The sermon 'Keeping the Heart: the Sidetracking of Lot' by Paul Carrington explores the story of Lot from the Bible, particularly focusing on his choices and the consequences they had on his life and family. Lot, a companion of Abraham, chose the well-watered plains of Jordan for their apparent benefits, despite the wickedness of nearby Sodom. This decision was guided more by sight than faith, leading to misplaced priorities and eventual entanglement in a sinful environment. The speaker contrasts Lot's sight-driven decisions with Abraham's faith-driven journey towards a city built by God. The sermon emphasizes the importance of keeping one's heart fixed on eternal things rather than temporary worldly attractions, drawing parallels from 'Pilgrim's Progress' and cautioning against rationalizing sin. It highlights the tragic outcomes of Lot's choices, including the loss of his family and possessions, and serves as a warning about the dangers of not guarding one's heart. The sermon concludes with a call to remain vigilant in faith, resisting the pull of the world and focusing on the ultimate goal of seeing God face to face.

From the city of destruction, but along the way from the city of destruction to the New Jerusalem, the celestial city, there's another city that I... South, as far as Bethel, to the place where, to the place of the altar, I'm sorry, where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Ai to the place of the altar which he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of the Lord. Lot also who went with Abram had flocks and herds and tents. Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.

And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites then dwelt in the land. So Abram said to Lot, please let there be no strife between you and me and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen for your brethren is not the whole land before you. Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right.

Or if you go to the right, then I will go to the left." And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Like the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zor. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom.

But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father we come to you. Lord you've preserved your word for us. We have before us the good, the bad, Lord, unvarnished truth, and we're grateful that you've kept it for us, and we pray Lord that we would be able to learn from this man, this man who you ultimately saved.

Lord, we ask you to please guide our steps as we also are on this pilgrimage that we would have our eyes fixed on the city ahead, Lord, and not be distracted by this world. May you help us, oh God, we pray, in the name of your son Jesus, Amen. Amen. And so as we continue our study on keeping the heart, hopefully we'll come to the same conclusion as the Puritan John Flavel did. He said this, it is the most important business of the Christian life, keeping your heart.

And it's the greatest difficulty after conversion. You've been saved, your heart has been captured for the Lord, but then there's this, again this pilgrimage through these winding roads that lead us to the city. And if you're an unbeliever I just want to be very, very clear. Any attempts to, you know, clean up your heart or keep your heart, they're entirely fruitless. You know Charles Spurgeon said it like this, he said that morality may keep you out of jail but it takes the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you out of hell.

And so we're not talking about moral improvement here, just getting better. We're not talking about shaving off some bad habits, but we're talking about this attitude of the heart and its inclination toward God. And we've already seen the bad example of Solomon. We've taken a look at a good example when we had the opportunity to look at the life of Joseph. And what's beautiful is that all through the pages of the Bible we see this concept coming up over and over again, this clarion call to keep the heart with all diligence because from it flow the issues of life.

And what we also see is that many who start well, they don't end up finishing well. And so there's a lot to be learned as we take a look at these examples. And so we need these constant reminders, don't we, to be watchful, to be careful as we're on this program, as lest we too fall. And what I love about some of the old writers when you open up for example Pilgrim's Progress, a book that not only all the adults I'm sure are aware of but also many of the children, Bunyan he was so practical in the way that he described. It wasn't just idea of you know, okay you get to the cross and everything was done, but that was the beginning of his journey.

And there were so many dangers along the way that he identified along the way of the Christians life. As we make our way from that city of destruction to the celestial city we saw, you could say, the slew of despond, you remember that, when Christian fell into discouragement. You've got depression and hopelessness and giant despair in his castle. You've got laziness and sloth that we have to be aware of as we come across the enchanted ground, and of course worldliness, and everyone will remember Vanity Fair. And that's really what I want to focus on today.

You know Charles Spurgeon, he said it like this, he said, do not wade far out into the dangerous sea of this world's comfort. Take the good that God provides for you but say of it it passes away for indeed it is but temporary supply for a temporary need Never suffer your goods to become your God. And so Lot we're here today talking to us. I wonder what would he say to us? What message would he preach to us?

Well as we look at his life there's three categories or three points that I really want to make and the first one is what Lot saw. The second one is where Lot went and then finally what Lot paid. And you see here in verse one, or sorry in verse, what is it here, and Lot in verse 10 lifted up his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan. That word saw, he saw all the plain of Jordan. And what did he see?

