Luke 17:31-36 KJV In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. [32] Remember Lot's wife. [33] Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. [34] I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. [35] Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. [36] Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
I. INTRODUCTION -- THE PROPHETICAL ASPECT OF LUKE 17
-This passage of Scripture is one that is dealing with the ramifications of getting ready for the Rapture. The context actually begins in verse 20. The Lord is answering a question of the Pharisees who were inquiring when the Kingdom of God would actually come to pass.
-So the Lord embarks on an explanation to them of what would take place when His Kingdom would come to pass. As you may notice there are some brief similarities of this passage with Matthew 24-25, the Olivet Discourse. Luke 17:20-37 is more of a capsule form of it.
-The Lord would bring to pass the thought that they had in reality missed what the current Kingdom of God looked like.
Romans 14:17 KJV For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
-His instructions for this Kingdom were different from any other than they had ever heard. When you are called to this Kingdom there are some requirements:
• If you are on the housetop, don’t go into the house to get your things.
• If you are in the field, don’t go back to get your possessions.
• You will lose your life if you try to preserve and hoard it!
• You will only find your life by losing it!
• There is a fine line of separation that comes with God’s Kingdom. . . Two in the bed, two grinding corn, and two in the field. . . One will be taken and the other left. . .
-There is an urgency about this text that tells us that we will not be riding in on someone else’s coattails or their relationship with God.
-Seemingly out of place in the passage is one of the shortest verses in the Bible.
Luke 17:32 KJV Remember Lot's wife.
-There are other passages in which the Lord or one of the writers of the epistles would mention an Old Testament character and then they would explain why they had mentioned them.
• Esau—Who threw away his birthright for a morsel of bread and bowl of stew.
• Sodom and Gomorrah—Who will rise up in judgment because others had more to work with and did less.
• Jonah—Who laid in the belly of the whale for three days.
II. LOT’S WIFE
A. Who Is She?
-But in this particular passage. . . Remember Lot’s wife. . . and that is all. No explanation, just a three word sermon and then Jesus walks away from it. It stands out as a warning but there is a something behind this veiled reference.
-Lot’s wife is a nameless woman. We have no idea where she came from. There is no background or pedigree or genealogy given to her.
• She is not a prophetess like Anna.
• She is not a judge like Deborah.
• She is not a queen like Esther who saved her people from a maniac named Haman.
• She is not like Ruth who was an intruder that birthed a king.
• She is not like a Rachel who gives birth to a great Egyptian prince.
• She is not like Hannah who is a great prayer warrior who falls on the altar and cries out bears a child on the tenacity of her prayers.
• She is not like Abigail who demonstrated great nobility in a time of difficulty.
• She is not like Sarah who moved out from her country and left her kindred with her husband seeking for a city whose builder and maker was God.
• She is not like Mary of Bethany who changed the atmosphere with a broken alabaster box of perfume.
-She is not like any of these great women of Scripture. Nothing is known of her and yet the command of the Lord was to remember Lot’s wife. So if we are going to know her, we are probably going to have to look at her husband to get any sort of idea as to who she might be.
B. To Know Lot’s Wife. . . .Know Lot. . .
-Who is Lot?
• The nephew of Abraham.
• He is a fatherless child who is connected with a childless father (Abraham).
• They became fused together in something that was not the will of God.
• He ended up leading a divided house against his uncle.
-Lot’s actions and character could be summed up in other ways.
• Lot is not a very good man.
• Lot is a very carnal and lustful man.
• Lot is a very selfish man and driven by his own agenda.
• Lot is a divisive man.
-So God determined that Abraham needed to separate himself from Lot. God’s wisdom prevails and He directed Abraham to give Lot his own choice about the land. Because Lot was a greedy man and driven by his own program, God separates him from Abraham quickly, seamlessly, and with little scarring.
-One of the mysteries of Scripture is that Lot is called a righteous man (2 Peter 2:7-9).
• He is good enough to entertain the angels.
• He is good enough to provide for them.
• He is good enough to protect them.
• He is good enough to defend them.
