Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
God rained brimstone and fire out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, overthrowing the cities and the whole plain with all who lived in them and all their beauty, leaving the place bleak and desolate. The blow fell suddenly at sunrise just after Lot entered Zoar, on a morning of seeming peace and prosperity while people pursued business and pleasure, with balls of fire falling and smoke rising like a great furnace. It came because not even ten righteous could be found, corruption had become universal and the cup of iniquity was full, so mercy ceased to plead and probation closed. The destruction was both just vengeance and mercy to the world, cutting off incurable workers of iniquity to stop the spread of sin, and it stands as the pattern of the final purification of the earth by fire when Christ comes. Therefore deliverance requires urgent separation from moral pollution and corrupting association, fleeing as from Sodom without delay or looking back.
Fire That Destroyed Cities
The Lord rained brimstone and fire from heaven upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah, overthrowing the cities and the whole plain with its suburbs and all who lived in them. The judgment consumed palaces and temples, costly dwellings, gardens and vineyards, and the pleasure-seeking people themselves. Its entrancing beauty was blotted out, leaving a place God had once made very beautiful bleak and bare and desolate. Except for Lot and his two daughters all was consumed, while Lot's wife became a pillar of salt for looking back in disregard of God's command. Even little children perished with the guilty because evil had been transmitted to them by their parents.
The destruction fell suddenly and unexpectedly at sunrise just after Lot entered Zoar, on a morning that looked full of prosperity and peace. Business, pleasure, mockery, godless plans and ordinary pursuits went on as usual, with the people absorbed in them, deriding God's messenger and his warning, and insulting heaven's messengers the night before. On the same day Lot left, balls of fire fell and fire and brimstone came from heaven, bringing misery and anguish to those expecting an ordinary day of sinful revelry. The smoke went up like the smoke of a great furnace.
Angels were sent on a special mission to destroy the place because the cry against it was great before the Lord, first to bring Lot out lest he perish with it. The judgment was delayed only briefly while they were urged to flee, and Lot was protected and led out with his household by the angels' hand. Zoar was spared in response to Lot's request despite his weak faith, while the surrounding cities corrupted by the same sins were destroyed. God remembered Lot and rescued him when fire destroyed the cities of the plain, though it cost him his married children, his possessions and his wife, who murmured and looked back and was changed to a pillar of salt.
Fire from heaven, with brimstone, bolts of fire and fiery tempest, was God's agent of judgment, as water and fire from the earth had also served as instruments of destruction. Such judgments display His power and just sovereignty and warn those who disregard His law and authority. The fair vale of Siddim became a desolation never to be built up or inhabited, a desolate waste later forming part of the wilderness of Judea.
Why Wrath Was Poured
Not even ten righteous could be found in Sodom despite Abraham's pleading, and the cities with all their inhabitants perished in ruin by fire from heaven. Corruption had become universal, with old and young alike following sinful practices, and great wickedness had reached its full measure so that the cup of iniquity was full. Even little children perished with the guilty because evil had been transmitted to them by their parents. The destruction is an example of judgment following persistent sin and contempt for God, and of retribution against those persisting in sin after light and warning.
The inhabitants were incorrigible in sin, though living in the most beautiful country in the world. They refused to reform, chose to continue in resistance, refused reform by accepting Christ, set their minds to carry out revolt, and set revolt. They had no disposition to submit to divine authority, were declared incurable and never to be forced to submit, and their overthrow declared corruption so far-reaching that recovery was no longer possible. As with the flood upon those who rejected Noah's message, the heaven-sent fire and brimstone came after refusal to reform.
Mercy had ceased to plead for the guilty inhabitants, the limit of forbearance was passed, probation closed and the time of mercy ended. When that limit is reached the offers of mercy are withdrawn and the ministration of judgment begins. The cities' destruction followed a night of pleasure and disregard for warning, with scoffers perishing in the flames, and only Lot, his wife and his two daughters escaped. Sodom's open defiance of God and His law, with corruption and unrestrained indulgence, brought divine punishment when its people had passed the limits of forbearance.
Unnatural appetite enslaved the people and led to the sins that filled the cities. Gratification of unnatural appetite and passion benumbed intellect and mind so they could not discern God's sacred claims from appetite's demands, dulled minds so they could not discern sacred claims, and enslaved them. Appetite and lust ruling, with reason controlled by blind passion and higher concerns sacrificed to self-indulgence, led to fierce and bold wickedness, abominations God would not tolerate on earth, and habits of worldly excess making people like Sodom's inhabitants. Their sins grew out of gratification of unnatural appetite, including gluttony, drunkenness, indulgence of passion, and intemperate appetites leading to corrupt passions and abominable sin.
Pride, fullness of bread, abundance and idleness brought the doom, with failure to strengthen the hands of the poor and needy. Idleness weakened the mind, debased the soul, and distorted understanding. That course must be shunned by all who would escape the doom of Sodom.
Moral debasement and corruption destroyed them, especially unrestrained sexual licentiousness and indulgence of animal propensities while moral powers weaken. Inhabitants steeped in licentiousness through indulgence and wicked inventions corrupted their way until they could no longer discern between pure affections given as attributes of human nature and destructive lusts, becoming corrupt in body and soul as those before the Flood. The sacred permanence of marriage was reduced to a mere transitory civil contract that any two persons might engage in and cast loose at pleasure, destroying what is venerable, graceful and permanent in domestic life. The abominations included those associated with communion with evil spirits, the same crime found among the Canaanites, and eager participation in worldly demoralizing amusements forbidden by God's word severs connection with God.