He saw that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go towards Zorah. And you notice this idea of lifting up your eyes. In the New Testament we see Jesus telling his disciples, lift up your eyes. He's talking about the fields that are white on the harvest, but here Lot lifted up his eyes and what he took in had a massive impact on the entire trajectory of his life. And this is really the first thing that we learn about our brother Lot, is that our eyes, just like his, they're never neutral, are they?

What we take in, where we focus our attention, is going to determine our direction. And oftentimes we can be overconfident and think that we can somehow not be influenced by the things that we see, but not so. And so here he was, a companion of the father of faith, the patriarch of the nation of Israel, but Lot was a man guided by his eyes more than he was a man that was guided by faith. He was a believer but he was more influenced by what he saw than what he actually believed. And it's not two dissimilar than us I don't think if we're honest, at least when I look at myself I often lament how often the temporary things of this life and they compete with the eternal things for mind share and heart share in my own heart.

You know this we heard today about this gravitational pull of heaven, but there's also a gravitational pull of the world and it's pulling on all of us. And I would just say, how about you? What consumes your waking thoughts? Where do you find your heart most attracted or most excited? Where, I could just ask, where does your mind share and heart share get most taken up?

And so consider the contrast that we have before us. We've got the father of faith, though imperfect. We all know about Abraham and many of his failings, but he walked by faith. And what is faith? Faith is this believing in the promises of God and then acting.

It's this idea of orienting your whole life toward a destination because you believe in the promise that God has made to you. And even though what's interesting that Abraham was also looking for a physical place right he he was called out of Ur of the Chaldees to this physical land But what you find when you get to the book of Hebrews is something so beautiful that he had set his sights so much further Beyond just finding a place in Canaan a physical place for the nation of Israel It says in Hebrews that he was waiting for a city or looking searching for a city that has foundations. And it says whose builder and maker is God. But what did Lot see? What did Lot see?

You see this description here and it's superlative upon superlative. You see it was well watered everywhere. That's number one. It says like Eden, basically like the Garden of Jehovah. And then finally it says it was like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zori.

It's like he couldn't, there weren't enough words to describe the beauty of what was ahead of him. It's almost like his sight terminated in the present. That's what he ended up having his eyes gravitationally pulled towards. And there's so many things you could say as a man just like Lot, a better business opportunity there never was. Here's a man, after all if you go back in chapter 12 of Genesis what do you find but that he and Abram had just come out of a severe famine, not just a famine, but a severe famine in the land.

But now that's not going to happen again. There's streams and lakes as far as the eye can see, lush green grass ahead, a ready market for his livestock, and the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had all sorts of opportunities that a man could find himself carried away in, and network, and all of these different things. And he knew what everyone else knew at the time. It wasn't a secret that the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. That's what it says here in verse 13, but it seems like Lot was willing to take his chances.

And we learn of a second thing about our brother Lot here as well in these few verses, as a result, and this is important, there's a connection, as a result of walking by sight he was a man of misplaced priorities. He was a man guided by the immediate and when he put everything in the scales, the cost benefit of enterprise and opportunity, it seemed to weigh more heavily than anything else. And so he was already rich, right? We just read that he was rich, both him and Abraham, but who could turn down this once-in-a-lifetime offer that was right in front of him. And so these two connected things, he was a man that walked by sight, not as much by faith, and as a result of that he had these misplaced priorities.

And so he set his feet on a path and a trajectory. It says here that he pitched his tent as far as Sodom. And this morning we heard how Christ, what did he do? He pitched his tent. There was a mission that Christ was about.

For the salvation of men, He pitched his tent among us, God with us. And here's Lot, instead of pitching his tent more inclined toward the celestial city, toward the New Jerusalem, he pitches his tent toward the very place that God hates. And so we learn the second thing here. We come to our our second point. We saw what Lot saw, but what about where Lot went?

It says, then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan and journeyed east. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. And Christian brother and sister, what I want to ask you, and these are questions I ask myself, is where are you headed right now? Notice what I'm not asking. I'm not asking where are you?

But I'm asking where are you headed right now? In other words, what is the gravitational pull that has most influence in your life? What's the trajectory of your life? Or you could ask, what's the trajectory of your family? Where are you headed?

