Part 6

The thirty-third verse of the eighth chapter says they were all there--“as well the stranger as he that was born among them.” You see, Joshua made no distinction. He read to the stranger as well as to those that were of the children of Israel. It was all read.

And now Joshua is ready to move on. The law had been read, they had worshiped their God, and they were ready to move on. Undoubtedly the nations throughout that land had heard how this solemn assembly had met on the mountain side and the law had been read. Now they are ready to move on again. They had been there about three days.

Some one now comes to Joshua with startling news. The messenger begins with the question: “Joshua, have you heard that there is a confederacy formed to oppose you? Instead of meeting one man you are to meet five. They are coming down from the mountains with great regiments of giants. Why, the mountains are full of the sons of Anak--full of giants--and some of them are six feet high. Why, they are so big that they would scare our own men to death. Why, one man came out and just shook his little finger at our men, and scared them out of their lives. There was not a man who dared to meet them. The whole land is full of giants. Do you know that they have formed a confederacy? Five kings are coming down against you with hordes of these giants.”

I see the old warrior. He does not tremble at all. He had received the word of God: “Joshua, be of good courage. No man shall be able to stand against you.” He moved on in his godly armor and in the name of his God, and he routed his adversaries. The hour was growing late, and he commanded Sun and Moon to stand still, and they obeyed him. So there were two days in one. He found the five kings hid away in a cave, and he took them out and hanged them. He took thirty-one kings and kingdoms. He just took that land by faith.

Now, some people ask: “What right had he to come over and take that land?” If you will read the fourth verse of the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy, you will see what right he had. “Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying: ‘For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land.’ But, for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord doth drive them out from before thee.”

That is why He drove them out. Their cup of iniquity was filled, and God just dashed it to pieces. When any nation’s cup of iniquity is full, God sweeps them away.

Now, mark the Scripture: “Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess their land; but, for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord thy God hath driven them out from before thee, and that He may perform the word which the Lord swore unto thy fathers--Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” “Understand, therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people.”

They were a stiff-necked people. It was not for the righteousness of the children of Israel that the Lord gave them this land. He hated these nations on account of their wickedness.

Now, Joshua has overcome them and driven them from the face of the earth, and this brings out one noble trait in his character. When he came to divide up the land, Joshua took the poorest treasure himself, that he might be near the ark. And there, on Mount Ephraim, he died at the ripe old age of one hundred and ten years. During all those years not a man was able to stand before him. See the contrast between his dying testimony and that of Jacob! Jacob’s self-reproach was: “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been.” He had a stormy voyage.

Look and see this old warrior going to rest. He had tried God forty years. He had heard the crack of the slave driver’s whip, down there in Egypt. But probably he had a praying mother, who talked to him about this King of the Hebrews, about the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and he believed in that God. When Moses came down into Egypt he found this young man just in the prime of his life. Joshua recognized in Moses that he was an instrument of the Almighty, and that the King of the Hebrews had sent him there to deliver His people.

Joshua had tried God forty years in the wilderness, and when eighty years old he was called into the Promised Land. He had tried God thirty years in Canaan, and now, at the age of one hundred and ten, the aged and invincible warrior is going home. But he is not going to die like an infidel. He knows he is about to die, and he calls for all the tribes of Israel and their elders. These come up from the tribe of Benjamin, the tribe of Simeon, the tribe of Zebulon, and so on; and they are gathered at Shiloh, to be there to hear the old prophet and patriarch.

That man of God speaks, and what does he say? What is his dying testimony? How we all linger around the couch of our dying friends! How anxious we are to get their last words!

Well, let us turn back. What are the last words of this man who has tried God and proved God? These are the words: “I am going the way of all the earth; and ye know in your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you. All are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.”

Not one good thing has failed! God has kept His word. God has made His word good. “Not one good thing hath failed.” What a dying testimony! How glorious! In the beautiful sunset light the old warrior sank away, like he was going to sleep. In the dusk of a beautiful Summer’s evening he passed away. There is the old man’s dying testimony. He could tell the people of God. He was the only one left. The rest had gone. Moses had sunk into his desert grave, and the other leaders of the tribe of Israel had passed away. But now he was going to die in the Promised Land.

Truly, he was a man of courage, obedience and faith.

LOT.

One reason why I take up this character is because I believe he is a representative man, and perhaps there is no Bible character that represents so many men of the present day as Lot of Sodom.

Where you can find one Abraham, one Daniel or one Joshua you can find a thousand Lots.

Lot started out very well. He got rich, and that was the beginning of his troubles. He and Abraham, his uncle, went down to Egypt, and they came out of Egypt with great wealth. The next thing we hear of is strife among their herdsmen.

