Don't Look Back

Roger Bannister ran the first four minute mile. It was said that the way to win is facing what's ahead, never looking back, because there is a cost to looking back. In a race, it's time! Also, because someone is right on the heels of a runner, that may intimidate enough to slow one down. In fact, there was a famous NASCAR driver called "The Intimidator" because indeed, intimidation is a tactic for winning.

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

The moral to this passage is "Look back... you lose!" Lot's wife lost. Now she is is a pillar of salt somewhere in the bottom of the dead sea. Why was she looking back? Was it to see if who was dying?  Was it because of all the action going on behind her? What was it that she did which was dreadful enough that she would be destroyed? She was remembering "the good times", at least the perceived best times of her life.

The number one rule of the sinner is this: Sin is fun! That's why Satan uses pleasure to tempt! If sin wasn't fun people would reject it!

When people commit themselves to Christ the number one objective for the changed person is: "Don't look back!" It's the flip-side of the "sinner's motto": Don't look back. Why? Because sin is fun. "Don't look back" is a corollary of "Sin is fun". Why not look back? Because Satan wants you to look back. That's how you lose the race so to speak. He knows that when you look back you are longing for the desires of the flesh. That's our curse. We want to be pleasured and right now! Sin is "immediate gratification".

On the other hand "being righteous is not fun". righteousness is not for pleasure. It's for long-term safety, contentment and joy. Joy comes not from fun, but from security and contentment. People give up joy for fun all the time. They give up hope for immediate gratification. When Satan wants to undermine the Christian, he merely rewinds the tape and tells you to look back!

Just about the time a Christian is tempted the Holy Spirit silently screams "Don't look back!" Lot's wife ignored the command. Most people do too!

For Lot's wife immediate death followed looking back. With us, we minimize revisiting the pleasures of sin, but it's criminal under divine justice. If you are sincerely a born-again Christian God has a short memory:

Isaiah 43:25 "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."

But for people even the small items can be brought forth again with a subtle cue. It's best to put the past beside because the Voice said "Remember you not the former things, neither consider the things of old". What's done is done. What's gone is gone. " I will do something new." he said.

Satan uses the past against you. Never listen to him. He will drag you back there!

My own problem, if I look back, is my own divorce. That was grievous to God and a great sin. For most it's a sin which continues on and drags others into its path. The formal church, even my own, looks upon it as "the unpardonable sin", not in doctrine, but in practice. I can never be a deacon nor a preacher. My own former preacher refused to marry us because we had both been married before in spite of both of us had been forgiven! With that contrition God "remembers not my sin", but the church does! I can never serve the Lord because when I was a youth of eighteen I sinned.

Because others won't forget, neither can I! Satan drags my failure before me all the time and the church helps drag it out. I try not to look back, but people keep dragging me back. There was no joy in my sin and neither have I found joy in being forgiven because people hang on to my past!

Let's look at the woman at the well.

John 4:16 "Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. 17 The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: 18 For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly... 29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?"

Because she believed in Jesus Christ this woman drawing  water became a Christian. She had before she believed five husbands. With her new belief in Christ, Jesus, because he said  "I will not remember thy sins." forgot them right there on the spot! However, few even today think of her salvation, but remember the five husbands that poor woman was duped into having by Satan. Sure she was a great sinner, but those with the greatest sin are forgiven the most and love him the most!

Because Jesus forgave me, I love him much, but those who speak with Satan tell me "You're too bad to be loved. You sinned too greatly to be loved. You are kidding yourself if you think you're forgiven." My great faith tells me "that's not what God says! Quit looking back with the others!"

I deserve to be a pillar of salt. You do too! We all deserve death, but trusting Jesus is looking forward! Jesus' word is so much more true than the doctrines of men. Like me, "don't look back!"