In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the danger of prioritizing comfort, pleasure, and entertainment over spiritual well-being. He uses the example of Lot and his wife, who chose the materialistic lifestyle of Sodom and Gomorrah over raising their children in a godly environment. The preacher warns that when people become consumed with selfish pursuits, they become indifferent to the needs of others. He reminds the audience that the foundation of the Christian life is love for one another, as commanded by Jesus. The preacher calls for a wake-up call and urges the congregation to let go of worldly attachments and focus on their spiritual lives and the well-being of their loved ones.

The following message entitled, Longing for Sodom, was presented by Steve Gallagher at Community Life Center in Port Charlotte, Florida. Additional resources are available on our website at purelifeministries.org or by calling 1-888-PURE-LIFE. Praise the Lord. Good morning. It's wonderful to be with you this morning. I want to share a message this morning the Lord just gave me a couple of weeks ago called, Longing for Sodom. And we're going to look at the lives of Lot and his wife this morning. Our text will be in Ezekiel, but we won't get there for a while. But what I want to do is just kind of, you know, review the story a little bit. You all know the story, but just review it, bring us up to date on what happened. It really began when the Lord spoke to Abraham. And Abraham lived in the city of Ur, which was one of the Mesopotamian cities that Nimrod the rebel had begun some years earlier. And Abraham was born and raised in that area. It was a very wicked area. But somewhere along the line, Abraham developed a walk with God. And when he got older, God called him to separate himself from that entire lifestyle, that whole world that he had grown up in. It's all he had ever known. And God told him to leave Ur, and to depart that place, to go to a place that he would show him that would be the land of promise. And when Abraham and his family and all his flocks and everything left, his nephew Lot and his wife made the decision to join them on this journey of freedom. And faith. And it really, in a sense, could be compared to us, when we make the decision to put our trust in Christ, and to go His way in life. It would be comparable to that. And so both families left, and they lived together several years, and they went to Haran, and then they went to Damascus, and finally they ended up in Canaan. Can you imagine what a tremendous privilege it was for Lot and his wife, and their little kids, to live with a man of God like Abraham? Now I don't know if there's any men who are walking with God like him today. I know there have been those down through church history, just every now and then, a man who walks with God. And I have been around people that you got in their presence, and you knew the presence of God is there. You could feel it. You could see it in their lives, and the way they lived, and acted, and talked, and just the way they would express things. You knew you were in the presence of someone extremely godly. And I tell you, when I would get around those people, there was just something inside me that would well up, that I would want to just go find a corner to seek God, and to seek his face, and to be in his presence, because something in their lives directed me, and compelled me to find the Lord. And that's what it must have been like for Lot and his wife to live in the tents of Abraham. But something wasn't going quite right. Lot and his wife had also left Ur, that wicked place of idolatry, the fertility cults, just a place of tremendous iniquity and sin. And they too had been raised in that. And apparently whatever was in that culture hadn't been gotten out of them, because as time went on, Lot's herdsmen began to strive with the shepherds of Abraham's herds. In other words, they were causing problems. And it was coming from the spirit that was in Lot, the top down. And so one day Abraham came to Lot, and I imagine that Abraham was an extremely humble man. And he probably came up to Lot, and he said, Lot, something's not working right here. Your people aren't getting along with my people, and I don't know. He wasn't trying to point the finger or place blame, but he said, you know, probably what we should do is split our groups, and you go one way, and I'll go the other way. And you just take whichever part of the land you want, and I'll take the other. I could imagine, couldn't you imagine Abraham being humble like that? Now at Pure Life Ministries, we have a live-in facility for men in sexual sin. And if a man starts getting in a bad spirit, and starts causing strife at the place there, listen, we don't fool around, because I don't want the other men to be corrupted. So we'll go to that man, and sometimes with tears in our eyes, and we'll say, brother, you're going to have to go. You can't be here in that kind of a spirit that you're in. You're so full of pride. You're so full of coveting lust, or whatever it might be. You're giving over. We can't have that here. You're going to have to go. Maybe he's received other warnings. I don't know. Yeah, of course. Our counselors would have been working with him. But I want you