Salvation is not automatic, even for those seeking to obey God. The story of Lot’s wife serves as a powerful warning that one can be on the verge of salvation yet still perish. Like Abraham interceding for Lot, Christ intercedes for us, but we must respond to His call. Our heart’s treasures can hinder our response to God. Some have felt God’s call but did not fully commit. Now is the time to look to Jesus, not back at worldly attachments, and to take hold of the incomparable riches found in a relationship with Him.

Automatically Generated Transcript
[00:00:00] Tonight, I want to talk on the topic of almost getting saved. And as we turn to this topic of almost being saved, we’re addressing the fact that not everybody becomes a Christian. You’ve heard the story that Michelle gave of how she came to Christ. And when you hear of someone’s testimony and you know a few more of the facts, you begin to put together. Some of the common elements are often present when people come to know Christ, as Michelle described, what happened to her. It’s interesting in the Bible that the Bible nonetheless doesn’t present the fact that everybody makes it. And it’s why, on my heart, has been impressed to speak tonight on the topic of almost being saved. It’s interesting that the way the Scriptures present eternal Truths, there’s straight statements that you can read, and in our morning services, going through the beatitudes, we’ve had a few of those.
[00:01:21] But God also, through the Bible, uses the story lines, the pictures that are there, and the events that happen, And it’s just a way that somehow the Bible speaks to us. A little example would be when Jesus walked on the water. A lot of people think that’s all about just how Jesus does miracles and here’s one. But actually the whole story line is really how His disciples needed to know the picture of how Jesus helped get into their lives, and He’d actually sent them across the lake to get to the other side, but Jesus knew that there was a storm coming and they got stuck in the middle of the lake,
[00:02:09] big winds and waves, they were thinking they might drown. There were lots of stories of Lake Galilee where people drowned and that’s the reason why occasionally fishing people came home and said that they saw a ghost and there were all the dead people who drowned. And when they got sent out into the storm, Jesus had told them to go and commanded them. And he was illustrating in a story form in their lives that being a Christian isn’t easy, things do go wrong. But also in that event, Jesus went up to the top of a mountain to pray and he took a place
[00:02:52] of where he could see those disciples. And the Bible tells us He was praying for them. He went up there to pray. And then seeing them in the storm, He came walking on their water, their stormy waters, to save them. And it’s a bit of a picture of salvation, and in the scriptures God is always bringing to us this picture of His intent to save us. And it’s a miracle that He does. It was the miracle of him walking in the water, but it is a miracle also when he saves a person, as Michelle was telling you of her life, and he steps into the scene.
[00:03:39] The reason why we have these sun rallies as we call them sun rallies, S-O-N, is because it’s all about Jesus as the One who wants to come and save. What was later my heart is to emphasize that not everybody makes it. There are some who should have been saved and were not. That’s written in the storyline that we’re looking at this evening. We’ve got a little bit of the snippet in the middle. I gave Jesh a bit of a fright when he asked what the Bible reading was, I was showing him all Chapter 19 and he goes on to the next chapter. he’s just read a few of the verses but he finished with this one. It’s about the rescue of Lot and his family out of Solomon Camara, because God had intended
[00:04:28] for there to be a great judgement on that sinful city. The story line, the picture of God’s judgement coming in a sinful city is there for us to see that this whole business of knowing God, of being a Christian isn’t just a matter Jesus helping us in our weak points of Jesus helping us to have a good life, it’s about the fact that God is in the business of judging the world, and there will come a final day in which he will judge the world in righteousness. By a man whom he has appointed, by the way it’s in his humanity that Jesus qualifies to be one, to be the person who will judge humanity. He is God, he’s also man, he’s the God-Man. But because he came and lived a perfect life, and faced temptation
[00:05:23] and knew what it was to obey the commandments, and went through life succeeding of his father God above, helping him. He proved that he could be what humanity ought to be as a man, and he qualifies to be the person who will judge you and will judge me. We actually have in our Western tradition of legal things that there should be in the big case as a final moment, when the judgment on the person, whether they’re guilty or not, comes about by them being judged by their peers. So we have the jurors. And the judgment that our courts bring is a judgment of humans on humans, and that’s an idea that came from the Gospel! That the One Judge of all the world will be the Lord Jesus Christ!
