Participants: Gordon Kainer
Series Code: FC
Program Code: FC000325
|
00:01 Welcome to Faith Chapel. I'm Gordon Kainer,
00:33 retired academy Bible teacher living in Santa 00:38 Rosa, California. The title of my 00:41 presentation today is Remember 00:44 Lot's Wife. I invite you to pray 00:48 with me. Dear heavenly Father, we thank you for your 00:51 love and for your kindness and for your 00:54 amazing grace. I pray today that you will 00:57 give us wisdom understanding as we 00:59 open your word in Jesus name, Amen. 01:02 One of Jesus' favorite topics was his second 01:08 coming. In Luke's Gospel, Jesus 01:12 mentions that the days before the second 01:16 coming are very much like the days before 01:18 the flood and before the destruction of 01:21 Sodom and Gomorrah and then Jesus leaves 01:24 us with these rather intriguing, but 01:27 definite warning that we find in Luke 17, verse 32 01:32 "Remember Lot's Wife" and most 01:37 of us have heard about Lot's wife and 01:39 yet we hardly know anything about her. 01:41 We have no Biblical record of her name. 01:44 Tradition has it that her name was Ildeth, 01:47 but there is no evidence for that. We 01:51 don't know where she was from. We don't 01:53 know when she met Lot, when or where 01:56 they got married. We know next to nothing 01:59 about her, yet we are told Remember Lot's 02:03 Wife. I think it is highly significant that 02:07 the only thing we know about her is her 02:09 attempt to get out of Sodom. Lot is first 02:13 mentioned when Abraham leaves Ur 02:16 and Lot, his nephew goes with him since 02:20 his father already passed away and he 02:24 decides to follow his uncle. We know that 02:32 after reaching Canaan they settled down and 02:33 after a few years passed by Lot and 02:35 Abraham decided to separate and go their 02:38 own way. The reason for this is because 02:42 they both have great wealth and there was 02:46 friction going on between their herds 02:50 now. Now you recall that Abraham gave 02:51 Lot the first opportunity to choose 02:54 as to where he wanted to live. The Bible says 02:58 that Lot lifted up his eyes and he saw the 03:01 plain of Jordan. Unfortunately, he 03:04 didn't lift up his eyes high enough to God in 03:07 prayer to ask him for guidance in this very 03:10 crucial decision. Very few choices in life are 03:16 as important as the choice of where we're 03:19 going to live. Now the Jordan Valley was 03:22 lush, it was lavish, it was called in fact in 03:26 the Bible as the garden of the Lord, 03:27 but it was near the cities of Sodom and 03:31 Gomorrah, which seems to indicate that 03:34 Lot was more influenced by what he 03:38 saw then by his spiritual perspectives. 03:41 Now sometime later, we find Lot and his 03:45 family are living in Sodom and the city's 03:49 attacked, it's looted and everyone is taken 03:52 hostage. Now whenever we 03:54 hear of someone having a misfortune 03:57 or a painful experience, we 03:59 always think that it's bad news, but the 04:03 truth is that in these kind of situations, 04:05 these painful experience sometimes 04:09 are our most valuable lessons. It's been 04:13 rightly observed that people do not 04:15 generally make significant changes in 04:17 their life until they are motivated by some 04:20 kind of pain, as you know the official 04:23 colors of the school of experience is black 04:26 and blue. Nevertheless conflict 04:29 and hardship can provide God an 04:32 opportunity to make himself known. 04:35 Sodom's capture was indeed a blessing in 04:39 disguise, in fact it allowed the God of 04:41 Abraham, who specializes in rescue 04:44 to intervene. When Abraham hears what 04:47 has happened to Sodom, what's his 04:49 response. He could have said it serves 04:52 them right that's what they did for a living in 04:55 sin city. But that would have prevented 04:58 God from having to get an opportunity to 05:02 step in and to help these people. So, what 05:07 does Abraham do, he calls together his 318 05:10 trained servants, attacks the invading 05:13 armies at night, he rescues Lot and his 05:17 family and the whole city and we read 05:20 about it in Genesis chapter 14, verses 21 05:24 to 23. Now, the King of 05:27 Abraham said to Abraham, excuse me, 05:29 the King of Sodom said to Abraham, 05:31 "Give me the persons, and take the goods for 05:33 yourself." But Abraham said to the 05:36 King of Sodom, "I have raised my hand 05:38 to the Lord, God Most High, the Possessor of 05:41 heaven and earth, that I will take nothing, 05:44 from a thread to a sandal strap, and that 05:47 I will not take anything that is yours, 05:49 lest you should say, 'I have made Abraham 