The Peril of Looking Back
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· 2 viewsGrace Fellowship in Rusk, Texas Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 10:30 AM
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The Peril of Looking Back
The Peril of Looking Back
Indecision
Indecision
When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.”
And 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.
So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”
Then Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lords!
Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die.
See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.”
And he said to him, “See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken.
Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar.
Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens.
So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
God was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
God heeded Abraham’s prayer to spare Lot, his wife, and family from destruction.
Lot’s wife was undecided.
She was caught between the past and the future.
She was caught between a desire to be saved and love for the world. She wanted deliverance but she didn’t want to let go of her former life.
If God tells us to leave where we are, it is because He has something better for us.
“Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert.
Lot’s wife looked back in indecision and was turned into a pillar of salt. She became useless and sterile. We must not be stuck between two opinions.
Remember Lot’s Wife!
Remember Lot’s wife.
Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
This is the second shortest verse in the Bible after John 11:35 “Jesus wept.”
Obstacles
Obstacles
And they returned from spying out the land after forty days.
Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.
Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there.
The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”
Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”
But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.”
And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.
There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night.
And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!
Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”
So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.”
Then the Lord said: “I have pardoned, according to your word;
but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord—
because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice,
they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.
But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.
Cost
Cost
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.”
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”
And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”
But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them,
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it—
lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,
saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’
Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace.
So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.
“Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?
It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Love for this Present World
Love for this Present World
Be diligent to come to me quickly;
for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica—Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia.
Response to the Word
Response to the Word
Follow Jesus with a full heart commitment.
Follow Jesus regardless of the obstacles.
Follow Jesus regardless of the cost.
Follow Jesus because you love Him.