Luke 17:32 KJV Remember Lot's wife.
I. INTRODUCTION—HONORING HEROES
-If you only look at the calendar in a year’s time, you will discover that there are certain days set aside to honor people. There are a few days every year that schools, banks, government offices, and many places of employment are closed for their birthdays.
• George Washington’s Birthday
• Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday
• Martin Luther King’s Birthday
• Columbus Day
-There are other holidays that we observe every year in honor of some event.
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Veteran’s Day
• Memorial Day
-Furthermore there are many cities across the United States that have various monuments in honor of some great man or woman who performed some skill, job, or led some great cause that changed the shape of the world.
-Men’s lives will always be preserved on the pages of biographies so that those who want to can find inspiration from reading them.
II. REMEMBER LOT’S WIFE
-Because the lives of men in secular history are important, I should prevail on you that those who had some part in church history would be even more important to us. I would encourage you to remember:
• The Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
• The Prophets—Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and Jeremiah
• The Apostles—Paul, Peter, John, James and the others
• The Martyrs—Stephen and eleven of the Apostles and a host of others
-Given time, I would encourage you to be thankful for those who brought the ridiculed and mocked at apostolic message to where it is even today. We need to remember men like A. D. Urshan, William Seymour, G. T. Haywood, O. F. Fauss, and others who have brought things into our lives.
-When Jesus told His disciples to remember Lot’s wife, it comes as a startling command. The reason that it is so startling is because this was the only person recorded in Scripture that Jesus ever told anyone to remember.
-He did not tell them to remember any of the Old Testament giants of men. There wasn’t any mention of patriots, heroes, or nobles. Jesus wanted his disciples to remember someone who started but did not make it!
-If the Lord commanded for us to remember her, we have to ask ourselves, “What is there to remember about this woman?”
-When you look back to remember things in the lives of people, invariably there are historical associations that surround them that made them what they were.
-Think of World War II and a flood of information comes to us when we begin to think about Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, and Winston Churchill.
-Think of the world of medicine and you run across names like William Fleming who discovered penicillin, Jonas Salk who invented the polio vaccine, Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale who influenced the American Red Cross and the profession of nursing.
-All great people are somewhat defined by the circumstances under which they are forced to contend with in life.
-There are other historical figures that the only real thing that is known of them is when they were born and when they died.
-In reality, playing into this whole idea of historical discovery, birth, name, good works, evil deeds, extraordinary devotion to God or vile sinfulness, people gain attention because of actions of their lives.
A. Lot’s Wife
-When we get to Lot’s wife, it appears that her birth, past, and existence really means nothing at all. There is never a name give to her. We know who Abraham’s wife is and we know who Nahor’s (Abraham’s brother) wife is but Lot’s wife is never identified.
-She makes her appearance in Genesis 19. It is a once and for all appearance. We know nothing of her family, her habits, her friends, and her background. How could we remember someone with such a vacuum of information about?
-Yet I interject this small but important fact about our Bible: there are cases all through the biblical history where unnamed characters mattered greatly. If only we were to look at the great unnamed woman of Scripture we would find much food for our spiritual life.
• The widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:9-10)
• The woman of Shunem (2 Kings 4:8)
• The woman of Samaria (John 4:7)
• There are others the Lord healed in the Gospels
-Lot’s wife fills this category. Oddly enough we never read of her in any of Lot’s movements through the book of Genesis. Even in the conversation that Lot had with the angels who were telling him to leave the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, they do not mention her:
Genesis 19:12 KJV And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:
-She appears for the first and last time in a brief but vivid picture of the hurried run from Sodom. While Lot can’t seem to make up his mind, lingering, foot-dragging, and hesitating, the Scriptures interject this tense statement:
Genesis 19:16-17 KJV And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. [17] And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
-That is half of the history of Lot’s wife in two verses!
-Sometimes there are places where the Scripture gives a bit more detail to something that has already taken place.
• We find the names of the Egyptian sorcerers, Jannes and Jambres, given by Paul to Timothy.
• We find Jude telling us that there is a prophecy that Enoch gave.