Are you on the narrow path? Or is that fork in the road miles back and you're off on another course. I know you're here today it's Sunday I'm not talking about where did you come today I'm talking about something much more about the orientation member we're talking about keeping the heart it's something altogether different And so don't be fooled because your trajectory has everything to do with keeping the heart. Where you're going, not where you're at right now, whatever you're going through, all these things, but where are you actually going? You have to ask yourself that question.

Unfortunately Lot didn't. And sin, it's funny because sin always presents itself as something that's controllable. But it just never seems to work out that way, does it? And we've heard that statement before that sin will take you further than you ever intended to go. It will keep you longer than you ever intended to stay and it will cost you more than you ever intended to stay.

I've talked to people, I had a friend in Turkey and every time we meet he would be he would be smoking and you know he says I'm going to quit, you know I'm just going to quit on my terms when I want to quit, but as far as I know he hasn't quit. He doesn't recognize the pull that that habit has upon him, and so he continues in it thinking I'll break it off one day, But it doesn't always work out like that. And perhaps a lot wasn't too different than my friend or maybe even a lot of us. You know we can fall for the self-talk. I don't know if you've ever done that to yourself.

When you really want something and then you build all the evidence or all the reasons around it to acquire that thing even though it may be harmful or destructive. I wonder what self-talk in the little snapshot we have of him here in Genesis 13 led him to rationalize his move towards Sodom. Well we see here Abraham and Lot, they go their separate ways at this fork in the road, and it led Lot away from the New Jerusalem, away from the celestial city towards Vanity Fair. We're always going in some direction, some direction in former fashion. And what happens in chapter 14 is that the warning bells go off.

This is the mercy of God you would think. It's always a great mercy when God halts us on a downward decline or when we're going the wrong way. And you could ask yourself has the Lord ever done that for you? I know he's done that for me. Probably he's done it for me more times than I paid attention to, where he mercifully interrupts your self-destruction.

And it's now 14 years, you go to chapter 14, chapter 13 we find out where Lot went, 14 years later in a blink of an eye There's this war that breaks out in the course of time and Sodom and Gomorrah are plundered and Lot is caught up in the crossfire and you read in verse 12 they also took Lot, Abraham's son, brother's son who dwelt in Sodom and his goods and departed. So Abram is now this prisoner of war that's been captured and it's only when Abram decides he's going to save the day he gathers his warband of 318 men and he goes and he delivers Lot, not only Lot, but he basically decimates the invading horde and ends the war. But what you find out about Abram is something so instructive. When Abram finally delivers everything back, The king of Sodom offers him this lavish reward for everything, but instead of taking thanks he says I'm not even going to take from a thread to a sandal strap. He didn't want anything to do.

The only reason he leapt into action was not to deliver Sodom and Gomorrah, it was to deliver his nephew. He doesn't stick around for the victory parade, he doesn't stay around for the feast in his honor, but he's gone and he's back to where he was. And so you can ask the question, well has Lot now had enough? Surely that would have been a wake-up call. That was a close call.

I mean can you get a closer call than being taken captive? He could have gone and become a slave or something even worse. Who knows what would have happened to him. But we flip over to a few chapters. Lot fades from the scene and God's dealings with Abraham are recorded.

And finally we get to chapter 18. And you can go there. And Abraham is visited by the pre-incarnate Lord. What a beautiful thing. There's Lot.

He's sitting at the entrance of his tent and the Lord comes and meets with him. And in the course of the conversation the Lord decides to disclose his plan to destroy Sodom. It says in verse 20 of chapter 18, because the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great. I mean this city was notorious and its reputation had just resounded even in the halls of heaven and because their sin is very grave. Matthew Henry in commenting on the people of Sodom he says that these men were daring sinners.

They were daring sinners rushing to do evil. And you can see all of a sudden now alarm bells go off in Abraham's mind, because he still has his heart for lot. He loves his nephew. And so we see this conversation between him and the Lord, and we I think will recall that conversation, call that conversation, if there are 50 righteous will you destroy the land? And it comes down to this final request of Abraham.

He says let not the Lord be angry on this humble approach and I will speak but once more. Suppose 10 righteous should be found there. Lord, he said earlier, shall not the judge of all the earth do right, you know. Lord you're not going to judge the righteous with the wicked. And of course we know God is always just and always righteous, But what we find out is that Sodom is going to stand for all time as a warning to all peoples and cultures and nations.