They openly defied God and His law, devising polluting practices and refusing to obey God's laws, with sure destruction as the result of transgression and impenitence. They cast aside law for freedom from restraint, lived for self in moral pollution in a moral atmosphere like a pesthouse, with unhallowed selfish influence working evil and reproducing the curse of disobedience. Human beings confederated with satanic agencies to make void the law of God, with selfishness, deceit, robbery, bloodshed, greed, dishonest dealing and violence degrading body and soul until the earth was defiled.
Hearts fully set to do evil will be destroyed when judgment comes, as Sodom's inhabitants were. God gives nations a time of probation with light and evidence that would save if received, but if light is refused and darkness chosen, indignation and punishment fall when iniquity is to the full. Long patience, forbearance, mercy and long delay of judgments do not lessen severity when punishment finally falls.
Judgment was taken into His own hands when human authorities failed to punish grave sin. Sexual immorality and murder were treated lightly, and failure to correct wrongdoing allowed violence and crime to spread, so sin left unpunished brought retributive justice. Sodom's beautiful country and exceeding great riches gave it no value with God, and abuse of God-given wealth brought utter destruction. Its beautiful, blessed land was left desolate, proving earthly prosperity cannot give lasting security.
Lot Household Barely Saved
Lot chose Sodom for its rich lands, wealth, attractions, loveliness and beautiful surroundings without regard to the corrupting influence of its associations. That choosing followed a selfish and avaricious spirit that turns from plain counsel and follows human imagination and desire, taking all it can get for labor and gathering from any source without regard to justice, mercy and the love of God. He entered Sodom intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he failed. The corrupting influences around him weakened his own faith, and his children's ties to the people of Sodom bound up his interests with theirs until destruction came.
He went into Sodom rich but left with nothing, led out by an angel's hand while messengers of wrath waited to pour forth fiery blasts. The fire consumed all his gains, possessions and riches, and it cost him his married children, for he warned his daughters and sons-in-law but they mocked his faith and perished in its destruction. His life-work was lost and he barely saved his own soul, escaping with his life after choosing a home for temporal advantage and prosperity rather than for moral and religious influences. Even little children perished with the guilty because evil had been transmitted to them by their parents, and the fate of Lot's family shows how deeply the city's moral corruption had shaped his children.
Lot's wife murmured and lingered despite the danger and the urgent call to leave, then looked back toward the doomed city in disregard of God's command and became a pillar of salt. Her looking back became a warning of judgment against unbelief and presumptuous rebellion, and a warning that delay in obeying God's call to leave an evil setting can bring loss. The destruction consumed everything there except Lot and his two daughters, proclaiming the inhabitants incorrigible in sin. Only a few were saved despite having received warning, and familiar habits and customs can cling to people even after they leave a corrupt setting.
Lot was saved because he did not corrupt his way before God, and God remembered him and rescued him in the hour when fire from heaven descended upon its wicked inhabitants. The fire that fell was punishment for disobedience of God's requirements, not a way into glory, and God's mercy does not cancel the final penalty for transgressing His law, so obedience to all of His law is absolutely essential to eternal life. Judgment on the wicked does not mean abandonment of the righteous, for God remembers and keeps the faithful in the midst of destruction and will not forget His people in the final trying hour when human protection is withdrawn. Even cities steeped in sin can have Lots living among them, and as Sodom had its Lot so New York, a great and wicked city like Sodom, holds a people of God who pant after pure waters as the hart pants after the water brooks. Because such seekers are there and the field is ready to be worked, self-denying workers must go forth to carry truth into its darkness rather than leave it untouched, and reformers are needed to defend God's laws and uphold the training of mind and heart.
Mercy And Justice Combined
The raining of brimstone and fire was vengeance, yet it was also mercy to the world and to the universe. The dwellers were corrupt and incurable, with no disposition to submit to divine authority, persisting in headstrong, independent, defiant lives of bold impurity and crime that God could not perpetuate. Through Satan's deceptive power such workers of iniquity obtain sympathy and admiration and constantly lead others to rebellion, so to permit unbridled iniquity to continue would only spread sin. In mercy God cut them off to stop the spread of rebellion, just as in mercy He blotted out the wicked in Noah's time, and just as in mercy to the universe He will finally destroy all rejecters of His grace. Their corrupt conduct had become a contaminating influence, and only the harshest punishment could stop it, showing that God punishes those who persistently despise His grace.
The overthrow proves God means what He says and will not be trifled with. Angels were sent on a special mission to destroy the place because the cry against it was great, first bringing Lot out lest he perish, and the destruction came as appointed after warning and mercy, kindled by the wrath of a sin-avenging God into utter destruction, overthrow and terrible ruin. It stands in the steady increase of sin from Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit that opened the floodgates of woe, to the Flood that saved only Noah and his sons, to Sodom destroyed by bolts of fire from heaven because of sin, showing unrepented sin brings certain divine destruction. It cost Lot his married children, his possessions, and his wife, who murmured and looked back and became a pillar of salt.
It is a fearful thing for the unrepenting sinner to fall into the hands of the living God. The fire that fell from heaven was God's wrath poured out in consequence of sin, which is transgression of God's law, and it proves the retribution God will bring upon those who continue in sin. That proof is surpassed only by the agony of Christ in Gethsemane when He bore the wrath of God for a sinful world, which broadens, deepens and extends the conception of the character of sin and of that retribution. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ to the repenting, believing sinner.