But Lot could not get up a quarrel with Abraham. Abraham said to him: “You are my nephew, and I can not quarrel with you; but take your goods and go to the right and I will go to the left, or I will go to the right and you go to the left.” And they separated.

Right here Lot made his mistake. He should have said, in reply to Abraham: “No, uncle! I don’t want to leave you. The Lord has blessed me with you, and I do not wish to leave you.” But, if he had been determined to leave his uncle, he should have asked Abraham to choose for him. Instead of that, he lifted up his eyes and saw the well watered plains of Sodom, and that decided him.

No doubt Lot was very ambitious; he probably wanted to become richer. Perhaps there was a little spirit of rivalry toward his uncle. He wanted to excel Abraham in worldly goods--to become rich faster. So he saw and determined upon the well watered plains of Sodom. If he had asked Abraham he would not have gone there. If he had asked God, Lot would never have entered Sodom; no man ever goes into Sodom by God’s advice. He determined for himself, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. I do not know how long Lot lived upon those well watered plains, but no doubt the men of those days said of him when he had settled down: “There is a shrewd man; he is a smart man. Why, I can predict that in a very short time he will be a wealthier man than his uncle, Abraham. Look at these well watered plains. Why, he is a great deal better off than is Abraham now.”

Lot is in a position in which he can soon become a rich man. How long he remained on those plains I do not know, but the next thing we know is that he got into Sodom. We are told that Sodom was very wicked. Lot lived near it, and he went into it with his eyes open, for he knew all about it. The wickedness of Sodom was coming up to God. He was going to destroy it soon. Do you think, if Lot had asked Him, He would have permitted the nephew of Abraham to enter that city?

All the years that Lot was in Sodom we do not read that he had any family altar. He must have known it meant ruin for his family to take them in there. But he did not look at that. It was business that took him there. He might have said: “Well, I’ve got a large family. I’ve got a great many dependent upon me, and I must get rich faster; so I will go into Sodom. Business is the first consideration, and it must be attended to.” So he goes into Sodom, and the next thing we hear he is in trouble. Sodom had got a war on hand, and when he went into the city he was forced to take its side. In the war he was taken captive. It is a great mercy he was not killed in battle.

The first thing Abraham did when he heard of his nephew’s trouble was to set out after him. When Lot was captured in battle he was liable to be taken into slavery, and his children also. He might have died in slavery if Abraham had not gone after him. But Abraham takes his servants and sets out and overtakes the warriors who had taken Lot captive, and brought him back, with all the property that had been taken.

Now, you would think Lot would have kept out of Sodom. You would expect to hear of his saying: “I have had enough of Sodom; I will not go near it again.” You would think that men, when they get into this and that difficulty and affliction, would keep out of Sodom; but they will not. It is one of the greatest mysteries to me why men will remain in their Sodom when they have continual trouble.

So Lot went back. Probably he said: “I’ve lost a great deal, and I must go back and try to recover it. I must go back and make it up for my children.” And he prospered in Sodom.

If you had gone into Sodom before these angels came down you would probably have found that no man had got on so well. If they had a Congress, perhaps they sent him to represent Sodom, because no man had done better in business. That is the way of the world. Possibly they might have made him Mayor of Sodom. If you could have seen his “turnout,” it would have been one of the very best. Mrs. Lot must have moved in the most select society of the city. The Misses Lot were looked upon as the most fashionable people there. They got on well.

Perhaps Lot was a judge and had great influence. When the angels got to the gate they might have heard of the Honorable Judge Lot. It sounded pretty well. He might have owned many corner lots. He might have owned many buildings with “Lot” printed all over them, and on account of his property he might have been a very high man in Sodom. That is the way the world looks at it. No doubt the dispositions of those people were exactly as they are today. Human nature has been pretty much the same always.

But time rolls on, and Lot, while sitting at the gate one evening, saw two strangers upon the highway. They are coming toward Sodom. Likely these Sodomites did not know them, but twenty years before Lot had been in the company of Abraham, and he had seen these men at his uncle’s house--had seen them sitting at his uncle’s table. So he knew these angels when they approached, and he bowed down and worshiped them; he bowed down to the ground, and then invited them into his residence. But it was a sink of iniquity, and they would not enter in. Lot pressed his invitation upon them, and finally they accepted.

The news was soon noised around the streets that he had two strangers there, and it was not long before a crowd was around the door, and wanted to know whom he had inside.

Lot came out and endeavored to pacify them, but he was met with the derisive query: “Who made this fellow a judge over us?” He was dragged back into the house, and the door was shut against the mob. His influence was gone. He had been in the city twenty years and had not made a convert.

