The most chilling aspect of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is the fate of Lot’s wife.
The sun arose in its usual manner the day God destroyed the sinful cities. As the morning hours sped onward, the angels that had been sent to warn Lot of the impending doom waited patiently, their hands held fast from the destructive mission while Lot and his family rushed toward safety in the city of Zoar. Within the confines of the city walls of Sodom, the people moved about like any other day. Farmers headed for their fields; people filled the marketplace buying and selling; children were laughing and screaming with joy in the streets and open spaces; life continued as normal, the people completely unaware of the impending danger that lay ahead. Within moments of Lot’s safe arrival in Zoar the sounds of life in the cities of the plain were silenced forever, serving as a grim reminder for those who walk in unrighteousness (see 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 7).
Jesus left us with a solemn warning against the awful state of unreadiness, which will dominate humanity at the time of His second coming: “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32). Lot’s wife left Sodom on the morning of its demise alongside her husband and two daughters, but she looked back against God’s explicit command, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest some evil over take me and I die,” and was struck dead in an instant, being turned into a pillar of salt (see Genesis 19:17,26).
What reason did she have for looking back? It doesn’t make any sense unless she was looking back with regret because she enjoyed the time she had spent there. It would seem as though she enjoyed her comfortable, godless lifestyle, surrounded by proud, haughty, and uncharitable people. She looked back with longing, she looked back to the city where she and her family ate, drank, bought, sold, planted and built, but she never concerned herself with the things of God. She had been saved from Sodom. But did she really want to be saved since she snatched damnation from the jaws of salvation? Lot’s wife serves as a solemn warning to this generation, a beacon to the Church. You see it wasn’t the faithfulness of Abraham that Christ commanded us to remember, but the unbelieving wife of Lot, whose soul was lost. So the Lord cries out, “Remember!” He admonishes us that we are in danger of forgetting. So He cries out louder, “Remember Lot’s wife!”
Lot’s wife had many privileges bestowed upon her. First, she was married into the only remaining family on earth that was still serving the one true God. Abraham, her uncle by marriage, was known as a “friend of God.” She was witness to the altars he erected and his worship unto God. She was privileged in learning about God, how to approach Him, and how to come to know Him. She was even privileged to have learned of Sodom and Gomorrah’s fate before hand, through the visitation of the two angels. And she knew that God would carryout what He said He would do. But none of that made any difference to her. She obviously never fully followed through with a commitment unto God. She was afforded the greatest opportunity one can receive. She was given the opportunity to believe, the chance to change her lifestyle, and the chance to be saved from destruction. But she squandered every opportunity and died without God.
How many have become like Lot’s wife? We really don’t know. Countless numbers attend Mass or other Christian services weekly and know who God is, what He has to offer, and how to accept that offer, but fail to act on what they know. They become like Lot’s wife, knowing the destruction that waits for the unrepentant soul at the hour of their death, but they still refuse to believe or to change. They believe they know what is best for their own lives. Who is responsible if we die and go to hell, God or ourselves? Contrary to the belief of many, people do go to hell and they are the ones responsible for their own fate. As individuals it is our responsibility to respond to God correctly and to do something about our lifestyles. Lot’s wife like everyone reading this had (or has) the privilege of turning to God at this very moment and being saved from the wrath to come!
Now let us look at what there is for us to learn from Lot’s wife. First, she possessed disbelief. She looked back because she didn’t believe that God would do what He said He would do. She thought He was bluffing. She was just like those today who say God is a loving God, a merciful God, and a gracious God that desires all to live with Him throughout eternity, which by the way is correct. But when they say, “therefore He will send no one to hell,” they are only partially correct. Again God sends no one to hell; man chooses to go there on his or her own accord. At the hour of ones death God will merely pass sentence on the judgment that the individual has already chosen for his or herself. Secondly, She had a problem with obedience. She, along with her family, had been commanded not to look back. But she did anyway.
In Luke 9, we find our Lord calling several individuals to follow Him, but each one had an excuse. The first one said, “Lord I will follow you wherever you go.” But when the Lord revealed He had no place on earth to call home, no place to lay His head, the individual walked away. The second one said unto Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” The Lord replied, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” But that was more than the individual could handle so he too walked away. A third man said unto Him, “Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid my family farewell.” But the Lord replied, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (57-62).
