Every great Bible truth is presented to us over and over again, from various standpoints, and under various emblems, and with different degrees of light, in order to reach every class of mind, and also to exhibit the truth in its setting with concomitant truths, to make it as real as possible to us. Thus the coming of the Lord is set forth in Scripture by prophecy, and parable, and analogy, to render it as clear as possible to our minds. Among the various types of Christ's return, and the events which will transpire at that time, is the escaping of Lot from Sodom. Jesus says in the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, that "as it was in the days of Lot, even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.'' Now if we turn back to the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of Genesis, and read the account of the destruction of Sodom, with the words of our Savior for a key, we can learn several points of instruction.

1. We gather from the history that the people of Sodom had filled the cup of their iniquity. It is a clear teaching of God's Word, that sin has a stage of fulness and ripeness just the same as grace has, and this is true whether applied to an individual, or a city, or a nation, or an organized form of religion. We learn from the prophet Ezekiel that the great sin of Sodom was fulness of bread and love of ease and pleasure, which led to the grossest forms of debauchery. ^,The Lord said that "the cry of Sodom went up to Him."� Perhaps this cry was from that of the guardian angel who for years had watched the increasing sin and hopelessness of the people. In the same way there are many nations in this world which have filled the cup of their iniquity, and in spite of the Utopian dreams of the post-millennialists, they are utterly beyond the reach of Gospel truth. These are the nations which first had the Gospel preached to them, such as Turkey, Spain, and the nations around the Mediterranean Sea. True, a few of them can be saved, but as a collective mass they have sealed their doom. And the Western nations are filling their cup much more rapidly than the old nations, and the millions of intelligent European and American people are practical heathen, and, having rejected Gospel light, are harder in their consciences to the operations of the Holy Ghost than the savages of Central Africa. So the cup of iniquity is almost full, as in the case of Sodom.

2. When God revealed to Abraham that He was going down to Sodom, the patriarch drew near and offered that great intercessory prayer for the inhabitants of Sodom. Some have supposed that if Abraham had continued his supplication the city might have been spared. But let us remember that Abraham was moved by the Holy Ghost to offer that prayer, and it is evident that he was voicing the intercession of the Holy Spirit, and he was divinely led when to end the prayer as he was to begin it. The great thought expressed in Abraham's prayer was the worth of the righteous, and that God would not destroy the righteous with the wicked, and that He would spare the city for the righteous ones. In like manner, it would seem that just before the Lord comes down from Heaven to gather out His saints there will be a time of wonderful prayer and intercession.

3. The wickedness of the people of Sodom reached a climax when they assaulted the house of Lot in a furious mob, to commit unspeakable crimes against the guests that were entertained in the home. This was the finishing touch to their iniquity. This is a fitting type of that heading-up of the depravity of the human race, and of the backslidden, nominal Christianity in the gigantic antichrist movement which will doubtless come to pass in the closing of this age. John and Paul both tell us that antichrist was in the world even in their day, and the antichrist element has been gathering strength all through the centuries; and Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians that, just as soon as the hindrance is taken out of the way (and that hindrance is the presence of God's holy people in the world) the antichrist will bloom forth into full revelation. Even today, right in so-called Christian communities, people who have rejected the light are manifesting a bold scorn and contempt against the real Christ life, which is an index of the unlimited malice in human hearts against Jesus, and which, under appropriate conditions, will assail the most sacred things of God as the corrupt Sodomites assailed the house of Lot.

4. The angel who was entertained by Lot smote the wicked mob with blindness, so they could not find the door of the house, and thus were dispersed. In like manner the great worldwide mob of the antichrist will be smitten by the Almighty, and the Lord shall consume him with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of His coming. Every Scripture which describes the conquest of the world by Jesus, and the opening of His reign, sets it forth as a sudden, sharp, decisive conflict, and not the slow, gradual transformation by spreading of Gospel principles.

