Don’t Look Back

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

We're going to turn to the Gospel of Luke.

I love Luke's gospel.

In Luke chapter 17, verse 20.

Luke 17:20

Scripture says, being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come.

He answered them, The Kingdom of God is not coming with something observable.

No one will say, See here or there, for you see the kingdom of God is in your midst.

Then he told the disciples, the days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you won't see it.

They will say to you, See there or see here.

Don't follow or run after them.

For as the lightning flashes from horizon to horizon and lights up the sky, so the Son of Man will be in his day.

But first, everyone say, but first.

You all sound so American, but first, okay.

But first.

Okay, stay on point.

Okay.

They w Okay, I'm getting there.

But first it is necessary that he suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man.

People went on eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage until the day Noah boarded the Ark.

And the flood came and destroyed them all.

It will be the same as it was in the days of Lot.

People went on eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building.

But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained from heaven and destroyed them all.

I bet you're glad you came to church today.

You're all so excited.

Where is she going?

It will be like that on the day of the Son of the Son of Man is revealed.

On that day, a man on the housetop whose belongings are in the house must not come down to get them.

Likewise, the man who is in the field must not turn back.

Remember, Lot's wife.

Whoever tries to make his life secure will lose it.

And whoever loses his life will preserve it.

I tell you, on that night, two will be in one bed, one will be taken and the other will be left.

And I tell my husband, I am not going to be left behind.

So I don't know what he's going to do.

Two women will be grinding grain together, one will be taken and the other left.

Where, Lord, they asked him.

He said to them, where the corpse is, there also the vultures will be gathered.

This is the word of the Lord.

I mean, here we have what would be called an eschatological text, a text about the end time, and you think here we are kicking off the global conference.

And when you look at the last few years and you consider everything that's been happening, you think, uh, are we kind of like living in this?

I mean, Jesus is talking about the twofold nature of the kingdom of God, he's talking about the fact that the kingdom has already come in that he came, God incarnate, Jesus Christ, in the flesh, he came.

And although the kingdom of God was made manifest in Jesus, it's not yet fully realized because he is coming again.

Now, how do we know it's not yet fully realized?

Well, because if you woke up this morning and read the news, well, you just know there is still pain on the earth, there is still suffering on the earth, there is still disease on the earth, there is still war on the earth, there is still crime on the earth, there is still trafficking on the earth, there is still pain and suffering.

But the day is coming.

That sky is gonna split, he is coming back, and there will be no more pain and no more suffering and no more disease, and all things will be made new.

We long for that day, but we're not there yet.

We're living between the already and not yet, so we're in between.

That's why we're continuing to do all that we're doing, that's why this conference is existing this week and all the work that we're doing around the world.

There is still so much to be done because we live between the already and not yet, but we are the church on the earth with a mandate from heaven to do what God has called us to do in this hour.

But anyway, Jesus is talking about the end times.

I mean, he's got Sodom and Gomorrah happening, we've got Noah and the flood happening, and I mean, people are going to be taken up, and it is going on.

You know, when I was reading this, I remember, do you remember, like in the last few years, the world has been cray cray?

Now, you live in the great nation of Texas, so it's been normal for you, but I live in California, and so we we've we've had a few things you may not know of, like a pandemic, and we also had a few other things in our part of the world, but the world has had so much pain and suffering.

And do you remember that stage where I mean there was a pandemic and there was just so much instability and and and so many things happening, and then like there were plagues happening.

I literally was thinking, are we living in Exodus?

Like, what is next?

Now, as Jesus is talking about all of this, and the truth is, I'm gonna save you hours on Facebook.

Some people get really caught up on rabbit trails, but here you go.

Here is my entire end time theology.

I just finished a four-year degree at Wheaton, and you know, after a lot of study, extensive study in all the original languages, none actually.

I this is what it's come down to for me.

This is my entire theory.

No one knows.

That's all I want to tell you.

After four years of extensive postgraduate studies, no one knows.

So I've just saved you hours on those Facebook rabbit trails.

And so the issue is how are we to live?

We're to live like it's gonna happen today, and we prepare like it's not gonna happen for generations.

That's how every Jesus follower should be living every day of their life, anyway.

It actually shouldn't change anything if we're living how we should be living.

And so the fact is, that's not what I'm here to talk about.

What I'm here to talk about in this discourse about the end times, it's almost like Jesus has these three kind of random throwaway words that I'm thinking, like, how did they just pop up?

