The Eyes Reveal the Heart

"Remember Lot's wife" (Lk, 17:32).

Why did Jesus give us this simple but stern warning? What are we supposed to remember about Lot's wife? Scripture gives us the answer:

"But Lot's wife behind him looked back, and she became a pillar of salt" (Gen. 19:26).

It was just a glance, perhaps, but even just a little disobedience can have huge consequences; just a little act can reveal a lot. This one, small glance of Lot's wife revealed her heart, a heart that longed for what she had left behind. She would not be the last to have one's eyes betray the true nature of one's heart.

Later, when the Hebrews were wonderfully freed from slavery to the Egyptians by God, they too looked back longingly to what they had left behind. Once in the desert wilderness and no longer furnished food by their slave masters, they pined for what had been instead of looking forward to what was to be. It is true that they did have food provided for them by their cruel taskmasters, but their cruelty was so harsh that they cried out to God to release them from that cruelty. But then when finally released from that slavery, they cried out in rebellion against their new Master and critisized how he provided for them. They were not accustomed to living by faith that God would provide; they preferred to be like all the rest of the peoples and nations, trusting the government to care for them and provide for them. They preferred seeing to believing. This attitude, this kind of vision, also resurfaced much later, when the Israelites desired a king so that they could be like the other nations:

"But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No! but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles" (1 Sam. 8:19-20).

It is not much different today. Even now, the world looks to its governments to provide for them. Instead of depending upon God to care for them, people trust their bank accounts, jobs, governments, and self to provide. We have become so accustomed to this way of living that we have lost sight of the real Provider for our daily needs:

"For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Mt. 5:45).

The parallels to the history which Scripture reveals to us about the human heart are staggering in implications. For still today, we are all in danger of succumbing to the same sin of disbelief and having wrong desires in our heart that ruined the examples mentioned above. No wonder Jesus warns us to remember Lot's wife. No wonder he also said that when the great time of trouble for this world comes we are not to look back even for a moment, not go back into the house for a single item. For that will be a time when the old way of living is completely done away with and the new world and its ways will be fully upon us. Then the real King, the King of kings, will reign over the whole world, just as he wants to reign over our hearts right now. Why would we want to look back to that old way of life when the new is so much better? We wouldn't . . . unless we have never really repudiated that old way of life in the first place. But unless this has happened, we will always be in danger of looking back, desiring to return to how we lived before.

Lot's wife and the ancient Hebrews looked back at what they had lost. Paul and Jesus looked forward to what they had won. Paul says:

"I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (Ph. 3:8).

"But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead" (Ph. 3:13).

In this, Paul was only following the example of his Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. For Scripture says of him that he also, like Moses before him, did not look at what he had lost but only toward what he was to gain. For of Moses, Scripture likewise says:

" By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward" (Heb. 11:24-26).

But, as always, it is our Lord and King, Jesus, who is our supreme example. His own heart did not cling to his glory in heaven, but he gave it up for our sake, so that he could come down to this world and be one of us so that we could go up to his world and be like him:

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!" (Ph. 2:5-8).

This is the clear command of God's Word, that we are to be like Jesus in our attitude of heart and vision of how we see our own existence. This is not an idle suggestion but a clear and direct command that will be crucial in these last days. For when all that we have depended upon for so long collapses--banks, economies, governments, jobs, social structures, authorities--all that will be left that is solid will be God himself. That is what Jesus trusted to get him through the hour of crisis on the cross; it is what we must trust to get us through our own hour of crisis that will come upon the whole world. Are you ready for that? Do you look beyond the coming collapse of all you are used to depending upon and see the Rock that cannot be shaken, Jesus Christ? Or will you be like those who did not trust God to take care of them? All depends upon your answer. Where you are looking for your salvation reveals your heart.

Remember Lot's wife!