to know something, dear ones. Any time that we would confront a man, and tell him he's got to leave, in the back of my mind, in my heart, is a hope. And I won't say it to him, because I don't want him to put on some act or something. But there's a hope, and I've seen it happen every now and then. It'll happen. The man will fall down, and say, oh, what's the matter with me? What's happening to me? I don't know what's wrong with me. Please, brother Steve, don't make me leave. God is in this place. I've got to have the Lord. I don't know what's wrong with me. I repent. Please don't make me leave. And when we see that, we don't make him go. And I've seen men's lives radically change, because they've come face to face with a choice like that. Face to face with what's in them. And you know, this should have been a tremendous wake-up call to Lot and his wife. This should have been a wake-up call. They should have flung themselves down and said, please, Uncle Abraham, please don't make us leave you. You know, a picture of this, how they should have responded, is Ruth with Naomi. You remember at the beginning of the book of Ruth, when she had gone to, was it Edom or Moab, one of the two, and lived with Naomi, and then the sons died and all that, and Naomi told her, now you go back with your people, and I'm going back to Canaan where my people are. You just go back. And Ruth wouldn't have any part of it. She said, do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you. For where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me. That's what should have been on the lips of Lot and his wife with their Uncle Abraham. But it wasn't. Instead, you know what they saw? Opportunity. Wow. You know, I hate to leave Uncle Abraham, but they looked out and they saw that rich, fertile valley of the Jordan River, and they said, we'll choose that. And a choice was made in their hearts. Well, several years pass, and something is occurring in their lives. When they first went down there, they just stayed in the regions down there in the Jordan Valley, and the next time we hear about them is when Sodom was attacked by a number of kings of a different area, and Lot and his entire family are carried off into captivity. And in the only occasion where we ever hear of Abraham using military might, it was only for the sake of saving other people's lives. So he hunts these kings down and attacks them, and saves his nephew and his nephew's wife. This should have been, or this was the second wake-up call to Lot and his wife. When they came back, they should have just repented for their folly. They should have said, oh Abraham, what's the matter with me? Man, look at how we've just been out of our minds. I don't know what we were thinking. Thank you God for letting these kings attack so that we would come to our senses. They should have just repented and said, please Uncle Abraham, please would you let us come back and be with you in Canaan? Please, we want to come back to that godly atmosphere, that simple life with God that we had in your tents. But no, they immediately returned back to the environs of Sodom. Now the next time we hear about this couple is in Genesis 19. And now they're living in Sodom. Now they've got a house in the city. Now Lot is one of the city elders, sitting out at the court where the elders of the city sit and discuss matters and judge things and make decisions for the city. Now he is one of their elders. The psalmist said, how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the path of sinners nor sit in the seat of scoffers. And that's what Lot had become. He had just given himself over to this lifestyle. And we see here the pull. When they first went down to the Jordan Valley, well, I'm not giving over. We're not going to go live in Sodom. I can see that they probably thought this. We're just going to go down and live in the Jordan Valley. And there's traders go through there. And we'll trade with them. And it's so lush down there. And our sheep will do real well down there. And dear ones, don't ever underestimate the pull of this world. And before you know it, they're living around the city. The suburbs out around the city. And the kings attack and carry them off. And then several years go by and now they're living in the city. Well, anyway, a cry, an outcry comes up to heaven. And God decides I've got to make a judgment here. I cannot let this corrupting influence continue in the earth. I can't let this group, these cities that are down there in this lush valley, I can't let them go on corrupting everybody. It has gone beyond the point of no return. Judgment must fall. But then he says an interesting thing. You know, he appears to Abraham with a couple other angels. And they just appear like men, you know. And he says an interesting thing to the other angels. Shall I do something like this without telling my friend Abraham? So he tells Abraham what he's going to do. And what does Abraham do? This godly, humble man immediately goes to his place. He knows there is a place that he has before God. A place he stands before the Lord and he falls down and he starts interceding. Please God, what if there's people in that city who aren't wicked? Please God, he starts negotiating with the Lord. He was possessed with a passion for