What Really Happened to Lot's Wife?

What Really Happened to Lot's Wife?

Genesis chapter 18. The Lord appears to Abraham. Three men visit him. They come to tell him about the birth of Isaac. "I will surely return to you this time next year and Sarah your wife will have a son." Abraham and Sarah are old. Sarah bursts out laughing. The Lord says to Abraham, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" He is going to become a powerful nation. All nations will be blessed through Abraham and his descendants.

The Lord tells Abraham about the judgement that is coming to Sodom and Gomorrah. "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so intense and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know." The men turn and walk away towards Sodom. Abraham approaches them and asks, "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there were fifty righteous people there? What if there were twenty? What if there were only ten?" The Lord said, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it."

Genesis chapter 19. The men warn Lot and his family to leave. "Do you have anyone else here - sons in law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it." Lot goes and speaks to the men who are pledged to be married to his daughters. They don't believe him. They think it's a joke. At the coming of the dawn the men are still trying to persuade Lot and his family to leave. Some time has passed. For a whole night, this has been going on. The men actually grasp the hands of Lot, his wife and his two daughters and lead them out of the city. The men pledged to be married to Lot's daughters have been left behind. They could have been saved if they had believed the message. The men give them a strong warning, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains of you will be swept away!" Lot doesn't want to go to the mountains. "I can't flee to the mountains, this disaster will overtake me or I'll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it." He actually doesn't think he has time to get there. Maybe that's because he delayed leaving for so long. The angels tell him that they will not destroy that town but that they should get there quickly, as God cannot do anything until they are there. By the time they arrive there the Sun has risen. Then God rains down burning sulphur on the land, destroying totally all the cities of the plain. Lot's wife looks back and she becomes a pillar of salt.

I used to think that story was really terrible. I imagined Lot's wife glancing over her shoulder as she ran away and God stretching out his finger and pointing it at her, to turn her into a pillar of salt. But God didn't turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. She became a pillar of salt because the volcanic eruption, or whatever it was, was happening behind her and she didn't get out of the way. I don't think she just glanced back at the city as she was running away, I think she was standing gazing at it. Why was she anywhere near it? They had been told to flee to the mountains. Lot was already in Zoar, the small town to which he had fled. I've sometimes stood on the top of a hill and looked at our town and considered how beautiful it is. Oh, what a lovely view, I can see that big block of flats near the town moor, I can see the city centre, I can see Lobley Hill, I can see Sunniside, I can see Lamesley, I can see several villages all at the same time. There's a particular hill in Harlow Green from which you could actually see two television transmitters and a radio transmitter which are several miles apart. I love to go walking in the hills, and when I get there I love to admire the view. Lot's wife is admiring the view of Sodom and Gomorrah. By the time she's got as high as she has up into the hills she must be able to see a long way. Lot's wife is standing there and thinking, oh, what a lovely view. Oh, what a lovely place. Her heart was in the city. She didn't want to leave it. She was meant to turn her back on the city and run away from it before the judgement came. It is very obvious that Lot's family didn't want to leave. They don't believe his warnings and they think it is a joke. Lot, his wife and his daughters are dragged out of Sodom by the hand, after a whole night of endless argument. Perhaps Lot himself didn't really want to go either. He could have gone on his own. Lot's wife could not leave the city. She could not get her heart out of that city. Mentally and emotionally she could not leave it behind. She was caught up in the disaster that overtook it.

I wonder what kind of city Sodom was? I met a student who told me he had come to Newcastle because he had heard of the night life. It is actually one of the top ten places to go for a night out in the whole world. I wonder if Sodom was a good place to go for a night out. I wonder if Sodom was one of the drinking capitals of the ancient world. There is Lot's wife, standing there, looking into it, thinking of all the good times she spent down there. What a lovely place. What were the major sins of Sodom? If you have a good read through Genesis chapter 18 and 19 you will read a great deal about the sexual sin. But that wasn't all that happened there. Sodom was probably a very prosperous city. In Ezekiel chapter 16 verses 49 and 50 we read, "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." Overfed and unconcerned. Do you know one of the greatest causes of early death in Britain and America today? Obesity. While half the world is starving, the rest of us are dying before our time from actually being overweight. We are overfed and unconcerned. One of the greatest sins we can commit against God is not murder, it's not adultery, it's actually being self - centred. Just not to care about anyone else. God says that the people in Sodom were arrogant and haughty. They were proud. Too proud to believe in God. Too proud to think of their need for him. Like Sodom we are selfish. Like Sodom we have forgotten God.

As Christians we have to walk away from our city without looking back. We have to leave behind all the drugs, all the drink, all the materialism, all the pride, all the greed and turn to face God. We have to stop living self centred lives and start living God centred lives. With Christ at the centre of our lives, life takes on a different standpoint. Everything I do is no longer done to please me, it's done to please him. Work is no longer done just to make money, it is done as a service to God. We need to accept we are sinners, we need to believe that Jesus died so that we could be forgiven, and then we need to turn away from the evil things of this world and the evil things of the city and walk away. We need to repent. To repent means to turn around. To say to God, 'I'm not going to live my way, I'm going to live your way.'