5. Lot went out and spake unto his sons-in-law, and said, "Up, get you out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city,"� but he seemed as one that "mocked unto them,"� and of course they ridiculed him as a fanatic or a crazy man. The same truth that we are to be soon taken up from the earth out of this wicked age, and that God will soon let loose the four winds of the great tribulation on the world, is being ridiculed by formal church-members. Lot's daughters were the professed servants of God, but they married husbands in Sodom. This is a fitting type of millions to-day who are the professed servants of God, but are all intermarried with politics, and secret societies, and fashion, and worldly pleasure, and dishonesty in business, and they think the present order of things is a good enough heaven for them, and laugh to scorn the humble servants who warn them of the coming wrath.

6. Even Lot was rather slow about leaving the doomed city early next morning, and the angels laid hold upon the hand of Lot, and upon the hand of his wife, and the two daughters, and brought them forth rapidly without the city, and told them to escape to the mountains. Thus even the righteous ones in the Church to-day are rather tardy in getting filled with the Spirit, and putting on the white robe of a lowly and Christ-like mind, and it may require some extraordinary operation of God to hasten their preparation to escape the tribulation, and ascend up into the mountains of the air to meet the Lord.

7. Just as soon as Lot and his family were out of the city a sufficient distance, the Lord rained fire and brimstone out of Heaven upon Sodom, and overthrew the cities of the plains. The terrific judgments could not begin until the righteous were taken away. In like manner the saints are the salt of the earth, and when they are caught away at the coming of Jesus, then such calamities will be poured out on the nations as never have been known in the world's history. The brimstone rained on Sodom is a fitting type of the burning of gunpowder, which is made of sulphur, that will be consumed in the great worldwide war described in the twenty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah, when the "whirlwind of desolation shall be raised up upon the coasts of the whole earth, and when the slain of the Lord shall extend from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth, and when so many people will be killed that the living ones will not lament for the dead, nor bury them in graves."�

8. After going a part of the way. Lot's wife looked back, and lingered in the plain behind her husband, and she became a pillar of salt. She was ruined because her natural affections for her children and home predominated over her love for God, and over the spirit of obedience. She wanted to escape, but only half-heartedly, and she let her natural earthborn love and fleshly ties control her will. She is a type of the half-hearted Church, and carnal professors of religion, who want to serve God, and will make an effort, and go a part of the way in escaping the coming wrath, and going out to meet the Bridegroom, but who are not crucified in their hearts to sin. Vast multitudes of Christians allow the earthly affections for kinfolk and old friends, and their natural attachments to property, and home, and music, and art, and church association, and sweet old sentimental feeling, to prevent them from coming out definitely into the sanctifying baptism of the Spirit, and into a life of separation from the world, and of the patient waiting for the coming of the Lord. How few Christians to-day understand what Christ means by saying, "Remember Lot's wife."� She stands as a monument, not of wicked sinners, but of faint-hearted, unsanctified Christians, who let their natural affections keep them from going all the way in a life of holiness and of conformity to Jesus. A similar case is found in that of Orpah, who went with Naomi a part of the way from Moab toward the land of Israel, and then turned back; while Ruth represents the soul entirely devoted to God, who goes all the way, and becomes the Bride of the great Prince. Another and similar instance is found in the man who tried to get into the wedding feast without having on a wedding garment; that is, was not clothed with the blessed Holy Spirit. Another like case is found in the five foolish virgins, who represent Christians and not sinners, and who went a good ways towards a fitness for the wedding, but lacked the great essential of a pure heart filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit. In every one of these instances, as in the case of Lot's wife, there was a definite profession of giving up the world and the old life, and the going to a considerable degree in the journey of the religious life, but in every case we see the operation of natural affection dominating over the love of God, a lack of perfect heart crucifixion, which enables the soul to cut the last shore line, and launch out into the ocean with God, and go all the journey to the meeting of the Lord in His glory. In each of the foregoing points we see a prophecy of facts that are transpiring, and will all take place at no distant day. Blessed are they who lay these things to heart, and keep themselves ready to escape to the high mountains when the King shall call for His own.