Remember Lot's Wife

Let's take our Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 19. Genesis 19, we're going to begin reading at verse 15 and read through verse 29.

And since we're sort of being dropped into the middle of an account here, let me tell you what's gone on. What's going on? The Lord has appeared to Abraham and he said, I am going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

But in the city of Sodom lives Abraham's nephew, Lot. He's living there with his family. And so the Lord has one last mercy mission, one last flight into Sodom before the city is destroyed.

And so he goes as an angel with another angel to rescue Lot and his family. And so this is where we begin reading in verse 15. With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot saying, hurry, take your wife and your two daughters who are here or you will be swept away when the city is punished.

When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand in 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 and don't stop anywhere in the plain. Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away. But Lot said to them, no, my lords, please.

Your servant has found favor in your eyes and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can't flee to the mountains. This disaster will overtake me and I'll die.

Look, here is a town near enough to run to. And it is small. Let me flee to it. It is very small, isn't it? Then my life will be spared. He said to them.

Very well, I will grant this request to I will not overthrow the town you speak of, but flee there quickly because I cannot do anything until you reach it.

This is why the town was called Zoar. By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens.

Thus, he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt.

Early the next morning, Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain.

And he saw dense smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace. So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Just three words, but what a message to wake up a sleepy nation in 1836. Just weeks before, the garrison of the Alamo was being defended by those old heroes, Davy Crockett and James Bowie and others, along with some 200 soldiers.

And they repelled two attacks by General Santa Ana and his Mexican infantry that outnumbered them 12 to 1. But on the third attack, the Alamo was conquered and all but two were killed.

When word of that slaughter got out, it became the rallying cry that called forth fresh troops into action. And six weeks later, Santa Ana and his men were defeated in a battle lasting only 18 minutes.

And it was reported that in the midst of the fighting, you could hear men shouting, remember the Alamo.

Just three words, but the remembrance of what happened there stirred men into action. Now, 1800 years earlier, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, was on the earth teaching his disciples and he drove home his point with just three penetrating words.

Remember Lot's wife. Luke chapter 17 and verse 32. Because what happened to her is so important.

It's so important that he had it written down in the book that he gave us. The Bible. We've just read what happened to her in Genesis chapter 19.

And these are Jesus' words to us. Remember Lot's wife. I wonder how long it's been since you have obeyed that command of Jesus.

It's an imperative. He's telling us. You remember Lot's wife. When's the last time you thought about Lot's wife? Has it been a year or two? Ten or twenty?

When have you thought about Lot's wife? That's what Jesus is telling all of us. There are some things that you can afford to forget. Your birthday.

Your phone number. And a lot of other things. But Jesus is saying here's something that we cannot forget except to our peril.

If you care at all about your eternal soul, remember Lot's wife. Because according to Jesus, the very remembrance of her will stir us to certain actions that we need to take.

And so this morning our aim is to remember her along with some critical lessons from her life and death. Now it's hard when coming to a passage like this, if you've read J.C. Ryle's treatment of it, not to adopt Ryle's outline of the passage.

It's a very simple outline. There are three points and that's what I'll use this morning along with a few other helps from Ryle along the way. We're going to look at Lot's wife's, her privileges, her sin, and her punishment.

So first of all, her privileges. Who was this woman? Well, we don't even know her name, do we?

Was it Rebecca? Rachel? Rhoda? We're not told. All we know is the name of her husband.

She was Lot's wife. And with that information alone, we learn much about her spiritual privileges in life. Now, if you've read the Bible, you know that Lot is not exactly a paragon of virtue.

He's not a perfect believer. And yet, Peter says in his second letter that Lot was a righteous man. He was a godly man who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men.

All right? He's a righteous man distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men. He lived in Sodom, after all. He saw a lot of filthy lives. And it didn't just run off his back like water off a duck's back.

No, he was distressed by it. Indeed, Peter says he was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard.

Do you know that's a mark? It's always a mark of the righteous who live in an unrighteous world. They're tormented. Literally tortured. By the lawless, ungodly things that happen around them.

