Remember Lot's Wife

Remember Lot’s wife.  Luke 17:32

This may seem a strange key verse, but it got my attention this morning.  Most of you are probably much more familiar with the next verse, as I am.  We often hear and quote Luke 17:33 (or Luke 9:24, or Matthew10:39, or Matthew 16:25, or Mark 8:35, or John 12:25), where Jesus states that, “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.”

This idea of laying down our proverbial lives for the sake of Christ is a key pillar of Christian living.  We interpret what it means to “lose our lives” in a lot of different ways.  I have heard many a sermon on the topic of what it means to be a “living sacrifice,” as Paul charges believers to do in Romans 12.

In the context of Luke 17, Jesus was speaking to the disciples about the day of His return.  In this same passage, we get our ideas about the rapture of the church, where two people will be together and one will be taken and the other left. 

But as Jesus is teaching here, the mention of Lot’s wife gives an interesting nuance to this business of laying down our lives and being ready for Christ’s return. 

I’ve always been a little fascinated/puzzled by the story of Lot’s wife.  On the one hand, it seems kind of extreme that that she lost her life simply for turning back to see what was happening in Sodom.  But, I don’t think curiosity was the heart of her problem. 

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I don’t believe that it killed Mrs. Lot.  Her issue, I believe, was that she was unwilling to give up her lifestyle.  Sodom was the place she called home.  She was comfortable there.  In theory, that seems pretty straightforward and even normal. 

But Sodom wasn’t just a normal place.  It was a place of incredible wickedness.  It was a place where sinful activity was embraced and celebrated.  It was not a place where anyone who had experienced the blessings of God should have been comfortable.  Lot and his family shouldn’t have been there at all.  I mean, honestly – why would you raise your family in a place where sexual sin was so blatant?  And what kind of father would suggest that a group of men should rape his daughters, under any circumstances?  And yet, the men of Sodom refused the offer of having their way with Lot’s daughters, choosing rather to try to fight their way into Lot’s home to rape the men (angels) who were there.

So this story is all kinds of wrong, on so many levels!  The biggest miracle I see here is that God still was willing to save Lot and his family.  I’m not sure that I would have thought they were worth saving.  So the redemption story contained in this account is compelling.  Even though Lot and his family were reluctant to leave, the Lord was insistent on saving them. 

But, there comes a point when, evidently, the Lord will let us go.  He calls us to come out of sin.  He may even give us a gentle (or strong) push to get us moving.  He offers us salvation from impending doom.  But He does not force us.

God offered salvation to Lot’s wife.  When she was reluctant, He urged her on.  She continued to be reluctant, and so the Lord took her by the hand and led her to a place of safety.  He then waited until her family had arrived at a new home.  Lot and his daughters made it to safety, but his wife had lagged behind.  Her longing for familiar sin caused her to look back, and the cost was her life.

We don’t know anything, really, about Lot’s wife, aside from the whole getting turned into a pillar of salt incident.  However, this one thing about an otherwise obscure woman in history was significant enough that Jesus mentioned her.

Jesus admonished the disciples to remember Lot’s wife. 

Familiar sin can cost you your life.  As the Lord did not want that to happen to Lot’s family, Jesus did not want that to happen to His disciples, and God does not want that to happen to you.

Jesus told His disciples that in the last days, there would come a point of decision, where people would be faced with a final, critical choice.  When destruction is eminent, decisions can have eternal consequence.  We are surrounded by people who have been captivated by familiar sin.  Even within our churches, sadly, and among those who would say that they have faith in Christ, many still cling to lifestyle decisions that are quite simply contrary to the ways of the Father. 

Our God is patient.  He is not willing that any should perish.  But some will.

Remember Lot’s wife.

…Just a thought…

When People Asked Jesus to Leave

And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.     Mark 5:20 ESV

Jesus had just cast a bunch of demons out of a man.  This man, who had been a serious mess, now was stable and healthy.  To say that he was grateful would be an understatement!

The local people, on the other hand, were not so grateful.  Even though Jesus had freed their friend from the demonic possession, in so doing he had probably done some damage to the local economy.  When the demons left the man, Jesus permitted them to enter some pigs, and the pigs – all 2,000 of them – ended up committing suicide.  They ran straight into the sea and drowned.

This event left the townspeople with a dilemma.  On the one hand, their friend was healthy, clothed, and no longer a danger to them.  On the other hand, there was no bacon!  Seriously, though, they just didn’t know what to think.  And so the safest thing they could think was to get Jesus to leave.

And while that’s kind of sad for them, it created a curiosity, and apparently, an opportunity. 

I’m always a little puzzled by Jesus’ follow-up with those whom He healed.  Very often in scripture, we find that after Jesus had healed someone or cast demons out of them, His instruction to the people would be, “Don’t tell anyone.”  Of course, they always did tell.  I’ve sometimes wondered if Jesus told them that because He knew that human nature often dictates that people do the exact opposite of what they’ve been told…

But to the man from who He had cast out the legion of demons, Jesus said, “Go and tell.”  And so the man did just that.  He went and he told his friends.  And apparently he told a bunch of other people, too.  Mark tells us that he went to the Decapolis – the ten cities – and shared what had happened to him.  And he made an impact.

