By: Tyler Hall
Throughout the Bible, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah stand as a case study of humanity’s wickedness and the execution of God’s divine wrath. Yet for the sake of His covenant with Abraham (Gen. 18) and His own merciful nature (Gen. 19:16), the Lord sent His angels into Sodom to retrieve Lot and his family from the overthrow of the city. Despite Lot’s lingering and requests to amend the directives of these two angels, he and his kin are brought out of the city and directed to flee to Zoar. One of the angels gave a warning that they should not look back or stop their flight for anything (v. 17). “But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” (v. 26).
Jesus used Lot’s wife as an example worth remembering (Luke 17:28-32): God’s punishment and deliverance are not matters to take lightly or ignore. Christ also taught that the kingdom of God demands a level of commitment that won’t allow us to pine after the world and that old self we left behind us—"No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62, emphasis mine).
True to His covenant through the blood of Christ and His own merciful nature, God delivers us from the wrath to come by means of His own glorious gospel. Once we commit to following Jesus by obeying His plan, we must choose to live in accordance with the salvation and eternal life we have been given. Otherwise, like Lot’s wife, the call of the world will turn our heads and lure us back to its own destruction. The old hymn must ring true in our hearts always: “I have decided to follow Jesus; no turning back, no turning back.”