As things were in Lot's days, also: they ate and drank; they bought and sold; they planted and built; but the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from the sky and made an end of them all—it will be like that on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. Luke 17:28-30, N.E.B.

The great calamity that came to Lot in Sodom was not his loss of property and possessions, but the eternal loss of his wife and sons. Nothing could make up for that. The story of Lot, the effort of God to save him and all his sons and daughters, shows how very near to us lies another, invisible, world and another kind of life. For that world angels continually minister to save us and our children. We need to have our eyes and minds opened to see God's agencies at work in our behalf.

There is much around us that makes us forget that other world. Yet God leaves Himself not without a witness as to the importance of the eternal world and spiritual values. Who of us has not felt the desire for the more abiding things that this present world cannot give its? How often do we awaken with a start from our engrossment in worldliness, and become conscious for a moment or two of the hollowness and the unreality of giving ourselves wholly to this world?

The tragic record of Lot's family and the city of Sodom ought to show us that we may be walking blindfolded, conscious only of what this world has to offer. Yet all the time, every day and in every way, the angels of God seek to make us aware of our peril, of the need to choose eternal values a thousand times more important than all else.

Christ, by His Holy Spirit and His angels, is close to us on all sides. If we believe that, then we should find our lives to be in God's hand.

But the angel who seeks to awaken us to the importance of eternal matters must also record against us every wrong choice and every act of disobedience. Possessions do not have to mean that we are not Christian. We can use them as an opportunity to heal the sick, feed the hungry, save lives. We are not to care too much about our hold on things, but about our hold on God. The meaning of life cannot be realized or understood without reference to the invisible world so near to us.