Never Look Back: Let Go of Worldly Attachments

“When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back…” (Genesis 19:16-17).

Almost every youngster who has ever gone to Sunday school remembers that Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. “That’s nothing,” said one motivated lad, “my grandma looked back and turned into a telephone pole.” Yet, Jesus made a reference to this woman whose life was taken in judgment that leaves a lot unsaid. Its context is found in a discussion Jesus had with His disciples about the end times, and how God would eventually send judgment upon a world who has rejected His offer of life.

He spoke but three words: “Remember Lot’s wife.” He didn’t elaborate; he didn’t go into detail. He just made an allusion to a woman who had lived more than 2000 years earlier. Yet her memory was so embedded in the psyche of those who listened that to make a point all he had to do was to say, “Remember Lot’s wife.”

To understand this powerful allusion, you need some bio-data. Who was this woman? Why did the lightning of judgment strike her? What do we learn from her that relates to life in the twenty-first century?

When Moses recorded the drama, he identified her as being the wife of Abraham’s nephew whose name was Lot. This man had left Haran with Abraham and was part of that entourage that walked hundreds of miles together through the desert. They were family. They sat by the campfire at night and looked up at the stars and talked and joked and laughed. Once they entered into the land that we know as Israel today, God blessed them. Their flocks and their herds all grew. Finally there wasn’t enough pasture and water for both Abraham’s flock and Lot’s, so being the peacemaker and gentleman he was, Abraham said, “Lot, take your choice. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right. I want no conflict between us.”

That’s when Lot looked towards the fertile Jordan Valley and chose the green pastures near Sodom, probably the southern end of the Dead Sea. There he prospered, but there he also faced the dilemma which confronts parents today: “How do you raise godly kids in a depraved, ungodly world?” Even today the name Sodom is tainted by the practice that derived its name from the sexual sins which were rampant there.

God is patient, but there is an end to his patience. Eventually, God sent two angelic messengers instructing Lot and his family to leave. The message was simple: “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain!” The record tells us that as they were fleeing, Lot’s wife looked back, just once. She must’ve thought, “Well, surely one last fleeting glance can’t matter,” but it did, and she faced the consequences of her failure.

What does this teach us today? In the context of what Jesus was saying, it’s a sober reminder that we must maintain a loose attachment to the things that seem so important to us here—homes, cars, jewelry, and things. Relationships are more important than things.

A second lesson is that a divided heart never pleases God. Remember, Jesus said no person can serve both God and the world’s system. Corrie Ten Boom used to say that we ought to hold loosely to our possessions because it hurts too much when God pries them out of our hands.

And without time to develop this truth, Jesus’ three pungent words, “Remember Lot’s wife,” tells us that God means what he says. He never says, “Well, we’ll forget it this time, but next time I really mean it.”

If she could have only seen that God was preserving them and protecting them, how focused she might have been. The bottom line is: Never look back.

Resource reading: Genesis 19.