So, before we criticize Lot and pick out all of his faults, I just want to ask, what about that standard of righteousness? Do we even measure up to that?

Does God see that our hearts are tormented by the lawless and lewd things that we see happening around us today?

Does he ever hear our grief over the wickedness? Does he ever see our tormented soul over the foul language that we have to hear?

Over God's name taken in vain? Over our Savior's name drug through the mud? Over the lewd music that comes through the airwaves?

The lewd movies and programs? Do we in our souls get tormented? Does it hurt us to see and hear such things?

Or have we just adopted it? And it no longer bothers us. We've heard it so often that it just comes and goes. That wasn't Lot. No, he was bothered. Because he knew a holy God.

And he saw all these things that were the contradiction of the holiness of God. And it burdened his soul. Well, this is Lot.

And Mrs. Lot, by being married to this righteous man, she had many spiritual advantages over many other women of her day.

She lived with a righteous man. She fixed breakfast for a righteous man. She heard a righteous man give thanks before eating.

She saw a righteous man live day in and day out in an unrighteous world. And perhaps even more importantly than that, her husband's uncle was Abraham.

The very father of the faithful. And we're living in a day when God had let the nations go on in their idolatrous ways. But he had chosen out one family in which he would reveal his truth and keep a people who knew him until from that line would come one day the Messiah, Jesus Christ our Lord.

That's Abraham's family. And Lot can call him uncle. And so Mrs. Lot had Abraham for her uncle.

Now, when Abraham was called out of his idolatry from the other side of the river and told by God, you go to a place that I will show you, the Bible says Abraham took his possessions and went, not knowing where he was going.

He trusted God and left his homeland and all the idolatry involved with it and followed God to a promised land. And when Abraham did so, so did Lot, his nephew.

And something we learned very early on then in the whole story of Lot and Abraham is that wherever Abraham went, Lot went. He was very close to his uncle. And so when they left the land of idolatry, very likely Mrs. Lot left too and went with her husband Lot and was there with Abraham.

And so as you begin to read in Genesis 12 and 13, you see that Abraham went to a certain place and God appeared to him there and spoke to him. And Abraham built an off altar and worshiped the Lord.

And Lot and Mrs. Lot were there too, worshiping. So she had many spiritual blessings just because she was married to Lot, a righteous man who had Abraham as his uncle.

Her husband was a worshiper of the one true God in a day when that was rare. She had knowledge of the living God. She had truth that had come from him to man.

She knew that he was the one who created her in all things. She knew that he was the one who controlled history. And she went along with Lot in her worship, though as we'll see, her heart was not in it.

And then one day the land became too small for Abraham and Lot. That just means they both prospered so much that there wasn't enough grazing ground and water to feed both their flocks. And so they separated.

And Abraham says, you choose. You go one way, I'll go the other. And the Bible tells us that Lot chose the well-watered plain of the Jordan. And he pitched his tent near Sodom.

Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. That's back in chapter 13 of Genesis. So then Abraham and Lot divide.

But then Lot gets caught up into some trouble. The nations and the kingdoms of Sodom and Gomorrah and the other kingdoms around got into a fight. And they got hauled away.

Lot and Mrs. Lot got hauled away as prisoners of war. Lot and all of his possessions and his wife. And word came back to Abraham. And Abraham gathered his several hundred men and servants and went out and got him.

And the Lord helped him to defeat those kings. And he brought that Lot and his wife and all their possessions. And Lot was there as he was delivered mercifully by God.

And Mrs. Lot saw this deliverance and saw the king Melchizedek come out and bless Abraham and give thanks and praise to God.

She was there. Great were her spiritual privileges through her uncle-in-law Abraham. And we see that especially when the Lord is going to destroy Sodom because of its wickedness, he decides to spare righteous Lot and his family for Abraham's sake.

Okay, I'm Lot and my wife and we're spared for Abraham's sake. Uncle Abraham had asked the Lord, you're not going to let the righteous perish with the wicked down there in Sodom, are you?