souls, Abraham was. And he pleaded, he negotiated, he argued, he did everything he could. Please God, there's got to be a way to save people. Well the only ones in this place of den of iniquity that were even anywhere near being close to knowing anything about God was Lot and his family. So, just out of sheer mercy and kindness, God sends these two angels into the city. And we know the story, you know, he lets them go in and Lot sees them and says, hey come and stay with us. And they feign like, oh no, we'll stay in the city square. Oh no, you can't do that, not in this place. You know, and so they bring him into the house and then this militant homosexual mob shows up at the house. It says all the people of the city, they're all in this spirit. And they show up at the house and I'm sure these two angels, you know, appeared as big strapping, very handsome men. And not only that, but you know, a man of God, a man who's really walking with God, there's something about them that attracts people, you know. And so anyway, it's a weird thing, but you know, they show up at the door and they say, send those men out that we might have relations with them. These, I mean, these people are gone, you know. And now, to show you how corrupted Lot had become, you know what his solution is? Does he fling himself down and start pleading with God? Please God, you've got to get us out of this. Does he go to his place of intercession like his uncle had taught him? No. He goes out and starts negotiating with these people. Unbelievable what he does. He goes out there and he says, listen, I've got these two virgin daughters. Now virgins, you know, girls back in those days got married young. They were married by the time they were 16, usually always. And I imagine these two girls were like 13 and 15 or 14 or 12 or something. Can you imagine how corrupted this man had become? He goes out there and he offers this lust crazed mob to, he said, do what you wish with my daughters. Now I don't know about you, I'm not a father, but if I was a father of two little girls like that, they would have to rip me from limb to limb before they would get their hands on my little girls. But this is how Sodom can corrupt our thinking, dear ones. And then, so anyway, you know, we know the story of the angels struck the crowd blind and they're groping around and they bring Lot in, this stupid fool, you know, they bring him in, you know, and save him just out of mercy. And they spend the night and the next morning the angels said, listen, get all your people out of this city, your sons, your daughters, your sons-in-law, get them out, whoever you have. Now apparently he had sons and other daughters besides these two virgins. And so Lot goes to the others and he starts telling them, listen, there's going to be judgment, you've got to get out of here. And you know what they did? They laughed at him. They thought he was joking. Dear ones, can I tell you that if Sodom is filling your heart, if the things of this world are filling your heart, when you go to try to speak to loved ones about the Lord, they will not take you seriously. Many of us wonder why our loved ones are not turning to God. And you know something? A lot of it has to do with what they see in our lives. Well anyway, they thought he was joking. They didn't take him serious. They mocked him, whatever. And so he goes back to this house where his two virgin daughters are living with him and his wife and so on. And the angel said, okay, now just get them and get out of here. And you know what it says now? He hesitated. He hesitated. That word in the Hebrew means he was reluctant to move. He was reluctant. He was sitting there with two angels of God. He saw what had happened the night before. He knew what was coming and he was reluctant. Do you know why? Because the love of this world was filling his heart. And he didn't want to walk out on what was there. But God in his mercy grabbed this nitwit. I think that's a Christian word. Grabbed him by the hand, it says, and drug him out of the city. And then he tells him, listen, flee for your lives. Don't look back. Run up to the mountains. Get away from this place because destruction is falling. And now you know what he does? Now he starts to negotiate. Listen, you know, I don't really want to go to the mountains. Can't we just go to Zor? It's just a small little town and it's not that bad. I know they've got a few movie houses, a couple of gambling halls, but really it's a small little town. Can we just go there? And the angels are just exasperated. It's like, whatever, you know. It's okay to enjoy myself a little bit, isn't it? I hate to do it at the poor man's expense. I mean, you know, he was a little, whatever. So they said, okay, go, you know. And so then we know that fire and brimstone falls on this wicked place and starts destroying everything there. And three times the angels said, don't look back. Don't turn back. Whatever you do, just flee. Don't even look back. And Lot's wife turned back and was destroyed like that. And that's the way judgment comes, dear ones. You know, I don't know if she went back, she was going to go back, hey, I forgot my silver jewelry. How could I do such a stupid thing? You know, and started running back to get it. Or maybe she just