Opening illustration: If a person sees a house on fire and does everything he can to rescue the occupants, he is heralded as a hero. And that’s the way it should be. Why is it, then, that a Christian who accepts what God says in the Bible about hell and tries to warn people is ridiculed as an alarmist?
We read about a similar situation in Genesis 19, which tells of the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham’s nephew Lot was warned by God that Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed. He urged his sons-in-law to leave the city, but his plea fell on deaf ears because they thought he was joking (v.14). But Lot was right. Judgment did come.
One of these days God’s wrath will be poured out again on the wicked of this earth. As believers, we’ll be delivered from His wrath because our sins have been forgiven. Therefore, it’s our responsibility to do for others what someone did for us - sound the warning and give the alarm! Unbelievers must be told of the only way to escape punishment. They may ridicule our message and make fun of us, but that doesn’t change the facts.
Let’s keep working to lead people to the safety that can be found in Christ alone. This world needs more "alarmists"! Jesus is not just asking us to just remember somebody’s wife. Jesus asked us to remember Lot’s wife for a reason. There is a powerful truth and revelation that we can learn from Lot’s wife and the story behind it. So let’s go to the passage in Luke 17. Now let us turn to the story in Genesis 19 and catch up with one of the early alarmists.
Introduction: After visiting Sodom and Gomorrah, God had no doubt that the cities had reached the point of no return. The two cities were, therefore, condemned to total annihilation and only Lot his wife and two daughters would have escaped. The warning to Lot, his wife and daughters was undeniably explicit: Escape for thy life; look not behind thee neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed (Genesis 19: 17). Unfortunately, Lot’s wife dared to disregard the angelic warning, looked back and she became a pillar of salt (v. 26).
But what if God had shown her mercy and had allowed her to go on without punishing her? Certainly, that would have put into focus God’s patience and mercy, and it would have definitely prevented the scoffers from insinuating that the Judeo-Christian God is not a God of love.
Was Lot’s wife simply committing a small act of disobedience? Was she, perhaps, simply looking back because she was distraught over her children that were left behind and about to be destroyed? Unless Jesus Christ had brought meaning into this event, it might have seemed perplexing. Having been present, Christ beheld the events as they happened and was fully aware of Lot’s wife’s true motives. Thus, He warns Christians at the end of times to Remember Lot’s wife (Luke 17: 32).
Why should Christians remember Lot’s wife? Just like Sodom and Gomorrah, before Christ’s return, the world will be saturated with evil. Christians are warned to come out of the world and not be a part of it. God warns in the last book of the Bible: Come out of her my people that you are not partakers of her sin, and that you receive not of her plagues (Revelation 18: 4). To be partakers of her sins means partaking of the horrendous destruction that will befall sinful humankind at the end of times.
The warning is again explicit. Come out of sin and do not desire to return to it. He who loves the world is the enemy of God (James 4: 4) and, thus, a friend of Satan. Not heeding such a command means bringing upon oneself terrible consequences like Lot’s wife.
What to do with our past?
1. Call to quit the carnal (vs. 12 - 13)
Apostolic authority has declared Lot was a righteous man (2 Peter 2: 8), at bottom good, though he contented himself with lamenting the sins that he saw, instead of acting on his own convictions, and withdrawing himself and family from such a sink of corruption. But favor was shown him: and even his bad relatives had, for his sake, an offer of deliverance, which was ridiculed and spurned (2 Peter_3: 4).
2. Reasons for not quitting (vs. 14, 22)
Comfort zone (used to pleasing the flesh) ~ because in their carnal security they did not believe in any judgment of God (Luke_17: 28-29). If Lot had married daughters, he would undoubtedly have called upon them to escape along with their husbands, his sons-in-law. Before leaving, Lot offers his daughters to the people (presumably immoral uses) but they refuse. (Why? - were they particularly ugly?) (Is this any way for a prophet of God to act?) Lot had compromised to the point that he was almost useless to God. When he finally made a stand, nobody listened. Are we in a similar situation? To make a difference, we must first decide to be different in our faith and our conduct.