You're not just going to wipe them all out. Would you spare the city for 50 righteous people? The Lord says, I'd spare it. You remember how Lot keeps bartering him down and gets to 10?

Would you spare the city for 10 men? God says, I will. We wonder how low he could have gone with God. He's so gracious. But he didn't find 10 men who were righteous in Sodom.

He found Lot. And he spared Lot and his family. His wife and his two daughters.

And the concluding word after Sodom is destroyed is this in chapter 19 and verse 29. So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and he brought Lot out.

He looked to Abraham and he brought Lot out out of that catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. And then think of the privilege of having two angels come from God to visit you.

To bring you out and to tell you face to face of the coming disaster before it arrived. And then when Lot and his family hesitated, they physically laid hands on them.

They grabbed them by the hands and they drew them right out of the city. And they warned them to flee for their lives and don't look back.

What a privilege to have angels come from heaven to warn them of the coming disaster. Do you know Mrs. Lot heard warnings that the rest of the city never got?

It wasn't the tornado siren and everyone in the city knew disasters coming. No. It was angels sent to one family. And Mrs. Lot heard the warning. What a blessed woman she was.

And then when they lingered, they hurried them out of the town. So Mrs. Lot, all this to say that Mrs. Lot was one of the most privileged people on the planet of her day.

As far as spiritual privileges go, Mrs. Lot was right up there. And yet, none of all these spiritual privileges were enough to save her. For all her knowledge of God, for all of her godly examples around her, for all of her spiritual experiences, for all of the mercies of God that she received, she still perished in her sins and went to hell.

And that's one reason, Jesus says, we need to remember Lot's wife. All of us here have known great spiritual privileges like Lot's wife.

Even experiences that exceed hers in some of your cases. You have the truth of God, the knowledge of the true God in a world where that's rare.

You know, there's some places, kids, where you can be born, spend your whole life, and die and never hear the name of Jesus. It's dark out there. Oh, but you have the light shining on.

You know who Jesus is and why He came and how He saved sinners. You have the light of the gospel. Oh, what a privilege you have. And you have 66 books in the Bible.

Lot's wife didn't have any yet. It hadn't been written yet. She just heard the stories of God's great deeds that had been passed down through the generations. But you have the whole book and now you look back upon a Savior who has already come from the line of Abraham and you look back and you see His perfect life and His atoning death and His resurrection.

You see all of that from this side of the cross and this side of Christ's life and death. But Mrs. Lot didn't have all that light and knowledge.

And we not only have the example and words of an Uncle Abraham and a righteous Lot, we have the words and example of Christ Himself, don't we? It's all right here.

And we have the apostles who were eyewitnesses of what He did and heard what He said and we have their words in our hands. Many of you have had Christian parents who from infancy have taught you the Holy Scriptures.

That's something Lot's wife didn't have from beyond the river growing up in idolatry. Some of you have believing spouses living in the same house with you like Lot's wife.

The point is you may have gospel light shining all around you and yet be lost because spiritual privileges have never saved anyone.

Only Christ saves sinners. So some of you may even been been baptized. You may even be church members. You may even be members of this church.

You may take the Lord's Supper. You may go a long way in religious things and still be lost is what we see in Lot's wife. She even made it out of Sodom but she still perished on the plain.

So we need to remember Lot's wife. especially because human nature tends to rest on spiritual privileges. You see it with the Jews. They thought they were in.

Heaven? Sure it's ours. We have Abraham for our father. We belong to the right breed of people. We're Jews. We're God's chosen people. They rested on their spirit.

Did they have privileges? Yes. They had the scriptures. They had the worship. They had all sorts of privileges. But those privileges didn't save them. But they rested on them thinking they would save them.

So never stop short of Christ. You know that's what your spiritual privileges are meant to do. To bring you to Jesus the only Savior. So you have parents who are teaching you the way of salvation. Don't stop with that.

