Remember Lot's Wife!
4-5-96
REMEMBER LOT'S WIFE!
LUKE 17:28-37
INTRODUCTION:
There is a dooms day of indescribable proportions for our world ahead. Jesus used the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as an illustration of this terrible day of the Lord. Just as the
judgment on Sodom caught that society by surprise, so the world will be caught by surprise when the Lord
Comes in judgment. Just as that judgment involved the complete destruction of those cities of the plains, so this
final day of doom will involve the destruction of the world's system as we have known it.
There is a terrible day ahead. The rescue of Lot from the cities of the plains is an encouragement to the people
of God. God will not destroy His faithful people with the wicked citizens of earth. He will rescue them. Just as
the angels of God ushered Lot and his family out of Sodom, so the sovereign Lord of history will usher His people
out of this world's system before it is finally destroyed.
But what about Lot's wife? Jesus admonished us, "Remember Lot's wife!" Jesus wants us to
remember her tragic end. We need to refresh our memory of the fate that befell her. She is an
abiding example of what worldliness can do to human life. She was identified with the people of
God through her relationship with Lot, but her heart was in Sodom. She had known the
fellowship of Abraham and Sarah, had been the companion of righteous Lot, but her identification with them was
only outward. Her heart was far from God. You will remember what happened to her. As the angel hurried this
little family out of the city he gave instructions that they were not to turn back. But Lot's wife was so attached to
Sodom that she turned to look back toward the city longingly. When she did, the judgment of God on Sodom
overtook her. According to the Biblical record she was immediately turned into a pillar of salt.
This admonition to His disciples is a warning about the danger of worldliness. As we anticipate
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must not allow this world's system into our hearts. No
one who has allowed the world's system into their heart is ready for the coming of the Lord.
Let's learn something this morning from the tragedy of Lot's wife.
I. WORLDLINESS PREVENTS OBEDIENCE TO THE WORD OF GOD.
Our Lord gives us an insightful description of worldliness in this passage. As He describes the behavior of the
people in the day of Noah and in Sodom and Gomorrah just before the judgment, He is describing classic
worldliness. He says of the day of Noah, "People were eating, and marrying and being given in marriage up to
the day Noah entered the Ark." He says of the days of Lot, "People were eating and drinking, buying and
selling, planting and building." The activities listed were obviously in themselves not evil activities. The
worldliness grows out of the fact that they were doing these things without any regard for God. They lived day to
day in the routines of life as though that was all there was to life. They were materialists! They were looking to
this world for the significance and the satisfaction of their lives.
Lot's wife had become so much a part of that lifestyle that it prevented her from obeying the Word of God.
1. God has spoken.
The messenger of the Lord had specifically said to Lot and his family, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and
don't stop anywhere on the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" Lot's wife heard these
words spoken by the Lord through His angel. However, her mind and heart were so preoccupied with the things
of Sodom, that she deliberately, knowingly disobeyed the Lord. When she turned to look back toward Sodom, it
was a serious act of disobedience to God. Her worldliness was expressing itself.
God has spoken to us. God has spoken clearly on many issues. God has spoken to us how we are to be faithful
stewards of the stuff of life. God has spoken to us about giving and investing in things that will create treasures
in heaven. But like Lot's wife our attractions to the things of this world keeps us from obeying the Word of God.
The world has a tremendous power to detract us from doing the will of God. It has the power to make us feel that
everything is alright even while we are living in open disobedience to the Word of God.
2. Worldly interests crowds out the Word of God.
There was so much of Sodom in the heart of Lot's wife that there was no room for the Word of God. You cannot
have your heart full of a love for the world and the things of the world and have any room for a love for God.
This is the reason Jesus so often warned that we cannot serve God and mammon. One of them will crowd out
the other. In Lot's wife a love for the world crowded out the Word of God so she acted in disobedience.
II. WORLDLINESS GIVES SUPREME VALUE TO THE PLEASURES AND
POSSESSIONS OF THIS WORLD.
Lot's wife loved the pleasures and things of Sodom. They had become of supreme importance to her. These
ancient cities stand in history as the symbol of a life of pleasure and the attraction of possessions. It was the
possessions that Jesus focused on in this warning. He warned that when the sound of the Lord's coming is
heard we should be so loosely attached to this world and to things in the world that we will not reach out to grasp
any of the "stuff" of the earth. He said to His disciples, "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." He is not saying that such a one should not come
down from the house to meet his Lord but rather He is saying he should not come down from the house with the
intention of saving something that is of this world. The things of the world have a way of becoming matters of
supreme value in the life of a person.
1. It makes us define our lives in terms of what we possess.
Lot's wife could not imagine life without her comfortable home and her luxuries that she had known in Sodom.
They were so much a part of her life that she instinctively turned toward them in this moment of crisis. They had
become so much a part of her life that she used them as a means of defining her life.