05:53 rich.' Imagine the disbelief 05:56 of the people when they hear that all of 06:00 their belongings were going to be returned 06:02 to them. Well in those days, the whole city 06:06 was, I mean they were surprised that as a 06:09 result of their capture that they were gonna 06:12 get everything back to them, but that was 06:14 evidence to the people, that was first 06:17 kind evidence to the people of the kind of 06:19 man Abraham really was, but more 06:22 important it was a powerful 06:24 demonstration as to the kind of God 06:27 Abraham served, a God that was 06:30 powerful and gracious and faithful. It was 06:34 important for the people of Sodom to 06:37 remember that truth, but unfortunately they 06:40 soon forgot it. I believe that the most 06:43 important thing a person will ever learn 06:46 is to discover what God is really like. If 06:50 the people of Sodom were like the rest of 06:52 the Canaanites, they worshiped many 06:54 different Gods, they have a God for every 06:57 aspect of life, prosperity, fertility for 07:01 large families, essential pleasures, 07:04 victory in battle. Their rescue made it 07:08 obvious that the God of Abraham was more 07:10 powerful then their Canaanite Gods, but 07:14 their lust and selfish lifestyle impelled 07:18 them to hang on to their Gods, what a 07:21 tragic mistake. Several years passed 07:25 by and one day three angels, well actually 07:29 the Lord and two angels stopped to visit 07:33 Abraham's home and informed him that 07:36 Sodom and Gomorrah were going to be 07:37 destroyed because of their wickedness. 07:39 Once again Abraham's response is 07:43 positive for these people. He says look, 07:47 if there are 50 righteous people there 07:49 will the city be spared, well when he 07:53 actually comes back there won't be 50 07:55 there, he says well how about 40, 30, 20? 08:00 He finally goes down to 10, because that's 08:03 probably the extended number of people in 08:05 Lot's family, but we know that was not the 08:09 case, but to me it's interesting and 08:12 important that the ten people responded in a 08:15 positive way, that city would have been 08:17 spared. Of course the reverse is also true 08:20 when God's people are not faithful they 08:23 may take others down with them. 08:26 I'm reminded of Revelation 7 where 08:28 we're told that God withholds the wind's 08:32 strive and holds them in check because of 08:36 the faithful followers of God. Well the next 08:40 day, two angels enter Sodom. Lot is sitting 08:45 at the city gate and that suggests 08:47 something important because it indicates 08:50 that he was an important official. He 08:52 might have been the mayor of the town. 08:54 These two messengers now serve as God's 08:58 witnesses. Their primary purpose was 09:01 to save the residents of Sodom. These two 09:07 messengers that God sends out at this 09:10 particular time were not the first time that 09:13 God sent them out. When God rescued 09:17 Israel from Egypt, he sent Moses and Aaron 09:21 and before the city of Jericho was attacked, 09:24 he sent two spies in the land. It seems to 09:28 me that if the people of Canaan would have 09:32 responded, in fact if the residents of 09:34 Jericho would have responded in a 09:35 positive way none of them would have 09:37 been destroyed. In fact, I think that's true 09:39 of all the cities of Canaan had they 09:41 responded as Rehab did, their lives would 09:44 have been spared. God still uses these 09:51 two messengers today and they're called in 09:55 Revelation the two witnesses. We call 09:59 them the Old and the New Testament. 10:02 These two messengers continue to proclaim 10:05 the good news of salvation that all 10:07 might escape the destruction that is 10:10 coming upon the world. Yes, it is God's 10:13 desire for us to keep, to keep us from evil. 10:17 Yet, he sent us right back into the world as 10:21 his spokesman. You know, there is a time 10:24 to go into Sodom. If we're going to rescue 10:28 and save people and then there is a time to 10:31 get out and we need to be wise enough to 10:34 know the difference. Well, let's get back to 10:37 Sodom, to Lot and his wife and children. 