It was, seemingly, an after-thought when Jesus tucked that obvious warning in His recount of the escape of Lot and his family from the impending destruction of Sodom, first recorded in Genesis 19. In that account, the two angels ushering them out of the city warn them not to look back, but Lot’s wife disobeyed and was turned into a pillar of salt.

But Jesus was comparing that time with how it will be in the coming of the Son of Man, along with how it was with Noah and Lot in their generations, in Luke 17:26-33:

^“And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Likewise, as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.”

The account continues with the same consistency, in the mode of those leaving behind all that is considered unworthy to be taken along. It is a major problem in interpretation that those taken are taken to judgment, and I do not hesitate to challenge that position, for in the days of Noah and of Lot, those left behind are left to judgment, not those taken away. Those left behind are judged right there. As the account of the Rapture makes it plain—“the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, for when they shall say, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come upon them…” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).

The portion having to do with “remembering Lot’s wife” is this:

“In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” (Verses 31-33)

“In that day,” the day that the Son of Man is revealed, He will come quickly, as a thief in the night, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52) and there will be no time to gather up anything held dear to take along. Obviously, it will be a translation from mortal to immortal, physical to spiritual, transaction that takes place. Nothing physical will go along.   

The emphasis on remembering Lot’s wife seems to stress the importance of being sure of your relationship with Christ. There will be many, no doubt, whose Christianity is merely a membership in a local church, or a once-upon-a-time going forward at an invitation to become a Christian, getting baptized and joining the church.

When Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” it was not an “Oh yeah, don’t forget to be born again, too” kind of thing. It is a “must” kind of thing. It is a God-thing, for He does it in response to a person realizing his ungodliness and utter sinful nature and his receiving that gift of salvation made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary. To be born again, one must allow Christ to come into his life and live in him. (See Revelation 3:20 and John 1:12-13.)

That passage also speaks to the issue of total commitment to the Lord and a watching expectation of meeting Him face-to-face. Until we read Peter’s testimony of the righteousness of Lot do we understand the security of the believer. In 1 Corinthians 3:11 and following, we are told that the only foundation that can be laid is that of Christ in the life of the believer, and we build upon that foundation any works that will remain after the test of fiery judgment of them. Even if no works are remaining, even then, the foundation that has been laid will be sufficient to allow that person entry into the presence of the Lord. That is the great promise of the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. According to Ephesians 2:10, good works follow after conversion.

It is an admonition that when we commit to be a follower of Christ, we forsake the world and its place in our life. Matthew 6:24 tells us that we cannot serve two masters, for we would love the one and despise the other. Luke 9:62 says, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

That is strong stuff, but true. Casual Christianity is the mode of America today, so perhaps as the times and seasons are moving ever closer to that time when the sound of the trumpet is heard by those with spiritual ears, the current devastating events in our physical world are an announcement of that impending appearance.

One of my earliest pastors told of a time in his youth that a lady who helped his mother with the housework remarked about a man whose Christian testimony was evident in his lie, “My, but he sure does wear the world like a loose garment!” With that picture in mind, think of the passage in Luke above about being ready for the Lord in the blink of an eye, or sooner if our time of mortal life is upon us.

1. B. Phillips paraphrases Romans 12:2 with these words, “Don’t let the world squeeze you into its own mold,” and one can almost feel that squeeze as we read it! Thank God for promises like Psalm 46:1, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Another rendering of that says, “He is abundantly available for help.” And He has promised to keep us as His own purchased possession!

The strange fact that, as we are told, Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt may have some intended implications as well. Believers are said to be the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, it is good for nothing but to be put underfoot and trampled upon. Salt has three services aside from its place in the makeup of nutritional benefit to our bodies—pleasure in seasoning, purifying and preserving food products. Those qualities are desirable in the Christian’s life as well, as he engages in life among others (Matthew 5:13).

Was that pillar of salt to be a marker for anyone coming that way, out of the judgment of God and into His fellowship, must have those qualities of life, coming from the indwelling Spirit of God, or he will not be allowed to pass through?

One might look back with regrets for the kind of life he has lived. Certainly the Apostle Paul could have done that, but he fully claimed the forgiveness that Christ offered him, saying, “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12).

In another place he wrote, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

The whole range of current events—spiritual, political, geophysical—is a wake-up call, or may well be, that His claim for that purchased redemption made with His own life-blood is about to be made. Our assurance of our readiness is also made for us in the promise of Romans 8:11:

“But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

 Contact email:  andwegetmercy@gmail.com

  

When Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden of Eden they were innocent beings having no knowledge of good and evil. The fact that they had not eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil tells us that. But it was due to change.

When that first couple took the tempter’s lead and ate of the fruit of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Satan’s war machine went to work with furious intention.  When Isaiah wrote of Lucifer’s highhanded purpose (Isaiah 14:13-14) it was all about him, Lucifer, turning upside down all that God is:

“For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’”

Once Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they knew that they had done wrong, and that they were now responsible. They tried to cover themselves to hide their evil—from themselves, first and foremost. We mortals also take that avenue as well. It is the truth of John 3:19, “Men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”

A short time later, it came to mind in Cain that killing Abel was a good thing for it would eliminate the exposition of Can’s moral failure. Down through the centuries, that has been the motivation for countless atrocities of mankind against each other. It has brought us now to what Isaiah warned in Isaiah 5:20:

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

The examples of such actions are already numerous and are exploding. If a person has moral integrity he would be hard-pressed to express moral dishonesty in his actions, it seems to me. So then, those who would insist that their deviation away from the truth is right and acceptable are displaying moral dishonesty because they have no moral integrity. They have had, as Paul told Timothy, “their consciences seared as with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:2). That is, they have little ability to distinguish between good and evil. They are as God saw the people in Noah’s day, whose “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5).