The fire was punishment for disobedience of God's requirements, while Lot was saved, and the Sodomites were not carried by that fire straight into glory. Lot had no right to punish his sons-in-law, but God could punish them in strict justice for the good and safety of His subjects. God's mercy and long patience do not cancel the final penalty for transgressing His law nor excuse transgression by withholding its penalty. Obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life, with no assurance of reaching heaven while transgressing it.
The Lord is mindful of what passes on earth, permits matters to come to a crisis, then reveals Himself and interposes to hinder Satan's plans and vindicate His people. He interfered to destroy the cities with fire from heaven because of entrenched wickedness and transgression of His law, acting decisively when evil reached a crisis. Standing with the Flood that swept away the wicked while Noah and his family were saved, it proves God acts with judgment mingled with mercy. He will act again when defiance of His law is almost universal and His people are pressed in affliction, arising as their protector and avenger in answer to their fervent prayers.
Sodom and Gomorrah perished beneath God's just judgment and wrath, and that same perishing would fall upon all men if communication between heaven and earth were cut off so that no light remained in the world. Without that communication the whole world would likewise perish, but God's long-suffering mercy still extends to humanity.
The elements of that destruction represent the judicial wrath hanging over a world filled with violence, crime, greed, demon worship, and rebellion against Creator and Redeemer. The cloud of judgment over the rebellious multitude contains the same elements that destroyed Sodom. They point to the final harvest and winepress of God's wrath.
Sodom perishing in the flames of vengeance shows God permits retributive judgments to fall on those who persist in sin despite great light and after being tested and tried. When mercy is no longer offered and owners have passed the boundaries of forgiveness, He withdraws His Spirit from wicked cities become like the antediluvian cities and punishes presumptuous wrongdoers without a moment's notice after bearing long with evil-doers who refuse His commandments and disregard His warnings. In the same way proud, costly, stately, supposedly fireproof human structures will become ashes and lie in ruins in a short time in the great and final visitation of God's wrath at the end of this earth's history.
Pattern For Final Judgment
The sudden overthrow came while people were absorbed in ordinary plans and dismissive of warning, on a morning that seemed ordinary yet ended in misery and anguish as balls of fire fell as judgment. On the very day Lot left, fire and brimstone fell from heaven and destroyed the people after they had lived as though warnings did not matter, consumed while absorbed in sinful revelry and unaware of danger. This illustrates how Christ's coming and the outpouring of God's wrath will catch people unprepared while they pursue daily life and disregard warnings, an example of what will happen when the Son of man is revealed.
The destruction warns that practices opposed to God's principles bring judgment, and as moral corruption grows the earth is to be purified by fire near the end. The beautiful, blessed land left desolate symbolizes the world's future destruction by fire and shows earthly prosperity cannot give lasting security, while the promised inheritance of Abraham and his children will be received in the earth made new. Judgment fell for living for self, moral pollution, and transgression of law amid great corruption of the cities, a moral atmosphere like a pesthouse where unhallowed selfish influence worked evil and reproduced the curse of disobedience. The world today is in the same condition, with God's Spirit being withdrawn and sin exerting evil influence from generation to generation in continual increase of depravity and degradation, until the highest Authority will give the word to shorten the days lest no flesh be saved. Sodom's people had passed the boundary of mercy, and no further light was given them before destruction because they would not have accepted warning.
The present world embracing sin without restraint is a second Sodom, its fate a warning of what moral corruption leads to. Inhabitants of the world are fast becoming like Sodom and like the inhabitants in Noah's day who were swept away by the flood, with human beings confederated with satanic agencies to make void the law and a power from beneath leading men to war against heaven on the very verge of the time of trouble. Increasing sin brings certain divine judgment, and the sins that brought fiery destruction are also identified with the sins preceding the Flood and are increasing again. The world is becoming like Sodom in wickedness and faces ruin, and comparison with modern cities warns that depravity, cruelty, violence, crime, greed, folly, pleasure and dissipation follow when people are trained to love excitement, glorify themselves, and follow evil desires. God's Spirit is being withdrawn, and fires and floods already destroying life and property are the beginning of the end.
Large cities growing corrupt face impending doom after the example of cities destroyed by divine judgment. Large cities of the time exemplify great wickedness, and wicked cities called a very Sodom, marked by growing wickedness, stand under a shadow of doom as Sodom faced impending destruction. San Francisco and Oakland are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah, hotbeds of vice ripe for destruction, and not long hence they will suffer under destructive judgments as the Lord visits them in wrath by earthquake and fire from heaven in an hour not expected, each in proportion to its sins, so well-equipped tent meetings should be held in large cities such as San Francisco to warn them. Rejecting the great light of truth and the message of mercy brings greater guilt, so Sodom and Gomorrah will fare better in the day of judgment than those who received that light and refused to repent and follow it. Those who bear Christ's name but dishonor Him through unconsecrated lives and abuse mercy and disregard warnings bring judgment on themselves and face more severe retribution than Sodom and Gomorrah. God will surely punish sin, the final judgment likewise separating and destroying the wicked while the righteous receive eternal life, and seeing the Son of God and rejecting His salvation and offered mercy is a greater sin than the sin that brought fiery tempest on those cities.