Linger on a little longer (spirit is willing, flesh is weak) ~ was it from sorrow at the prospect of losing all his property, wealth, position, comfort and the acquisition of many years? Was he hypnotized by Sodom? Or was it that his benevolent heart was paralyzed by thoughts of the awful crisis? This is the charitable way of accounting for a delay that would have been fatal but for the friendly urgency of the angel. Apparently to be wiser than Lot, we must see that our hesitation to obey stems from the false attractions of our cultures pleasures.
Comfort in something similar (soft sin get accustomed) ~ Lot, instead of cheerfully obeying the commandment of the Lord, appealed to the great mercy shown to him in the preservation of his life, and to the impossibility of his escaping to the mountains, without the evil overtaking him, and entreated therefore that he might be allowed to take refuge in the small and neighboring city, i.e., in Bela, which received the name of Zoar (Genesis_14: 2) on account of Lot’s calling it little. A desire to abide in a smaller sin (still the comfort zone) if the greater one is unavailable or is being taken away. Observe the bargain Lot has with the angels. Do we get into such negotiations with people and God likewise? [e.g. can I watch movies, drink booze, go for dance parties?]
Illustration: I got a call from one of our friends from Canada requesting to pray for a lady in Norway who happened to be their close friend and had to leave her home because her husband had asked her to choose between Christ and himself. She chose Christ and had to leave but now she can’t make any calls to her friends in Canada nor do they know her whereabouts as where she is living and sustaining.
3. God’s conviction and persuasion (vs. 16, 17)
Probably in affectionate though useless entreaties to prevail on the remaining parts of his family to escape from the destruction that was now descending; laid hold upon his hand - pulled them away by mere force, the Lord being merciful; else they had been left to perish in their lingering, as the others were in their gainsaying. Lot did not make a jest of the warning as his sons - in - law, yet he lingered, he did not make so much haste as the case required. And it might have been fatal to him, if the angels had not laid hold on his hand, and brought him forth. Herein the Lord was merciful to him; otherwise he might justly have left him to perish, since he was loath to depart. If God had not been merciful to us, our lingering had been our ruin.
4. Destruction of the past (vs. 24, 25) ~ sins
We see here the two facets of God’s character: (a) His great patience (agreeing to spare a wicked city for ten good people) and (b) His fierce anger (destroying both cities). As we grow spiritually, we must develop a deeper love for God because He is patient when people sin and should not consider as being slack from His end but being patient even when we blow our top with the world that we live in.
Brimstone ~ it is evidently used metaphorically, to point out the utmost degrees of punishment executed on the most flagitious criminals. And as hell, or an everlasting separation from God and the glory of his power, is the utmost punishment that can be inflicted on sinners, hence brimstone and fire are used in Scripture to signify the torments in that place of punishment.
Fire ~ the action of fire or the electric fluid, would be immediately ignited, and so consume the cities; and, as we have already seen that the plains about Sodom and Gomorrah abounded with asphalts or bitumen pits, (see Genesis_14: 10), that what is particularly meant here in reference to the plain is the setting fire to this vast store of inflammable matter by the agency of lightning or the electric fluid; and this, in the most natural and literal manner, accounts for the whole plain being burnt up, as that plain abounded with this bituminous substance.
Cross of Christ ~ with the advent of Christ in today’s context our sins have already been destroyed on the cross. A privilege only for the post NT generations. As the emblem of a slave’s death and a murderer’s punishment, the cross was naturally looked upon with the profoundest horror. A curse to all was where Christ was nailed and our sins put upon the lamb without blemish. He bore it all, just for you and me! He became a curse for us so that we would be redeemed and blessed. What are we doing with it? Lot and his family almost blew it up! Sad to say that his wife apparently did. It is time that we start focusing on CHRIST and the CROSS of our Savior and Redeemer and place for our forgiveness and ultimate redemption.