It's actually the second shortest verse in the Bible.

The shortest verse in the Bible is Pastor Robert, what a well-taught church.

Uh uh stunning, stunning.

It's true.

Second shortest verse right there is Luke 17, 32.

Remember Lot's wife.

I'm like, as Jesus is talking about fire and sulfur and Noah and floods, and it's just like, remember Lot's wife.

I'm like, okay, okay.

170 women are alluded to or mentioned in scripture.

170.

But there's only one woman that Jesus ever tells us to remember.

She is the only woman Jesus ever tells us to remember.

Remember the woman with the the alabaster ja, he says, what she has done will be remembered.

But this is the only woman that he ever told us to remember, and he told us to remember her in the context of the end of the world, in the context of life as we know it, burning down, everything ending as we know it.

In that context, Jesus is saying, remember Lot's wife.

I would wonder whether 2023 would be a really good time for us to remember the only woman that Jesus ever told us to remember.

Whether the hour and the day in which we live in, I mean, I've been doing chicks conferences for almost four decades.

I've taught on most of them.

But I have not heard or talked about Lot's wife, a woman that only appears on the pages of scripture quickly enough to disappear.

I mean, we don't even know her name.

Like, what's your name?

Lot's wife.

That would not fly in 2023.

I'm just saying.

Wouldn't fly.

I mean, and why her?

If I was Eve, I would be really ticked off.

I'm like, what do you mean, Lot's wife?

I was first, and I've been blamed for all the problems of humanity ever since.

I mean, if I was, I don't know, if I was Sarah, I'd be like, why Lot's wife?

I popped out a kid at 90 without an epidural.

Why not remember me?

I mean, if I was his mother, I would be like, I birthed you.

What do you mean, remember Lot's wife?

So, of course, Jesus says, I want you to remember Lot's wife.

So it so struck me as I was reading it, I went to Genesis 19, which is what a very, very, very challenging chapter of scripture on so many fronts and so pertinent to where we are.

But you would remember in Genesis 13 where Abram and Lot separated, and scripture tells us in Genesis 13, verses 12 to 13, Abram settled in the land of Canaan while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.

Genesis 13:12–13

Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.

So Abram and Lot had separated.

I don't know whether Lot met his wife there, where he set up tent, or whether he met her in Sodom and Gomorrah, I don't know.

But that's where he set up a tent, and scripture says that the men of Sodom were wicked and great sinners.

And of course, whether you've grown up in church or haven't grown up in church, even in the in the secular world, uh immediately when we hear the phrase Sodom and Gomorrah, 99 times out of a hundred, our mind instantly goes to sexual immorality and iniquity, and and and understandably so, and rightfully so.

And normally the sexual sin we love to highlight that we associate with Sodom and Gomorrah is whichever one we're not committing that day, but that would be the one that's generally loves to be highlighted.

But I do want to say to you that that's not the only reason God was done with them.

I want you to see what the prophet Ezekiel said in Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 49 to 50.

Ezekiel 16:49–50

It says, Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom.

You go, why was God done with it?

This was the iniquity.

She and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn't support the poor and the needy.

They were haughty and did detestable acts before me.

So I removed them when I saw this.

So of course, unrighteousness and iniquity was a huge part of it, but also was pride and arrogance and comfort and ease and forgetting the poor and the needy.

I was almost knowing what I was going to speak on as I was watching that video and looking at where the church is so involved on the ground in 80 nations, in some of the most difficult places, helping the most marginalized, the most ostracized, the most poor and the needy, there is little wonder why God has blessed this house, because you haven't forgotten who God's heart is closest to.

And as we continue to do that, God continues to take us further.

But I think when we look at the broad breadth of the church around the world and go, why has so many things been shaken?

And the scripture says only those things that can be shaken will be shaken, so that those things that cannot be shaken will remain, because the Lord's about done with us not being about the Father's business.

And he says, you know what?

Life as you knew it, it's finished.

How I did it is finished.

Those things are finished.

It's a new day and it's a new hour.

And when you look at what has happened in the world and what has happened in the church in the last six or seven years in particular, it's like life as we know it has been burning to the ground.

You wake up any day and it's like, what's going on?

Morally, politically, economically, sociologically, environmentally, it's like we've got whiplash.

Life has just shifted, and it's like things are burning to the ground, left, right, and center.

And here, when it came to Sodom, the Lord's like, I'm done.

I'm done.