[00:06:16] The apostle Paul on Mars Hill as he saw the people and spoke to them about this judgment, that he called them to repent because he said they’re going to be judged by this one person whom God has appointed to judge the world in righteousness! It’s interesting in the storyline of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and about lot that all the personalities actually can represent something in a little scale of what is true in the grand scale of God judging the world. First of all, there’s somebody who’s taken a place of elevations, spiritually speaking, related to Lot. It is Abraham, and if you read the story
[00:07:02] in the Book of Genesis a little earlier, it was all about Abraham being the one that walked God, the one that prays for his relatives. And he prayed for Lot, and Lot and he had been travelling together. But when they had had too many animals and too many things, they couldn’t be in the way that they needed to graze the cattle. They couldn’t stay together so they separated. And Lot chose to go down into this valley where there were sinful cities. But Abraham stayed at a distance and he prayed for Lot to be rescued especially when God told Abraham he was going to judge Sodom and Gomorrah of these two evil cities and all those who lived in the plain. And knowing that the judgment of God was coming Abraham prayed for the
[00:07:47] one who is dear to him, Lot! Now I will tell you that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ does not only contain the fact of Jesus coming in the first Advent we recognise it as Christmas, we understand that he came, the God-man, we don’t understand it really very fully, but we receive it, that he came from heaven, and he came to be the expression of God’s love down here to earth. The Bible tells us in the book of Hebrews in these last days…that’s ever ever since Jesus rose from the dead, we’re in the last days…these last days God has spoken to us in his son and the final speaking of Jesus to a lost world is not just the written word of the Scriptures alone, it is the one who stands behind the written word. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s called the
[00:08:38] word. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God and he came into the world and he’s the light that lights every person coming into the world, he’s the one who brings the light of God to this dark world. Jesus is the Saviour and he came in the first Advent, but the gospel is not only that he came that first time, but that he died on the cross and rose again and returned to heaven. And in heaven, what is he doing? He’s representing you and me by praying for us. And in that episode of The Storm that Jesus sent his disciples into, he then went up the mountain.” And he prayed for them. He took a place where he could see them. And the Bible tells us, as they rode in the boat, it became difficult
[00:09:27] to get across the lake, because the wind was contrary, but Jesus could see them in the trouble with a storm, and they were thinking maybe they would die. And he came to rescue them. In that storyline is this picture of Jesus’s mission again, coming to rescue them, and he calls on these old Peter who says, Lord, if it’s really you, help me walk in the water and Jesus dares. He comes to help us as Christians to live out of the Christian life when, although, we can’t do it terribly well or like Peter. Peter almost drowned in the attempt, but Jesus was there to lift him and to help him, and so the Christian life is one not just of getting right with God through Jesus. But Jesus also coming to be with us and to help us and to give us the power and the strength to live this Christian life.