That likeness to Sodom in wickedness, when no life is safe except by God's protection, shows the Son of man is coming in a day not expected and exposes as false the theory that His coming is delayed. It calls for being as wholly consecrated to Christ and His service as the world is wholly given over to evil, living pure and holy lives to meet Him in peace. Sodom is a byword for wickedness and corruption, its name describing cities marked by iniquity, want of purity and disregard of God's requirements. Immodest, forward conduct of the young resembles behavior associated with Sodom and exposes them to judgments, and a favored land of liberty and advantages becomes ruined and ripening for judgment when wealthy winebibbers and blasphemers set public opinion and lead the highest circles with money as god, in open contempt for the Son, drunken boasting, and corrupting influence upon youth. The apples of Sodom represent corrupting temptations, sin and evil practices threatening innocence of the young and leading to death, while practicing Christlike virtues brings eternal life. Becoming a Sodom marked by grave moral disorder is a danger distinct clothing customs are said to help prevent, and Sodom illustrates education excluding true religion in contrast to homes where children were taught to fear the Lord.
Call To Separate Living
The account joined with Abraham's pleading calls hearers to seek the Lord earnestly and to take a decided stand by moving from merely professing belief in the truth to obedience to all of God's requirements, with confession of sin under the softening power of the Spirit. The overthrow stands as a warning to separate from influences calculated to lead away from God, fleeing moral pollution as from Sodom, for association perverts morals, blunts sensibilities and weakens faith. Sodom was a place of moral pollution with a dangerous moral atmosphere and corrupting associations, especially dangerous to one weak in moral power, a place of depravity and ungodly practices that stain the soul's purity, and its deeply corrupt morals show the danger of living among people whose conduct and influence undermine faith. God commands flight from such a place as from Sodom and forbids making a home there again, for the world's corrupting influences can bring destruction like fire from heaven upon a corrupt people. Deliverance requires repentance, confession and forsaking of sins, arousing the will in reliance wholly on the strength of Jesus to become an overcomer, and separating entirely from corrupting companions whatever the consequences, lest only a bare escape remain after warning and mercy.
Families must consider first the moral and religious influences that will surround themselves and their families rather than temporal advantage, beauty, fertility, prosperity, a flourishing city or hope of greater wealth and honor. Beauty, fertility, and worldly treasure do not make a home desirable and cannot save a soul, for human beings taint and corrupt the lovely earth God made, and when dwellers in beautiful places do not reveal purity and virtue and do not love truth and righteousness, God after a time of test and trial lets wrath break forth upon them because they corrupt themselves before Him. Lot chose Sodom for its rich lands, wealth and beautiful surroundings yet left it with the loss of everything he had, entering intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him but failing as corrupting influences weakened his own faith and his children's ties bound up his interests with theirs until destruction by sulfur and fire from heaven overthrew the cities, the whole plain and all who lived in them. Choosing a home for temporal advantage rather than for moral surroundings ruins children, loses the life work, and leaves parents to barely save their own souls, for choosing worldliness surrounds children with lax morality, unbelief, indifference to religious things, rebellion against parental and divine authority, and attachments to infidels and enemies of God, counteracting parental influence and hindering piety and right character. Voluntarily living in an atmosphere of worldliness, lax morality and unbelief displeases God, drives holy angels from the home, destroys Christian character, and trades eternal interests and title to the immortal inheritance for advantages that prove a terrible loss, leaving life-work lost and life a sad failure. Even little children perished with the guilty because evil had been transmitted to them by their parents, and Lot's daughters and sons-in-law mocked his warning and perished, showing how needless exposure to unfavorable influences should be avoided though those placed in trying positions where duty calls can stand uncorrupted by watching and praying and trusting in the grace of Christ.
All who would escape the doom brought by pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness and failure to strengthen the poor and needy must shun that course, cutting off every influence, habit and tie that keeps families from full committal to God. They must seek retired situations where children can be shielded from temptation and trained for usefulness rather than left to street education, evil associates, vice and dissipation in crowded cities, making homes as far from corrupt places as possible by keeping out of the large cities and locating in the quiet retirement of the country where the influence is best, even if wealth is lost by so doing, in order to protect children from evil associations and keep them busy with useful labor. Because fire and brimstone rained from heaven will come upon modern large cities in an hour not expected, with each city visited in proportion to its sins, God's people must locate miles away from the large cities, come out and be separate, and when a city is destroyed must not treat it as a light affair by building homes again in that same destroyed city when favorable opportunity offers. Schools and sanitariums are not to be centered in the cities but established in quiet retired country places surrounded by nature, fresh air and sunshine, in places with a purer atmosphere and fewer temptations where the atmosphere is not polluted, and the cities are to be worked from these outpost centers while students and the sick are taken away from the cities. The cities will become as Sodom, filled with iniquity and confusion, with violence and crime that will increase till the end, with temptations, liquor saloons, constant noise, blasphemous language, and sights and sounds that corrupt the thoughts and defile the soul, and they are even now hotbeds of vice ripe for the same destruction from heaven.
Because that destruction is coming, warning and counsel is given to get out of the cities, to make no more centers or investments in them, and to take children away from the sights, sounds and temptations of city life so faith, hope, love, happiness, and physical, mental and spiritual health can be preserved and families prepared for translation into the heavenly courts. Modern cities becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah when the world grows worse and worse is a sign to be discerned, warning against making large plants and establishing business interests and families in cities, and in the coming time of trouble the cities will become worse and worse, full of strife and bloodshed, and will be visited by earthquakes that throw buildings down and by fire from heaven that consumes them. Men should walk humbly before God, not purchasing or erecting large buildings or business plants in the cities for sanitarium work. Well-equipped tent meetings should be held in large cities to warn them and prepare them to hear the gospel before destruction comes, for the Lord visits cities that become as Sodom and Gomorrah with wrath in destructive judgments. Even so, a great and wicked city like New York holds a people of God who pant after pure waters, and because such seekers are there and the city is ready to be worked, the power of God is to carry the truth there, with self-denying workers going forth to let the light of heaven shine into its darkness rather than leaving that field untouched to bring rebuke. The comparison of cities to Sodom presents them as places in need of warning, and San Francisco and Oakland becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah will not long hence suffer under judgments when visited in wrath.