10:41 Just before Sodom and Gomorrah are 10:43 destroyed, the two angels lead them out 10:47 of the city telling them to hurry up and 10:49 to not look back. We read about this in 10:52 Genesis chapter 19, verses 24 to 26. Then 10:57 the Lord rained brimstone and fire on 10:59 Sodom and Gomorrah, from the 11:01 Lord out of the heavens. So he 11:03 overthrew those cities, all the plain, all 11:06 the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew 11:08 on the ground. But his, that is Lot's wife 11:11 looked back behind him, and she became 11:14 a pillar of salt. Now many see Lot's wife 11:19 as an exception, I mean after all how 11:21 many people die in this unusual way, but 11:24 as we take a closer look at this story we 11:27 will discover that she was a very typical 11:29 person living in a society in a culture 11:32 very typical to ours. So, let's do some 11:36 Biblical surveillance, let's do a background 11:38 check if you please and get a more 11:40 complete picture of what was really 11:42 taking place and to see some of the 11:46 reasons for what happened there and 11:49 we are going to use our primary source an 11:52 ancient document that we call the Book of 11:55 Leviticus. The destruction of Sodom 11:58 had taken place about 200 years before 12:02 Leviticus was written, but the people that is 12:06 Israel people never forgot what had 12:08 happened to Sodom, but what they might 12:11 not have known was that the wickedness 12:14 that had engulfed Sodom now had 12:17 pervaded over the entire land of Canaan 12:20 in which they were about to enter. Let's 12:23 notice of Leviticus chapter 18, verses 1 12:27 through 4. Then the Lord spoke 12:30 to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children 12:33 of Israel, and say to them: 'I am the Lord 12:36 your God. According to the doings of the 12:39 land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall 12:41 not do; and according to the doings of the 12:44 land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, 12:46 you shall not do; nor shall you walk in their 12:49 ordinances. You shall observe my 12:51 judgments and keep my ordinances, to 12:54 walk in them: I am the Lord your God." 12:57 Now these verses are telling us something 13:01 very important. While Egypt represents the 13:05 old way of life, the life in slavery. Canaan 13:09 represents the new life, a new life lived 13:12 in relationship to God and for that reason 13:15 when we, when God finds a trace of sin in 13:21 Canaan he wants it eliminated, he wants 13:23 to do away with it, now once we 13:26 understand how totally different or 13:29 how, what a different perspective we have 13:32 when we understand that God's 13:34 annihilation decrees have indeed a deep 13:37 significance and meaning. Now the 13:41 same principle holds through today, when 13:44 we leave Egypt and become residents of 13:47 God's kingdom, we will face the same 13:49 conflicts that Israel did and God 13:52 empowered them to conquer as he powers 13:56 us to conquer overcome evil, but 14:00 within these boundaries, within 14:02 our own personal kingdom, keep in 14:06 mind that God's desire is to destroy sin and if 14:11 we hang on to it we are destroyed with it. 14:14 So what were the sins of Canaan that God 14:18 warns Israel about. In the Book of Leviticus, 14:21 God condemns a whole number of 14:23 immoral practices such as sensual 14:26 nakedness, adultery, homosexuality, 14:29 worship of idols, anger, resentment, 14:33 seeking after familiar spirits, not taking care 14:36 of the poor and the needy. That list 14:39 reminds me of society today doesn't it and 14:42 they were the very sins for which Sodom 14:45 was destroyed. Let's read it about that in 14:48 Ezekiel chapter 16, verses 49 to 50. 14:51 Look, this was the iniquity of your sister 14:54 Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, 14:57 fullness of food, and abundance of 14:59 idleness; neither did she strengthen the 15:02 hand of the poor and needy. And they were 15:04 haughty and committed 15:06 abomination before Me; therefore I took 15:08 them away as I saw fit. It is not enough 15:13 just to say no to sin, we must say no, 15:15 excuse me, yes to a new life. In Leviticus, 15:21 God did more then simply warn the 15:24 people regarding certain practices. 15:27 He gave Israel certain specific guidelines as 15:31 to how to worship God and how to relate 15:33 to others and to each other. They were 15:35 asked to live very differently from the 15:38 people that would now occupy the land 15:41 of Canaan. Israel had lived as uneducated 15:47 slaves for 200 years in Egypt. It was essential 15:50 that God teach them not just a better way 15:52 to live, but a holy way. They had to be 15:55 instructed on loving relationships and how 15:59 to live with one another and with the 16:01 people in their new land and we read 16:05 about this in Leviticus chapter 19, verses 17 16:09 and 18. You shall not hate 16:13 your brother in your heart. You shall 16:15 surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear 16:17 sin because of him. You shall not take 16:20 vengeance, nor