Destruction of Sodom
143
Those who secure for their children worldly wealth and honor at
the expense of their eternal interests, will find in the end that these
advantages are a terrible loss. Like Lot, many see their children ruined,
and barely save their own souls. Their lifework is lost; their life is a
sad failure. Had they exercised true wisdom, their children might have
had less of worldly prosperity, but they would have made sure of a title
to the immortal inheritance.
The heritage that God has promised to His people is not in this
world. Abraham had no possession in the earth, “no, not so much as to
set his foot on.”
Acts 7:5
. He possessed great substance, and he used
it to the glory of God and the good of his fellow men; but he did not
look upon this world as his home. The Lord had called him to leave
his idolatrous countrymen, with the promise of the land of Canaan as
an everlasting possession; yet neither he nor his son nor his son’s son
received it. When Abraham desired a burial place for his dead, he had
to buy it of the Canaanites. His sole possession in the Land of Promise
was that rock-hewn tomb in the cave of Machpelah.
But the word of God had not failed; neither did it meet its final
accomplishment in the occupation of Canaan by the Jewish people.
“To Abraham and his seed were the promises made.”
Galatians 3:16
.
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Abraham himself was to share the inheritance. The fulfillment of
God’s promise may seem to be long delayed—for “one day is with the
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (
2 Peter
3:8
); it may appear to tarry; but at the appointed time “it will surely
come, it will not tarry.”
Habakkuk 2:3
. The gift to Abraham and his
seed included not merely the land of Canaan, but the whole earth. So
says the apostle, “The promise, that he should be the heir of the world,
was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the
righteousness of faith.”
Romans 4:13
. And the Bible plainly teaches
that the promises made to Abraham are to be fulfilled through Christ.
All that are Christ’s are “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the
promise”—heirs to “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and
that fadeth not away”—the earth freed from the curse of sin.
Galatians
3:29
;
1 Peter 1:4
. For “the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness
of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people
of the saints of the Most High;” and “the meek shall inherit the earth;
and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.”
Daniel 7:27
;
Psalm 37:11
.