When you think of yourself, how much a part of your estimate of yourself is determined by what you have. Do
you look to the house in which you live? The position you occupy , the luxuries that you enjoy, the wealth that
you have accumulated to give to you a sense of value and worth? Or do you look to your relationship to God to
give you your inner sense of worth? If it takes the things, the stuff, that you have accumulated to give to your life
a sense of worth, then you may have become a sister to Lot's wife.
2. It looks to things to do what God alone can do.
God was not asking Lot and his family to leave anything behind in Sodom that was essential for a full and
meaningful life. Everything they left behind in Sodom was of this world. Everything they left behind in Sodom
was temporal and by its very nature could not satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. Lot's wife forgot
this. She was looking to the things of Sodom to do what only God can do.
3. It holds on to things at all costs.
In spite of the warning that she had heard from the voice of God's messenger, she turned her face toward
Sodom. Lot's wife could not turn loose of the stuff that she had had in Sodom.
The great comedian, Jack Benny, known for his miserly ways and his love for money, had a famous routine in
which he was held up by an armed robber.
"Your money or your life!" the thief demand. Benny made no reply.
"I said your money or your life!"
Still no reply from Benny.
Impatiently, the thief cried, "Well?" Finally Benny answered, "Don't rush me! I'm still thinking!"
That's where some people live. The things of the world are so important to them that they hold on to them at all
costs.
Archaeologists who excavated the ruins of Pompeii uncovered some startling examples of this. They found the
remains of one man who had been buried by the fire and ash of the volcano. It was obvious that when the
warning had been given to flee the city that instead of fleeing he had returned to his house to get some
valuables. Beside his remains was a little pile of jewels and trinkets that he had taken from his house. He had
risked everything to hold on to a few little trinkets. That's the way of worldliness.
Let me ask you this morning, "What is of supreme value in your life? What determines the decisions that you
make? Are they made on the bases of their profitability or their righteousness? What is it that keeps you from
being a faithful and good steward. Could this be an evidence that the things of this world are more important to
you than the God who made this world?"
III. WORLDLINESS EXPOSES A LIFE TO THE WRATH OF GOD.
This is the usage that Jesus makes of the history of Sodom and Gommrah. Lot's wife was exposed to the wrath
of God by her attraction to and commitment to the things of this world. Jesus expressed this very pointedly in His
application, "Who ever tries to keep his life will lose it and who ever loses his life will preserve it." Lot's wife tried
to hang on to her life as she had known it in Sodom and she lost everything. This is the danger that you and I
face.
1. The whole world system in which we live is under the wrath of God.
Unless you understand that the world system in which we live is under the wrath of God you will not live wisely in
this world. John left this word of instruction for us, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone
loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world - the craving of sinful man, the
lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has done - comes not from the Father but from the world. The world
and its desires pass away but the man who does the will of God lives forever (I John 2:15-17).
The last statement in that paragraph has in it a picture. John graphically describes the world and its desires as
being even now in the process of passing away. The judgment of God is already on this world's system and all of
the desires that it generates. The judgment that caught up with Lot's wife is still active in the world. The only
person who has found anything that is permanent and eternal is the person who is doing the will of God.
2. We have to make a choice - this world or God!
This is the point that Jesus is driving home to His disciples and thus to us. We need to decide now what our
relationship with the world will be. You cannot live for a place in this world and for the kingdom of God at the
same time. You cannot serve God and the world at the same time. James warned us that friendship with the
world is enmity against God. You have to make a choice!
Outwardly many of us have indicated that we have made the choice, but it appears that we have not really
finalized that choice. Even though we have said publicly by believer's baptism that we mean to be disciples of
Jesus Christ, the evidence seems to be that we still have the values of this world. We are still working for a place
in a world that is under the judgment of God. We need to remember Lot's wife! If we are a part of this world's
system, then we will be exposed to the judgment of God. We have left our lives vulnerable to divine wrath.
When President Lyndon Johnson was in the White House, he had a framed letter written by General Sam
Houston on his office wall. The letter was addressed to Johnson's great grandfather, Baines, more than a
hundred years earlier. The thing that made the letter so valuable was Sam Houston's signature on it. Behind the
letter, however, is a very significance story.
President Johnson's great grandfather had led Sam Houston to personal faith in Jesus Christ. Sam had been a
godless and wicked man in many ways, but he became a changed man.
The day came for Sam Houston to be baptized into the local Baptist church, which was an incredible event in the
eyes of those who had known him. After this baptism Sam Houston stated he would like to pay half of the local
pastor's salary. When someone asked him why, his simple response was, "My pocketbook was baptized too." It
appears today that many of us who have been baptized left our pocketbooks at home when we were baptized.
We have given the Lord our soul, but the world still has our pocketbook. Until Jesus Christ has control of your
pocketbook and your checkbook, He is not really Lord of your life. You are still trying to do what Lot's wife tried
to do - obey God and look toward Sodom at the same time. Jesus says you need to remember what happened
to Lot's wife.