One of the most poignant exchanges in the New Testament, is a question Jesus asked of the 12 in John 6:
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, “Will ye also go away?” (verses 66-67)
And then Peter’s reply:
Then Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” (verse 68)
I love Peter’s response to Jesus; “to whom shall we go?” – Indeed, for only darkness and death awaits us if we turn back.
Anyway, that exchange between Jesus and Peter came to mind when reading this message by Jonathan Edwards.
The Folly of Looking Back in Fleeing Out of Sodom
And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. (Ge 19:15)
“Remember Lot’s wife.” ( Luke 17:32)
Christ here foretells his coming in his kingdom, in answer to the question which the Pharisees asked him, (concerning) when the kingdom of God should come.
And in what he says of his coming, he evidently has respect to two things; his coming at the destruction of Jerusalem, and his coming at the end of the world.
He compares his coming at those times to the coming of God in two remarkable judgments that were past. First, [he compares] to that in the time of the flood; “and as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.”
Next, he compares it to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; “likewise also, as it was in the days of Lot, even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
Then he immediately proceeds to direct his people how they should behave themselves at the appearance of the signal of that day’s approach, referring especially to the destruction of Jerusalem. “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.”
In which words Christ shows that they should make the utmost haste to flee and get out of the city to the mountains, as he commands. Mat. 24:15, etc.
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place, then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains; let him which is in the housetop not come down to take anything out of the house, neither let him which is in the field turn back to take his clothes.”
Jerusalem was like Sodom, in that it was devoted to destruction by special divine wrath; and indeed to a more terrible destruction than that of Sodom. Therefore the like direction is given concerning fleeing out of it with the utmost haste, without looking behind, as the angel gave to Lot, when he bid him flee out of Sodom. Gen. 19:17, “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain.”
And in the text, Christ enforces his counsel by the instance of Lot’s wife. He bids them remember her, and take warning by her, who looked back as she was fleeing out of Sodom, and became a pillar of salt.
We ought not to look back when we are fleeing out of Sodom.
Sodom is a city full of filthiness and abominations. It is full of those impurities that ought to be had in the utmost abhorrence and detestation by all. The inhabitants of it are a polluted company. They are all under the power and dominion of hateful lusts. All their faculties and affections are polluted with those wile dispositions that are unworthy of the human nature, that greatly debase it, that are exceedingly hateful to God, and that dreadfully incense his anger. Every kind of spiritual abomination abounds in it. There is nothing so hateful and abominable but that there it is to be found, and there it abounds.
Sodom is a city full of devils and all unclean spirits. There they have their rendezvous, and there they have their dominion. There they sport, and wallow in filthiness, as it is said of mystical Babylon, Rev. 18:2. Babylon is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird. — Who would be of such a society? Who would not flee from such a city with the utmost haste, and never look back upon it, and never have the least inclination of returning?
Some in Sodom may seem to carry a fair face, and make a fair outward show. But if we could look into their hearts, they are everyone altogether filthy and abominable. We ought to flee from such a city, with the utmost abhorrence of the place and society, with no desires to dwell longer there, and never to discover the least inclination to return to it. But [we] should be desirous to get to the greatest possible distance from it, that we might in no wise be partakers in her abominations.
We ought not to look back when fleeing out of Sodom, because Sodom is appointed to destruction. The cry of the city hath reached up to heaven. The earth cannot bear such a burden as her inhabitants are. She will therefore disburden herself of them, and spew them out. God will not suffer such to stand; he will consume it. God is holy, and his nature is infinitely opposite to all such uncleanness. He will therefore be a consuming fire to it. The holiness of God will not suffer it to stand, and the majesty and justice of God require that the inhabitants of that city who thus offend and provoke him be destroyed.
We ought not to look back when fleeing out of Sodom, because the destruction to which it is appointed is exceedingly dreadful; it is appointed to utter destruction, to be wholly and entirely consumed. It is appointed to suffer the wrath of the great God, which is to be poured down from God upon it, like a dreadful storm of fire and brimstone. This city is to be filled full of the wrath of God. Everyone that remains in it shall have the fire of God’s wrath come down on his head and into his soul. He shall be full of fire and full of the wrath of the Almighty. He shall be encompassed with fire without and full of fire within. His head, his heart, his bowels, and all his limbs shall be full of fire, and not a drop of water to cool him.
Nor shall he have any place to flee to for relief. Go where he will, there is the fire of God’s wrath. His destruction and torment will be inevitable. — He shall be destroyed without any pity. He shall cry aloud, but there shall be none to help, there shall be none to regard his lamentations, or to afford relief. The decree is gone forth, and the days come when Sodom shall burn as an oven, and all the inhabitants thereof shall be as stubble.