Youth should be guarded from depravity and ungodly practices and kept as far from Sodom as possible, shielded from temptation, street education, evil associates, vice, dissipation, excitement-loving training and immodest conduct, and instructed in truth and temperance and trained for usefulness. Bringing youth among worldly people is like Lot taking his family into Sodom, a choice used as warning against placing young people among worldly influences. Cities and towns compared to Sodom and Gomorrah present moral corruption linked to youth being trained to love excitement, glorify themselves and follow evil desires, with depravity, cruelty, violence and crime as resulting evils, and the world becoming like a second Sodom through its corrupting influence on the young. Delay in obeying God's call to leave an evil setting can bring loss, for Lot lingered despite danger and his wife murmuring and looking back became a pillar of salt. Judgment came on the very night when the cities were absorbed in pleasure and inhabitants mocked warnings, showing that people who dismiss calls to escape may perish when judgment comes suddenly and the door of mercy closes to the careless in sin. Loss of possessions in following God should not discourage, for Sodom's destruction consumed Lot's property yet saving even part of one's family is better than losing them all.
Those who look for the coming of the Son of Man and know they are right upon the borders of the eternal world with every advantage of light must set an example in harmony with faith by maintaining purity and holiness opposite to Sodom, for those who do not maintain purity and holiness are not accepted of God. The time of Sodom was a time of great danger now compared with the present world, calling for greater refinement in thought, relationships, words and conduct. God's people must get ready to meet Christ in peace by being as wholly consecrated to Christ and His service as the world is wholly given over to evil, living pure and holy lives, with cleansing and sanctification to be fit vessels unto honor for the Lord's use and worship of God in the beauty of holiness for His excellent majesty and power, refusing to be controlled by the enemy of truth and righteousness. This terrible condition of overwhelming iniquity, violence, revelling and drunkenness, with minds diverted from eternal realities and the church itself converted by the world while the law is declared of no consequence, faces imminent ruin at the end of all things at hand and should stir followers to new life from the Source of all life and to earnest, untiring, powerful proclamation of a crucified and risen Saviour to save souls ready to perish. The destruction warns to be wide awake, shunning every tie that hinders full committal, not trusting human wisdom and strength but laying hold by faith on the infinite arm of God, as Abraham who trained his children rightly pleaded for honest inhabitants yet only ten righteous could be found.
God rained brimstone and fire out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, overthrowing the cities and the whole plain with all who lived in them and all their beauty, leaving the place bleak and desolate. The blow fell suddenly at sunrise just after Lot entered Zoar, on a morning of seeming peace and prosperity while people pursued business and pleasure, with balls of fire falling and smoke rising like a great furnace. It came because not even ten righteous could be found, corruption had become universal and the cup of iniquity was full, so mercy ceased to plead and probation closed. The destruction was both just vengeance and mercy to the world, cutting off incurable workers of iniquity to stop the spread of sin, and it stands as the pattern of the final purification of the earth by fire when Christ comes. Therefore deliverance requires urgent separation from moral pollution and corrupting association, fleeing as from Sodom without delay or looking back.
Fire That Destroyed Cities
The Lord rained brimstone and fire from heaven upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah, overthrowing the cities and the whole plain with its suburbs and all who lived in them. The judgment consumed palaces and temples, costly dwellings, gardens and vineyards, and the pleasure-seeking people themselves. Its entrancing beauty was blotted out, leaving a place God had once made very beautiful bleak and bare and desolate. Except for Lot and his two daughters all was consumed, while Lot's wife became a pillar of salt for looking back in disregard of God's command. Even little children perished with the guilty because evil had been transmitted to them by their parents.
The destruction fell suddenly and unexpectedly at sunrise just after Lot entered Zoar, on a morning that looked full of prosperity and peace. Business, pleasure, mockery, godless plans and ordinary pursuits went on as usual, with the people absorbed in them, deriding God's messenger and his warning, and insulting heaven's messengers the night before. On the same day Lot left, balls of fire fell and fire and brimstone came from heaven, bringing misery and anguish to those expecting an ordinary day of sinful revelry. The smoke went up like the smoke of a great furnace.
Angels were sent on a special mission to destroy the place because the cry against it was great before the Lord, first to bring Lot out lest he perish with it. The judgment was delayed only briefly while they were urged to flee, and Lot was protected and led out with his household by the angels' hand. Zoar was spared in response to Lot's request despite his weak faith, while the surrounding cities corrupted by the same sins were destroyed. God remembered Lot and rescued him when fire destroyed the cities of the plain, though it cost him his married children, his possessions and his wife, who murmured and looked back and was changed to a pillar of salt.
Fire from heaven, with brimstone, bolts of fire and fiery tempest, was God's agent of judgment, as water and fire from the earth had also served as instruments of destruction. Such judgments display His power and just sovereignty and warn those who disregard His law and authority. The fair vale of Siddim became a desolation never to be built up or inhabited, a desolate waste later forming part of the wilderness of Judea.