was, her whole heart was in Sodom and she couldn't bear with the thought of losing all her stuff. I mean, she'd just been to Nordstrom's that day, you know. Where am I? I'm all, well anyway, so she's destroyed. Now the next thing that happens, this godly family, Lot and his wife end up in a cave up above the town of Zor. And these two young daughters, you know, they, all of a sudden everything's gone. They've lost everything, lost any hope of getting married, you know, that was the big thing. And having children and stuff. And so the older daughter comes up with a scheme. Let's get dad drunk tonight. And we'll have relations with him. And then we'll have sons. Corruption! It shows how corrupted this family had become. And because of that, now we have the Ammonites and the Moabites. Later, you know. So, that was my introduction. Could you open up to Ezekiel 16? I've tried to remain calm and peaceful. I tend to get a little excited towards the middle of the message. Ezekiel 16, this was given to Ezekiel, a word from God. Must have been 1,500 years later. God says, this is what happened. This is why it came to this. I just love the way the Lord does things. 1,500 years later, no one's even thinking about Sodom and Gomorrah. And all of a sudden, there it is. This is what happened. Ezekiel 16, verses 49 and 50. Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom, she and her daughters. You think Lot's wife might have been included in that? She and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease. But she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before me. Therefore, I removed them when I saw it. Some lessons we can learn here. And I wanted to share with you five characteristics of Sodom to watch out for in our own lives. Number one, abundant food represents prosperity. The Jordan Valley was lush back then. It was well watered. It was the lowest place on earth. I think that's true, the Arabah. And definitely one of the lowest at least. And it was probably like a jungle. It was probably a lot like Florida in those days. You know how it is here. You just throw stuff out and man, it just grows. You don't know how blessed you are in that way here. But anyway, it was just lush and Lot saw this and man, the grass up on the Negev was so sparse. I mean one blade per every ten square inches. You know, something like that. But down here it's just packed and thick and you know, it could be almost a golf green if it was mowed down or something. Just lush. Everything grew. You just throw some seeds in and you didn't even have to work with it practically. And that really is a picture of America in these last days. Isn't it? There's never been a nation like this in the history of mankind. Dear ones, we have everything. Take the, just the lower middle class family and they live better than any king in past history you can think of. What king do you know had television? What king do you know could jump in this box and just drive all over wherever they wanted to go? Microwave, CNN news, newspapers. I mean there's no end to the luxuries that we have indulged ourselves in. Prosperity is abounding in America. It is. That's just a fact. Doesn't mean it's a crime for us to be living here but prosperity is here. Abundant food represents prosperity. Now Lot and his wife had a choice. They could have lived in the simple, quiet environs of his uncle Abraham. That represents a life in God. It's what David had as a young boy when he was out tending the sheep in the wilderness. Just him and God. No luxuries. No frills. No little Nintendo game to play out there, you know. Nothing to do. No TV to watch. No movies. Nothing. Boring. But you know what? God was there. And that's what, these people had that choice. They could have had that. Well they did have it. They could have kept it. But no. They chose to go to Sodom. They made that choice. From their selfish perspective the benefits were to them. They knew good to pass up. I can't live without such and such. Yeah but what about the cost to your walk with God? Yeah but I have to have it. But look at what it's going to cost you spiritually. Well everybody has it. Yeah but dear one, look at the eternal picture. Look at just everything in your life. Does it really mean that much to you? Nothing will deaden a love for God like the things of this world. I don't know if we really believe that. John said this. The Apostle John. He said, do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. He doesn't say, don't love it too much. It's okay to be into sports and stuff but listen, just don't let it go too far. Don't let your love for things get out of hand. I know you want to have a nice house and you want to have this and you want to have that. But just don't love it too much. No. He doesn't say that. It's a black and white statement. But you know what? The devil is constantly trying to make gray what God paints black and white. He's trying to make black and white. Do not love the things of this world. If you do, the love of the Father is not in you. That's reality spiritually. Paul said this, but those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. Can you see how that was true in Lot's life? In his wife's life? It's not that, you know, we think of that, something like that, like wants to get