As it was in the literal Sodom, the whole city was full of fire.
Now, with what haste should we flee from a city appointed to such a destruction! And how should we flee without looking behind us! How should it be our whole intent to get at the greatest distance from a city in such circumstances! How far should we be from thinking at all of returning to a city which has such wrath hanging over it!
The destruction to which Sodom is appointed is an universal destruction. None that stay in it shall escape. None will have the good fortune to be in any by-corner, where the fire will not search them out. All sorts, old and young, great and small, shall be destroyed. There shall be no exception of any age, or any sex, or any condition, but all shall perish together. Gen. 19:24, 25, “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.”
We therefore must not delay or look behind us; for there is no place of safety in Sodom, nor in all the plain on which Sodom is built. The mountain of safety is before us, and not behind us.
The destruction to which Sodom is appointed is an everlasting destruction. This is said of the literal Sodom, that it suffered the vengeance of eternal fire. Jude 7,
“Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
The destruction that Sodom and Gomorrah suffered was an eternal destruction. Those cities were destroyed, and have never been built since, and are not capable of being rebuilt; for the land on which they stood at the time of their destruction sunk, and has ever since been covered with the lake of Sodom or the Dead sea, or as it is called in Scripture, the Salt sea. This seems to have been thus ordered on purpose to be a type of the eternal destruction of ungodly men.
Sodom is a city appointed to swift and sudden destruction. The destruction is not only certain and inevitable, and infinitely dreadful, but it will come speedily.
“Their judgment lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not;” 2 Pet. 2:3.
And so Deu. 32:35, “The day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.”
The storm of wrath, the black clouds of divine vengeance, even now every moment hang over them, just ready to break forth and come down in a dreadful manner upon them. God hath already whet his sword and bent his bow, and made ready his arrow on the string, Psa. 7:12.
Therefore we should make haste, and not look behind us. For if we linger and stop to look back, and flee not for our lives, there is great danger that we shall be involved in the common ruin.
The destruction of Sodom is not only swift, but will come suddenly and unexpectedly. — It seems to have been a fair morning in Sodom before it was destroyed, Gen. 19:23. It seems that there were no clouds to be seen, no appearance of any storm at all, much less of a storm of fire and brimstone.
The inhabitants of Sodom expected no such thing. Even when Lot told his sons-in-law of it, they would not believe it, Gen. 19:14. — They were making merry. Their hearts were at ease, they though nothing of such a calamity at hand. But it came at once, as travail upon a woman with child, and there was no escaping.
As verse 28, 29 [says], “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.”
So it is with wicked men. Psa. 73:19, “How are they brought into desolation in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors.”
If therefore we linger and look back, we may be suddenly overtaken and seized with destruction.
There is nothing in Sodom that is worth looking back upon. All the enjoyments of Sodom will soon perish in the common destruction; all will be burnt up. And surely it is not worth the while to look back on things that are perishing and consuming in the flames, as it is with all the enjoyments of sin. They are all appointed to the fire. Therefore it is foolish for any who are fleeing out of Sodom to hanker any more after them. For when they are burnt up, what good can they do?
Lot’s wife looked back, because she remembered the pleasant things that she left in Sodom. She hankered after them. She could not but look back with a wishful eye upon the city, where she had lived in such ease and pleasure. Sodom was a place of great outward plenty. They ate the fat, and drank the sweet. The soil about Sodom was exceedingly fruitful. It is said to be as the garden of God, Gen. 13:10. And fullness of bread was one of the sins of the place, Eze. 16:49.
Here Lot and his wife lived plentifully; and it was a place where the inhabitants wallowed in carnal pleasures and delights. But however much it abounded in these things, what were they worth now, when the city was burning?
Lot’s wife was very foolish in lingering in her escape, for the sake of things which were all on fire. — So the enjoyments, the profits, and pleasures of sin, have the wrath and curse of God on them. Brimstone is scattered on them. Hell-fire is ready to kindle on them. It is not therefore worth while for any person to look back after such things.
The use that I would make of this doctrine, is to warn those who are in a natural condition to flee out of it, and by no means to look back. While you are out of Christ you are in Sodom.
And further to enforce this warning, let me entreat all you who are in this state to consider the several things which I shall now mention.
The destruction of which you are in danger is infinitely more dreadful than that destruction of the literal Sodom from which Lot fled.
The destruction of which you are in danger is not only greater than the temporal destruction of Sodom, but greater than the eternal destruction of the inhabitants of Sodom.
Multitudes, while they have been looking back, have been suddenly overtaken and seized by the storm of wrath. The wrath of God hath not delayed, while they have delayed; it has not waited at all for them to turn about and flee; but has presently seized them, and they have been past hope.