Have you got to Christ? He's the one who saves you. Your Sunday school teachers are working with you to point you to Jesus. But if you just go in and out of the class and don't get to Jesus then it doesn't save you.

Some of you have heard thousands of Sunday school Wednesday night Sunday morning Sunday night sermons and all that light is shining so brightly around you but unless you get to Jesus you too will perish like Lot's wife.

A woman living in the midst of light and yet she perished. What's all that light meant to do? It's meant to show us the Son of God and to bring us to Him personally.

So do you profess to be a believer? I must tell you Lot's wife did too. Are you surrounded by other believers? I must tell you Lot's wife was too.

Do you have a more religious and moral life than others around you? Lot's wife did too. Do you know a lot about God?

Lot's wife did too. And according to Jesus many on the day of judgment are going to hang their hat on such privileges. And they'll say when the door is closed they'll be outside knocking and pleading sir open the door for us and they'll say we ate and drank with you.

And you taught in our streets so open the door for us. Remember I was there listening. Remember I got off work and I went to hear you and I was there.

Remember me. But not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven and shows by his so doing that he has true saving faith that works.

That he's really born again to a new life and walking a new walk. But many will say to me on that day it's not just Lot's wife.

One here and there. Many will say to me on that day Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles.

Surely you remember me Lord. And then I will tell them plainly I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of iniquity. If you don't want to hear those words in the end then remember Lot's wife.

Remember her. And never rest in your spiritual privileges. Never rest until you rest your soul on Christ himself. That's where all these privileges need to send you.

So we've remembered her privileges. Next we look at her sin. What was the sin of Lot's wife? Now watch closely.

That was it. You mean that was her sin? That's what the Bible tells us. Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt.

She looked back. That's it. It was just a look but a look revealed her heart.

You know there can be a lot in a look can't there? You've experienced it. You say if looks could kill well you just got to look.

and there was anger in that look. There was hatred in that look. There was murder in the heart in that look. It was just a look but there was hatred in that look.

Or we learned from Isaiah 3 from the haughty woman in Zion that there can be arrogance in a look.

pride in a look. And we learned from Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount that there can be lust in a look. Such lust that if it's not repented of will take you to hell.

So it's better to put out your eyes if they're causing you to lust and to enter into life without eyes than to enter into hell with both your eyes.

You see there is such a thing as sin in a look. Indeed there may be great sin in a look. So what was it in Lot's wife?

What was the sin in her looking back? Well in the first place she was told not to. The angel sent by God to destroy Sodom had clearly said flee for your lives and don't look back.

But she looked back. So there was disobedience in her look wasn't there? Disobedience. It may seem like a small thing to you but do you know that God can see big sins in small things?

Just a look. It was just a bite of fruit. fruit. But God had said don't eat from that tree.

You can eat from all of them but not that one. And Eve bit and Adam bit and for that action the whole human race was plunged into sin and condemnation.

Small thing to us huge thing to God. Will they obey me when there's no other reason to obey than the fact that I've told them to obey me? Rebellion.

There was rebellion in that bite. And so we find with this look it may be there may be great sin in small things. That one deed done that one word spoken that one thought meditated on that one look.

But her look back revealed something else about her heart not just her disobedience and we don't need to guess about it because the Lord Jesus gives us the explanation in Luke 17 when he tells us remember Lot's wife.

Here's the very next words in verse 33 of Luke 17. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it and whoever loses his life will preserve it.

So according to Jesus she was trying to keep her life. In other words life as she wanted it was back there in Sodom. Back there her house her nice things her garden her friends her comforts that's where good the good life was for her and that's where her heart was.

And that's the life she not only wanted but she wanted to hang on to she wanted to keep it and trying to keep it she was just at the beginning of trying to keep it but she was trying to keep her life Jesus says.

And so she lost it. So remember Lot's wife and remember that those who try to keep their life will lose it. That's what you learn from Lot's wife.

That though her feet were out of Sodom her heart never left. It was still back there. And her looking back revealed a heart that was attached to the things of this life.

