devotional post # 2022

Luke 17:32-37

Luk 17:32 Remember Lot’s wife!
Luk 17:33 Whoever seeks to protect his soul will lose it, but whoever loses it will preserve it.
Luk 17:34 I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left.
Luk 17:35 There will be two women grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
Luk 17:37 Then the disciples said to him, “Where, Lord?” He replied to them, “Where the dead body is, that is where the vultures will gather.”

dead bodies waiting

Lot’s wife stands as a mirror to the human heart. She found it impossible to leave her familiar world behind, even as it collapsed around her. The city was burning, judgment was falling, and yet her heart still leaned backward. That single glance revealed a deep truth: sin can wound us, enslave us, and poison our lives, and still we hesitate to let it go. We linger in Sodom long after Sodom has proven it cannot give life.

Jesus uses her story to expose that same tendency in us. Even when we know the damage sin has done, even when we feel its weight, something in us wants to cling to the old patterns, the old comforts, the old illusions. But Jesus’ call is urgent: escape while you can. Do not look back. Do not let your heart remain in the place God is rescuing you from.

This passage is often read as a coded reference to a secret rapture, but Jesus’ emphasis is not secrecy—it is suddenness. The point is not that believers will quietly disappear but that judgment will arrive swiftly, universally, and unmistakably. Just as the flood came upon the whole earth, just as fire fell on all of Sodom, so the final judgment will encompass the entire world. Humanity resists God’s kingdom, clings to its own ways, and lives unaware of the danger. In Jesus’ stark imagery, we are like bodies lying in the open, unaware that the vultures are already circling.

But the warning is not meant to paralyze us. It is meant to awaken us. God’s word calls us to flee the spiritual Sodom within us—to turn from the sins that are killing us and run toward the mercy that can save us. The urgency is real, but so is the invitation. Judgment is coming, but so is rescue. The door of the ark is still open. The path out of Sodom is still clear. The Savior still calls.

The question is whether we will linger or leave.

LORD, we hear you calling. Protect us from the coming destruction.