bring you social prominence, it will bring you trouble, that is all. It means the loss of the fellowship of God. Your windows ought to be opened towards Jerusalem. They can't be opened towards Sodom. That way lies pleasure, lies self-indulgence; that way lies the world; that way lies darkness, lies guilt; that way lies the wrath of God and fire of God. Don't pitch your tents towards Sodom.
I have known mothers and fathers, church members, who have stood in the way of their children's service to God. I have been preaching long enough to know these things. I have seen mothers and fathers who were church members who would not approve of their daughters becoming missionaries, but who were quite willing for them to marry men who were morally rotten because they had money. They were willing to sell them for an automobile.
I am talking to women who will spurn a sister-woman if she falls, but will take back the man who ruined her. They will bring him into their homes and jazz with him. Jazz with a man like that! You church women will do that. That is looking towards Sodom. You will let your pure daughter jazz with a moral leper and you will kick the woman who has been ruined by that moral leper out of your home, out of your presence, out of your Church.
But God's sympathies are with the poor woman who is kicked into the gutter. His lips never said an angry word against the woman who had fallen. His withering sarcasm was hurled at the hypocrites who condemned her.
You remember Lot's wife and what she stands for. She stands for Sodom. She stands for the things some of you are standing for. She stands for some of the things you are clinging to.
You have got Prohibition -- why don't you prohibit? Why are you not loyal Americans and stand by the Eighteenth Amendment? If you expect America to stand by you and protect you and your family, why should not you keep all its laws and be loyal or leave the country?
Do you know what you Christian mothers ought to do? You ought to make it so hot in your city that bootleggers couldn't exist. You want the strong drink put away from your sons, don't you? You want the saloons closed, don't you? Well then, close your cellars and sideboards!
If you are what you ought to be, you will not taste or handle it yourself, or be guilty of the awful crime of giving alcohol to any human being in God's earth. You are helping Sodom, that is all. I don't care who you are. I don't care what your social position is. You represent Sodom. If you are allied with the forces of evil in any shape or form, you belong to Sodom. Remember the wrath of God on the people of Sodom. There is nothing much said of Lot here. But I should think enough has been said of him. If you go to Sodom, you ought to make it better than it is. When Jesus accepted an invitation to a worldly feast or social function, He preached a sermon or worked a miracle; He turned the occasion into one of healing, helping or the saving of some one or the delivery of a message which made some poor, broken heart glad.
Where you have one friend, I have thousands. But nobody invites me to a wine supper. Nobody invites me to a dance or to play cards. And I am as lively as any of you. Don't you think there isn't a bit of skip in me because then you wouldn't know me. I am tempted by the same things that you are. Why don't they invite me to dance? Why don't they invite me to wine suppers and to play cards? Why not? You say, "Oh, Mr. Smith, it is obvious--" You think I wouldn't go. And you won't go either if you are the Christian you ought to be.
Oh, my God, make us out and out anew! Turn your faces on Sodom and look towards Jerusalem. Dare to be a Daniel. You know how Daniel acted at that court. The men who hated him said, "We shall never catch him unless we catch him at his prayers."
Then they went and said to the King, "Oh, King, live forever." That is the way we always approach those we want to get something of by flattery. They said, "We want you to make a decree that nobody shall pray in this city for so many days, or be cast into the den of lions."
The King signed the decree. But Daniel went just as before to his knees and he kept his window open toward Jerusalem. And he prayed.
My brother, my sister, only prayer will make you strong, and noble, and true, and constant, and faithful, and Christ-like in the midst of the unreality and sham of the superficial life about you. And if you try to go with one and hold to the other, well, you will come to grief. If you pitch your tents towards Sodom, and then get there, you will lose your soul. If you are saved as by fire, it won't be a very glorious salvation. The world will lose more than you gain because of your inconsistency.
You may be saved by the skin of your teeth, but what about your family you left in Sodom?
