Hank Smith:                      00:03                   Welcome to followHIM Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, the chapters for Come, Follow Me this week are Genesis 18 through 23. There’s a moment in here that I think I have a story that fits Genesis 19:26. You know this story, Lot and his family, they have to run away from Sodom and Gomorrah, which is like the sinful place that’s about to be destroyed. They’re trying to get away. I think of it as kind of like the great and spacious building. Like we gotta get outta here, run away. And you notice Lot’s wife for some reason just can’t do it. She turns around, looked back, and I can think of that as like wanted to go back.

John Bytheway:               00:43                   Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith:                      00:44                   She became a pillar of salt. Not exactly sure what that means. So here’s the story. I don’t know if you ever read Percy Jackson, the series to your kids, John, but I did. There’s this moment where Percy Jackson and his friend Annabeth and his other friend Grover, they have to save the world. It’s a pretty big job. They have to save the world. And on their way, they run into a place called the Lotus Casino. Their job is to get in there, get something out, and go, keep going to save the world. But they get in and they find that this place is full of games. It is wall to wall games and fun, and food. And pretty soon they forget about their mission, which was to save the world. I can see how that might slip your mind. Well, they start playing games. Annabeth is playing trivia, brainiac games.

                                           01:39                   Grover is playing hunting games, which is kind of odd. If you know anything about Grover. Percy Jackson is doing like these thrill, bungee cord jumping and things. He starts talking to another guy, a stranger at the casino, and every time they win a game, the guy says, whoa, groovy. Percy Jackson says, why do you say groovy? And he turns to him and says, how long have you been here?

John Bytheway:               02:03                   How long have you been here?

Hank Smith:                      02:04                   Yeah. And the guy says, I don’t know, a couple weeks maybe. He then says to the man, what year is it? He’s starting to pick up on things. He says, what year is it? And the man says, it’s 1967. Wait. And he goes to another guy and says, excuse me, sir, what year is it? It’s 1985.

John Bytheway:               02:22                   Hmm.

Hank Smith:                      02:23                   He goes to someone else, excuse me, what year is it? It’s 1994. He figures out all of these people have been in this Lotus Casino for decades. He says, we gotta get outta here. He runs to find his friends, and he finds Annabeth. She won’t even look at him. Have you ever been talking to someone, John, who’s staring at a screen? She doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s present. He’s talking to her and she’s just staring straight ahead at this screen. He grabs her and he says, he has to yell, he says, Annabeth and she turns to him and she’s kind of angry, right? that he interrupted her screen watching. She said, what? And he said, Annabeth, we have to go. And Annabeth said, Percy, I don’t wanna go. I’m having fun. And then Percy said this, Annabeth, this place is a trap. You check in and you stay forever. And she snaps out of it and they go find Grover and they get out and continue on their mission to save the world. I think in the movie, they drive like a sports car out the front doors. I thought of that with Sodom and Gomorrah. This place is a trap. The great and spacious building. This place is a trap. You come in, you might stay forever.

John Bytheway:               03:35                   Hopefully you’ll have a moment of recognition like that. Somebody will say, groovy, and then you’ll know.

Hank Smith:                      03:41                   Groovy. I gotta get outta here. I think it was Elder Maxwell who said, Babylon does not give exit permits.

John Bytheway:               03:48                   Hmm.

Hank Smith:                      03:49                   They don’t want you to leave. And I thought of that with Lot’s wife. She can’t seem to get out of there, let it go. Do you remember John in the book of Revelation, Jesus says to the people in the great and spacious building come out of there, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, receive not of her plagues.

John Bytheway:               04:07                   Wow. I saw a documentary once on casinos. They don’t have exit signs unless they have to by law, they don’t put clocks in there. They put carpets with super bright colors so that you look down, there’s no straight paths. You’re going all over the place. Expertly designed to keep you in there.

Hank Smith:                      04:27                   This place is a trap. You check in and stay forever. Or as the Eagles might say, you can

John Bytheway:               04:32                   Check in anytime you want, but you can never leave.

Hank Smith:                      04:35                   You can never leave. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We are with Dr. Carli Anderson this week. She is delightful. She is so much fun. Then come back next week, we’ll do another followHIM Favorites.