Why Wrath Was Poured
Not even ten righteous could be found in Sodom despite Abraham's pleading, and the cities with all their inhabitants perished in ruin by fire from heaven. Corruption had become universal, with old and young alike following sinful practices, and great wickedness had reached its full measure so that the cup of iniquity was full. Even little children perished with the guilty because evil had been transmitted to them by their parents. The destruction is an example of judgment following persistent sin and contempt for God, and of retribution against those persisting in sin after light and warning.
The inhabitants were incorrigible in sin, though living in the most beautiful country in the world. They refused to reform, chose to continue in resistance, refused reform by accepting Christ, set their minds to carry out revolt, and set revolt. They had no disposition to submit to divine authority, were declared incurable and never to be forced to submit, and their overthrow declared corruption so far-reaching that recovery was no longer possible. As with the flood upon those who rejected Noah's message, the heaven-sent fire and brimstone came after refusal to reform.
Mercy had ceased to plead for the guilty inhabitants, the limit of forbearance was passed, probation closed and the time of mercy ended. When that limit is reached the offers of mercy are withdrawn and the ministration of judgment begins. The cities' destruction followed a night of pleasure and disregard for warning, with scoffers perishing in the flames, and only Lot, his wife and his two daughters escaped. Sodom's open defiance of God and His law, with corruption and unrestrained indulgence, brought divine punishment when its people had passed the limits of forbearance.
Unnatural appetite enslaved the people and led to the sins that filled the cities. Gratification of unnatural appetite and passion benumbed intellect and mind so they could not discern God's sacred claims from appetite's demands, dulled minds so they could not discern sacred claims, and enslaved them. Appetite and lust ruling, with reason controlled by blind passion and higher concerns sacrificed to self-indulgence, led to fierce and bold wickedness, abominations God would not tolerate on earth, and habits of worldly excess making people like Sodom's inhabitants. Their sins grew out of gratification of unnatural appetite, including gluttony, drunkenness, indulgence of passion, and intemperate appetites leading to corrupt passions and abominable sin.
Pride, fullness of bread, abundance and idleness brought the doom, with failure to strengthen the hands of the poor and needy. Idleness weakened the mind, debased the soul, and distorted understanding. That course must be shunned by all who would escape the doom of Sodom.
Moral debasement and corruption destroyed them, especially unrestrained sexual licentiousness and indulgence of animal propensities while moral powers weaken. Inhabitants steeped in licentiousness through indulgence and wicked inventions corrupted their way until they could no longer discern between pure affections given as attributes of human nature and destructive lusts, becoming corrupt in body and soul as those before the Flood. The sacred permanence of marriage was reduced to a mere transitory civil contract that any two persons might engage in and cast loose at pleasure, destroying what is venerable, graceful and permanent in domestic life. The abominations included those associated with communion with evil spirits, the same crime found among the Canaanites, and eager participation in worldly demoralizing amusements forbidden by God's word severs connection with God.
They openly defied God and His law, devising polluting practices and refusing to obey God's laws, with sure destruction as the result of transgression and impenitence. They cast aside law for freedom from restraint, lived for self in moral pollution in a moral atmosphere like a pesthouse, with unhallowed selfish influence working evil and reproducing the curse of disobedience. Human beings confederated with satanic agencies to make void the law of God, with selfishness, deceit, robbery, bloodshed, greed, dishonest dealing and violence degrading body and soul until the earth was defiled.
Hearts fully set to do evil will be destroyed when judgment comes, as Sodom's inhabitants were. God gives nations a time of probation with light and evidence that would save if received, but if light is refused and darkness chosen, indignation and punishment fall when iniquity is to the full. Long patience, forbearance, mercy and long delay of judgments do not lessen severity when punishment finally falls.
Judgment was taken into His own hands when human authorities failed to punish grave sin. Sexual immorality and murder were treated lightly, and failure to correct wrongdoing allowed violence and crime to spread, so sin left unpunished brought retributive justice. Sodom's beautiful country and exceeding great riches gave it no value with God, and abuse of God-given wealth brought utter destruction. Its beautiful, blessed land was left desolate, proving earthly prosperity cannot give lasting security.
Lot Household Barely Saved
Lot chose Sodom for its rich lands, wealth, attractions, loveliness and beautiful surroundings without regard to the corrupting influence of its associations. That choosing followed a selfish and avaricious spirit that turns from plain counsel and follows human imagination and desire, taking all it can get for labor and gathering from any source without regard to justice, mercy and the love of God. He entered Sodom intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he failed. The corrupting influences around him weakened his own faith, and his children's ties to the people of Sodom bound up his interests with theirs until destruction came.
He went into Sodom rich but left with nothing, led out by an angel's hand while messengers of wrath waited to pour forth fiery blasts. The fire consumed all his gains, possessions and riches, and it cost him his married children, for he warned his daughters and sons-in-law but they mocked his faith and perished in its destruction. His life-work was lost and he barely saved his own soul, escaping with his life after choosing a home for temporal advantage and prosperity rather than for moral and religious influences. Even little children perished with the guilty because evil had been transmitted to them by their parents, and the fate of Lot's family shows how deeply the city's moral corruption had shaped his children.
