Remember Lot's wife!

Luke 17:28-30 AMPC

So also [it was the same] as it was in the days of Lot. [People] ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; [29] But on the [very] day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed [them] all. [30] That is the way it will be on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”

One of my favourite places in Israel is the Dead Sea area. The Tuscan-coloured desert mountains have a very barren beauty. Often we have spent Christmas day savouring its solitary serenity driving beside the still waters.

Yet the Biblical history of this region is stark and Jesus uses the judgement that rained down on it to illustrate how it will be on earth before He returns.

Many theologians like to treat the story of Lot and the awful thing that happened to his wife as mythical and a story book tale.

Yet our Lord Jesus warned "remember Lot's wife"! She looked back with longing for her old life in Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt.

The world offers much appeal to our fleshly desires: greed, sex, fame, power, money, entertainment, pleasure!

Reading the account about Sodom in Genesis 19, it's horrendous how the insatiable desire to rape and have group sex was the norm in that city. Anybody new in town was "up for grabs"! More surprising, to me, was how Lot was willing to give his two daughters to the gang in order to save his visitors!

Were females considered of such little worth, even by their father, that they were treated as chattels to be bartered with?

You only have to read the news in order to see the brazen desire for pleasure and insatiable craving for sexual stimulation and recognise we have reached a similar state in society today.

Parents put no value on their children and even abuse them to death with violence. It's all so unnatural.

This should waken us up to the imminence of our departure. The Lord has to remove His own in order to pour out His Wrath on this Christ-rejecting world.

It's vital that we too don't look back, but follow closely to Jesus each and every moment. He is going to snatch us away like a thief in the night, before the coming judgement.

"Remember Lot's wife"!