Don't Look Back

Don’t Look Back

Introduction

I. Don’t look...

1. In the early seventies a new fad broke across the nation. It really took off in sports

arenas across the nation as the whole nation watched the unfolding of a new grass

roots fanatic: The Streaker!

2. It was out of that movement that the prolific songwriter and satirist penned the

immortal words that capsulized the sensation...

A. “Don’t look Ethel... but I was too late!”

3. I want to address the direction of your gaze tonight...

A. Don’t look back!

II. The thinking of our culture has moved from...

1. Hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil, to...

2. Let me see how much evil I can get into

A. Hear no evil?

i. We live in a gossip mongering culture that cannot seem to get enough bad

news about the people we have put up on a pedestal

ii. We thrive on evil reports

iii. The news media is an evil report empire

iv. Hear not evil? We live for it...

B. See no evil?

i. The same culture that brings us sound also brings us visuals

ii. Then we wonder why people act the way that they do...

C. We can see the adage: “Garbage in, garbage out”

i. We are programmed by what we hear and watch

3. I saw a report on the cults several years ago

A. In some of the cult monasteries they tried to fill as many sensations as

possible.

i. Hearing

ii. Smelling

iii. Touching

iv. Tasting

v. Seeing

B. It was thought that in this process a person would become immersed and

would be changed

4. The truth is, change must take place from the inside out

A. But the concept of filling the senses for training is not new

i. Tabernacle worship was filled with sensations, especially David’s

tabernacle

B. God fills the senses

i. Oh taste and see

ii. See

iii. Hear

iv. The smell of tabernacle worship (God said it was a sweet smelling odor)

1. Maybe we’ll address that more on Friday as we begin Passover

C. He further instructed their sight to be filled

i. Write it on the door posts of your house

ii. Make frontlets before your eyes

III. But there is an area of looking that we are to a void more than others

1. Most people know not to look at certain things

A. But there are things we don’t let go of that can have a greater impact

upon us and upon the kingdom

IV. It is this backwards look that we want to examine

1. What is it and why is it so critical to us.

A. Looking back is the expression of a heart that is having a hard time

letting go

B. That letting go can be from

i. Desire

ii. Pain

iii. Shame

Examples of looking back

I. Lot’s wife

1. We know the story in Gen.

2. Jesus told his followers to “remember Lot’s wife” when he was talking about the

need to move with what God is doing...

A. Let’s read there Luke 17:28-32

i. We have already learned to apply the lessons of “As it was in the days of

Noah” to the Kingdom

ii. This scripture bears the same context.

iii. God was moving on Lot and his family

iv. There had been an intercessory prayer lifted from Abraham

B. We tend to get caught up in the issues of Sodom and not on the issues of

moving with a Word of the Lord.

3. It is an important enough lesson that Peter raises it again in his epistle.

II. Israel looked back to Egypt

1. Number 11:1-6

A. “We don’t have as good as we did when we were in bondage!”

III. We can look back too

1. We miss our histories

2. Is. 43:18-19 Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will

even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

A. He is talking about shifting into the new

i. The new sometimes feels like a wilderness and a desert.

Dangers in looking back

I. A backwards longing heart (text)

1. Your fitness to rule in the Kingdom is being determined

2. The kingdom is ultimately about the heart

A. The eyes looking back indicates the heart

B. You can’t plow straight

3. Three factors in backwards looking when you are at the plow:

A. Sacrifice

B. Family requirements

C. Old relationships

4. There are other things mentioned in the parable of the supper invitation (Luke 14)

A. I bought a piece of ground: Land

B. I bought five yoke of oxen: Possessions