Remembering Lot's Wife
Lot’s wife has been a subject that for quite some time I have been searching a deeper revelation about. As I have said before often times when something in the word baffles me, it’s usually because eventually I’ll search it out/study it and will get a revelation on it. For years I’ve been pondering/searching/ and studying Lot’s wife off an on. I knew there had some prophetic revelation and application to her story and I knew eventually the Holy Spirit would reveal it to me. On Wednesday in church Pastor Greg talked about Lot’s wife for about five minutes and while he was speaking the Holy Spirit revealed to me the key about this story that I knew had to be in there. I felt that I had to teach it this morning despite the one I had plans to write. I pray that God will bless you in this revelation. There are so many things I could teach about this story but I’m going to try to focus on where I feel God wants me to go here.
The story about Lot’s escape from Sodom and Gomorrah can be found in Genesis 19. I’ll quickly paraphrase for you. The just of everything is that God goes to Abraham grieved over Sodom and Gomorrah because they were so ungodly. Abraham intercedes for Lot and his family. God sends angels into Sodom to get Lot and his family out of the city before destruction occurs. The angels instruct Lot, his wife and his daughters. They tell them in verse 17 “As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" The angel tells them NOT to look back. I don’t know about you but if an angel showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night and started to tell me to get out of the town now; I’d hope I’d take him seriously. But instead Lot kinda argues with them. He was like I don’t want to go in the mountains like you want me too. He was too scared. Can I go to a nearby town? So the angels relented and said fine go to the next town over. Off subject but latter he and his daughters end up fleeing to the mountains.
Ok, so here is where I want to get too. It’s early in the morning the family is fleeing the city, and the word says in verse 26 that Lot’s wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt. That is what always baffled me. Why a pillar of salt? Ok, yes she was disobedient, and wrong in what she did. But I couldn’t understand why a pillar of salt. In all the word studies and such I’ve done on salt in the Bible, God turning her into salt just didn’t make sense to me. Often times the Old Testament gives us physical illustrations that can have spiritual applications now that we live on the other side of the cross. Something about Lot’s wife just struck me as there being more to this story. So what could be the spiritual application of turning into a pillar of salt? Setting in church on Wednesday listening to Pastor Greg, The Holy Spirit finally revealed it to me. If she was a pillar of salt. . . That meant she had the absence of water. She was a pillar of salt because all the water was sucked out of her. She dried up, and no life can spring up in her. It’s like the Dead Sea. She became lifeless.
How can we take a spiritual application to this? Water in the Bible refers a lot of times to the Holy Spirit. This is a spiritual application because Lot’s wife looked back where the angels told her not to look and life was sucked out of her.
I’m not saying today that God is going to turn a bunch of people into a pillar of salt. What I am saying is that this can turn into a spiritual principle. If you’re constantly dwelling on the past, the reproducing life of God can get sucked out of you. You can dry up spiritually. Too much salt on anything can make people want to pucker up and gag whenever their around you. Have you ever desired a meal. You looked at it and thought wow that looks good, but as you bit into it you realized the cook put too much salt in the mashed potatoes. What is the first thing you’re going to do? You’re going to reach over and grab a drink. You need water/the Holy Spirit.
Before the end of the year I came to you with the word that I know God gave me for this year. Isaiah 43:18-19 “"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”
God is telling you not to turn around. Keep your eyes on him. Keep your eyes on what you know He’s calling you to do. You can’t keep your eyes on the old. You must push forward to the new thing. I know this can be a challenge. But you must keep making yourself do it. Philippians 3:12-14 “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Please don’t be like Lot’s wife. It’s easy to feel sorry for her. But God knew her heart. I think she loved the sinful city more than she loved God, or she wouldn’t have acted the way she did. It’s easy to give God lip service. It’s easy to tell God you love him more, but you’re action speak louder than words. You can’t keep walking backwards. Turn around today! Make the choice to know that you’re future will be better than your past. You’re end will be better than your beginning. God has new things for you this year. Choose to believe it. Choose to trust Him. Watch the new thing spring forth!
The story about Lot’s escape from Sodom and Gomorrah can be found in Genesis 19. I’ll quickly paraphrase for you. The just of everything is that God goes to Abraham grieved over Sodom and Gomorrah because they were so ungodly. Abraham intercedes for Lot and his family. God sends angels into Sodom to get Lot and his family out of the city before destruction occurs. The angels instruct Lot, his wife and his daughters. They tell them in verse 17 “As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" The angel tells them NOT to look back. I don’t know about you but if an angel showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night and started to tell me to get out of the town now; I’d hope I’d take him seriously. But instead Lot kinda argues with them. He was like I don’t want to go in the mountains like you want me too. He was too scared. Can I go to a nearby town? So the angels relented and said fine go to the next town over. Off subject but latter he and his daughters end up fleeing to the mountains.
Ok, so here is where I want to get too. It’s early in the morning the family is fleeing the city, and the word says in verse 26 that Lot’s wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt. That is what always baffled me. Why a pillar of salt? Ok, yes she was disobedient, and wrong in what she did. But I couldn’t understand why a pillar of salt. In all the word studies and such I’ve done on salt in the Bible, God turning her into salt just didn’t make sense to me. Often times the Old Testament gives us physical illustrations that can have spiritual applications now that we live on the other side of the cross. Something about Lot’s wife just struck me as there being more to this story. So what could be the spiritual application of turning into a pillar of salt? Setting in church on Wednesday listening to Pastor Greg, The Holy Spirit finally revealed it to me. If she was a pillar of salt. . . That meant she had the absence of water. She was a pillar of salt because all the water was sucked out of her. She dried up, and no life can spring up in her. It’s like the Dead Sea. She became lifeless.
How can we take a spiritual application to this? Water in the Bible refers a lot of times to the Holy Spirit. This is a spiritual application because Lot’s wife looked back where the angels told her not to look and life was sucked out of her.
I’m not saying today that God is going to turn a bunch of people into a pillar of salt. What I am saying is that this can turn into a spiritual principle. If you’re constantly dwelling on the past, the reproducing life of God can get sucked out of you. You can dry up spiritually. Too much salt on anything can make people want to pucker up and gag whenever their around you. Have you ever desired a meal. You looked at it and thought wow that looks good, but as you bit into it you realized the cook put too much salt in the mashed potatoes. What is the first thing you’re going to do? You’re going to reach over and grab a drink. You need water/the Holy Spirit.
Before the end of the year I came to you with the word that I know God gave me for this year. Isaiah 43:18-19 “"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”
God is telling you not to turn around. Keep your eyes on him. Keep your eyes on what you know He’s calling you to do. You can’t keep your eyes on the old. You must push forward to the new thing. I know this can be a challenge. But you must keep making yourself do it. Philippians 3:12-14 “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Please don’t be like Lot’s wife. It’s easy to feel sorry for her. But God knew her heart. I think she loved the sinful city more than she loved God, or she wouldn’t have acted the way she did. It’s easy to give God lip service. It’s easy to tell God you love him more, but you’re action speak louder than words. You can’t keep walking backwards. Turn around today! Make the choice to know that you’re future will be better than your past. You’re end will be better than your beginning. God has new things for you this year. Choose to believe it. Choose to trust Him. Watch the new thing spring forth!
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