Don't Look Back

[dave c]

simpletruth #138af Revisited 04AUG10 salicart@msn.com

HOSEA 10:12—Part Thirty Two: Don’t Look Back

by rev. dave c

Hosea 10:12, Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you (NKJV).

Genesis 19:15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished." 16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" 18 But Lot said to them, "No, my lords, please! 19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can't flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I'll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it--it is very small, isn't it? Then my life will be spared." 21 He said to him, "Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it." (That is why the town was called Zoar. ) 23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah--from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities--and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt (NIV).

The turning of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt is probably one of the most curious stories of the Old Testament. While I don’t understand the what, or the how, of this phenomena I have no problem accepting that it did happen. More importantly, I can grasp the basic message: “Once God sets you on the path to freedom and safety, don’t look back.” On the way to the Promised Land, and even while God was miraculously feeding them as they wandered in the wilderness, some Hebrews began to grumble about the “bread from Heaven”. In spite of their having been slaves for 400 years, the malcontents began to look back with longing at their days in Egypt. We read in the Book of Numbers, The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost--also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!" … Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled (Nu 11:4-10; NIV). The Lord then sent so many quail for the people to eat that they were practically drowning in them, and verse 33 tell us: But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague (NIV).

From Genesis through Revelation, we are told that once we decide and commit to the ways of God—once we have taken up our cross to follow the Son (Mt 16:24-27)—we must not attempt to turn back to the ways of the world and the flesh. As Peter tells us: If they [we] have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they [we] are worse off at the end than they [we] were at the beginning. It would have been better for them [us] not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their [our] backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them [us]. Of them [us] the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud" (2Pe 2:20-22; NIV).

In Luke Chapter Nine we are provided Christ’s response to those who would look back to their old life: 57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58 Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." 59 He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 60 Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61 Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." 62 Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God" (NIV). We see in these verses illustrations of the Lord’s teaching regarding the parable of the sower, the seed, and the soils, The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful (Mt 13:22; NIV).

Let us join our voices with Paul in Philippians Three beginning with verse 10: I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained (NIV). Amen.