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Tonight we cover a lot of Scripture and I want to highlight one very important point.
That point is this: DON’T LOOK BACK.
We are going to talk about the danger of looking back when God is delivering you.
I am not talking about looking back in memory of the moment God delivered you, I am talking about looking back in the moment of deliverance at whatever it is He is delivering you from.
Our study brings us back to the three men that had come to visit Abraham.
One of these men was the Lord, the other two were angels who had come to do His work.
They had delivered a word to Abraham and Sarah, and now it was time to deal with unchecked wickedness in the land.
Sodom and Gomorrah had become places of terrible wickedness.
God had come to see if the level of wickedness was as bad as the “outcry” said it was.
Now… here is a question I have for you.
Why do you think God handled this situation in this way?
Did God really have to come to the earth and send angels into the city to find out if the cities were bad?
Isn’t He all-knowing?
INTERESTING THOUGHT: God does not choose to destroy the cities from afar.
He has heard the outcries and because He is omniscient meaning all-knowing, He knows the legitimacy of those outcries.
God, through His angels, ENTERS INTO the situation.
God comes in in a personal way.
Think about it… have you ever been involved in a situation where decisions were being made by people who had never set foot in the situation?
Working for Target, they had district teams that set policy for how the stores operated.
Many of these higher level manager had never stepped foot on a sales floor… but they had their college degrees.
They would strategize and make policy from afar… and these policies often did not work.
Why?
Because they had NO personal connection with how things worked at the store level.
God… is not that kind of person.
God is personal.
God is present.
God does not make decisions from afar, although He has every ability to do so… but instead He enters the situation for Himself.
Want proof?
When Jesus came to this earth, God became one of us.
He waked with us, ministered to us, felt our pain and sorrow, and gave His life for us.
God the Son entered into our broken reality.
He never sinned, but He took on our sin and nailed it to the cross.
I love the fact that our God is not a distant or disconnected God… rather, He is with us.
He enters in.
He does not reign from afar… He reigns in our hearts!
Even in this moment as He is responding to the outcry heard from two wicked cities, God is not distant.
Abraham then enters into a sort of negotiation talk with the Lord regarding the people of the city.
And in the end, God makes clear that He will not destroy the righteous with the wicked.
But then we see the visit to the city.
Then we see the wickedness exposed for what it is.
Sodom and Gomorrah were both full of sin and immorality.
And the time had come for the sin to be dealt with.
Wickedness Revealed.
Imagine, guys, traveling into a new town only to have the inhabitants of that town gather around where you are staying and demanding that they… the men of the town… well, look at the story in Genesis 19:4-5
Uh… that is NOT how I would want to be greeted in a new town!
But it goes to show the level of wickedness and immorality the city was experiencing.
To appease the crowd, Lot does something, rather shocking.
Church… wickedness is NEVER an answer for wickedness!
Lot attempts to appease the crowd by offering his daughters to them to be used however they chose to use them!
Yikes!
This city had reached a new level of sinfulness.
Lot tried to broker a deal to hold off the crowd at the expense of his own daughters… he didn’t know what else to do.
That is a new level of desperation.
And the crazy thing was… this “deal” only made the crowd more angry!
So the angels made a move.
The wickedness was in fact as bad as the outcry said it was.
So Lot went to work to get his family away from the city.
And when the time came… the angels led them out.
Whew!
It looks like they were safe!
It looks like they had gotten out just in time!
Yet… someone was holding on.
Someone was struggling and would ignore the angel’s given instruction… specifically the instruction to not look back.
Delivered… or Distracted?
This point might sound a bit different but stay with me.
Lot and his family had just been delivered from a terrible situation… but not everyone was okay with this deliverance.
Look at what happens.
Genesis 19:23-26
Now… how is it that a simple glance back could result in Lot’s wife becoming a pillar of salt?
The problem is found in WHY she was looking back.
The original Hebrew word used here indicates desire and steady action meaning she WANTED what she left behind… the city, the house, the comforts, etc. Lot’s wife was holding on to what God was trying to deliver her from.
Even though she was physically moving in the right direction, her heart was still in Sodom.
And because that was the case, she would receive the same wrath the rest of the city received.
God’s deliverance… was only a distraction from what she really wanted.
And we need to be careful that the same does not happen to us.
It is hard for us to imagine why anyone would want to stay in that wicked city… yet we struggle in our own messes at times.
And when God wants to deliver us, it is viewed or recieved more as a distraction from what we really want.
Think this is too much or out of line?
Look at Jesus’ own words regarding the end times.
What an incredible thought… that in the moment Jesus raptures His church that some might desire to hold on to “treasures” of this world!!!
Lot’s wife was holding on… and because she held on, she faced the destruction of the city.
When God sets us free from sin, we are not to look back and wish for the good ole’ days ever again.
One, those days were far from good and two, those days were leading us to Hell.
When God delivers us from bondage, we are not to look back and wish for the chains to be reapplied or for the shackles to return.
WHO WOULD WISH FOR THAT!?!
Yet we look back when we wish or dream or hold on.
Jesus says to let it go.
There is nothing of this world that is worth holding onto.
For Lot’s wife, it was instant destruction
For distracted “believers” it is eternity in hell.
The Cross Before Me...
I want to close with this thought tonight… I do not want to look back to the life I lived BEFORE the cross.
I want to live in the aftermath of the application of Jesus’ blood.
I live… with the cross before me and the world behind me.
I live with Jesus in focus and sin as far behind me as possible.
I do not desire the days or the ways that had me bound.
I do not desire the thoughts and emotions that had me imprisoned.
JESUS HAS SET ME FREE!
His deliverance is not a distraction to a life I want, His deliverance is a departure from a path that was destroying me!
Our decision to follow Jesus is not just a one time event… it’s a daily choice to not look back, and to keep our eyes on Jesus.
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