Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #37 of Genesis, chapter 19. We are going to read Genesis 19:25-26:

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.

We have been looking at this and very carefully considering what God is saying to us because this is the Bible and we must do that with everything we read in the Bible. This is a historical parable, which means that it is a true historical event that God is using to teach us spiritual truths. It is very important for the time of the end of the world and that is the time we are presently living in. We are living at the time of the end. The time of the Great Tribulation has passed and we have entered the Day of Judgment.

So, the Lord has given us this historical parable in which Lot’s wife looked back from behind him at a very key point in time. When they first came out of Sodom and there was still time to flee to the mountain as God had commanded, did she look behind then? No. This was before the fire and brimstone fell from heaven and she was following the Lord’s command to flee Sodom. Remember God had said in Genesis 19:17:

And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

God had specifically commanded, “Look not behind thee.” It was a command to Lot, his wife and his daughters as they were fleeing the city. They were not to look back. Again, let me read Genesis 19:26:

But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

Some people read this, and they might think, “God is not fair. That is not right. She did not do anything wrong. She just looked over her shoulder.” Maybe she turned fully around. We are not told, but she looked backward and God killed her. That is what it would mean to be turned to a pillar of salt. She certainly did not survive her body being turned to salt. She was killed by God because she “looked back from behind him.” Again, if a great number of people in the world or in the churches consider this, they might think it was not fair of God and it was not a just response to her infraction. After all, she did not kill anyone. She did not do anything horrible to anyone. She simply “looked back from behind him.” Historically, this probably refers to her husband Lot, but there is no question what it means spiritually. It has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ – she looked back from behind Him or that which was behind the Lord Jesus Christ.

Again, it may seem like a very small infraction of the Law of God. Yes – when we look at verse 17, it must be admitted that God did give the command not to look back and she disobeyed. It may not seem like something big, but keep in mind the command back in the Garden of Eden: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” You see, death was the price of transgression for eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree.

But mankind mocks this whole thing: “What kind of vengeful God is this to kill someone for eating the fruit of a certain tree?” They try to discredit it as a fanciful tale that is not real, but it is real. It is true history, just like what God did to Lot’s wife here in Genesis 19. Or, remember the man who picked up a few sticks when Israel was wandering in the wilderness. He went out on the Sabbath Day and God had commanded that they were to do no work on the Sabbath Day. He went out on the Sabbath Day and picked up a few sticks. He did not do anything major – it was a few sticks to make a fire. It is understandable, from man’s point of view: eating a piece of fruit or picking up a few sticks. By the way, what happened to that man when they brought him to Moses? Moses did not make the judgment, but he went to the Lord for the judgment and the Lord condemned the man to death for picking up a few sticks, a seemingly minor infraction against the Law.

You know, if you ask a natural-minded man, everything is minor when it comes to breaking the Law of God, except possibly murder and a couple of other things. But they minimize practically all the Law. They minimize the commandment when they minimize the consequence of breaking the commandment.

For example, God said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and the penalty was to be stoned to death. But we have people all over the world committing adultery and there is no fear in what they are doing. They can rationalize it and justify it and they can explain why they have no shame in breaking the Law of God. It is not a serious matter to mankind to break the Law of God. But God, unlike man, means what He says. And the Law of God is perfect, holy, right and just and breaking any point of the Law of God brings the penalty of death: __“The wages of sin is death,”_* and sin is the transgression of the Law, as we are told in 1John. If you break God’s Law in one point, you are guilty of breaking the whole Law of God.

And that is what Lot’s wife did. She broke the Law that God gave her concerning this special period of time. He gave the Law at the point when Sodom was almost ready to be destroyed and then He instituted this specific Law. The Law was that when you fled out of the city of Sodom, you were not to look back. Keep in mind that God’s Law can be given on a “natural” level and, yet, it can have a spiritual aspect. And the spiritual level is also the Law. In other words, Sodom is a picture of the corporate church and at the time of the end God commanded His people to come out of the churches and flee to the mountains, so this Law that was given to Lot’s wife was a Law to be observed at the time of the end.