And she was longing for her life there. I want my life my way rather than God's way. God says run and flee. And she says but I want that.

Now it was no small trial for Lot's wife. Her husband was a wealthy successful businessman who could no doubt afford a nice lifestyle in Sodom.

But now she's being called upon to pick up and leave it all. Now she had been called to do that one other time. From the other side of the river with Lot and Uncle Abraham.

And they went. She's not ready to do it again. She's got too much now. And she's not ready to part with it. And her heart hangs on this time.

It was even more costly than the first time. because then they took their possessions with them across the river. Now there's not even time to grab possessions. It's flee for your lives and don't look back.

So she's drug out of Sodom against her will. And she's looking back longingly with a heart to return. And so she's caught up in the same destruction that overtook Sodom.

There was a fatal attachment to things there in Lot's wife. But there was also unbelief in her look back.

She didn't believe that God's way was better than her life there in Sodom. She couldn't entrust her life and her future into his hands but clung to it in her heart.

And besides, she's being called to flee all this. Why? Just because of two angels that showed up and said to us, flee for your lives and don't look back because God's going to destroy the city and he sent us to tell you that.

Oh, it's just their word. Well, how do I know that it's going to happen? I mean, things have gone on this way for a long time in Sodom. We've never seen anything like this.

It looks like just another day as the sun rose that morning. Wonder if it's really going to happen. Unbelief.

Unbelief. Remember Lot's wife and beware of the fatal attraction of earthly things. Jesus says, remember Lot's wife, whoever tries to hold on to his life will lose it.

Whoever, that's a big word. We're not just talking something about Lot's wife. It's peculiar to her. We're talking about whoever. Anybody like Lot's wife trying to cling to your life, you're going to lose it.

And you have an illustration of it in Genesis 19. Mrs. Lot. So remember her. Because if you're not careful, the world will own your heart and you'll look back from following Jesus when it costs you too much.

What does Jesus call his disciples? If anyone would come after me and follow me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Why a cross, Jesus? It wasn't a piece of jewelry.

No, a cross had one purpose. It's something you died on. Something you were tortured on and died on. It was capital punishment. And Jesus says, men, if you're following me, you'll need a cross because you're going to need to die on it.

Maybe physically, literally. But yourself and your desire for your life is going to have to die. Your desire to have life your way, it's going to have to die.

It might be a boyfriend, it might be a job, it might be a lifestyle, it might be possessions, it might be the smiles and popularity of people. But if you're going to be my disciple, that part that says, I must have life my way must die.

In other words, you've got to get out of the driver's seat of your life. You've got to let Jesus take the wheel and you've got to sit in the back seat and you've got to say wherever Jesus, whatever he says, whatever he says, that's where this life is going.

And if he says, go out and live in the mountains, I will go and live in the mountains rather than living in prosperity in Sodom. Remember Lot's wife because whoever tries to keep their life will lose it.

Are you willing to lose anything in order to seek Christ and his kingdom first? Are you willing to die for Jesus that you might live with him?

Because if you try to keep it, you'll lose it. But if you lose it for Jesus' sake, you'll find it.

You'll find it. And what you'll find is your life God's way. The life that God wanted for you. And you'll find it far better than anything you could have made for yourself.

love. I wonder what we're afraid of. Why are we afraid to go in the back seat and say, Jesus, you drive, you choose.

After all, Jesus says, it's the thief who comes to steal and to kill and destroy, but I am come that they might have life and have it to the full. Why would we fear to let him at the wheel?

Why would we say, no, I've got to have it my way, Jesus, when he comes to lay down his life that we might live forever. We can safely entrust our future, our life into his hands.

God had another life for Mrs. Lot, far better than her life in Sodom, but she wanted her own over God's and wasn't willing to trust him with her life and her future.

Remember Lot's wife, lest your heart clings to this world and life your way. Her privileges, her sin, and lastly her punishment.

Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt. When's the last time you've heard of someone becoming a pillar of salt?

