Remember Lot's Wife

Remember Lot's wife. {Luke 17:32}

Scripture is full of exhortations to leave behind the "old man," the way we thought and acted before we received the "new man" thoughts and actions through Christ's atoning work on the cross. Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 

A less positive exhortation to refrain from looking back at our past life of hopeless bondage to sin and the world (ie. pre-salvation) is the story of Lot's wife. You can read the whole story in Genesis 18:20-19:30. In a nutshell, the story goes like this: Lot and his family lived in the city of Sodom, one of the most wicked cities of the day. God told Abraham, Lot's uncle, that He would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah due to their abominable practices. Concerned for his nephew's safety, Abraham persuaded God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if there were ten righteous people living in the city limits. Since there were not ten righteous people living in those cities, God sent two angels to Sodom to warn Lot about the coming judgment. They urged him to take his family and flee the city as quickly as possible. The angels warned them not to look back as they left. Lot's wife did not heed the warning, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.

{Philippians 3:13-14}

While there are many lessons to be learned from this story (including heeding God's word and obeying it, etc.), I would like to focus on just one in particular for now. God bringing Lot and his daughters safely out of the destruction of Sodom is a picture of Christ rescuing us from the debauchery of sin through His shed blood. when we "look back" at our former life, before Christ rescued us, we are making opportunity for the Devil to entice us back into that lifestyle. If you know Christ as your personal Savior, you have been made a new creature - you don't have to live your old, hopeless, dead pre-conversion life anymore because Christ has given you new, hopeful, joyful, everlasting life! 

In Philippians 3:13-14, Paul uses the picture of an athlete running a race to illustrate this transformative change: "...but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God." If an athlete looks back while running a race, he/she will veer off-course or possibly even cause injury, hampering his/her ability to run. The same is true if we look back at "those things which are behind," meaning a pre-Cross, pre-Christ lifestyle and sinful habits that may have seemed enjoyable at the time. It hinders our ability to run towards "the high calling of God."

Remember Lot's wife - don't look back, look forward!