rich. It's not necessarily they're obsessed with, you know, being the richest man on earth. No, it's just referring to what money buys. He says, for the love of money and all that it buys. The love of money is a root of all sorts of evil and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a sorrow. Do we believe that? I believe that. I know that's true. Nothing will deaden your love for God, dear ones, like the things of this world. The second characteristic, careless ease. Careless ease represents the whole realm of living for self. It's what happens. It's what comes out of prosperity. When you have prosperity, it was this way in Rome, you know. It was this way really in any great civilization that's ever been on earth. At first, there's a rise to power and once power has been established and prosperity comes from that, then they start giving over to every kind of wickedness and every kind of whatever, pleasure. It was that way with Greece. It was that way with Rome. It was that way with Babylon, whatever. It's always been that way and it's that way with America today. Careless ease represents the whole realm of living for self. It's what comes out of prosperity. It's what comes out of poverty. It's what comes out of poverty. We Americans are absolutely addicted to entertainment. Americans play cards, play board games, golf, baseball, soccer, and football. We go swimming, biking, bowling, boating, and fishing. We go to the movies, the beach, amusement parks, shopping malls, and outlet centers. We read newspapers, magazines, romance novels, and tabloids. We surf the internet, visit chat rooms, rent movies, and play video games. In short, there is no end to our indulgences when it comes to entertainment. But none of these compare to the devastating effects that television has had on the Christian Church of America. We don't need to live in Sodom. We bring it right into our homes. You can live out in the middle of the country and be completely sequestered away and have Sodom and Gomorrah and the spirit, that filthy, vile spirit of this world fill your home. TV caters to the flesh. It desensitizes a shame for sin. It drains a person's spiritual vitality. It indoctrinates them in the mindset of the system of this world. The whole thing from beginning to end is all about living for flesh and self. Now we've been trained to accept the American entertainment system as normal, but the pleasure message of Hollywood feverishly opposes the message of the cross. What Jesus said, if you want to follow me, deny yourself and pick up your cross daily and then come and follow me. And the message from Hollywood and Madison Avenue is in direct opposition to the foolish preaching of the cross. A.W. Tozer, a dear, godly man who lived a bout 50 years ago, said this. This was back in the 50s, I believe he said this, or early 60s. For there are millions who cannot live without amusement. Life without some form of entertainment for them is simply intolerable. They look forward to the blessed relief afforded by professional entertainers and other forms of psychological narcotics as a dope addict looks to his daily shot of heroin. Without them, they could not summon courage to face existence. Centering life on entertainment and pleasure may be the norm for the unsaved, but how, dear ones, how could it be the norm for those who have been called to a holy lifestyle? How could it become? What has happened to us, dear ones, that those of us saints called to be separated from this world could live lives so given over to pleasure and entertainment that God would be crowded out of our daily existence? Let me just say this to you, and you can accept this or reject it. When you get to the place that you are spending more time being entertained than you are on your face before God, you are dangerously close to wandering away from the faith, and you don't even know it. Paul, when he was talking about the end times, the end of the age, listed some things. Men will be lovers of self, the whole self life. That's what he said. Jesus said that the love of many will wax cold. Anyway, when Paul was saying that, and he went on to say that they'd be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness but denying the power. In other words, they've lost the power of God in their lives. Well, when you get to that place, that entertainment and amusement and pleasure becomes the important theme of your life, you'll come to the third thing, and that is you will become unwilling to help those in need. As people give over to living a selfish existence of pleasure and entertainment, they will become deadened to the needs of others. Can I just remind us all that the foundation of the Christian life is the devotion to other people. Jesus said it over and over and over again. I leave you a new commandment that you love one another. Well, I love people. I'm nice to people. You don't understand what God's love is. God's love is a passion, dear ones. It's not just a nice guy thing. It's a passion for souls. It's a passion for people to come to know God. It rules you. It just compels you. It constrains you. When you're living in a love for God and a love for others, it completely dominates everything in your life. There's no room for other stuff. Others, that's all you can