[00:10:17] I love the way the Bible has these dramas, where the different personalities in what they say and do, represent the grand scheme of the overall story of the Bible of Jesus and His great rescue of us. His final judgment of us. No better example is there, then this storyline of the destruction of Sullivan Gamora. so Abraham represents Christ, who in heaven right now is praying for this meeting.” Do you think we’ve had some good prayer supports over here? we have some human ones as well but I want to tell you that Jesus knows every person who came here and on his heart is a concern that you should hear and understand the message of salvation. That it’s been provided by Him but it’s not
[00:11:07] automatic, and it is possible for someone to almost be saved. And later my heart tonight, as for a message, is to warn, even if it’s only one person here, that God wants you to know that you might almost be saved but you could miss it. Lot. I’m glad, represents us, in fact the New Testament elsewhere I won’t take us to the verses but it talks about him, as righteous lot, I don’t think he’s very righteous, he’s a pretty poor father, I don’t like the way he pushed his virgin daughters out to get raped by the men, as not being as bad an event as visitors being molested, I don’t think he was very clever man because he chose to go live in that sinful city and even though they gave him some puffed up place of being an elder at the gate and wife got to love the luxury of living in the sinful city. That was to be her downfall in the
[00:12:11] end. I don’t think he’s a very righteous man, but, relatively speaking, he’s the one that did get saved, he and two of his daughters. And that’s the case also with many people who hear this Christian Gospel and understand that Jesus came to save us. He said it himself—he said, have not come to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.” He said that he was the one who came down here to save us, and he wants you to know that he came to earth right back there in the turn of BC into AD, although not many of the scholars want to use that before Christ to dite anymore. I want to tell you that Jesus came and he lived and he died and he rose again and he to heaven, and he’s coming back again, for that moment of judgment, he’s doing it all to save you.” But it might be that you don’t get saved. Please continue listening.
[00:13:11] The other persons in the story are interesting. There is Lock, the man himself, does get saved and out of it, but he had some daughters, and they had finances. I’m not sure I’m not sure whether he had 4 daughters and 2 were younger and the old ones had the fiancés, but 2 of his daughters wanted to push out to get raped by the men rather then take the angels who come to visit him and get into escape. But no, Lot got saved in himself. But he didn’t take with him many of his family. One of the sadnesses of our generation is how many homes there are—not sufficiently Christian for the parents to have had a faith-repentance experience of coming to Christ and going to be saved eventually, but not sufficiently saved to have a home Christian enough for
[00:14:17] the young friar to get the message. That’s what’s sad, in many cases in our churches in this period of time, we’re too lukewarm and we need to wake up to the fact that though Jesus has provided for salvation, there are going to be many who miss it, including our loved ones. Well, other personalities in the storyline. There are these sons in law, and when the angels pulled Lot in, didn’t let the men outside get in, they got all the more angry and promised that they’d do the same to Lot as they were planning to do to the two visitors. There were two angels that came, they looked like men. And the people of the town were given to homosexual rape and all the men,” the Bible says, came standing outside Lott’s store to have these visitors.
[00:15:18] Maybe they were very handsome, looking like men. I don’t know, or maybe it was just their lust took them to want to take every opportunity of people coming by and that’s why Lott didn’t want them to sleep in the town square. He knew what would happen to them. He knew he was in a distant city, but he lived in that city. They gave him importance of being one of the elders sitting at the gate and making decisions about the city. And he liked his position in the town. And for that reason he had sons in law who were more keen to join with the men and were Were there fiancées that were being thrown out?
[00:16:09] Or were they two younger ones I don’t know! But these two, the Angels said a lot – And He said to them, Do you have any loved ones in the town? Do you have any sons or daughters, or young married folks? Let’s go and get them and bring them together and come with us. angels were sent because of Abraham’s prayers. By God, these angels were sent to bring out of the city, this entire family. But the sons-in-law to be, they laughed. They thought it was a joke. And Lot as a person had not sufficiently put across his Christian faith to these young men. They had seen nothing in him to make them want to believe. That’s how little of a Christian, they weren’t Christians back in the Old Testament, but how little of a Godly person he was. Although
[00:17:09] the New Testament calls him righteous Lot. Well, when they didn’t want to come, then the angels just then said, gather who you’ve got. And it was the two younger daughters, or else the or two to be engaged with, I’m not sure With his wife, the angels took the hand of Lot because he was procrastinating, they took the hands of the young people and lead them out of the city and gave them instructions. And a part of what they said to them, as you leave do not look back, do not stay on the plane for it’s going to be overthrown and everything in it’s going to get, you know, to be ha Eden, so the angels warned them. And so they come out of the town of Sodom. And the Scriptures tell us as they’re escaping that something must have happened within the psychology of Lot’s wife. I think the reason is that
[00:18:13] she had lots of friends in the city. She had become accommodated to living, she She wasn’t as an unrighteous herself. She wasn’t a bad living person, but she rather liked the town and the city, and she had her home and she had possessions in it. I’m only just trying to think of what it’s like for a woman who’s been subtly yanked out of where she lives and having to leave at taking almost nothing but your loved ones because she’s about to walk out of the city. She’s actually outside. first of all she had been absolutely worried and filled with the terror of the whole idea of God destroying the city.