5. Consequences for looking back (v. 26)
Turned into a pillar of salt ~ It seems Mrs. Lot stopped running to gaze at the destruction of the city. As she stood transfixed, most commentators agree some of the molten sulphur ("brimstone" verses 24) likely rained down on her, and crystallized her into a pillar. This is what Lot would have seen when he glanced back. Christ’s warning to remember Lot’s wife is a warning for us not too long for the sinful world we left behind. Lot’s wife was not simply looking back at Sodom out of curiosity, or only because she was distraught and made a fatal mistake. Lot’s wife did not want to leave Sodom and its sinful ways. Her carnal mind had grown accustomed to the pleasures that Sodom had to offer. She had become a part of it and regretted leaving it behind. The reason that Lot’s wife turned back to Sodom, was that she was a lost woman, and saw only the material - only the hear-and-now. Her mind was not on God, her sinfulness, or on the things of Eternity. She therefore was not afraid of God, because God was not in her thoughts. It was the physical, the sensual, the emotional pleasures of this world that she was after. She wanted sin, not God.
How much had Sodom affected Lot’s wife? We do not know. We do know that she had lived among degenerates that she had been influenced by them and did not seem to mind. The New Testament tells us that while in Sodom Lot was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked (2 Peter 4: 7), but there is no mention that his wife felt the same way. Could it be that Lot stayed in Sodom as long as he did because she wanted to stay and felt perfectly comfortable in it?
All indications are that Lot (The godly) was delivered, while his wife (The unjust), was punished. God is consistent throughout time. He warns the unjust and then intervenes if they are beyond redemption. Lot’s wife was beyond redemption. God had to do it through Christ for us.
Many people know what happened to Lot’s wife when she wanted to be "worldly" and go back to Sodom. Yes, she turned into a pillar of salt. That was God’s reward to her for her worldliness and wicked disobedience. Strangely, most so-called Christian women (and men) today have little fear of repeating the same error that Lot’s wife committed: the sin of being worldly minded.
If God had not punished Lot’s wife, a piece of Sodom would have remained alive.
Application: God destroyed and punished your SINS. God destroyed and punished your Sodom and Gomorrah. God destroyed it at the Cross of Christ. So why are you LOOKING BACK at your sins and disqualifying ourselves? The moment you LOOK BACK at your past and at all the wrong things you did, you become like Lots wife. You become like a pillar of salt. You become still like a pillar and you can’t move on in life because of your sins, mistakes and failures. You will be living in guilt, condemnation and fear if you look back. You won’t be able to move on. Deep down inside you, you will be like Lots wife, stuck in your past and stuck in your mistakes and failures. Don’t look back for God has destroyed your sins, mistakes and failures at the Cross. You would have said, done or thought wrong and sinful things in your past but God has destroyed your Sodom and Gomorrah. Don’t live from the past. Don’t look back and live from Sodom and Gomorrah, God has destroyed it. Old things have passed away; behold all things are anew. You are a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 17). Remember Lot’s wife; don’t make the same mistake she made. Jesus loves you too much. He died for all your sins. He died for all your Sodom and Gomorrah’s.
Move on in life with Grace of God and don’t look back for God has destroyed your Sodom and Gomorrah. God has destroyed your sins, mistakes and failures. Look forward at the Victory that is in front of you. When you depend on the Grace of God, the Grace of God will help you to look forward. God has great things for you in your life. You have one life, live it to the fullest. You can’t be a pillar of salt.
Lot’s wife turned back to look at the smoldering city of Sodom. Clinging to the past, she was unwilling to turn completely away. Are you looking back longingly at sin while trying to move toward with God? We can’t make progress with God as long as we are holding on to pieces of your old life. Jesus said in Matthew 6: 24 No one can serve two masters. Christ is the only answer.
