Pillar of Salt
Genesis 19:15-26
And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord: Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall
live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became
a pillar of salt.
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a familiar one in the Bible. It begins with a man named Abram leaving the city of Ur with his nephew Lot. The two men owned a great deal of livestock but they traveled and fed their flocks together. The flocks grew too large and there were fights among the servants which made Lot and Abram decide they needed to separate themselves from each other. Abram allowed Lot to choose which direction to take and Lot chose the plain of Jordan. This area was looked according to the Bible “like the garden of the Lord”.
At some time, and very probably soon after his arrival, Lot gave up shepherding or he turned the responsibility over to his servants because Lot and his family moved into the cities and set up residence there. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah along with three other kings attack the kings of four other countries and lost the battle; Lot was taken prisoner. When Abram heard about this he gathered his men and rescued Lot and reclaimed his nephew’s possessions. When Abram was 99 years old, which would have been about 20 years since he and Lot separated, God told Abram that the cities Sodom and Gomorrah were going to be destroyed because of their wickedness. It was here that Abraham (God had renamed Abram), knowing Lot lived in the cities “bargained” with God for his nephew’s life (if the Lord found fifty righteous people lessening the number by five until he got to ten people) would the cities be destroyed. God assured Abraham that no righteous people would perish in the cities.
God sent two angels to tell Lot to gather up his family and leave the cities as they would be destroyed. Lot went to the men who were engaged to his daughters and told them to leave with him but the two men thought Lot was joking. As dawn came, the angels urged Lot and his family to leave, but Lot hesitated in his departure. The angels grabbed Lot’s hand and those of his family and led them safely out of the city. Lot’s request to go as far as the city of Zoar and not go into the mountains was granted and but the angels warned the family not to look back or they would be consumed. As soon as Lot entered Zoar God rained down fire and brimstone (known today as sulfur) and completely destroyed both cities. But Lot’s wife looked back to the cities and was turned into a pillar of salt.
It is interesting to note that Lot and his family hesitated when told to leave Sodom and Gomorrah, so much so the angels grabbed the hands of the family to lead them out. Then as everyone approached the city of Zoar, Lot’s wife lagged behind the rest and looked behind her. The Hebrew for “looked back” means more than to glance over one’s shoulder. It means “to regard, to consider, to pay attention to.” She had a more than passing interest in what happened to her old home. The Scriptures don’t say whether her death was a punishment for valuing her old life so much that she hesitated in obeying, or if it was a simple consequence of her reluctance to leave her life quickly. Either she identified too much with the city—and joined it—or she neglected to fully obey God’s warning, and she died.
Lot and his family had spent too much time in the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and all the members of the family had become too absorbed with the two cities. When the angels first arrived at Sodom and Gomorrah, the men of the city wished to violate them and Lot offered the crowd his two daughters, most likely to die during the ordeal, rather than to give up the two angels he thought to be men. When told to leave or die, they all hesitated. When told to flee into the mountains, Lot begged to stay on the plains in the city of Zoar. Lot’s wife looked back toward the cities. And lastly, Lot’s two daughters become pregnant by their father. As noble as it was to not have their father’s line stop, they had just come from the city of Zoar, they knew they were not the last people on earth; suitable husbands could have been found for the two daughters. These were not actions of devout people. It may not state so in Scriptures, but it does seem as though Lot’s wife looked back not because of curiosity, but of concern and desire; a concern for her home and her desire to return.
But then isn’t that just like us? We have been saved by Jesus’ sacrificial death, taking our place in the Father’s punishment, we have been pulled out of the muck and mire of sin and cleansed and dressed in the robes of righteousness, but all we do is look. God will pull us by the hands and tell us His way leads to life, but we hesitate. We are told to flee over there, far from sin, but we say “How about right here? Isn’t half way far enough?” We are told to not look back, we are no longer part of that life, but all we do is lag behind and look back. Can you imagine how the world would look if God still turned people into pillars of salt?
God knows that the sin in us will cause us to want to return to our unrighteous life. We cannot help it. We no longer have within us a full and committed desire to leave sin behind. Even if Lot’s wife had looked for just a second, it was for that second she wanted to sin and that was is a sin in its self. Even if we do not follow through on the sin that tempts us, for a second we want to do that sin; we think it might be fun; we think we can hide the act from everyone, even God; we think we owe it to ourselves, we have been good all this time this one time isn’t too bad. We can try to justify sinning in our minds, but sinning is sinning and we cannot justify it! Not with ourselves and certainly never with God.
This is the reason for Jesus’ coming to earth. He came to save us from the sins we commit, the sins that can only send us to eternal separation and punishment from God. Jesus suffered the punishment we rightly deserve. Through this we are able to have our sins, all of our sins, forgiven by God through the faith He gives freely to all. Now, as forgiven people of God, we have been granted a pardon from hell, a release from our deserved punishment. For this reason alone we should not want to look back at our old life. Paul wrote in Romans 6:1 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Should we keep looking back, keep wanting that old, sinful life, give in to the lure of sin so that God show us the depths of His forgiveness? We, like Paul should exclaim “God forbid! How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” We should devote all of our prayer and energy to helping us overcome that urge to look back, to desire that sinful life once again. We can never fully rise above that yearning, even though we have been forgiven of our sins, we still have that unrighteous nature in us. This is a battle we will fight every day, and one that we could even have more defeats than victories.
The story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah shows us just how strong the power of sin can be. Two cities so immersed in the blackness of sin that God felt the need to destroy them both. Lot and his family, certainly righteous enough to save from the city, did not really want to leave. Actions before and after the destruction of the cities certainly shows us how Lot and his family came under the influence of sin and allowed it to infect them. This warning is one we need to heed. It may not take cities as sinful as Sodom and Gomorrah to taint of lives, but sin will call out to us in every attempt and use every want to darken our souls. One picture of this we should keep in our minds is the one of a pillar of salt. Amen.