• We find Jude further telling us about the battle between Michael, the archangel, with Satan over the body of Moses.
-But with Lot’s wife, no further details are given to us about what took place that fateful day in Genesis 19 except the other half of her history in a single verse.
Genesis 19:26 KJV But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
-Suddenly she appears and just as suddenly she disappears. She is like a fast moving cloud that appears and in minutes has disappeared from the sky. Lot’s wife has no beginning, no middle, but a terribly fearful end!
-There on the roadside leading to Zoar is a pillar of salt. That pillar of salt has a fiery, burning backdrop of two cities and this is what the Lord wanted His disciples to remember.
Bishop Andrewes—There are many who escape the slough of resolute sin who fall into the snare of vacillating virtue. And they consequently play a losing game all along. They set out to make their way to something better, but they keep looking back, and experience neither the sweets of sin nor the safety of the saints. All the good they seem to be in the world is to be a permanent warning of how not to do it.
B. Three Troubling Lessons
-There are three troubling lessons that come tearing from the Scriptures concerning her life.
1. She Was Almost Saved
-The first lesson was that she was almost saved. Imagine with me, the warning has come and she has responded to it. Notice the pattern that his in her life. The security of a home followed by a great warning of approaching danger and then the miraculous deliverance that gets under way and suddenly an instant death!
-This pattern has been played out far too many times for us to be able to even number. People come in and are given the words of warning of how to get out.
• Leave this world behind.
• Come and be converted today.
• Today is the day of salvation.
• Hear while you may hear.
• Repent and be converted.
• Or a thousand other variations.
-Lot’s wife is escaping, she is leaving Sodom behind. Zoar is in front of her! If she would have never left Sodom, she would have been nothing more than a suicidal victim of her unbelief along with thousands of others but that was not the case with her. She started out on the path but did not make it. . . . For that, the Lord tells us to remember her.
-She was almost saved!
-We may also fall into the same trap. There is something about our society that promotes its own sense of salvation. It goes like this:
• I go to work.
• I pay my bills.
• I fulfill my responsibilities to my family.
• I go to church.
• I don’t say bad words.
• I don’t do bad things.
• I love my spouse and kids.
• I am not perfect, I slip up every once in a while, but I’m ok.
-The fact of the matter is that none of those things are in themselves the true markers of a real conversion. True conversion means that you get on the road out of this world and there is such a focus about it that you don’t look back.
-But I must remind you that there is a vast difference between being saved and almost saved! In the Christian life there has to be a steady advancement because nothing spiritual is ever in a state of neutral and being static. It is always pressing forward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus!
One of the old pulpit masters tells a parable of a high mountain that had a grand palace at the top of it. It was filled with all manner of treasure, gold, gems, and exotic animals. Up the sides of the mountain men and women were climbing to reach the top but everyone who looked back was turned into stone. There were thousands of evil spirits were around them whispering, shouting, showing them worldly treasures, and singing songs to draw their eyes away from the treasure at the top and to make them look back.
-Once you get started, you cannot afford to look back.
2. Almost Saved But She Perished
-The second lesson that comes from the memory of Lot’s wife is that she was almost saved but she perished.
-You might say that there is not a lot of difference to being almost saved and then saying almost saved but she perished. You may have a point of argument until you look a little closer.
-Consider a man who drowns in the ocean after a ship sinks and he has no life-jacket or life-raft to save him. Then consider a man who drowns in the lake but has a life-jacket that he was not wearing or could not reach a rope that someone was tossing to him. It makes a great difference when you look at it in that way.
A fitting analogy for all of the medical people who are in our church would help us to understand. Over the years, you hear of victims who could through the ER in terrible states of trauma or failing health and never make it beyond the doors. There are others who come in with their life almost gone and then some heroic measure pulls them back from the brink. They make it through surgery, spend an extended time in Intensive Care, and then are transferred to the floor, and a few days prior to their discharge have some setback that proves to be fatal to them. Those patients are the ones that you can’t stand to lose but it goes on in every hospital in the land!