[00:18:54] And she’d been really ready to go and she went with her husband and with the angels and they’re coming out of the city, but as she got out into the open air perhaps, or as she got away from the city itself or maybe it was the bar-miness of the night, I don’t know what it was. But her thoughts began to think of her home and her thoughts began to think of what she’d and he’d left behind. And although the angels had said to hurry and they’d said not to look back, the Bible tells us… Look at it up there on the screen that final verse 26. But Lot’s wife, behind him looked back and she became a pillar of salt. In the volcanic eruption that happened they had these bombs of sulphur and whatever, and one landed on her and she became a pillar of salt.
[00:19:41] Now surely you can see, as I do that in this story line, through the prayers of Abraham praying for the family, the young family. I think Blots her nephew of Abraham, it is a young family, he is praying for them, and the angels came to collect them and had them by hand taken out. She was meant to be saved! But she looked back at what she was leaving behind. And you know that in the Scriptures in that period of Matthew chapter 5 and 6, the Beatitudes and Christian behavior that Jesus was teaching, there’s a little statement where Jesus makes the statement. And he says,
[00:20:29] Where a man’s treasure is, there shall be his heart also. Or did he? It really implies both directions, where your heart is. Proves where your treasure is. And I’m just thinking of the psychology of Lot’s wife is leaving, she’s being saved. She’s meant to be saved. But she thinks of the time of luxury a husband, an elder at the gate very revealed.
[00:20:57] one who even the Rapers they were willing to admit that they’d been recognizing lotty was a family of distinctions and their down that she was in and she had a future or wedding coming up for two of her daughters and they’re going to be grandchildren. She had an awful lot of good things that she’d be thinking of and and as she was about to leave her heart is in the city still and had caused her to turn around, contrary to the advice of the angels, and she looked back, and in that moment, in the judgment of God, a pillar of salt. I think this storyline is here in the Scriptures to show us, ever so vividly, that we’ll understand that although salvation is provided by the One who has at a distance in prayer, which It was Abraham in this case, but a picture of Jesus in heaven who might be praying for
[00:21:58] this meeting, this Sun Rally in the Salisbury Baptist Church, and he’s praying for someone here who hasn’t ever really finalised – you’re getting in the doorway of Christ and you’ve never come for the forgiveness of sins. And you and Jesus might have had previous conversations where he called on you and you haven’t yet made up your mind. What the problem might be is that you have your treasure in a career. Maybe something that’s of your doing that you want to keep, it doesn’t necessarily have to be wrong,
[00:22:34] but the treasures of our heart, if they cause us to look back to the worldly scene can cost you your salvation. When people come to Christ, they often tell stories of going through a real difficult time as they consider what they’ve got to give up that’s the reason why the Christian call to come to Christ is accompanied with not only saying you’ve got to have a belief and faith but also says you need to repent the word repent in the original language just means to reverse your verdicts where previously you’ve been deciding not to come. How do I know
[00:23:14] no there’s not someone sitting here tonight. And there was a previous time when God got through to you, and then you said no or you considered the cost that it was too great you didn’t want to get laughed at by those friends at work. Some of the young people of our church… I’ve been here now, this is my 18th year and some of the young people, very honestly told me, they said Jim when you first came that really got to us. And something happened, and if one fellow told me that he’d really felt God spoke to him, but it wore off, he says, it doesn’t happen anymore. I know what is that thing that got to him — it’s the same call that got to me when I became a Christian, and Jesus called me because he’s in the business. It’s this message of the Bible that when you tell the salvation that Jesus