Lot's wife murmured and lingered despite the danger and the urgent call to leave, then looked back toward the doomed city in disregard of God's command and became a pillar of salt. Her looking back became a warning of judgment against unbelief and presumptuous rebellion, and a warning that delay in obeying God's call to leave an evil setting can bring loss. The destruction consumed everything there except Lot and his two daughters, proclaiming the inhabitants incorrigible in sin. Only a few were saved despite having received warning, and familiar habits and customs can cling to people even after they leave a corrupt setting.
Lot was saved because he did not corrupt his way before God, and God remembered him and rescued him in the hour when fire from heaven descended upon its wicked inhabitants. The fire that fell was punishment for disobedience of God's requirements, not a way into glory, and God's mercy does not cancel the final penalty for transgressing His law, so obedience to all of His law is absolutely essential to eternal life. Judgment on the wicked does not mean abandonment of the righteous, for God remembers and keeps the faithful in the midst of destruction and will not forget His people in the final trying hour when human protection is withdrawn. Even cities steeped in sin can have Lots living among them, and as Sodom had its Lot so New York, a great and wicked city like Sodom, holds a people of God who pant after pure waters as the hart pants after the water brooks. Because such seekers are there and the field is ready to be worked, self-denying workers must go forth to carry truth into its darkness rather than leave it untouched, and reformers are needed to defend God's laws and uphold the training of mind and heart.
Mercy And Justice Combined
The raining of brimstone and fire was vengeance, yet it was also mercy to the world and to the universe. The dwellers were corrupt and incurable, with no disposition to submit to divine authority, persisting in headstrong, independent, defiant lives of bold impurity and crime that God could not perpetuate. Through Satan's deceptive power such workers of iniquity obtain sympathy and admiration and constantly lead others to rebellion, so to permit unbridled iniquity to continue would only spread sin. In mercy God cut them off to stop the spread of rebellion, just as in mercy He blotted out the wicked in Noah's time, and just as in mercy to the universe He will finally destroy all rejecters of His grace. Their corrupt conduct had become a contaminating influence, and only the harshest punishment could stop it, showing that God punishes those who persistently despise His grace.
The overthrow proves God means what He says and will not be trifled with. Angels were sent on a special mission to destroy the place because the cry against it was great, first bringing Lot out lest he perish, and the destruction came as appointed after warning and mercy, kindled by the wrath of a sin-avenging God into utter destruction, overthrow and terrible ruin. It stands in the steady increase of sin from Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit that opened the floodgates of woe, to the Flood that saved only Noah and his sons, to Sodom destroyed by bolts of fire from heaven because of sin, showing unrepented sin brings certain divine destruction. It cost Lot his married children, his possessions, and his wife, who murmured and looked back and became a pillar of salt.
It is a fearful thing for the unrepenting sinner to fall into the hands of the living God. The fire that fell from heaven was God's wrath poured out in consequence of sin, which is transgression of God's law, and it proves the retribution God will bring upon those who continue in sin. That proof is surpassed only by the agony of Christ in Gethsemane when He bore the wrath of God for a sinful world, which broadens, deepens and extends the conception of the character of sin and of that retribution. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ to the repenting, believing sinner.
The fire was punishment for disobedience of God's requirements, while Lot was saved, and the Sodomites were not carried by that fire straight into glory. Lot had no right to punish his sons-in-law, but God could punish them in strict justice for the good and safety of His subjects. God's mercy and long patience do not cancel the final penalty for transgressing His law nor excuse transgression by withholding its penalty. Obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life, with no assurance of reaching heaven while transgressing it.
The Lord is mindful of what passes on earth, permits matters to come to a crisis, then reveals Himself and interposes to hinder Satan's plans and vindicate His people. He interfered to destroy the cities with fire from heaven because of entrenched wickedness and transgression of His law, acting decisively when evil reached a crisis. Standing with the Flood that swept away the wicked while Noah and his family were saved, it proves God acts with judgment mingled with mercy. He will act again when defiance of His law is almost universal and His people are pressed in affliction, arising as their protector and avenger in answer to their fervent prayers.
Sodom and Gomorrah perished beneath God's just judgment and wrath, and that same perishing would fall upon all men if communication between heaven and earth were cut off so that no light remained in the world. Without that communication the whole world would likewise perish, but God's long-suffering mercy still extends to humanity.
The elements of that destruction represent the judicial wrath hanging over a world filled with violence, crime, greed, demon worship, and rebellion against Creator and Redeemer. The cloud of judgment over the rebellious multitude contains the same elements that destroyed Sodom. They point to the final harvest and winepress of God's wrath.
Sodom perishing in the flames of vengeance shows God permits retributive judgments to fall on those who persist in sin despite great light and after being tested and tried. When mercy is no longer offered and owners have passed the boundaries of forgiveness, He withdraws His Spirit from wicked cities become like the antediluvian cities and punishes presumptuous wrongdoers without a moment's notice after bearing long with evil-doers who refuse His commandments and disregard His warnings. In the same way proud, costly, stately, supposedly fireproof human structures will become ashes and lie in ruins in a short time in the great and final visitation of God's wrath at the end of this earth's history.
Pattern For Final Judgment
The sudden overthrow came while people were absorbed in ordinary plans and dismissive of warning, on a morning that seemed ordinary yet ended in misery and anguish as balls of fire fell as judgment. On the very day Lot left, fire and brimstone fell from heaven and destroyed the people after they had lived as though warnings did not matter, consumed while absorbed in sinful revelry and unaware of danger. This illustrates how Christ's coming and the outpouring of God's wrath will catch people unprepared while they pursue daily life and disregard warnings, an example of what will happen when the Son of man is revealed.