But some people will say, “No – it is not. You cannot say that there is a Law that was given when God ended the church age. You cannot say that when God commanded people to get out of the churches He also made a Law that anyone that returns to the churches, to former doctrines or to the world at the time of the end are breaking the Law, like Lot’s wife, and that they are guilty, and God will turn them into a pillar of salt.” (Of course, anyone disputing and criticizing this probably would not agree with the end of the church age.) The Law that applied to Lot’s wife is being spiritually realized in our time, so, too, the penalty of being turned into salt is also a spiritual reference; that is, whatever “being turned into salt” spiritually represents would apply to those that violate the Law and turn back at the end. I am saying this because it is what the Bible is saying. God has given a Law to anyone that turns back at the time of the end, even though they initially obeyed the command to come out and they may even have stayed outside the churches for a time. But due to the trap that God set for the time of Judgment Day when He brought it to pass in a spiritual and invisible way, the people of the world cannot see it because they do not have spiritual eyes to discern it. The unsaved are the target of the wrath of God in the Day of Judgment, so they would not see or understand the judgment that had come upon them and that was the snare for those that professed to be true believers and professed to understand God’s end-time judgment program and the Biblical calendar of history, and so forth. Like the professed true believers in the churches, they, too, thought nothing happened because they lacked spiritual understanding of these things, so when pressure was put to bear and they saw nothing with their physical eyes, they would violate the commandment given in Genesis 19:17: “Look not behind thee.” They would disobey or disregard the command and they would go back.

We know that God is observing this commandment that He gave in a special way in Genesis 19 because we read it in the New Testament in the Gospel of Luke. It says in Luke 17: 28-30:

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

It is not referring to seeing Christ with the physical eyes, but He was revealed on the pages of the Bible when God opened the Scriptures at the time of the end to reveal that Christ came as Judge of the churches when judgment began at the house of God. Then God revealed Christ coming as Judge of the world on the date of May 21, 2011. That is when He would be revealed. It is the righteous revelation of the judgment of God. Again, it says, “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Then it goes on to say in Luke 17:31:

In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.

Remember, you are not to go back for your stuff in the house, even if your “stuff” is or your “vessel” (your wife) is still in the corporate church. We were to stay on the housetop to declare the Word of God because the “housetop” is a place of spiritual activity, but we were not to go back into the house. It was a very direct commandment.

Also, the field is the world and when we left the churches we went out into the world to bring the Gospel to the world outside of the churches and congregations: “and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.” That was the commandment of God. Then it says in the next verse, in Luke 17:32:

Remember Lot’s wife.

So, God is bringing the events we are reading about in Genesis 19, which happened thousands of years ago, to the forefront of our minds as He warns the reader to remember Lot’s wife. What are we to remember? What did she do? “But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Following the commandment in Luke 17:31, he that was in the field was not to return back: “Remember Lot’s wife.” She looked back from behind him. We can know for sure that the masculine pronoun “him” is referring to Christ. When we look up the word “behind” in the Bible, what of real significance do we find? We find an interesting statement in Luke 4, when the Lord Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness. It says in Luke 4:7-8:

If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Christ said, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” It is curious that Jesus said this to the devil. It also reminds us of Matthew 16:21-23:

From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Peter was an elect true believer. Just a few verses earlier, Peter had testified, “Thou art the Christ.” He had recognized that Jesus was Messiah, God in the flesh. Certainly, the Bible does indicate that Peter was an elect child of God. But there was a major change of program God was making and this was at the conclusion of Christ’s ministry of three and a half years and then He would go to the cross. Before He could go to the cross, He must be seized by the Jewish authorities, turned over to Pilot and be tried and be delivered over to the Romans to be crucified; three days later He would rise again. But Peter refused this. Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” I think in another place He turned to His disciples and said this and gave Peter His back, saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” It was not that Peter was Satan, but Peter had refused what God had willed and what the determinate counsel of God had decreed must happen, and he was acting like Satan who is constantly in opposition to the will of God. Therefore, Jesus was using Peter as an example when He said, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” and it was just like He told Satan in the wilderness: “Get thee behind me, Satan.” That is the place where Satan is found. If you mapped this out, it is as if Christ is in the forefront or the forward location and Satan is in the rear, behind the Lord Jesus. Therefore, when we read that commanded in Genesis 19, “Look not behind thee,” and Lot’s wife disobeyed, and she became a pillar of salt, it is indicating she had turned away from Christ and turned back to that area were Satan was operating (behind the Lord Jesus). Of course, she blatantly disobeyed the command to not look behind and the Bible indicates that when you transgress the Law of God, you will die. God used her as an example, just like he used the man that picked up a few sticks, because God wants the reader of the Holy Bible to know that the way to go when following the Word of God is always forward.

We will look at this in more detail, Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study.