Don't go this way. Right? That's what Sodom really represents. This is how nations, this is how peoples die by the self-destructiveness. They were given over to their own uncleanness.

You can read about them and some of the habits that take place in Ezekiel 16 or even Romans 1 has shades of what went on in the days of the people of Sodom. Jude 1 verse 7, Jude 7, it says Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh are set forth as an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. This is what God does to nations, to peoples, to cities that abandon his ways and go in this path, this rampant sexual immorality. And you could, you know it's tempting, we could spend the rest of the afternoon drawing the parallels between our present day and what went on in the days of Sodom, but we're focused on something else which is keeping the heart in the midst of the temptations that are around us. Well I want to take us from what Lot saw, from where Lot went to what Lot paid, the final point.

And this is the price he paid for not keeping his heart. In chapter 19 we see here it says, Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them he rose to meet them and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground and he said here now my lords please turn into your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet then you may rise early and go on your way." He's doing almost the same thing where almost a mimicry or exact example of Abram that we saw sitting at his tent entrance. But consider the progression. He looked years ago, he oriented his tent, He moved in.

Now he's definitely a citizen of Sodom, and likely when you read all the different commentaries, maybe even a civic leader of the city state. And you have to ask yourself, well he had risen to this level, was he the one that was able to curry favor? Remember years ago Abraham had delivered not just Lot but all the sodomites. And was he now able to create this favor among the sodomites for this great deliverance from the Elamite invasion? That's a possibility.

You know he was the only reason that Abraham actually had left into action with his war band. Well once this was known he would probably have been treated with a lot of respect and regard and honor, even though remember Abraham he refused to take even a thread or a sandal strap, maybe not so with Lot and so here he is, he settled down inside the gates of Sin City, a town that was renowned for its debauchery. And we learn more about this man as we as we read on, but one of the most tragic things is he allowed these citizens to marry his daughters. And what's interesting is that you don't even hear about anything about Lot and his family until you get to chapter 19. And the question that I never asked myself before about reading this is, is it possible that Lot's wife was also a Sodomite?

She was from Sodom. It's a possibility because you don't hear anything about her until this chapter. And so here he is living here. He had his own private religion, things that he was able to do, but there was really no life separation, which we're going to see in a moment. Although everything in this culture screamed at him to come out from among them, he persisted.

He stayed. Again maybe, hey I can break it off. If it gets really bad you'll find me on my way out of here. We'll find out what happens to this man. Unfortunately he was no longer a pilgrim.

He was no longer living in tents like Abraham. Doesn't seem like he was all that interested in the celestial city, at least as he was when they first came out of Ur of the Chaldees, but no, now he had settled down in Vanity Fair, but oh what a price this man paid. You know this, when you look at second Peter chapter 2 this is the only indication that lends us to believe we know now that he was a brother he was a man that was saved because it says that righteous Lot who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked For that righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. This is a man who was grieved for sure. He was grieved by what he saw, He was grieved by what he heard but not enough to actually make a change.

I can quit anytime, but if it gets really bad I'll quit. This idea of rationalizing sin, this is, if you have to find one most common failure of the Christian life, It is this temptation to rationalize with sin. And this is what was happening here. They're lawless deeds and all that he heard and saw, it was grinding him down daily. Just very slowly but daily grinding him down.

That word oppressed means to be worn down with toil, to become exhausted. And that's what happened to this man's spiritual life. The vitality of his heart was being drained out of him little by little, every single day. A believer, yes, but look what was happening to his heart and everything else. And so we get our first real introduction, our first real hand, first hand introduction to the citizens of the city in verse five.

Verse four will go there. It says, now before they lay down these men who had come and visited Lot, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter surrounded the house. This isn't the welcome wagon. And they called Lot to Lot and said to him, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out that we may know them carnally.

This is, I mean you can't get more evil than this. And there are a lot of parallels between this age and the age that we're in now. You know the age that we're in now, the strategy is to own the dictionary. You can own the terms, you can kind of soften the sin. You know adultery is an affair, right?