For examples, we could start with the greed for power evidenced in that statement of Nathan Rothschild in the early 1800s, “give me control of a nation’s money supply and I will not care what its laws are.” And now, we can see how that has played out so well in the decades since then.

If you want to read of intrigue and “tit-for-tat” cover-ups, look into the threads of conspiracy in the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of John F. Kennedy and try to follow the trail of that crooked bullet that built the case against Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone gunman.

Try to find a moral justification for the ruling of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and the resulting fall-out of multiple millions of abortions since then that are built on the most flimsiest of reasons—birth control. (And also, for a more deadly reason—population control.)

Look into the claims of the New World Order promoters that a wonderful future is just ahead, but what price that will have to be paid for that elite privilege for the few is not disclosed.

Political correctness is a 21^st century term that has become a worthy tool for redirecting attention from the pursuit of and revealing of truth about people, purposes and projects.

Faith in the God of the Bible is taboo, but “any old  god will do” doesn’t offend anyone. A morally astute teacher cannot display a Bible on his or her desk in the classroom, but the Koran or Book of Mormon can be studied openly. (Of course, those books hold no threat to the immoral condition of the “nay-sayers.”)

Deliberate rejection of the Constitution, or making it out to be a “moving document” that is relevant to the mood of society is equal to maintaining that truth is what we decide it is today. The result is that each one is a law unto himself until another one comes along who can claim that his “truth” is more powerful than the other.

Tolerance and intolerance are words describing attitudes toward others today. A strange use of them is made when it is charged that “your intolerance of my lack of tolerance for the rule of law is not acceptable,” or words of that effect. What is meant by that is that “the end justifies the means” for those who have no qualms of how they reach their goal. In that is the revelation that the goal is not one of truth, but as the Scripture declares, its result will not be sweet, but bitter. Of that attitude, God declares in Romans 1:22, “Professing to be wise, they have become fools….”

What kind of a justice system is it when a Director of the FBI compromises his own character and tries to hide it by taking a position on a legal issue that can only be the business of the Attorney General? The obvious two-faced transparent failure of his duty to be unbiased in the pursuit of justice is not to be overlooked lest we fully forsake what is right in favor of what is wrong.

One of the more telling reactions comes from when Donald Trump vowed to “Drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. Fear ran rampant throughout  the establishment like tick fever through a Texas cattle herd. Every accusation that could be thought of is being made against him from every direction. Inside his party and the opposition parties are factions that are determined to destroy his administration, even if it means the downfall of the nation. That is my opinion after observing the give and take of the media and political figureheads during his campaign and since his election.

The election was being counted for Hillary Clinton and with her, a continuation of the destruction of America that Barack Hussein Obama had brought to the brink. He summed up his tenure as president with these words on April 30, 2016, “The end of the Republic has never looked better!” Is it not surprising that no one has bothered to inquire what he meant by that statement, for it smacks with treasonous intent.

Again I quote Isaiah 5:20:

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

There are so many more examples that could be noted that illustrate the reversal of truth for evil and how the deceived population ascribes to it. The scriptural declaration that a falling away from law and order will come before the appearance of that one of extreme lawlessness can appear (2 Thessalonians 2:2-3) is revealing itself in an exponential manner in these days—increasing in volume over time. And note, too, that the Day of the Lord will not come until this falling away happens.

At this moment in early September, 2017,  the worst forest fire ever recorded in Los Angeles County is burning away; Hurricane Harvey’s fury is noted as the worst storm ever to hit the Texas-Louisiana coastline; on its heels is Hurricane Irma with more powerful fury than Harvey  and is followed by Hurricane Jose prepared to do more damage; in a four or five day splurge reports are that ninety or more earthquakes of various strengths have fluttered the landscape in southeastern Idaho.

Will the bubbling underpinnings of Yellowstone National Park break forth in its long-expected debut next?  Read through Luke 21:7-28 again, being careful to put the destruction of Jerusalem in its proper historical place and the coming of the Son of Man in its future place, and you will see the events of these days are becoming more intense and explosive. As He said there, “men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Manmade climate change is a good excuse for the upheaval of nature when you do not want to admit that the God of heaven and earth exists. Plus, it adds to the reasoning that the increase in population must be controlled and reduced in order that the “more equal” among the equal can survive.

Further scriptural verification of what is back of these natural disasters is revealed in Romans 8:19-22:

^“For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God, for we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”

This final quotation wraps up the conclusion from God’s perspective, for it points to the ultimate judgment of a people who have turned truth upside down and are saturated with headstrong ungodliness and rebellion:

“But God is the Judge: He puts down one, and exalts another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup and the wine is red; it is fully mixed, and He pours it out; surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth drain and drink down” (Psalm 75:7-8).

 Contact email:  andwegetmercy@gmail.com