bear any grudge against 16:22 the children of your people, but you shall 16:25 love your neighbor as yourself: I am the 16:28 Lord. Now in that same 16:31 chapter, God goes on to tell them that they 16:34 were to love the strangers in the midst 16:36 of their land even as I have loved you 16:39 because he said I loved you when you 16:42 were strangers in the land of Egypt. Now 16:45 sometimes, God gives us commandments or 16:49 gave them commandments 16:50 excuse me that involved the health 16:52 principles, ceremonial laws, some dealt with 16:55 culture issues and there were also moral 16:58 commands. There were different kinds 17:00 of laws, but they were all inspired of God. 17:02 They were all important for his 17:06 people. Now these instructions were 17:09 given several times with slight variations. 17:12 In some of these lists, God gave warnings 17:16 that appear rather strange, for example 17:19 he said to them do not boil a young goat in 17:24 its mother's milk. Well the common 17:26 response would be, well what does that 17:27 have to do with life, what's that have to do 17:30 with spiritual things. Let me illustrate, let's 17:35 imagine that in a few hundred years 17:36 someone is digging through the rubble of 17:41 major cities in United States and this is of 17:45 course a couple of hundred years from 17:46 now if time would last that long and as they 17:48 are reminiscing through they find 17:50 fragments of old books and newspapers 17:53 and computer printouts and they 17:55 discover there was a whole number of laws 17:57 and ordinances in at that time. A law that 18:02 deal with things such as poverty and 18:03 hunger, homelessness, of street violence, 18:06 HIV, pollution, gangs, and as they are going 18:11 through these rules, they come across this 18:14 one. Do not wear black sneakers with 18:17 either blue or red shoelaces. Well of 18:20 course they're surprised and what 18:22 does that have to do with life during the 18:24 later part of the 20th century, but you know 18:28 having lived in Southern California 18:29 during this time period. I remember 18:33 telling the students that they will have to 18:36 be very careful not to dress with some of 18:39 these garbs in this particular case shoes, 18:43 because they were being worn by gangs. 18:46 They identify themselves with the 18:51 kind of clothes they wore or didn't wear. 18:52 In other words, whether it was boiling 18:54 a young goat in its mother's milk or 18:57 wearing black sneakers with blue or 18:59 red shoe laces both deal with practice that 19:03 represented some of the worst evils in their 19:06 respective cultures. Sometimes God gives 19:11 to us instructions that do not seem 19:13 important. There is a temptation to pick and 19:16 chose what we think is relevant. We must 19:19 not put something down or minimize its 19:22 value just because we don't understand it's 19:25 significance. Well let's take a final look 19:29 at Lot's wife. After talking about Noah's 19:32 Day, Jesus made this observation in Luke 19:35 chapter 17, verses 28 to 32. Likewise as it 19:40 was also in the days of Lot: they ate and 19:42 they drank, they bought, they sold, 19:44 they planted and they built; but on the day 19:47 that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire 19:49 and brimstone from heaven and destroyed 19:51 them all. Even so it will be in the day 19:53 when the Son of Man is revealed. "In that 19:56 day, he who is on the housetop, and his 19:59 goods are in the house, let him not 20:01 come down to take it away. And likewise 20:03 the one who is in the field, let him not turn 20:06 back. Remember Lot's wife. You will note 20:10 that Jesus doesn't say, I don't look back. He 20:16 said don't turn back, this suggests I believe 20:20 that Lot's wife looked back, but more than 20:24 that she wanted to turn back. Why would 20:29 Lot's wife want to turn back, well we 20:32 know that she was leaving behind a 20:33 family, a lush home, she was leaving 20:38 behind some of her treasures no doubt, I 20:41 think that Lot's own indecisiveness, 20:44 indecisiveness allowed his wife to be 20:47 a little bit prone to not want to leave. In 20:51 Patriarchs and Prophets, page 161, 20:53 Ellen White observes that Lot's wife felt 20:56 that she was being treated severely and 20:58 resented the fact that the wealth that taken 21:00 years to accumulate would be left to 21:03 destruction. Though she was running from 21:08 Sodom, her heart was where her treasure 21:12 was in Sodom. Jesus says for where your 21:16 treasure is there will your heart be also. 21:19 Her heart revealed the real direction she was 21:22 going, so I ask you today what is the 21:26 direction of your life, where is your heart 21:29 focused, your minds and your affections. 