Remember Lot’s wife?
This is the admonition Jesus gave to his disciples concerning his second coming.
Let’s recollect Lot’s wife.
Before Lot and his family left Sodom, the angels gave the Lord’s command.
“Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.”
Lot’s wife, however, disobeyed the Lord’s word and turned into a pillar of salt.
Now why do you suppose she would do that? Obviously, it was more than just curiosity.
To “look back” in this scripture is the Hebrew word nâbaţ which means to look intently at, to regard with pleasure and care, to consider, and to have respect for.
This means that Lot’s wife had an affinity for the place she was leaving. A sentiment for her home. An emotional attachment to the people she was leaving behind.
Jesus goes on after giving this admonition to say in Luke chapter 17,
Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall preserve it.
“Losing our life” is the crucial point the Lord tells us here.
According to the scriptures, our lives are not our own. We were bought with a price.
“To lose” in this scripture means to die. Apollumi in the Greek. Which means to put to death or consider nonoperative.
Paul says that he dies daily. Death to self and the world is an everyday thing.
Did you know that if we love the world or the things of the world, then God’s love does not reside in us?
A sure way to tell a true Christian from a false one is if they are accepted by the world and love the things of the world.
What are the things of the world? Anything that the world esteems highly!
What does the world esteem highly?
John (1John 2) tells us that the things of the world are whatever your flesh or carnal nature lust after. Whatever your eyes lust after and whatever outside of God makes you feel prideful or you boast about.
So let me put this in modern terms. Whatever the world is running after, craving, pursuing, seeking for, desiring, addicted to, loving, and is their heart’s desire.
If you love those things too, you are not one of the Lord’s disciples. You may believe in Jesus Christ, but even the devil believes in God.
Remember that Jesus gave this warning.
Another way to tell a true Christian from a false one is how much they brag about themselves. How worthy they are. How blessed they are. How many special qualities that they have. How great their position in life is. How excellent their works are. How great life is treating them. Basically, whatever is all about them.
Paul said that he boasted only in the Lord. He put no confidence in his own abilities. He boasted about being weak so that God could demonstrate HIS power through him.
Galatians 6:14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Jesus told us, as recorded by Luke(14), that if we desire to follow Jesus Christ and become one of his disciples, we must take up our cross. That is, we must be willing to suffer like he did.
How did Jesus Christ suffer?
He was misunderstood, persecuted, judged, bullied, hated, ridiculed, beaten, and even put to death.
Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. 2 Timothy 3:12
Remember Lot’s wife? She turned into a pillar of salt for looking back to what God judged as evil. In the Hebrew pillar is netsîyb, which means a post or garrison.
God made Lot’s wife into a signpost. For all with eyes to see. A reminder to “don’t look back.”
John 15:18-25
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep your’s also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
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