• Nov 15
    Week 26
    Moving Forward (Part 1)

      I want to share with you a message called “Moving Forward,” and I want you to really take this message to heart in the days ahead. I will begin by sharing an interesting passage of Scripture where Jesus speaks of the coming of the Son of Man during the end times.

“Then He said to the disciples, ‘The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there!’ Do not go after them or follow them. For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:22-33).  

      Notice Jesus said, “Remember Lot's wife.” Genesis 19, where we read about Lot’s wife, spells out the perversion in Sodom and the terrible iniquity that took place there. Lot’s wife has one of the shortest stories in all of Scripture. Not much information is given about her in the Bible—not even her name—and what little is said about her isn’t good.

 “So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, ‘Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.’ … The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:17, 23-26).

      The only thing we know about Lot’s wife, other than the fact she became a pillar of salt, is the fact she looked back. We don’t know why she lingered. Based on Scripture, I think it was the perversion of the culture that had a hold on her. Maybe she longed for what was there in the city—her home, her friends, or her comfortable lifestyle. The way this is worded in the original Hebrew implies she turned around because she had a longing to stay.                                

      Ezekiel 16:49-50 says, “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit.” These evils, along with the perversion of sodomy, were the reasons that Sodom was destroyed. God had seen enough of the selfishness and perversion.

      Something caused Lot’s wife to do the only thing the Lord asked them not to do—look back. It doesn’t sound like Lot and his wife were involved in the city’s perversion or the evil acts being done there. However, the act of looking back instead of forward spoke so loudly in heaven, it did not even require words. She became calcified, stuck in a place she was only supposed to pass through.

      Why do we need to “remember Lot's wife”? So we also do not get stuck in a place, spiritually, where we were only meant to be temporarily. If we remain stuck, we stop progressing. God wants to us to be “the salt of the earth” (see Matthew 5:13), so we can season the earth with His goodness, grace, mercy, and love. Sadly, Lot’s wife became only in death what she was evidently not in life.

      We will only become the salt of the earth when we go beyond our present church experience and stop trying to duplicate the past. We were never meant to become calcified. Are you stuck in bitterness, disappointment, or unforgiveness? Are you stuck with a divisive spirit that spews criticism, negativity, and condemnation? You cannot stay stuck in the past. The plans, promises, and purposes of God are ahead. God is not living in your past. He was with you in the past, even if you were distracted and caught up in the culture. However, He has called you out of the past to pursue the promises of God.         

         


     Click here to check out my message "Moving Forward" in its entirety. You can watch it and download the audio to enjoy wherever you go.

     Also, join me for Prophetic Chronicles with Chris Reed and see how people's lives are being touched by prophetic ministry. Click here.


Blessings,

Chris Reed | President & CEO
MorningStar Ministries