We have in this text a warning of a peculiar character; we see in it a type of the just wrath of God against those who, having been once mercifully delivered, shall afterwards fall back. Lot's wife was, by a distinguishing election of God, and by the hands of angels, saved from the overthrow of the wicked. We by the same deep counsel of God have been translated from death to life. She perished in the very way of safety. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Lot's wife is the type of those who fall from baptismal grace.
I. Any measure of declension from our baptismal grace is a measure of that same decline of which the end is hopelessly a fall from God. I say, it is a measure of the same movement; as a day is a measure of a thousand years. It is a state and inclination of heart which differs from absolute apostacy not in kind, but only in degree.
II. We must also learn from this example, that all such fallings back from our baptismal grace are great provocations of God's most righteous severity. The sin of Lot's wife was not only disobedience, but ingratitude. There are two things which God hates backsliding and lukewarmness; and there are two which He will avenge an alienated heart, and a will at war with His.
III. If these things be so, how shall we hold fast our steadfastness? There is no other sure way, but only this ever to press on to a life of deeper devotion, to a sharper repentance and more earnest prayers, to a more sustained consciousness of God's continual presence, and to a keener watchfulness against the first approaches of temptation; but one or two plain rules is all that can now be offered in particular. (1) First of all, then, beware of remembering past faults without repentance. The recollection of our sins is safe only when it is a part of our self-chastisement. To look back upon them without shame or sorrow, is to offend again. (2) Another thing to beware of is, making excuses for our present faults without trying to correct them. Nothing so wears down the sharpness of conscience, and dulls its perception of our actual state, as self-excusing. (3) Lastly, beware of those particular forms of temptation which have already once held you in their power, or sapped your better resolutions.
H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. i., p. 34.
References: Luke 17:32. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxv., No. 1491; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 421; R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons,1st series, p. 303; Homilist,new series, vol. iii., p. 591.