21:32 I'm reminded of a song that was sung by 21:40 the Blackwood Brothers many years 21:42 ago and it opened with these lines. 21:46 Friend, how would you feel if your heart 21:51 was made with a window on each side, 21:54 so that all could see not just outward 21:57 charm, but detect the inward side. So I ask 22:02 you again if our hearts were open to others 22:06 what would they see, what would it indicate 22:09 about the direction of our lives. When I 22:15 talked about Lot and his family and this 22:19 whole experience, most students were 22:22 very puzzled over the fact that God turned 22:27 Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, but you know 22:32 what that's not what the Bible teaches. 22:37 Turn with me again to Genesis chapter 19, 22:41 verse 26, notice what it says, but his wife 22:47 looked back behind him that is Lot and 22:51 she became a pillar of salt. It doesn't say 22:56 anything does it about God. I think 22:59 sometimes that we are too prone when, when 23:03 misfortune takes place to just kind of look to 23:07 see once why did God do this, but it simply 23:11 says she looked back and she became a 23:13 pillar of salt. In this situation, the wicked 23:19 city of Sodom is a symbol of the human 23:23 heart. In Jeremiah 17:9, we are told that 23:28 the heart is deceitful above all things and 23:31 desperately wicked. In looking back Lot's 23:36 wife suffered the consequences of her 23:39 choice to turn back and looking back at 23:44 Sodom. She was turning her back on 23:48 God, the only one who could save her. 23:51 All those who go along with the 23:54 inclinations of the heart, where then the 23:59 saving imitation of a savior are chosen to 24:03 die. I think sometimes we are very prone to 24:08 see God responsible for things that 24:13 happened, for people who die and 24:15 misfortunes, and so forth, but this seems 24:20 to indicate to us that the general reason for 24:24 what happens to us is a result of our own 24:27 choice. Jesus stated when he said 24:33 remember Lot's wife, he adds this warning 24:36 whoever seeks to save his life will lose it and 24:41 whoever looses his life for my sake will 24:45 find it. It seems to be a sort of a 24:48 contradiction doesn't it and yet God is lying 24:51 down here for us a very important 24:53 principle, which I think Lot's wife 24:55 illustrates and that is that if we turn back 24:59 and reach back and get the, keep holding 25:03 on to the things that have preoccupied us, 25:07 we will lose the most important thing and 25:10 that is our hold on eternal life. In turning 25:16 into a pillar of salt, the use of the word 25:20 pillar has a very interesting meaning. 25:27 The word pillar has reference to 25:30 something that's stationary, stable, 25:33 immovable. If Lot's wife turned to a pillar 25:38 of salt, it may have depicted her attitude, 25:41 an attitude of defiance, a refusal to 25:46 continue, to moving away from Sodom. 25:50 Salt is a, has various meanings in the 25:57 Hebrew language. It can mean reference to 25:59 ashes, to dust or light fragile covering. One 26:04 theory is that when Sodom was destroyed 26:07 giant deposits of salt came out of the earth 26:12 and doused Lot's wife with burning ash and 26:17 salt. The evidence of this might be 26:20 indicated by the fact that the cities of 26:22 Sodom and Gomorrah have been found, we 26:24 believe in the southern end of the 26:27 red sea, excuse me, the dead sea, which 26:31 by the way is also called salt sea and it is 26:35 there that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah 26:38 evidently were burned up and the southern 26:43 end is a very shallow end of the dead sea 26:47 only about 13 feet in depth, but it might 26:50 indicate that at that part of the sea was 26:53 dry land up until recent time. Now, we 26:59 don't really know do we, exactly how all of 27:03 this happened. We can only conjecture, 27:07 we can only study the Bible and conclude 27:12 some general things that we have talked 27:15 about here today, but being told to 27:18 remember Lot's wife, we need to remember 27:23 the whole story, we need to have the 27:27 complete picture. Let's not forget that 27:31 we are living today in the same kind of 27:34 culture, we're faced with the same kind of 27:38 wickedness, we are having to make the 27:41 same kind of choices and we are being 27:44 called by the same God to be holy, as he 27:47 is holy and that my friends is the reason 27:52 we are to remember Lot's wife. |
Revised 2014-12-17