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Be not a Pillar of Salt

"And there came two angels to Sodom at even; … and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; ... 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. … And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. ... Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire ... But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." (Gen. 19)

Sodom was corrupt. Abraham was not. He knew all too well the product of evil and could never abide in such a city, but his brother, Lot, still needed to separate himself from it. Metaphorically, Sodom was a valley of sin. To escape, Lot and his family had to climb out, trekking up the pathway of righteousness. Then, fire and brimstone rained down upon Sodom and consumed it. Brimstone is sulfur, which has the stench of rotten eggs. Lot's wife chose to turn back -- to smell, to indulge in it just a little longer, to ruminate, to have something to gossip about. It was sin and hypocrisy, not salt that petrified Lot's wife. Even though she started up the true path, she got stuck. Her salt became a statue of remembrance, a salute to what should have been, rather than a fulfillment of, "Ye are the salt (savor, savior) of the earth." Christ seasons humanity. The twists and turns of sin and hypocrisy is a dead end, a headstone.

The Pharisees were also pillars of salt stuck on the hillside trail, unable to move humanity forward.

"If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race" (SH 22:14). We must prove ourselves to be LIVING STONES, not pillars of salt.

George Denninger ©
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