The people of God are like a boat in a troubled sea. The problems start when the sea gets in the boat.
Our title, “Remember Lot’s Wife,” is actually a Bible verse, spoken by the Lord Jesus Himself about 2000 years after the events in Genesis 19. What was so remarkable about this woman that we are supposed to remember now—another 2000 years later? Let’s find out. Two angels have stayed through a tumultuous night at Lot’s house in the black heart of this wicked city. But early in the morning, they urged Lot, his wife, and two daughters to flee the city because they knew this was Sodom’s day of judgment. But, we read, “while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city” (v 16). “Escape for your life!” they insisted, telling the family to head to the mountains, not looking back. Still they dilly-dallied, asking instead if they could escape to a little town nearby, named Zoar. The angels relented. It was not a good idea, as we shall see. And Lot’s wife? She just couldn’t let Sodom go. Turning back, she perished with the city. No surprise the New Testament records of Lot, “that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds” (2 Pet 2:8). I wonder if you ever feel like that in our increasingly wicked world. Paul states, “But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim 3:13). “As it was also in the days of Lot,” said Jesus, “they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed” (Lk 17:28-30). Flee from the wrath to come!