Following the Lord is unconditional. He will not tolerate a half-hearted commitment. He will not tolerate anyone looking back at their past life, their lost lifestyle with fondness and longing. Anyone, regardless of status or association, can feign being a Christian and get away with it here on earth. Pretend Christians, like Lot’s wife, look over their shoulders with great desire for that sinful, godless lifestyle they once supposedly left behind. They are like those to whom St. Frances De Sales described, as ones who “go to confession with a tacit intention of returning to sin, since they are unwilling to avoid its occasions or use the means necessary for amendment of life.” They only “abstain from sin like sick men abstaining from melons. They don’t eat them solely because the doctor warns them that they’ll die if they do, but they begrudge giving them up, talk about them, would eat them if they could, want to smell them at least, and envy those who can eat them. In such a way weak, lazy penitents abstain regretfully for a while from sin. They would like very much to commit sins if they could do so without being damned. They speak about sin with a certain petulance and with liking it and think those who commit sins are at peace with themselves.” They are likened to the man that he describes as one who “has been set free from sin, but yet he is still entangled by affection for it. Although he is out of Egypt in effect he is still there in appetite and in his longing for the garlic and onions on which he once glutted himself. He is like a woman who detests her illicit love affairs but still likes to be courted and pursued. Alas, all such people are in great peril!”
The problem with pretend Christians is that they always have their eyes upon all the wrong things. They refuse to separate themselves from an ungodly world. They use no discernment in what material they read, what movies or television programs they view, what establishments they frequent or what company they keep, they are unconcerned in the types of conversations they engage in, how they dress, act, or walk and talk. They do not “endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they heap up for themselves teachers,” teachers who will tell them its okay to sin, for one cannot loose their salvation. So they “turn their ears away from the truth,” and are “turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4: 3-4).
Lot’s wife probably had everyone in her family fooled. They no doubt believed she was trusting in God to save her. She had everyone fooled but God. The problem with Lot’s wife is the same problem with many today. They attend Mass or some other Christian service, they try to live good moral lives, perhaps have even made a profession of faith, been baptized and confirmed, but have never truly given their heart to Christ Jesus. They may have the world fooled, even their friends and family, but they are living dangerously believing as St. Francis De Sales states, “Given to fasting thinks himself very devout if he fasts, although his heart may be filled with hatred. Much concerned with sobriety, he doesn’t dare to wet his tongue with wine or even water but wont hesitate to drink deep of his neighbors blood by detraction and calumny. Another man thinks himself devout because he daily recites a vast number of prayers, but after saying them he utters the most disagreeable, arrogant, and harmful words at home and among his neighbors. Another gladly takes a coin out of his purse and gives it to the poor, but he cannot extract kindness from his heart and forgive his enemies. Another forgives his enemies but never pays his creditors unless compelled to do so by force of law. All these men are usually considered to be devout, but they are by no means such. Saul’s servants searched for David in his house but Michol had put a statue on his bed, covered it with David’s clothes, and thus led them to think that it was David himself lying there sick and sleeping. In the same manner, many persons clothe themselves with certain outward actions connected with holy devotion and the world believes that they are truly devout and spiritual whereas they are in fact nothing but copies and phantoms of devotion.”
Lot’s wife proved what she truly was when she looked back to Sodom. Her physical body may have been out of Sodom, but her heart was still there. This is a picture of a religious person, a pretend Christian. They are the ones who have never turned over a new leaf, who have never been converted. Their physical bodies may go through the religious motions while sitting in the house of God, but their heart is far from Him. They may profess Christianity but there is a difference between professing Christianity and actually being a Christian, just as there is a great difference between lightning and a lightning bug. When one has truly found Christ, the desires for the old ways of life are gone and all things become new. One can never deceive God into thinking you are one of His children if you are not anymore than you could convince your neighbors you are one of theirs.
Many professing Christian’s walk, talk, dress, and act like the unsaved world and constantly seek reassurance from those that tell them they cannot loose their salvation. Anyone who must seek assurance from those who will guarantee their entrance into heaven while living like Lot’s wife, has placed something or someone higher than God on the throne of their heart. They are nothing more than a seed planted on stony ground. They once heard the word and received it with joy, “yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the world, immediately he stumbles” (Matthew 13:20-21).
The most interesting aspect of the aforementioned passage is the fact that Christ placed no limits on such turning away. It could be an hour, a day, a year, or fifty years. Satan can dupe anyone into believing they are in right standing with God when in fact they are doing his bidding and not God’s. A prime example would be the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees of Christ day.
It will never cease to amaze me why so many believe they can make a half-hearted commitment to Christ and still attain heaven especially in light of what is written: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4). And: “He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4).
Ponder this for a time…