That's different. Why a pillar of salt? Well, I believe in short God was making the statement that the same judgment that fell on Sodom fell on Lot's wife.

Though it fell on Sodom in the city, that same judgment met her in the plain. And I believe the hint is the sulfur and the salt.

Because how did the cities of the plain meet their end? Well, the Lord rained down burning sulfur on the cities from heaven. Now, I'm not a chemist, but I'm told that salt is what is left after burning sulfur devours.

Zephaniah 2.9 says, Therefore, as surely as I live, declares the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, surely Moab will become like Sodom and Ammonites will become like Gomorrah, a place of weeds and salt pits, a wasteland forever.

So what was left of Sodom afterwards? There was a lot of salt. Wasteland. Deuteronomy 29.23, the very promised land is threatened to become a burning waste of salt and sulfur, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it.

It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admon, Zoboam, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger. So God's judgment of burning sulfur reduced the plain and the cities of the plain to a salt land.

and his judgment caught up with Lot's wife whose heart was still back in Sodom and she becomes a pillar of salt out here.

Salt, salt land. Sharing in the same judgment. You see the connection. Though her feet left Sodom, her heart continued there so she shares in their punishment of pillar of salt.

Why a pillar? A pillar was a monument of remembrance. They set them up to remember different events and things.

And here is this pillar, this monument, so that people could see and be warned. So Daddy, why does that thing sticking up of salt look like a person?

Well honey, let me tell you about Lot's wife and what she did. And then many, many years later after the rains had melted that pillar down into the sands, Jesus, the Son of God stands and re-erects a monument with his own words.

Remember Lot's wife. Remember what happened there. Because what happened there is an example of what's going to happen to the ungodly forever and ever.

That's what Peter tells us. If God didn't spare angels when they sinned, if he didn't spare the ancient world under Noah, if he didn't spare Sodom and Gomorrah but condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

Jude says they serve, speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah, they serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. Yes, Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's wife are suffering the eternal fire but they're not the only ones who are going to suffer it, is what Peter is saying.

They're an example of all the ungodly. death. It's interesting that Revelation 21.8 describes hell as a burning lake, as a lake of burning sulfur and it's almost as if in Genesis 19, the burning sulfur of hell spewed out upon these who were so ripe for God's judgment and they became an example of those who will suffer forever.

that second death in the lake of fire and of burning sulfur. This is the second death. So, her privileges, her sin, and now her punishment.

What do we learn? hell is not just for unrepentant homosexuals. Hell is not just for the sexually immoral in Sodom, the lewd, the terrible, wickedest people on the planet.

No, hell is the same place where spiritual privileged people like Lot's wife go, professing Christians and believers like Lot's wife go, who don't have Christ in their hearts.

The world has their hearts. They have their hearts. They will not give up on life their way.

And so, clinging to it, they will lose it forever. She's an example of religious people who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. Remember Lot's wife.

Now, those are hard words, but don't miss this. They come out of the mouth of the most loving man who ever lived, the eternal God-man.

And it's in kindness and love that he speaks these words to us. He doesn't want us to come to the same end as she did, and he knows how easy it is for that to happen.

He knows how forgetful we are of important lessons, so he calls us to remember. Remember this. Don't forget this. He knows how many are just like her, resting in spiritual privileges.

I have light all around me, and we think because we have the light, we're in the light. Not necessarily. God's And Jesus knows how far you can go in religion and still come short of salvation.

He knows how many today are still trying to save their life. I've got to have it my way. I will not let go. And so he's getting in our face in a loving way and saying, friend, friend, friend, remember Lot's wife.

Don't let that event be wasted on you. Learn from it. Learn from it for your everlasting salvation. If you ever meet Lot's wife in hell, it will be because you did not obey Jesus' words to remember Lot's wife.

Loving, kind words. But if you heed his warnings right now and trust in the Savior and not turn back, you, will be pinching yourself for all eternity at the life that he chose for you.

And how different it is from the life you would have clung to yourself. Well, this Jesus is present whenever his word is preached. These are his words. Remember Lot's wife.