• He is good enough that when God decides to destroy the cities, Lot is going to be rescued.
-God’s instructions to Lot were to get his wife and his daughters out of the city and flee to the mountains. Some transactions took place on Lot’s part and he ended up setting his sights on a city called Zoar.
C. The Value of an Opportunity
-As Lot prepares to leave the city, he takes his nameless wife and his daughters and they are escorted out by angels. Suddenly they were opened up to the work of God in the venue of an opportunity. . . not so much a blessing as an opportunity.
-If I just had an opportunity. . . I don’t necessarily want a blessing. . . just an opportunity. . . So much can be done with opportunity if you are willing to invest it into God’s purpose.
• An opportunity to prove who you are.
• An opportunity to stay with it.
• An opportunity to turn life around.
• An opportunity to improve your mind.
• An opportunity to form good habits.
• An opportunity to have sterling character.
• An opportunity to be useful.
• An opportunity to invest your life and not waste it.
• An opportunity to make a plan for the future.
The word “opportunity” comes from the root signifying ‘at port’ or ‘in the harbor.’ This is suggestive of the statement, “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at flood, leads on to fortune.” One has to think of a trader who is dealing in the market ready to turn every opportunity into an advance for him.
-There are great opportunities that will present themselves only once or twice in lifetime and a man must take advantage of those times and not look back.
Opportunity is like a strip of sand that stretches up and down the beaches. The greedy tides are always working against the sand. Whether it is people, communities, nations, or churches, no one can allow the erosion of opportunities.
III. LOT’S WIFE—PUSHED INTO THE FUTURE BUT BOUND BY THE PAST
A. Don’t Let the Past Destroy You
-The problem with Lot’s wife is that she destroyed her opportunity.
-At first glance, there is the tendency to think that she is a decadent sinner or a reprobate, Godless woman who is depraved. Perhaps the memorial of remembrance is to look at her sin and stay away from it.
-But this cannot be the case because God brought her out! Whatever she was or even had the potential to be, she wasn’t bad enough for God to want to destroy her because He sent angels in to escort her out.
-If you were so bad, if there wasn’t something in you that God did not want to save, He would have let you pass from this life a long time ago. Lot’s wife leaving Sodom and Gomorrah was about whether or not she would get out but rather what do you do when you escape.
-But as she was leaving, on the way to her destiny in the future, she aborted her purpose by looking back. This is not for backsliders. . . because she did not go back to what was burning down. . . this is not a message for people who go back but for those who look back.
• What would make this woman who had a safe future in front of her look back?
• Why would she throw away the hopes for tomorrow with one look back?
• Why would she look back when everything God had for her was in front of her?
B. The Future is Now!
-Everything that God has for us is in our future! You have to quit looking back at the old year, the old mistakes, the old grudges, the old offenses, the old hurts, the old dilemmas of life. . . If you keep looking back, you are going to turn into a pillar of salt.
-Our prayer can never be, “God don’t let me go back!” because the problem is not going back, it is looking back.
-Somewhere you have to get the spilt milk out of your mind and heart because crying is not going to any good whatsoever. Don’t look back!
-If we are going to remember Lot’s wife there are some points we will have to observe and make.
• She was not a backslider because she did not go back.
• She was not a sinner because a sinner never would have left.
• She epitomizes a saint who has enough faith to get out but still has so many issues in the past they can’t embrace the future!
-When God gets ready to move us it is going to be quickly. . . You have to be willing to move quickly and without delay!
• The Israelites crossing the Red Sea was immediate.
• Peter was delivered by the angels from the jail while a prayer meeting was going on.
• Paul was let down over the wall in Damascus to escape his persecutors.
• Straightway the disciples left their nets and followed Jesus.
• Straightway the woman with the issue of blood was healed.
• Straightway Jairus’ daughter was healed.
• Straightway did the young man in Mark 7 have his ears opened and his speech impediment healed.
-Weeping may endure. . . for a night. . .but there is a joy that will express itself in the morning!