And so, of course, two angels of the Lord come to rescue Lot and his wife, and it says in Genesis 19, 17, and they brought them out.

One said, Escape for your life, do not look back, or stop anywhere in the valley, escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.

And this is the only thing we know about Lot's wife.

In verse 26, but Lot's wife behind him looked back and became a pillar of salt.

So Jesus in the New Testament says there's one woman out of all of the women recorded or mentioned or alluded to in scripture, there's only one woman I want you to remember.

And I want you to remember her in the context that I'm talking about, which is the end of the world as we knew it.

So we go back and go in Luke in Genesis 19.

What is the only thing we know about this woman?

We know that God had sent the angels of the Lord to rescue Lot, his wife, their two daughters, because God still had a plan for them, God still had a purpose for them, God's provision was still for them ahead in the future.

It wasn't in what was burning down, it wasn't in what was finished, but it was in the future, and it was ahead.

So as the angel of the Lord came to rescue them, the only instruction was don't look back.

And scripture says, Lut's wife looked back.

Now, inherent in that is that she looked back with this sense of longing, wanting to go back.

There was a longing and a lingering wanting, it wasn't just glancing back, it was wanting to go back.

And I don't blame her.

I mean, life as she knew it was burning down.

Uh her extended family, her friends.

I mean, she could have renovated her kitchen, I don't know, but you know, she's like looking back.

And the fact is that she was told, don't look back, and she did.

And so Lot's wife ended up getting calcified and stuck in a place that she was only meant to be passing through.

Her attachment to her past was greater than her commitment to the future that God had for her.

And she ended up being calcified and becoming a pillar of salt, and it's not lost on me that in the New Testament in Matthew 5, Jesus says, We are the salt of the earth, and right at this hour, I believe we're in a pivotal hour on the earth where so many Christians and so many churches are stuck and calcified and have become a pillar of salt.

And the only one that wins is the enemy because we're supposed to be salting the earth in the future.

If we are calcified in the past, we can't be fulfilling our mandate in the future.

It's time to stop looking back, it's time to remember Lot's wife and to move into the future that God has for us.

You know, the fact is she wanted what she had more than what God had for her.

I don't want to get sidetracked here, but I do want to speak to the women in the room.

Because Lot's wife got stuck in a place that she was only meant to be passing through.

If you read further on in this chapter, it's deeply disturbing what happened with his two daughters and their father.

When mothers get stuck, it impacts the daughters.

When mothers get stuck, it impacts the generations.

And we are at a moment on the earth where so many believers and so many Christians are so looking back.

It doesn't matter where I go.

We just did 10 countries around the world.

In every place I went, I heard a variation of the same sort of phrase.

Christine, I just wish things would go back to normal.

Christine, I just wish now that would be whether it's in the church world or people just in life.

I just wish things would go back to normal.

And and yet it's all burning.

And the Lord's like, I'm not going back.

Our tell us is in the future, not back there.

And so He's like, What are you looking back at?

What is it that you are wanting back then?

So many of us, it's just like, Man, Christine, I didn't sign up for this.

I'm like, what did you sign up for?

I'm not sure, Pastor Rob, what everyone signed up for?

Last I checked, Jesus died for me, I didn't die for him.

Last I checked is I decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.

The cross before me, the world behind me.

It's like I'm following him.

Christine, this is just like so hard, and and and and people walking away and people just leaving.

See, what has actually been revealed in the last few years, church?

A lot of us are like the disciples.

Remember on the road to Emmaus, Jesus had been crucified and buried and had been resurrected, but they didn't know he'd been resurrected, and so they were so disappointed.

They were so disappointed that things didn't turn out how they thought, that Jesus, the resurrected Christ, was walking with them and they did not even recognize him, didn't even recognize him because they were so stuck in their disappointment, so stuck in their discouragement, and they said to Jesus, we had hoped in Luke 24, 21, we had hoped he was the one that he would be the one.

We had hoped, and so many of us over the last we had hoped, we had hoped that marriage was gonna make it, we had hoped those people wouldn't have left the church, we had hoped that business was gonna prosper, we had hoped those kids would have come back by now.

We had hoped that opportunity was gonna open, and so many people are being stuck and calcified because their hopes were not realized, and Jesus is saying perhaps it's time to have a look at the fact that maybe we had some misplaced hopes, perhaps some of our own idolatries have been revealed to us, that our hope was in things other than Jesus.