-Lot’s wife escaped on danger only to be swallowed up by another one. It is like the traveler who begins the journey and almost reaching the destination some tragic event takes place and it ends.
-Men will be lost in the very sight of heaven.
• They have been convinced of the risk.
• They have been satisfied as to what the danger is.
• They have moved to be saved from that danger.
• They are near the haven of refuge.
-But it was the looking back that finally got them. Whether it was curiosity or a lingering desire to go back to the old life, looking back capsized the soul.
-There is something about human nature that desires their old sins, their old playgrounds, and their old memories. Far too many are willing to make a deal with the memories of the enemy of their soul at crucial times.
-The rationale is that we will give our spiritual lives a rest, a vacation of sorts, for a while and go back to our sinful ways, habits, and vices for a short period and then come back. Looking back is what destroyed Lot’s wife and it will do the same to you also.
-The leeks and garlic of Egypt may be pining for you but never forget the lashes that came with them. There are ghosts of former sins that will do their best to deform your soul.
They come as ghosts and phantoms not to stay;
As fleeting visions of the night they shine,
Or daylight trances, aping the divine,
That we may bow the knees to them and pray:
Dishonored outcasts of the painful way,
Their Dead-Sea apples and their wormwood wine,
Glories that rust and treasures that decay.
They come as ghosts and phantoms. Yet the lure
Is hard for hungering spirits to repel.
Old gods are these, of ancient rights secure,
Craving the thrones from which they fell,
Still find secret worship, homage sure,
And smoldering hot desires that serve them well.
3. Her Life is a Warning
-The pillar of salt that Lot’s wife became may have long since been eroded into nothing but the moral of the story is not the pillar of salt but the warning that comes from this story.
-There are atheists who exult in the idea that this actually happened. However, the pride of science and the pride of ignorance are very closely related to each other.
-As with every Scripture it is always good to remember the context of which the passage comes from. This one is no different. What was it that caused Jesus to say, “remember Lot’s wife?”
Luke 17:26-31 KJV And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. [27] They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. [28] Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; [29] But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. [30] Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. [31] 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.
-After the Lord had warned His disciples not to get mixed up with a sense of false security and self-indulgence as they had in Noah’s day, He said, “remember Lot’s wife!” In a sense, He was saying, “Don’t delay your flight from this world for any reason!”
-There is such a thing as false-security and procrastination that marks our times.
• I will deal with this sin another time.
• I will pray through Sunday night.
• I will start reading my Bible tomorrow.
• I will turn over a new leaf this coming year.
• I will be more spiritual and less lazy shortly.
• I will. . . I will. . . I will. . .
-The reality is that we have bought into the folly of looking back! You can perish right in the middle of deliverance and you can backslide right in the midst of the outpouring of revival. There can be others around you leaving with a heavenward focus and you can look back and be vaporized by hell!
-It is sad to make this reference but I am aware of countless backsliders who over the years, their terrible end has become more frightening to me than ever before. We have to come to the understanding that the patience and long-suffering of God is not eternal.
-Their lives serve as a warning to the church. Only in a few cases have those lost souls found a sudden and catastrophic end the majority of them have been just like Lot’s wife. They looked back and became pillars of salt.
• They had their seasons of spiritual awakenings.
• They had their tears in their prayers, spiritual vows, and resolutions.
• They fought through spiritual conflicts.
• They had some apparent revivals and victories along the way.
• They were involved in the spiritual conflicts with self and sin.
-But in the end they became memorials of their weakness and corruption and turned into what God left them to be.
-The road to deliverance is loaded with pillars of salt along the way. Those who do not consent to glorify God willingly will in the end become milestones of remembrance for other faithful travelers who make their way toward heaven.
III. CONCLUSION—THE WORDS OF THE ANGELS
-If I could endeavor to tell you today to remember Lot’s wife, I would take the same words that the angels used that day so long ago in Sodom.
• Escape for your life
• Don’t look behind
• Don’t stay in the plain
• Escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.
-On. . . On. . . On. . . March On! No matter what! March On!
Philip Harrelson
October 19, 2011
