Remember the wife of Lot. (Luke 17:32)
Let’s remember. Which book of the Old Testament? Right. Genesis. Lot was whose nephew? Right. Abraham.
Abraham and Lot travelled toward the Promised Land together. Both had very large flocks, so they needed to separate. Lot chose to live on the plain south of the Dead Sea. Which cities were located in that region?
Right. Sodom and Gomorrah.
Meanwhile, Abraham pleased God by his… Faith! God visited Abraham with two angels in tow and chose Abraham as the patriarch of the holy nation, the People of God. Contrast this with: the unholy activities of the citizens of Sodom.
Abraham, being a reverent man who always knelt before the great mysteries of divine justice and the sacredness of human life, begged that the Lord would spare Sodom if only five righteous people could be found dwelling there.
But, alas, five were not to be found. To the contrary, the whole city came out to try to rape God’s angels! Yeesh.
So the fire and brimstone were coming; the sky was getting ready to rain down some serious hard justice. But, because Lot a) lived outside the city walls as a herdsman and abhorred even the idea of sodomy, and b) because he was somebody’s nephew… Right! Abraham’s—for these two reasons, Lot and his family were to be spared.
The angels literally took them all by their hands, like little children, to lead them to safety. The guardian angels made one proviso: Whatever you do, don’t… Look back!
Sure, all your familiar territory will be laid waste; sure, your acquaintances, in-laws, confreres, and tradesmen will all be lost to you forever; sure, this is all happening very suddenly.
But the Lord provides. Don’t look back. Just rush forward with all the speed you can muster to the unknown future the Lord has in store for you.
But somebody looked back… Right. Why? Do the Scriptures tell us why she looked back? Yes: Wisdom 10:7. The pillar of salt is the tomb of a soul that had no… faith.
Remember Lot’s wife. She had no faith in the unseen God. She hankered for the city where she could get the internet, watch t.v., eat, drink, and be merry with the footloose-and-fancy-free people. Therefore, she did not make it.
The people who made it, on the other hand, ran into the empty desert at full speed. Simply because God had told them that He had a home for them there, just over the horizon.
Father Mark White Blog 