I love when we had the exhortation after the worship, because the writer to the Hebrews in Hebrews 6 said, Jesus is this hope we have as an anchor for our soul, both firm and secure.

So, yes, has everything been shaken in the world around us?

Is life as we know it?

Has it burnt to the ground?

Absolutely, but just because everything's been shaken around us doesn't mean that we should be shaken, because the fact is our anchor goes on to the other side of eternity behind the veil, it is firm, it is secure for all of eternity.

The people that should be most full of faith and hope in this hour are those whose hope is anchored in Jesus, because he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus, yes and amen.

So if things changed, yes, but actually nothing's changed because if the promise is in Jesus, he is still the same.

The promise isn't in the economy, the promise isn't in politics, the promise isn't in society, the promise is in Jesus.

So why can we stand with great confidence?

Because Jesus is this hope I have as an anchor for my soul.

So just because the rest of the world's losing its mind doesn't mean we have to.

We ought to be the most stable people on the earth because we're anchored in Christ, and no matter what comes before us, our confidence is in Christ, our hope is in Christ, our provision is in Christ, and our purpose is in Christ.

Jesus is this hope we have as an anchor for our soul.

So, what is it that we're looking back?

We had hoped.

We had hoped.

You know, when the pandemic first happened and we had all our offices, so 19 offices, 14 countries all on Zoom.

I've been calling it the upper Zoom Room meetings.

And I said to our team, and so many of our team is here today, because we have our uh we've got um a lot a large part of our staff here in Dallas, and we have our um aftercare services here in Dallas, and so it is wonderful our team is here.

And the fact is that I read to them from Zechariah chapter 9, verse 12.

Zechariah 9:12

And it says, return, and I think we can put it up, Zechariah chapter 9, verse 12.

Zechariah 9:12

Return to a stronghold, you prisoners who have hope.

Today I declare that I will restore to you a double.

And because, of course, we've got uh hundreds of staff, and most of them are millennials in Gen Z who I love with a passion.

With a great passion.

I I've birthed a couple of them, so it's okay.

But here is the deal.

I said to them, I'm I'm very sad about what has brought us here.

There's no doubt about that.

I said, but I'm actually glad that we're here.

I said, because you're about to learn some things.

You've joined this ministry, many of you, you've joined what's going on because it has such a good global reputation and it does A21.

We've gotten the Mother Teresa Humanitarian Award, we've had Three Presidents' Awards, we've got UN Awards, we've we've had so many awards.

God has been very gracious, we've had a lot of breakthroughs.

I said, but you've joined that, or you've joined the ministry because either, you know, whatever you've seen me on TV or the ministry that's gone around the world and reached people with the gospel.

But here is the problem.

A lot of you you think an effective marketing campaign is what makes effective ministry.

I said, but I'm old enough that I got saved before there was an internet, and I got saved before there was social media, so I know the difference between being marked and being marketed.

And I said, there is a generation that doesn't know the difference between being marked and being marketed, and doesn't know the difference between a gift and an anointing.

A gift will fill a room, but it's only the Anointing that will break the yokes and chains and bondages that set people free.

And you don't get an anointing by putting a nice filter on a social media post.

You don't bring in an anointing by taking the right picture at the right angle, and you know, making sure you've got the right lighting.

Hashtag my most authentic, transparent, natural self, hashtag blessed.

That's not what builds a ministry, that's not what causes demons to flee.

That's not what causes people to get set free.

No, no, no.

And I said, So you're about to see God move.

And I said, Because Nick and I, we know God, because see, we we haven't spent our life curating a public profile, we've been on our knees cultivating private intimacy with Jesus, so there's a difference.

I said, It took the whole world to lock down, except for Texas and Florida, but the rest of the planet, it took the whole world to lock down so that you could get with God and understand, and you're gonna see what faith does.

And I said, return to your stronghold, you prisoners of hope.

I said, The children of Israel were in Babylonian captivity, physical prisoners, came back to Jerusalem, they had hoped it was all gonna be okay, but the temple was decimated, the city walls were ruined, they were surrounded by enemies, and the prophet said, You were once prisoners physically in Babylon now.

Become prisoners of hope, and of course, we as new covenant people, our hope is Jesus.

So I said to them, the whole world could be locked down.

I don't know what's happening with all this, but my hope was never in a marketing campaign, my hope was never in methods or strategies, or so my hope is in Christ.

I said, So the same Jesus that called us is the same Jesus that's gonna give us a breakthrough.