see. They become everything to you. When you live in the second great commandment, what is that? That you love others, love your neighbors as yourself. Love my neighbors as myself? Yeah. Love your neighbors like you already love yours. Listen, nobody loves you like you do. There ain't nobody around that's going to take care of you like you take care of you. Amen? Now, go and turn and love other people the same way. That's the foundation of the Christian religion. You know, sometimes I feel like saying, listen, if we're not willing to live in this, then it's better to just pack it in. Why put on the facade? Just pack it in. Just go live for self. Just give over. Why go to church on Sunday, for heaven's sakes? It's amazing, but many people who name the name of Christ live years and never give it a second thought about the needs of other people. I know in a church this size, there must be many, many needs. Places where people can give their lives away. Sunday school teachers or custodians or jailhouse ministries, nursing home ministries. Think of all the nursing home ministries. There must be in Florida. These dear people who are living out the last days of their life with no one who cares about them. Where are the Christians who are willing to go in there and love them? Inmates, homeless people, missions. And there's another thing that happens. When we start giving our lives over to comfort and pleasure and entertainment and all that, there's a second price tag that comes with that. We lose sight of the spiritual needs of our loved ones. We lose sight of the spiritual needs of our loved ones. Lot and his wife allowed their loved ones to be loved for the things of this world to be more important to them than the spiritual well-being of their kids. Those young girls and sons and whatever should have been raised in the tents of Abraham. They should have been raised in that godly environment. Think of what they may have done on this earth. Lots of kids, if they would have stayed around Uncle Abraham and really learned how to walk with God, but no. Their parents, when it came time to make a decision, they didn't even consider how it would affect their kids. Never even gave it a thought. And can I just remind us all, dear ones, that we teach our kids not by our words but by our lives. And I have had people come to me, and I want to say this very carefully, but I have had people come to me, maybe even in tears, bewildered as to why their young 15-year-old girl has given up her virginity. Bewildered about why their son's involved in drugs. I never raised my kids like that. I would never do something like that. Oh? Did you plant them in front of a television set from the time they were three years old and up? And teach them five hours a day the morals and the mindset of this world? Did you just, by your lifestyle, show them that entertainment and pleasure is the most important thing in life? Well, drugs and sex, that's where kids are at. You know, that's what they're going to turn to. If they've been taught by their parents to live a selfish existence, it only stands to serve that they're going to give over to that. Lot and his wife could have raised their kids in a godly home, but the benefits of Sodom were too great. They couldn't pass them up. Number four, they became haughty or arrogant. This is really a picture of prosperity and what it can do to you. Jesus spoke of the deceitfulness of riches. You know what's a picture of this? I'm going to have to kind of hurry and step it up a little bit here, but you know what's a picture of this? The Laodicean church. Vibrant church. Everything going well. It's a picture of the American church. It's the last of the seven churches. Everything going great. Building programs. Church membership packed out. Prosperity. Plenty of money flowing. You know, money for missions. Money for this. Money for that. All we need to do is wait for the rapture. And the rest of the world's going to hell. They said, we are rich and in need of nothing. That was their perspective. Everything was great. Full of head knowledge about Christianity. But Jesus saw something differently. Something they did not know. That they were poor and wretched and blind. And that if they didn't repent, he was going to spit them out of his mouth. Dear ones, can I just say, that's a warning to us alive today. That wasn't a word for people 2,000 years ago. That is for us today. The American church. You and me. Number five. If you give over to this lifestyle and start sliding down this path, you're going to get to the place of committing abominations. If you live in the pleasure palaces of Sodom, it will affect you. Now the last 15 years of my life, I've spent ministering to men who have given over to sexual sin. And you know, one thing I can say is, they would have never dreamed when they first started living for pleasure, where that would take them. They would have never dreamed it. Some of those men that we deal with, I deal with pastors all the time. I have assembly of God pastors at our place right now. They would have never dreamed of where their love for pleasure would have taken them. And look at Lot's family. How it was affected. Lot offering his daughter to this mob of sex crazed homosexuals. The sons and the other daughters and their husbands refusing to believe and being swept away. The wife unable to let go of her life in Sodom and destroyed on the spot. And finally, his other two virgin daughters, young girls, corrupted to the point of having sex with their father. You know, the thing is, we've become so affected that we don't even see it happening to us. Anybody who thinks they can live in the spirit of this world and be unaffected and not face consequences is in a great spiritual delusion. That's all there is to it, dear ones. Now I'm going to conclude here with some words that Jesus said. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot. Oh, what was it like in Lot's time? Well, they were eating. They were drinking. They were buying. They were selling. They were planting. They were building. Doesn't that sound like America? Doesn't that sound like our lives? But on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day. Now this is a commandment. I have a feeling that the way we've been taught about the rapture may not be exactly right because Jesus is giving us a commandment about what to do when he's revealed. You know, we've all seen the pictures of people just whisked away and one second you're there and the next second you're gone and, oh boy, the rapture and that will be great and all that. He said on that day, what day? The day the Son of Man is revealed. Let not the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house go down to take them away. Oh, you mean I could turn away from Jesus when he calls me home? Yeah, you could. And likewise, let not the one who is in the field turn back. Remember Lot's wife. And this is what he ends it with. He says, whoever seeks to keep his life shall lose it. And whoever loses his life shall preserve it. What does he mean by that? Losing your life in this world for Jesus. Giving it away, dear ones. Letting it go. All the stuff of this world. Just letting it go. Now here's the mistake people often make. They think, well, when the time comes, I'll do the right thing. Can I just say, dear ones, please, please remember Lot's wife. If you would have asked her a couple of years before that happened, if you would have taught her about the rapture or even taught her about the judgment and all that and told her, you know, be careful because, you know, if you don't do the right thing, you know, when God says to get out of the city, you may not go. She would have scoffed at you. Right? Are you crazy? Of course, if God, you know, sent a couple of angels, of course I would go. What do you think, I'm some kind of an idiot? I've been going to church, man. I know what's happening. I lived with Abraham. Here's the problem. Our eternal destiny is determined by our daily choices. That's just a spiritual reality, dear ones. I'm not trying to come up with some new doctrine or something. That's not what this is about. I'm just trying to say, you are making your eternity and your life today. When the time came for Lot's wife to leave Sodom, she couldn't go. Don't you understand? Her heart was full of the things of this world. She lived for the things of this world. Yes, she kept outward appearances, no doubt. She did her prayers or whatever, you know, the acceptable outward things were. But her heart was full of Sodom, full of the things of this world. She loved her life in this world. Jesus said it this way, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Would you all please stand? God bless you. You know, I tend to get passionate, but I love you. More importantly, God loves you enough to send you a wake-up call. I'm believing God to set some of you free from the love of this world. I'm going to ask these brothers to just go ahead and play something. I believe that God has been dealing with many hearts here this morning. Not because I'm some kind of a great preacher. I know I'm a lousy preacher. It has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with God's been dealing with you already, probably for the last number of months. God's been whispering in your ear, let go of all that stuff. Start thinking about your kids. Get rid of that television set. Shut that radio off. Get rid of those magazines. You need to be separated. You need to be holy unto me. Haven't you heard that voice, dear ones? That's the voice of the Holy Spirit calling you to Jesus. This has nothing to do with the sermon today. It has everything to do with the fact that God has been dealing with you already. I know He has. And this is an opportunity, though, a wake-up call to respond to the Holy Spirit. And if God's been dealing with you, I want you to come out right now. There's something about stepping out and coming to the altar that allows God to break something in us. Come out now. Come on right now. Slip out. Come down here. God, I need something more. Dear God, I need to be set free of the love of this world. God, my life is full of this stuff. Look at what's happening to my kids. Please, God, you've got to do something for me. Slip out now. Please, dear ones, please. God is calling you. Don't let pride hold you back. Please come down here and repent. Let it go. Let it go, dear ones. Let it go. The Lord will show you how to do it in the days to come. Your pastor will help you. But you've got to make a consecration unto God today.