Theme: WORKING OUT OUR SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING
Text: “And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt” – Genesis 19:25,26.
Comment: The significant but familiar event involving Lot and his family and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are on record to serve as guide and as warning to those who have undertaken to serve the Almighty God. The story stresses the fact that obedience to God must be total, continuous and unconditional. Also, it shows that salvation is, indeed an individual matter that goes beyond family ties or bonds. (Philippians 2:12) When Lot’s wife looked back and suddenly died, he and his two daughters continued their march to safety regardless of the demise of an important family member. It should be noted that, had they turned away from their mission to sympathize with their dead, the same fate would have befallen them. In Ezekiel 14:13,14,16,18 God warned: “Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it. Though these three men Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it…they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate…” When Christ came, he showed that one’s salvation is more than blood affinity when he said: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” – Matthew 10:37.