And I said, So this is what I want you all to do.

I said, You're all gonna learn the saddest scripture in the Bible for me is Judges chapter 2, verse 10.

Judges 2:10

It says, When Joshua and his generation died, another generation arose that did not know the Lord, nor the works he had done for Israel.

And I said, We're on the cusp where your generation is so gifted and you understand all of this big stuff.

I said, But I don't know if you really know the Lord or the works that He's done or how to access His power.

And I said, I would have failed.

It doesn't matter how big our ministry is at all.

That isn't what ultimately matters.

What matters is, did I pass the baton of faith from one generation to the next?

Did I teach a generation how to lay a hold of God?

Did I teach them to do that?

And so I said, So you're gonna see now.

I said, I want you to get a pen and paper, and because they were millennials, I had to show them this is a pen, this is paper, this is how you write.

I said, I want you to write the word double on a piece of paper, and I want to stick it where you're gonna be most frequently during this pandemic, which is in front of your refrigerator.

So put right there.

Double.

And I said, every time you come past that refrigerator, I said, I'm gonna teach you good old school faith.

I said, I want you to declare and decree.

Father, I don't know.

I'm gonna I'm a prisoner of hope.

I said, we can't choose whether we're prisoners or not, but we can choose the kind of prisoners we're gonna be, and we are not gonna be prisoners of despair or doubt or fear or negativity.

We are gonna be prisoners of hope because Jesus is this hope we have.

And I said, and I want you to declare and decree that God will give us double, and it's impossible in the natural.

It's impossible.

The world is locked down.

It is hard to catch traffickers when the world's locked down, it's hard to rescue victims when it's the world's locked down, it's hard to restore survivors when the world is locked down.

But I said, I'm believing God, and you are all going to see what fuels this.

The other stuff is supplementary, but what fuels it is knowing how to lay a hold of God and to declare and decree his word and to believe God in faith.

And here we are, by God's grace, September 2023, three years later, we have never in the history of A21 had more survivors in our care been prosecuting more cases to put traffickers in jail or reached more people with messages of prevention or awareness.

Why?

Because Jesus still makes a way, the promise of God still prevails, the purpose of God still prevails, the provision of God still prevails no matter what is happening around us.

What is important is what is happening in us and who we are rooted and grounded in.

And if we're rooted and grounded in Christ, we're seated in heavenly places and we have access to every spiritual blessing that we need to do what God has called us to do, and to be who God has called us to be.

So, what am I telling you, church?

It's time to remember Lot's wife.

And like the Apostle Paul, we need to change our confession.

Say, this is one thing I do.

Forgetting those things that lie behind.

Stop saying, Man, if things could go back to normal.

People talk about, well, you know, everywhere I went, it was like, well, before COVID, BC, my numbers before COVID, my life before COVID.

I'm saying COVID did not split time, it's BCAD before Christ.

Jesus Christ is the one that split time.

He is who we open our life around.

So this one thing we do, forgetting those things that lie behind, and straining.

The church has forgotten how to strain.

We've gotten so lazy.

Some of you haven't even worn hard pants for three years, you're still in sweats.

Straining towards those things ahead, I press on.

And that word in the Greek is to exert a steady force against.

We're coming down from the hotel down the elevator to come to church, and someone's standing so frustrated at the elevator, saying many four-letter words, and none of them were love.

And I'm sort of looking, and then so I went around them because I could see the light wasn't on.

And so I pressed the button.

And I think the Holy Spirit would say to some of you, it's time to stop murmuring, grumbling, and complaining, and it's time to press that button and lay a hold of all of that for which Christ Jesus has laid a hold of you.

Let's remember Lot's wife.

Let's not get stuck in a place we were only meant to be passing through in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Let me pray for you, church.

Let me pray.

Father, I thank you for this amazing house for every campus, our online community.

Lord, this house, you raised it up as a gateway to the nations of the earth.

And Lord, it continues to be a forerunner.

I just sense, Father, the greatest days of gateway are ahead of us and not behind us.

That is innovative, creative, and out of the box, the gateway has been to come this far.

That you are gonna pour a whole fresh anointing upon this house, Father, for even more innovative ways to reach more people across this globe.

Father, I just see unique doors, unique opportunities, greater favor.

Lord, we want to be a people that move forward with you.

We don't want to get stuck in what you're done with.

We want to move into the future that you have.

Our hope is in you, and our trust is in you, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.