It's not what the Bible actually says it is. And now the sin of sodomy, we can lessen the blow and call it, you know, same-sex attraction, or the one I heard most recently, same-gender loving, same-gender loving. What in the world is this? But the Bible says that this evil is in the same category as incest and bestiality. So let the Word of God be the guide.

Let's not become watered down because the culture makes something tolerable. Years ago a book came out called After the Ball. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It was written on how can we make homosexuality tolerable in America. After the ball is kind of this idea.

When we're done, this is what we hope to have accomplished. And their whole idea was just normalization. That's how you do it. Normalize it to the point where you see two men walking down the street. It's not normal.

It's not no big deal. You see characters or whatever it is. It becomes normal and it lessens the edge. But I'm not talking about the sin of sodomy. I'm talking about sin in general.

That's what happens to all of us as we live in this world. And so in verse six it says, So Lot went out to them through the doorway and shut the door behind him, and said, Please my brethren, Do not do so wickedly. And here this man as he spent decades building up and now he's going to spend all of his social capital. But it goes up in seconds, just like that, as he tries to save his two guests with this plea, please do not do so wickedly. And the shocking thing that I see here, he can acknowledge that it would be an absolutely wicked thing to abuse these two guests that just came, these angels that came to his house.

But as an alternative to doing wickedly, what does he do? He offers his two virgin daughters to the mob. Don't do wickedly here, do this. This is how you can lose your entire perspective on what is right and what is wrong. And anyways we see what happens again once more compromise it backfires and things escalate and they even threaten to take Lot and do even worse than they were thinking of than to the angels.

And so you've got this shocking scene. The angels now have enough because Lot's about to be attacked and they grab him and they pull him into the house. It's this shocking scene. They strike these mob, this entire mob blind. These men are blind, but look what happens.

It's amazing. And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they became weary trying to find the door. If all of a sudden everyone in this building went blind, it's going to change your listening to me probably, right? All of a sudden another problem is, but these men were so bent on wickedness that they double down their efforts, wearying themselves to find the door, to do what they had intended to do originally. I'm blind but I'm going to do what I'm going to do.

This is the wicked wickedness that these men had had developed in their hearts over time. In verse 12 and 13, then the man said to Lot, have you anyone else here, son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, take them out of this place, for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord and the Lord has sent us to destroy it. Well here's Lot. He's been told now figure out where you got anyone else here you've got to go. So a lot likely he goes you know out the back door.

You can imagine a man running breathlessly down the street, sandals slapping. Finally he gets to the door, knocks on the door of his sons-in-law and his daughters-in-law. But something's happened. He tells them, he gives them the warning. Angels are going to, they're at my house right now.

They're going to destroy this city. We need to leave tonight. But behold the life of, behold the fruit of a life of compromise. Think about this for a second. One too many, one too many smiles and laughs at a dirty joke in their company.

Maybe Lot had given one too many winks when a friend ripped off a fellow citizen at the market. Maybe one too many drinks at the family get-togethers. Maybe one too many corners cut in the name of it's just business. You know. His pleading, what's interesting is his pleading was unrecognizable.

He had never pled for their souls before, so now he's pleading for their souls on the eve of the destruction of the city of Sodom and Gomorrah. It wasn't a pattern of this man who was a believer, but it was all of a sudden out of the blue. And the only conclusion it says here, it says that he seemed to be joking. It's staggering. He seemed to be joking.

You can almost hear the words of the Lord when he said these words to Samuel about Eli, his sons made themselves vile and he did not restrain them. This is the thing that was going on. So his mission fails, he runs back to his house with the bad news, tells his wife no one else is coming, it's just us. But it wasn't quite so easy in verse 16, and while he lingered the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand, and his daughter's hands, the Lord being merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside the city.

You've got this picture of him lingering there. He's doing all of this math in his mind. If I leave, what about all these things that I've...you could see he's lingering. Something is causing him to not flee and to actually obey the voice of God. And the only thing you can narrow it down to is that his life had become so entangled in the web of the world.

That to extract it, it just wasn't that easy. To obey God now, how am I going to do that? He had heard the sermon, the angels had preached, but now it's time to apply the sermon, and he's lingering, he's uncertain on what to do next. And so you see this picture of them forcibly taking him by the hand, his wife's hand and his two daughters hands. It's a great lesson by the way contrasting Lot and these angels in terms of even evangelism, this great lesson of pleading and then forcibly grabbing, they're going to save this man with this message, flee from the wrath to come.