I suppose Lot lived in a marble front house there, and his heart was away from God. Then these men said to Lot: “Whom have you got here beside yourself? What is your family? Have you got any others beside yourself in this town?”

Well, the father and mother had to own up that they had married their children to some of the Sodomites. That was the result of his going into the city. You go into the world and live like the world, and see what the result will be. How many fathers and mothers are now mourning on account of marrying their sons and daughters to Sodomites! Marrying them to death and ruin!

These angels said to Lot: “If you have got any, get them out of this place, for God is determined to burn it up. Tell them this, and if they will not come, escape for your lives and leave them, for He will surely destroy the city.”

Now, all these twenty years we do not know that Lot ever had a family altar. He could not call his children around him and pray to his God. They had all become identified with Sodom and its people.

Look at that scene. There are the men at the outside of the door, groping about to find it, and the door opens and Lot starts out to tell his son-in-law of the coming destruction. I can see the old man, head bowed down, passing through the streets of Sodom at midnight.

He goes to a house and knocks. No sound; all are asleep. He knocks again, and likely shouts at the top of his voice; and the man gets up and opens the window. He puts his head out and asks:

“Who’s there?”

“Lot, your father-in-law.”

“What has brought you out of bed at this hour? What’s up?”

“Why, two angels are at my house, who say that God is going to destroy Sodom and every one who shall remain here.”

“You go home and get to bed.”

They mock Lot. He has lost his testimony. They all think he is deluded.

I can see him now, going off to another daughter’s house. I know not how many daughters Lot had. He might have had as many daughters as Job. He goes to them, and they mock him, too.

There is that old man, in that midnight hour, plodding along those streets of Sodom to urge them to flee from the city, and they mock him. He had been long enough with Abraham to know that every thing that came from God could be relied upon.

Now he starts back home. You can see him--his head bowed down, his long white hair flowing over his bosom and tears flowing from those aged eyes! The world calls him a successful man; but what a miserable end is his! Look at him tonight! He had achieved his ambition, and was wealthy. He obtained what he longed for, but with it came leanness of soul.

Next morning the angels take him by the hand. He and his wife and two daughters are led out of the city. And they lingered. How could they do otherwise than linger, when they had left their sons and daughters in the city and knew they would be destroyed?

Yes, they linger. I do not blame them. They had, probably, a faint hope that the threatened storm might be stayed, and they could get their children out. But the angels took them by the hand and hastened them out of the city.

Poor mother! Ah, how sad when God came in judgment! I can see that mother hesitating, but God orders her not to look back. “Flee for your life; escape or you will be destroyed.” “No man having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Mrs. Lot gets out of Sodom, but she looks back, and judgment falls upon her. And I believe that the condition of Lot’s wife is the condition of millions today. They have come out of Sodom, but their hearts are in the world. They ask: “Have I to give up the world? Have I to give up all and follow Christ?” They linger and look back, and judgment will fall upon them.

We are told in the Scriptures that the people were eating, drinking, buying and selling, planning and building until the very moment Lot went out of Sodom. Perhaps not a man in all Sodom took any account of his going out. It might have got rumored around that he was going because he believed the city was about to be destroyed, but no man believed it. His sons and daughters did not believe what their father said to them, and the Son of God says they were all destroyed--great and small, learned and unlearned, rich and poor. All alike perished.

Bear in mind that if you live in Sodom destruction will come upon you. The world may call you successful, but the only way to test success is to take a man’s whole life--not the beginning nor middle, but the whole of it. If a man is in Sodom, he will find at last the fruits of his life to be

“Nothing but leaves--nothing but leaves.”

Lot spent his life in gaining worldly goods for his children, and he lost all and his children besides.

How many men of the present day can only say they have the same object in view that Lot had. They went into the city to make money. They have built no family altar. They recognize only two things--money and business. They say: “My sons may become gamblers and drunkards and my daughters may go off into ungodly society and marry drunkards and make their lives miserable; but I want money, and I will have all I wish if I get it.”

My friends, was Lot’s life a successful one? It was a stupendous failure. Let us not follow in the footsteps of this man Lot. Let us keep out of Sodom.

MARTHA.

There was a woman right in the midst of this darkness, when many disciples left Him, who came forward and invited Him to her home--a woman by the name of Martha.

I can imagine Martha coming from Bethany, one day, and going into the Temple, in Jerusalem, to worship. The great Galilean Prophet came in, Who spake as never man spake, and she listened to His words. And as the words came from His lips they fell upon Martha’s ears, and she says: “Well, I will invite Him to my house.”

