Lot's Wife:

“Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it,

and loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:32–33, NKJ).

What would you do if someone told you to flee your home because it would be destroyed? And you were told not to look back? Would we do as we were told or be like Lot’s wife and look back? I hope that I will not look back. Our actions have consequences be they good or bad. In the case of Lot’s wife, her consequence for disobeying the warning of God was being turned into a pillar of salt.

Lot’s wife is not mentioned by name in the Bible but we know that she was important since we are told to “Remember Lot’s wife” in Luke 17:32. Lot’s wife is mentioned in the Bible as someone who disobeyed God’s word and suffered the consequences of her actions. It led to her turning into a pillar of salt because she looked back. We don’t know what the pillar of salt looked like.

“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” (Genesis 19:23–26, NKJ).

Poor Lot, not only did he lose his home, his sons-in-law but his wife when he fled.

According to Wikipedia,

In the Midrash, Lot’s wife’s name is given as Ado or Edith. In Judaism, one common view of Lot’s wife turning to salt was as punishment for disobeying the angel's warning. By looking back at the “evil cities”, she conceded to her deep-seated longing for that way of life, and as such was deemed unworthy to be saved and thus was turned into a pillar of salt. Another view is that when she turned back she saw “the sight of God” descending to rain destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah. For whatever reason she looked back, we will never know.

We can learn from Lot’s wife. She is an example to us today by not valuing worldly things but valuing God and His way. We need to think of getting to Heaven and that means less focus on earth and more on God. Another lesson we can learn from her is not to dwell on the past, it can hurt us and keep us in the past and not focus on today.

Isaiah 43:18, “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old.” And Luke 9:62, reads “Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

The only thing we know about Lot’s wife is her death. Her disobedience serves as a warning to others about what happens when you disobey God. There are many views as to why she looked back but we will never know why but we can learn from her. Her story is a reminder of what happens when we dwell on our past life before we were saved. If we are to grow in the faith we need to let go of the past and move forward. When we became a Christian, we became a new person and it washed our sins away.

In conclusion, we must see Lot’s wife as an example of why we should not cling to worldly things. We need to make our spiritual life a priority over the things of this world since this is not our home but Heaven is.