And I ask you that question, have you ever pleaded with souls? It's a good question maybe to ask yourself. Have you ever pleaded with souls? Escape for your life is what they say here. Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plane because all you have at the end of the day is your soul.

Do you understand that? That at the end of the day you came, we were talking about that at home the other day, you came into this world with nothing. Not an empty pocket, not even a pocket. And you're going to end going out of this world with nothing. All you have is your soul.

What would it profit a man if you gained the whole world, but in the gaining you lose your own soul. That's all you have. That's all you have. So you want to keep your heart with all diligence. And if you're not a believer to turn your heart to the living God and flee from the wrath that is to come.

It may not come. Lot was there for decades and then it finally came. The knock of the door and it's time to go. Well you can imagine there they were, Lot being led by these two men, these angels through the winding streets, out through the gates, and out into the open. But then when you come to the New Testament you get one of the shortest scriptures in the entire Bible.

Remember Lot's wife. Jesus is talking in Luke chapter 17 and Lot's wife, we know the story, she looked back and it wasn't just the fact that she looked back but there was something in her heart that was pulling her back. And the wife of Lot ended up again becoming a pillar, not just of salt, but a pillar for all time to those who are almost saved. She has many millions of sons and daughters, many millions who have heard the message, maybe have taken some initial steps but didn't close with Christ, that didn't come to a full saving knowledge of Jesus. She has many, many millions of children all down through the ages.

Almost saved, almost delivered, but not so. And Lot continues. And so what did Lot pay? Well he lost his wife, but not only his wife. He had originally gone, if we go back to chapter 13, he had gone to Sodom to build up lot enterprises, LLC, his vast herds, but up in smoke just like that.

His children, where are they? Perhaps his grandchildren? All gone. His home, his furniture, his keepsakes, everything, gone. His testimony and integrity, all of it gone.

All in a moment, all of his life's work, just just gone. And you bow your head almost and say, you can't even imagine, how could things get any worse than this, except it does get worse. Now you've got a man who is living in a beautiful home, dwelling in a cave. And the sad, sad state of affairs of how this man became both the father and the grandfather of two nations that will wage war with the children of Israel down through the centuries, the Moabites and the Ammonites. So you come to this tragic end and though he was saved, this man, his bad decisions didn't only affect him but his wife, his children, his grandchildren, and his future prosperity, his future posterity.

So speaking is a lot. I want to end just with maybe a few words as I could imagine our brother would say to us here from his vantage point now. My message to you today is keep your heart with all diligence. I was on the path with Uncle Abraham to the city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. It was a wonderful beginning, but oh what a fateful day when I looked, then moved toward, then moved into, saw them.

My better judgment, God's Word, and the Holy Spirit were whispering no, but my appetites and ambitions were screaming yes. And so I left the highway of holiness and exited to Vanity Fair where I took my residence for a good long time. A dual citizen of heaven and of the world. Vanity Fair seemed to have it all with her enticing speech she caused me to yield, and with her flattering lips she seduced me. I went after her as an ox goes to the slaughter, and did not reckon that it would cost me all.

Though I was saved as through by fire, everything else was burned up like wood, hay, and straw before my eyes. Now therefore listen to me, O my children, pay attention to the words of my mouth. Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways. Do not stray into her paths. Keep on to the holy city, the new Jerusalem, and do not linger along the way.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we feel our need for you, Lord. If it were up to us to keep our hearts we would have shipwrecked long ago. Lord we're prone to wander. Lord we feel it and we ask You to please help us Father.

We want to be where we heard this morning Lord of the wonder the glory of the new heavens and the new earth and it's not because of all the benefits Lord but it's because you are there and we want to see you face to face Lord would you help us increase our appetites for the things of you, Lord the things of heaven. Oh Lord as we go on this pilgrimage we pray Lord you would extract us and help us. Lord of any of my brothers and sisters are there in Sodom in the world dwelling. Oh Father I pray you would help them help me, each one of us Father, to walk in the way that you've prescribed. Even though it may be a lonely narrow road Lord we pray keep us on it.

We want to see you face to face, Lord, and we want to hear well done, good and faithful servant. May you make it come to pass in the name of Jesus, amen, amen. God bless you, we're dismissed. Thank you, Miss.