[00:24:07] is brought by how He died on the cross for our sins and rose again to be our Savior. This message about Jesus is the last way that God has chosen to speak to this world. In His last days He’s spoken to us in His Son and this message of Jesus is a message that God the Father accompanies with a call. And it comes to people, but not everybody here, some people, can walk by and know that this message is being said and it doesn’t mean a thing to them. There’s other people who later on come to Christ and say I didn’t even pay any attention back then. It’s the call that comes from God and I don’t know that there’s not someone sitting here tonight and you had a previous moment when God got through to you. You know, one of the dangers is that if you leave your heart where it’s wrong,
[00:24:59] you can lose out and you’re one who was almost saved. In the case of Lot’s wife, that happened to her. It wasn’t that she was a super bad person, she was a family woman. She had a husband who was a righteous man, relatively speaking. She was someone in good connections. He was a lot related to Abraham, and he was a very special person with God. But she had a treasure in the city, and she looked back and got lost. Are you such a person tonight? What I want to do is to give you a call. This is my call, the one that really counts as when God’s Spirit speaks to you,
[00:25:57] and you know in your heart. How do I know that? Because that’s what happened to me. I happened to be a boy of nine who thought he was a Christian because of good things that happened in my family. And then a series of meetings, evangelistic meetings, were held and every night I began to realize that God was telling me I wasn’t really in the door, I’d never done business with Jesus as a Savior, and then that final Sunday afternoon of the series of meetings when the speaker was giving the call to come,
[00:26:41] He disappeared in my mind’s eye, off the platform, and Christ was there, and he was calling for me. And tonight, Jesus is calling for someone to come. Don’t look back, don’t worry where your treasure has been in the past. Look to Jesus. He will give you treasures more valuable than all the ones … If I were to tell you the things I thought were my treasures there, just … Childish, tight, little things that don’t count. The things that count are the things that Jesus has given me since. A life that goes on forever. A fellowship, a purpose, And when you come to Christ and He takes you on board, it’s a relationship that’s so precious, that’s worth it.
[00:27:42] It’s not anything that the world understands. It’s the presence of a person, a Jesus who said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. A Jesus who said, he’s the light of the world and he’ll show you the way. the Jesus who’s arranged for your future and takes control of your steps. We walk in his steps, the steps that he decides. It’s worth it being a Christian, but not everybody understands that. And it’s an awful lot to lose, to look back at something that you might indeed lose by following the Salvation Track. So, if you’re that person, if you’re someone like Lot’s wife, or in some other way, you’re aware that Jesus has been calling you and, as we come to the finish of this meeting,
[00:28:44] you need to do something about it. You need to look to Him. How we’re actually structuring this is that we’re going to have a meal around the back and there’ll be plenty of time or even if not going to the meal if you really want to come to Christ. Come and talk to Michelle, or talk to me.” You’ve seen her, or Jess, or one of those people who are playing at the front. They all love the Lord
[00:29:12] and love opportunities to talk about Christ. And say to them, I really need not to look back, but I need to ask Jesus to deal with me now. And they’ll lead you in a prayer. They’ll help you. They’ll help you get through to Him tonight or around at the meal. You can come and talk to one of us, we’ll be there, some of us. And we will help you. It’s one of the most fantastic things to come to Jesus.
[00:29:44] I shall never forget that original occasion of going to respond to Christ, and you won’t either. He will help you and you don’t have to be a person who was almost saved but lost. You can be someone who gets in the door tonight. Let’s finish with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father I do thank you for the story of Lot. I’m not sure that I wanted to thank you for the story of Lot’s wife because it scares about the vulnerability of being under the help of heaven, those angels came to lead them by the hand out. They told them not to look back and because of what she was leaving in Sodom, she turned around and the judgment of God fell on her. Father, may there be people tonight who escape being someone almost saved and become someone who is saved, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.