He's present today. He's present. He's here not to have you do your bit of religion for the week and then to go out and to do those things that really have your heart. No, he's here to have heart dealings with you.

He's here to have you confess, Lord Jesus, my heart's out there. It's not in here. It's not with you. Oh, please give me a new heart. Come and revive my heart.

He's here to have heart dealings with you. And if you want him to, he'll save you from your sins. You've got to want him to.

Do you want him to? Ask him to. He will save you. For whoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. Does Jesus have your heart? Or is it still somewhere else in the world in your own hands?

Are you clinging? Or will you say this morning, not what I wish to be or where I wish to go? For who am I that I should choose my way? The Lord shall choose for me.

Tis better far I know. Then let him bid me go or stay. Does he have your heart, my friend? There was sin in the look of Lot's wife.

But there's another look that we find in the Bible that we all need to have. And we see it when Israel was smitten and bitten by those poisonous snakes because of their complaining against the Lord.

And people are dying under the punishment of God's wrath. And God tells Moses, put up a bronze pole with a bronze snake on that pole and tell the people to look and live.

And whoever is bitten and is dying but looks will live. And that's exactly what happened. If they continue to look to themselves and all their medical treatments to try to make the snake bite get better, they died.

If they thought, well, I'm tougher than this guy and I'll make it through and I think I can hang on, they died. But the weakest, frailest person within a quarter inch of hell that looked, lived.

Now, what was in that look? Well, we don't need to guess. Jesus is talking to a Pharisee one night in John chapter three. He says, just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up.

That whoever looks, well, that was the Old Testament word, but Jesus doesn't use it. That whoever believes on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

You see, there was belief in that look. There was faith in that look, and that's the look that we need to be saved. A look away from ourselves and anything good in us.

A look away to Christ, the only Savior. So we look away from all of our spiritual privileges. We're not resting on any of this stuff. We look to Jesus and we look at all that he is for all that I need, all his righteousness for all my sin, all of his life for all my death, all of his wisdom for all my folly, all of his strength for all my weakness, and looking I live.

So sister, is the going getting tough? And are you beginning to think maybe it's just not worth it anymore, maybe I ought to go back, and you're starting to think about looking back.

Brother, you're getting tired of the fight, the fight against sin, and you're wearing down. Listen, we know what's back there. Destruction. That's all that's back there.

So don't look back. Look to Jesus. Keep going. Keep going. Keep trusting. Keep leaning. Keep looking. Keep learning of him.

And drawing from him everything that you need. Where do we run to when we live in the city of destruction like all of us do? We're born in the city of destruction. And God's word says that there's coming a day of judgment and his wrath will fall and consume this whole earth and every sinner that's not been covered by the blood of Jesus.

Where do we run to with such a message of judgment? One place. We turn and run right into the arms of Jesus because he's waiting, he's willing, he's able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him.

Let's sing that song of invitation from the Lord where we remind each other that he welcomes us to come as sinners just as we are. And right where you're at in your seat you can go to him and ask him to save you.

Look with faith in what he has done for sinners and trust in him to save you. Number 393 let's stand as we sing of our Savior.

Amen. Lord Father that's the only kind of salvation that will do for us because we're helpless and we thank you for Jesus and we confess that we stayed in the city of destruction so long thinking that our life and the way that we could live was safe and thank you Lord Jesus for coming and telling us that if you try to save your life you'll lose it.

Thank you for laying down your life that we might gain it. Thank you for even when we lingered for drawing us out of our sin and out of this world.

Thank you that every time we've thought about looking back and turning back you've been there to stir up that fresh repentance and faith and to show us yourself again how much we need you today to save us from ourselves and from our sin.

thank you for being just the savior for us. Though we are concerned for others who are still under that wrath of God whether like the sodomites or like Lot's wife and we pray that whoever they are and whatever they've done they would look to the savior and live.

We ask it in Jesus holy and powerful saving name. Amen. Amen.