For her personal study Hope is reading the old testament. when she came running up the stairs with “mom! I have a question! I just read something really weird about lots daughters”……..yup say no more I knew exactly what story she was referring to.(basically two of Lots daughters are in a cave with their dad and get him drunk so they can have sex and get pregnant by him. ewww.)…. so we had a good laugh on how strange the old testament can be and why in the world would they include that stuff??I could tell it bothered her a little and so I wanted to give her a good answer as to why that was in there and what we are to learn from it. I told her I  would search and  get back to her.

I began my study with prayer and opened to read the account in genesis. as I read I had a distinct impression to look to lots wife for answers. I thought of the second shortest verse in all of scripture where Jesus cautions;  “Remember Lot’s wife.” First of all ,I’m no scriptorian. But I am in absolute love with the scriptures.  I love truth and have attuned myself with enough practice to feel when I know truth is being taught.

It started when lot and Abraham need to find a different place to raise their families. lot chooses to settle right outside Sodom, the most detestable and wicked city ,ever. Im thinking this was his wife’s idea. They don’t go live in the city, but right outside it. why? because its pretty and has nice things. They were allured to the finer things that was exciting. Here’s the thing, the scriptures say Lot was a very righteous man. Abraham , the man who was so perfectly obedient who was willing to sacrifice his own son Isaac, loved Lot as his own son and raised him after lots parents were killed. God loved lot, a whole lot ,and so did his uncle who raised him. Lot was one of the elect of God, and in the end  not one of his family member’s stayed true to their faith. Not one. Sunday we attended a regional conference as a family. It was powerful and inspiring. We were taught by an apostle elder Ballard, who gave to us specific counsel and a warning that in the last days even the very elect will fall. He said:

“There are two powers, brothers and sisters, in the universe; one invites us to choose the right and experience eternal joy and happiness, and the other invites us to choose the opposite, bringing sadness and regret. Our doctrine teaches us that life is a test—a time to see which invitation we will accept.

I remind you of Jesus’ prophecy regarding the last days in which we now live: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”^[7] We are saddened when we witness some of the “very elect” deceived as Jesus warned.

this part stood out to me,

“One thing that is constantly on my mind is knowing that individuals who don’t stay focused on the simple doctrine and gospel of Christ will eventually listen to false teachers and self-declared prophets and adopt worldly philosophies. These alternative voices include:

• The allure of prideful wealth
• Recreation and entertainment that can take away from the goodness of the gospel
• Not observing the Sabbath day
• Viewing podcasts and Internet sites that raise questions and doubt without being intellectually honest and that do not adequately and honestly present the Lord’s perspective”

I think Lots family were still good people at this point and kept the commandments but slowly and surely as it always does, the sins of the world crept in. So they eventually moved into that awful city! Just jumped right in to it. A city that was about to be destroyed because there was absolutely no goodness left in it. Not a single righteous person. Who would want their children to be surrounded by that? Abraham even asked god to spare the city if he could find 50 righteous souls, nope. They didn’t have 50.” How about 25?” he pleaded. nope again, not even 25. I mean this place was so bad that a mob of homosexual men came to lots house to rape the 3 holy men who had been sent by God to warn Lots family of the imminent destruction.! But the bad guys were smitten with blindness by the holy angels which is a pretty reasonable punishment. They should’ve had their manly parts removed a day early, if you ask me. As any caring and protective father would, Lot goes to get his married daughters and their families. They refuse to leave!  They’d rather stay in that awful place and watch their babies be destroyed?! …Or maybe the just didn’t believe God would really do it. I’ve been thinking a lot about the second coming. During one of my studies I asked, will the world really be burned and all the wicked, or is that just figurative. Then I listened again to elder Andersons talk titled “thy kingdom come”. Regarding the events leading up to the second coming he states” I testify it will happen—exactly as prophesied. ” We have been warned, by several different living prophets in every recent general conference that His coming is drawing near. Do we believe?

Lot, his wife, and their two single daughters are the only ones to flee. They are accompanied by these three angels who tell them specifically and plainly “do not look back!” and what does that prideful woman do? You guessed it! I don’t know how long it took her to decide to disobey and rebel, but Im pretty sure her mind was made up before she even left.. I always wondered, did she really just turn around and poof! became a pillar of salt? That didn’t make sense. I found something last night that does. It seems bible scholars agree that she didn’t  just look back, but she actually went back! she went back to Sodom! The allurement of wealth, entertainment, and false prophets deceived one of the elect. She was burned, along with everyone else becoming a pile of salt ,or ashes. Yup, that makes sense.

The turning of their mother to sin and the vain things of the world may have caused her daughters to do the unthinkable. Her older daughters obviously lost their faith and ultimately their lives. but here, the younger two who, according to scripture were virgins and pure, saw their mother desert them and their father. They watched their mother run away from them for something she obviously felt was more worthwhile. She was their example. These two daughters  broke the law of chastity to give away that which  was once most precious for some worldly concern they may have had of preserving their family line. Somehow they lost all rational thought. They lost the companionship of the spirit that will whisper the truth that it is better to die pure and chaste than to do what they were about to do.

The story of Lots families demise is a sad tale. but,  I am so grateful Moses kept it in there. It contains a worthwhile treasure of wisdom for us in these last days. The closer we are to flirting with the world and its wicked ways, the closer we are to getting burned by it.