It must have cost her something to do that. Christ was unpopular. There was a hiss going up in Jerusalem against Him. They called Him an impostor. All the leading men of the nation were opposed to Him. They said He was Beelzebub, the Lord of filth. They charged that He was an impostor and a deceiver. And yet Martha invites Him to her home. I hope there will always be some Martha to invite Him to her home, to be her guest. He will make that home a thousand times better than it ever was before.

Martha invited Him home with her. We read of His going often to Bethany. The noblest, best and grandest thing Martha ever did was to make room in her home for Jesus Christ. That one act will live for ever. Little did she know, when she invited the Son of God to become her guest, who He was; and when we receive Jesus into our hearts little do we know who He is. It will take all eternity to find out who He is.

There was a dark cloud then over that home in Bethany, but Martha did not know it. Neither did Mary see that cloud. It was fast settling down upon that home. It was soon going to burst upon that little family. The Savior knew all about it. He saw that dark cloud coming across that threshold.

We read that Jesus often lodged there. But a few months after He became their friend and guest, Lazarus sickened. The fever laid hold of him. It might have been typhoid fever.

You can see those two sisters watching over their brother. The family physician is sent for to Jerusalem, and he comes out and does every thing he can to restore Lazarus to health; but he sinks lower and lower. Some of us know what it is when the doctor comes in and feels the pulse, begins to look very serious and takes you into another room, away from the patient, and tells you it is a critical case.

Martha and Mary passed through that experience. There was no hope, and Lazarus must die. They felt that if Jesus was only here He would rebuke this disease. He might prevent death from taking away our only brother. They sent a messenger a good ways off to tell Jesus His friend was sick, and this was the message:

“He whom Thou lovest is sick.”

They do not ask Him to come. They knew Jesus loved Lazarus, and that He would come if it was for their good. The messenger at last returned. He found Christ and delivered his message. When he got back, he found that the cloud had burst upon that little home, and Lazarus was dead and buried.

I see those two sisters as they gather around the messenger, eagerly plying him with questions. They asked: “Did you find Him?”

“Yes, I found Him.”

“What did He say?”

“He said the sickness was not unto death, and He would come and see him.”

Now, for the first time, I see faith beginning to stagger. Mary asks the messenger:

“Are you sure you understood Him? Did He say the sickness was not unto death?”

“Yes.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that is strange. If He is a prophet He should have known that Lazarus was dead. Sure Elijah would have known it. If He was a prophet, He must have known it. You had not been away from the house an hour before Lazarus died. He was dead when you met Him.”

“Well, that is what He told me. He said He would come here and see him.”

I see those two sisters as they kept watching for that Friend to come and comfort them. How long those nights must have seemed, as they watched and waited! I can imagine they did not sleep through the night, but listened to hear a footfall. The next day they watched, and He did not come. The second night passed, and He did not come. The third day came, and He did not come. The fourth day comes, and the messenger returns and says: “Martha, Jesus and His apostles are just outside the walls of the city. He is coming on toward Bethany.” Martha runs out to meet Him, and says: “If Thou hadst been here my brother had not died. Thou wouldst have kept death away from our dwelling.”

Jesus answered her: “But thy brother shall rise again.”

“Yes, I knew that,” says Martha. “I know Lazarus will rise again, for he was such a good brother. He will rise at the resurrection of the just.”

Jesus had probably taught them of the resurrection. He answered Martha: “I am the resurrection of the just. I carry the keys with Me. I have the keys to death and the grave.” Then He asks: “Where is Mary? Go call her.”

They ran and told Mary that Jesus was there. Mary met Jesus with the words of Martha:

“If Thou hadst been here my brother had not died.”

“Thy brother shall rise again. Where have you laid him?”

“Come and see.”

And they led the way. Look at that company moving along toward the grave yard. These two sisters are telling about the last words and last acts of Lazarus. Perhaps Lazarus left a loving message for Jesus. You know what that is. When you go to see friends who are mourning, how they will dwell upon the last words and the last acts of the departed ones! You see Martha and Mary weeping as they went along toward the grave, and the Son of God wept with them.

Jesus said to His disciples: “Take away the stone.”

Again the faith of those sisters wavered, and they said: “Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he has been dead four days.” They did not know who their Friend was. When the disciples rolled away that stone Christ cried in a loud voice to His old friend:

“Lazarus, come forth.”

Then Lazarus leaped out of that same sepulcher and came forth. Some old divine has said it was a good thing that Jesus singled out Lazarus, for there is such power in the voice of the Son of God that the dead shall hear His voice, and if He had not called for Lazarus by name all the dead in that grave yard would have come forth.

Little did Martha know whom she was entertaining when she invited Christ into her home. The world has been sneering at Martha ever since. But it was by far the grandest, sublimest and noblest act of her life.

MEPHIBOSHETH.