The scriptures tell us that everyone marveled.  I find this both significant and convicting.

I haven’t had a legion of demons cast out of me, but the Lord has done many wonderful things in my life.  Have I shared as freely as this man?  I have shared, certainly.  I mean, this blog is one means by which I do that.

But, have people marveled?  When the formerly possessed man shared, people marveled!

When the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave, He left.  The healed man asked to leave with Jesus, but Jesus told him to stay.  Jesus left the man to tell the Good News in a place where He Himself was not welcome.  And the man made an impact.

We are certainly living in a time and place where the people around us have asked Jesus to leave.  We often become righteously indignant about the attitudes and actions of those people, and particularly where this pervasive attitude works its way into the political realm.  But we need to remember that Jesus has us here for a reason.  He wants us to make an impact.

So here is a simple thought for this day: maybe not in ten cities, but at least in the one that you are in, what might happen if you freely shared what Christ has done for you?  Instead of being angry and offended by those who are trying to remove God from our culture, instead of rebuking them and opposing them, instead of blaming them for the mess around us, let’s passionately (and compassionately) simply share what Christ has done.  Maybe – just maybe – we will see them marvel, and we might just have an impact.

Share with the people who asked Jesus to leave.

…Just a thought…

Sneak Attack

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed seeds among the wheat and went away.”   Matthew 13:24-25 ESV

In my read through the scriptures this year, I have come to the parables of Jesus.  And as I was reading this morning, one of those parables hit a little differently, and it’s got me thinking…

When you think of an enemy, what comes to mind?  For me, I tend to think of Goliath, and of giants brandishing swords.  Or I remember watching M*A*S*H on TV, and I think of them being bombed by the enemy, traversing minefields, and the like.  I think of our military, and of conflicts around the world.  I picture the enemy as violent, and visibly formidable. 

Sometimes, that is the case.

But the enemy described by Jesus in the parables I read this morning is different.  The enemy of our souls doesn’t always come in blatant frontal attack.  His is often not an in-your-face, “draw your weapon, this is war” kind of approach.

The parable that really stood out to me this morning is one I generally just skim right over.  It’s tucked in, between the parable of the soils and that of the mustard seed.  It is the story of any enemy with a subtle – almost comical—approach.  

In Matthew 13:24-30, we read the parable in its entirety.  Its interpretation follows in Matthew 13:36-43.

 As I was reading verse 25, a mental image of Snidely Whiplash went through my head.    He’s your very typical cartoon villain – large body, tiny legs, dark clothing.  He’s a lot like Gru from Despicable Me, for those of you too young to remember Dudley Do-Right, just with a top hat and handlebar mustache

The battlefield in this parable doesn’t look like a battlefield.  There aren’t opposing forces lining up with spears or guns or obvious weapons of any kind.  There’s just a squirrely little dude with a bag of seeds.  If the farmer’s men had been alert and awake, they might have scared him off with a simple “boo!”  But they were sleeping.  And the battlefield just looked like a field of wheat.

I find it significant that initially, the man didn’t even realize he’d been attacked.  The enemy had come and gone, and no one even noticed.  And when the attack began to be revealed, the farmer’s servants still had no idea what had happened.  But the farmer knew.

As we read the explanation of the parable that Christ gave His disciples, it’s interesting to me.  I would have pictured the church as the sleeping servants.  In fact, we are the good seeds, and eventually the wheat.  We are growing up in the world alongside a bunch of weeds – nonbelievers.  The farmer, Jesus, allowed the weeds to remain until the time of harvest.  And if we go back to the parable of the soils (or the Sower and the Seed, as it’s traditionally known), we see that there is a danger in sharing soil with weeds and thorns.  They can choke the good plants.

I’m no farmer.  I am, in fact, an excellent killer of plants.  It’s been a lot of years since I attempted to grow any sort of plant.  And I’m not particularly good at weeding flower beds as I can’t always tell the weeds from the flowers.

As the world is changing, and groceries keep getting more expensive, I begin to wonder if I should address this issue.  I wonder if I may need to think of planting a garden and growing some vegetables, or something, at some point in the future.  And when I see seeds in the store I think about buying some.  I hope it doesn’t come to that…

But this morning, I’m thinking about my life, and I’m thinking about the enemy.  I stay alert for the frontal attacks, but I forget that the enemy is sneaky.  He’s not always coming at me as a giant with a sword.  He’s just strolling past with a little bag of seeds. 

Weeds seem harmless enough, but they rob the soil of water and nutrients.  The weeds I’ve seen also tend to grow faster than the flowers, and often bigger, too.  They may block the sun and cause the blossoms to wither, or even die, if the plants do not have deep roots.

We need deep roots!  In uncertain times such as we are experiencing, it is more important than ever that we dig deep and stay alert.  The enemy is sneaky, but the Farmer is good.

And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him.  Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him.  Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.     Colossians 2:6-7 NLT

Watch out for the sneaky enemy.  And let your roots grow deep.

…Just a thought…