Lot's Wife

Genesis 19:23-29

Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.  It is a fun place to revisit in our minds, but it is also a very dangerous place when a person, group, church, business, or nation wants to dwell there.  It is a great place to learn from, but it is called the past for good reason, it is history, it is over, and God has something new for us, it is called the present.  The period of time now occurring, yet often it is more pleasant to look to the past or even the future, because the “NOW” has too many challenges.  It is at this point we find the person whom the Bible only refers to as “Lot’s wife”.

A few days back we addressed the fact that Lot and his family had a very difficult time leaving Sodom, and the angels seized Lot and his wife and his two daughters and brought them out of the city.  Verse 17 picks up on the story, “And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life.  Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley.”  It is not just conjecture on my part, but a strong case could be made that Lot’s family had been contaminated by the culture of Sodom. 

What happens next in the story of Sodom; “The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.  Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord of heaven.  And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.  But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”  I wonder, if she had lived so removed from the things of God and the pollution of her heart was so strong, that she did not believe the angels, who warned her to not look back.  What she valued, her friends and her stuff was in Sodom, her heart was closed to instruction from the Lord.  If she had only known this promise from the Lord; (“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11) Then, if only she had grabbed hold of it, as if it was the only thing of value, how different would be the story of her life.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice