And then, see his end! His own children make him drunk, and in his drunkenness he becomes the instrument of bringing into existence the Ammonites and the Moabites,--the determined enemies of the people of God. What a volume of solemn instruction is here! Oh, my reader, see here what the world is! see what a fatal thing it is to allow the heart to go out after it! What a commentary is Lot's history upon that brief but comprehensive admonition, "Love not the world!" This world's Sodoms and its Zoars are all alike. There is no security, no peace, no rest, no solid satisfaction for the heart therein. The judgment of God hangs over the whole scene; and he only holds back the sword, in long-suffering mercy, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Let us, then, seek to pursue a path of holy separation from the world. Let us, while standing outside its entire range, be found cherishing the hope of the Master's return. May its well-watered plains have no charms for our hearts. May its honors, its distinctions, and its riches, be all surveyed by us in the light of the coming glory of Christ. May we be enabled, like the holy patriarch Abraham, to get up into the presence of the Lord, and, from that elevated ground, look forth upon the scene of wide-spread ruin and desolation,--to see it all, by faith's anticipative glance, a smoking ruin. _Such it will be._ "The earth also, and the things that are therein, shall be burned up." All that about which the children of this world are so intensely anxious--after which they are so eagerly grasping--for which they are so fiercely contending--all--all will be burned up. And who can tell how soon? "Where is Sodom? Where is Gomorrah? Where are the cities of the plain,--those cities which were once all life, and stir, and bustle? Where are they now? All gone! swept away by the judgment of God! Consumed by his fire and brimstone!" Well, his judgments now hang over this guilty world. The day is at hand; and, while judgments impend, the sweet story of grace is being told out to many an ear. Happy they who hear and believe that story! Happy they who flee to the strong mountain of God's salvation! who take refuge behind the cross of the Son of God, and therein find pardon and peace! God grant that the reader of these lines may know what it is, with a conscience purged from sin, and his heart's affections purged from the defiling influence of the world, to wait for the Son from heaven. FOOTNOTES: [16] It would furnish a very searching question for the heart, in reference to every undertaking, were we to ask, "Am I doing this by faith?" "Whatever is not of faith is sin;" and, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." CHAPTER XX.