-When a saint gets pulled out, they often are pulled out so fast that if you are attached to anything in your past. . . . you will not be prepared for what God is going to do in the future.
-If you are going to get what God has for you in 2010 then you are going to have to leave everything in 2009. . . for that matter what was in the last decade, leave it there!
-The reason that Jesus wanted us to remember Lot’s wife was because she had been delivered from a place physically but wasn’t prepared for it mentally or spiritually.
• Her body was out but her mind stayed behind in the smoking city.
• Her situation was out but her attitude was still in.
• Her position was out but her condition was still stuck.
-A dangerous place to be in life is when you are divided against yourself. God had brought her to a place for which she had no real appreciation.
• Woe to those who seek to remain in the familiar when God wants to put us in the divine.
• Woe to those who seek to remain in the comfortable when God wants to put us in a situation of opportunity.
• Woe to those of us who have been given an opportunity but your mind is tied up in what you are accustomed to.
-Just a three word sermon that sends an immortal and eternal warning to the Church and not the world. . . .
Luke 17:32 KJV Remember Lot's wife.
• Remember that I brought her to a place that she wasn’t ready for.
• Remember that I brought her out but she couldn’t think out.
• Remember that I brought her body out but she couldn’t get her mind out.
• Remember that I brought her to a place of opportunity but her faith could not hold out.
• Remember that I brought her to a place that destiny called and nothing she needed was in the past.
-Forget those things that are in yesterday and reach into tomorrow and do the will of God.
• Her body was out.
• Her face was headed for Zoar.
• Her hands were in the hand of a blessed man.
• And her mind was looking back. . . .
IV. LESSONS FOR US FROM LOT’S WIFE
-What about us. . . what is the lesson for us?
• You can go to a blessed church.
• You can sing in a blessed choir.
• You can say blessed things. . . but if you go into this New Year divided. . . you will perish between two places.
-Lot’s wife is the only person in Scripture who got out of a terrible situation and perished between two places.
• She was not murdered.
• She was not crucified.
• She was not imprisoned.
• This woman destroyed herself. . .she died because she was a monument when she should have been a movement. . .
Luke 17:32 KJV Remember Lot's wife.
-The problem with Lot’s wife was not her morality or her integrity because she was good enough to get out. Her problem was her mentality. Her mind refused to accept the blessing that God provided for her.
Luke 17:32 KJV Remember Lot's wife.
• Get yourself together!
• Pull your mind in!
• Get your attitude right!
• Quit crying over spilled milk!
• Don’t let your past hinder your future!
• Quit worrying about everyone else!
-You can’t save the city, but you can save yourself! Get yourself into the game! This is your opportunity. . .
• We have come too far to die in the wilderness.
• We have gotten out of the world and we cannot stop now.
• We have left 2009 behind and we have to look forward to 2010.
-This is your chance for a break-away. . . 2010 is going to be a year of opportunity for you!
-Josephus the Jewish historian wrote that he saw Lot’s wife in the wilderness. Sodom and Gomorrah could not be located because it is thought to be at the bottom of the Dead Sea. But God made a monument. Lot’s wife was frozen in time. She was coming out and she was frozen in time because she looked back.
-The decision that I have to make is whether or not I am going stay behind and hold Lot’s wife’s hand or am I going to move on and keep walking.
-You can keep holding hands with the past. . . or you can let go and march on into what God wants you to walk into.
-Consider the ramifications of what happened to Lot and his family because Lot’s wife looked back:
• If she had not turned to salt, when Lot got to the mountain his daughters would not have gotten him drunk and seduced him.
• If she had not turned to salt, Ammon and Moab would have never been born.
• If she had not looked back, those cities that troubled Israel would have never come into existence.
• If she had not looked back, God’s covenant with
-All of this happened because of someone who got stuck looking back. God did not bring us out for us to get stuck in time. . . Over the next few days, pull your mind in and make some determinations to be steadfast.
-Develop an appreciation for where you are right now. . . . You have a few days to get your priorities back in order. . . Refuse to look back!
Philip Harrelson
