No Looking Back

“But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”—Genesis 19:26

As long as we are on this earth, we will have to deal with the presence of sin. We wage war against our flesh, the devil, and this fallen world. We have to deal with the lure of our old lives, the lives that we had before Christ called us to Himself, but we can achieve victory and not have fear, because our enemies were defeated by the cross. Their fangs were removed, but there is still the desire to bite, and they will continue to fight against us as long as we remain on this earth. But, we must continually be reminded by Scripture, other believers, and the Holy Spirit within us that we cannot go back to our former way of life.

In today’s Scripture passage, we have the tragic example of someone wanting to return to her former life of sin. We are not given her name, but her relationship, Lot’s wife. Lot, along with his wife and two daughters, were living in sinful Sodom, the city God destroyed because of its rampant and gross sexual immorality. God was bringing direct judgment on the city, but because of Lot’s relationship to Abraham, and his righteousness, God mercifully pulled him out of the city right before all hell broke loose. As his family was on the proverbial expressway out of town and fire poured forth from the sky down onto the city, killing everyone who lived there, Lot’s wife looked back at what they’d left behind. They had been instructed to not look back but get out of town quickly. Her looking back resulted in her death, because as soon as she looked back, she became a pillar of salt.

Her life is a tragic example of what it means to turn back to our life of sin, to want what God forbids, but God has included this account within the Scripture so that we might be warned about double-mindedness and what happens if we turn back toward what we have been commanded to leave behind. And although we probably will not turn into a pillar of salt, we can be assured that we are inviting God’s direct judgment, not to mention the sorrow and destruction we are inviting into our lives.

Paul knew the lure that one’s past life held. That’s why he wrote to the church at Corinth,

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God”—1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

The greatness of that passage lies not in what they were, but what they became. Paul gives a list of an entire host of sins, but finishes with, “And such were some of you.” There is a transformation that occurs in the person who gives his or her life to Christ. You are no longer what you were, but you have been made new. Or as Paul wrote, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”—2 Corinthians 5:17. We are new creatures, and we have been transformed. The chains to our past have been severed and we have been set free. We are no longer our own, but have been bought by the precious blood of Christ. We have been transformed, and although we battle with the power of sin while we are still in these bodies, we look forward to the day when we will no longer even be in the presence of sin. Christ will bring us to Himself and we will eternally celebrate what He has done.

My brother or sister, don’t let your past chain your soul, and don’t turn back to the life of sin that you used to know. Be assured of this: sorrow, destruction and death await all of those who return to their past. Christ is stronger than anything our old life can, will, or has offered. Know that at His right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11) and we simply need to set our minds on that. So, let’s forsake the sin that so easily entangles our soul, know that the past that attempts to seduce us is really a giant lie, and live in the knowledge that greater pleasures beyond our imagination await all of those who long and live for Him. Amen.