And each of you save his life!
Do not be destroyed in her punishment,
For this is the LORD’S time of vengeance;
He is going to render recompense to her. – Jeremiah 51:6 NASB
Do NOT look back at sin
Genesis 19: continued..
12 Then the two men [angels sent by the Lord] said to Lot,
“Whom else do you have here? A son-in-law and your sons and daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place; for we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the Lord that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
But the men betrothed to Lot’s daughters just laugh it off and belittle Lot’s warning.
And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
Genesis 19:15 KJV
Lot hesitates. But the angel leads them by the hand in the same way he had pulled Lot back into his house to protect him from the mob of men outside.
17 When they had brought them outside, one said,
“Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the surrounding area;
Warning to those fleeing the wrath to come – Genesis 19:17b
escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away.”
An angel sent by the Lord gives you a command — Do NOT look back.. Do not linger in any place near your past. Do you obey without question?
No time for negotiation here, yet Lot pleads with them.
.. but I cannot escape to the mountains, for the disaster will overtake me and I will die;
20 now behold, this town is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please, let me escape there (is it not small?) so that my life may be saved.”
22 Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the town was named Zoar.
23 The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
It’s hard not to look back
Tra-di-tionnnnn….. Tra-di-tionnnn..…
Ohhh, for the way we were… if only I could go back to the way we were…
Lot’s wife had much to give up — two daughters celebrating big weddings in the big city, a husband finally noticed by the community as a leader and not just a sojourning shepherd of lowly position. She had heart-felt reasons to want to look back, even though the angel of the Lord had warned against it.
DO YOU?
Do you have your own reasons to look back on, yes, even prefer your sin in the city from your past? And might you want to look back — turning even though the Lord Jesus Christ has warned you to repent and follow Him on the only path to the narrow gate of heaven?
Lot’s wife in so many ways was no different than you or me.
FIRE of the WRATH of GOD!
Genesis 19: continued
19:24 וַֽיהוָה הִמְטִיר עַל־סְדֹם וְעַל־עֲמֹרָה גָּפְרִית וָאֵשׁ מֵאֵת יְהוָה מִן־הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃
The fire and brimstone rained down on the fertile plain; not from nearby volcano, neither from exploding tar pits in the distance, but from the sky — UNEXPECTEDLY, with only the warning of God’s angel!
Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
It consumed the ground and it boiled away even the shallow sea nearby. The fire from heaven destroyed all life as would a choking of air from the very light of life.
And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Genesis 19:26 KJV
Surely it was a sad day for Lot, who loved his wife and children as does any man, even though he had been rescued by the warning of the Lord.
27 Now Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord; and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the surrounding area; and behold, he saw the smoke of the land ascended like the smoke of a furnace.
29 So it came about, when God destroyed the cities of the surrounding area, that God remembered Abraham,
and sent Lot out of the midst of the destruction, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.
30 Now Lot went up from Zoar with his two daughters and stayed in the mountains, because he was afraid to stay in Zoar; and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters.
Lot is still separated from Abraham. He has lost his wife to her disobedience. Although his daughters escape with him, the men who they were to marry were also killed in the devastating fire from heaven which fell on Sodom. They are no longer just sojourners, but fugitives.
What if the men of Zoar want JUSTICE of their own against Lot?
So they hide.
Your Sunday school teacher likely didn’t explain this map above either.
Click the next page number below to continue...
Leave a Reply