The destruction warns that practices opposed to God's principles bring judgment, and as moral corruption grows the earth is to be purified by fire near the end. The beautiful, blessed land left desolate symbolizes the world's future destruction by fire and shows earthly prosperity cannot give lasting security, while the promised inheritance of Abraham and his children will be received in the earth made new. Judgment fell for living for self, moral pollution, and transgression of law amid great corruption of the cities, a moral atmosphere like a pesthouse where unhallowed selfish influence worked evil and reproduced the curse of disobedience. The world today is in the same condition, with God's Spirit being withdrawn and sin exerting evil influence from generation to generation in continual increase of depravity and degradation, until the highest Authority will give the word to shorten the days lest no flesh be saved. Sodom's people had passed the boundary of mercy, and no further light was given them before destruction because they would not have accepted warning.
The present world embracing sin without restraint is a second Sodom, its fate a warning of what moral corruption leads to. Inhabitants of the world are fast becoming like Sodom and like the inhabitants in Noah's day who were swept away by the flood, with human beings confederated with satanic agencies to make void the law and a power from beneath leading men to war against heaven on the very verge of the time of trouble. Increasing sin brings certain divine judgment, and the sins that brought fiery destruction are also identified with the sins preceding the Flood and are increasing again. The world is becoming like Sodom in wickedness and faces ruin, and comparison with modern cities warns that depravity, cruelty, violence, crime, greed, folly, pleasure and dissipation follow when people are trained to love excitement, glorify themselves, and follow evil desires. God's Spirit is being withdrawn, and fires and floods already destroying life and property are the beginning of the end.
Large cities growing corrupt face impending doom after the example of cities destroyed by divine judgment. Large cities of the time exemplify great wickedness, and wicked cities called a very Sodom, marked by growing wickedness, stand under a shadow of doom as Sodom faced impending destruction. San Francisco and Oakland are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah, hotbeds of vice ripe for destruction, and not long hence they will suffer under destructive judgments as the Lord visits them in wrath by earthquake and fire from heaven in an hour not expected, each in proportion to its sins, so well-equipped tent meetings should be held in large cities such as San Francisco to warn them. Rejecting the great light of truth and the message of mercy brings greater guilt, so Sodom and Gomorrah will fare better in the day of judgment than those who received that light and refused to repent and follow it. Those who bear Christ's name but dishonor Him through unconsecrated lives and abuse mercy and disregard warnings bring judgment on themselves and face more severe retribution than Sodom and Gomorrah. God will surely punish sin, the final judgment likewise separating and destroying the wicked while the righteous receive eternal life, and seeing the Son of God and rejecting His salvation and offered mercy is a greater sin than the sin that brought fiery tempest on those cities.
That likeness to Sodom in wickedness, when no life is safe except by God's protection, shows the Son of man is coming in a day not expected and exposes as false the theory that His coming is delayed. It calls for being as wholly consecrated to Christ and His service as the world is wholly given over to evil, living pure and holy lives to meet Him in peace. Sodom is a byword for wickedness and corruption, its name describing cities marked by iniquity, want of purity and disregard of God's requirements. Immodest, forward conduct of the young resembles behavior associated with Sodom and exposes them to judgments, and a favored land of liberty and advantages becomes ruined and ripening for judgment when wealthy winebibbers and blasphemers set public opinion and lead the highest circles with money as god, in open contempt for the Son, drunken boasting, and corrupting influence upon youth. The apples of Sodom represent corrupting temptations, sin and evil practices threatening innocence of the young and leading to death, while practicing Christlike virtues brings eternal life. Becoming a Sodom marked by grave moral disorder is a danger distinct clothing customs are said to help prevent, and Sodom illustrates education excluding true religion in contrast to homes where children were taught to fear the Lord.
Call To Separate Living
The account joined with Abraham's pleading calls hearers to seek the Lord earnestly and to take a decided stand by moving from merely professing belief in the truth to obedience to all of God's requirements, with confession of sin under the softening power of the Spirit.
The overthrow stands as a warning to separate from influences calculated to lead away from God, fleeing moral pollution as from Sodom, for association perverts morals, blunts sensibilities and weakens faith. Sodom was a place of moral pollution with a dangerous moral atmosphere and corrupting associations, especially dangerous to one weak in moral power, a place of depravity and ungodly practices that stain the soul's purity, and its deeply corrupt morals show the danger of living among people whose conduct and influence undermine faith. God commands flight from such a place as from Sodom and forbids making a home there again, for the world's corrupting influences can bring destruction like fire from heaven upon a corrupt people. Deliverance requires repentance, confession and forsaking of sins, arousing the will in reliance wholly on the strength of Jesus to become an overcomer, and separating entirely from corrupting companions whatever the consequences, lest only a bare escape remain after warning and mercy.
Families must consider first the moral and religious influences that will surround themselves and their families rather than temporal advantage, beauty, fertility, prosperity, a flourishing city or hope of greater wealth and honor. Beauty, fertility, and worldly treasure do not make a home desirable and cannot save a soul, for human beings taint and corrupt the lovely earth God made, and when dwellers in beautiful places do not reveal purity and virtue and do not love truth and righteousness, God after a time of test and trial lets wrath break forth upon them because they corrupt themselves before Him. Lot chose Sodom for its rich lands, wealth and beautiful surroundings yet left it with the loss of everything he had, entering intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him but failing as corrupting influences weakened his own faith and his children's ties bound up his interests with theirs until destruction by sulfur and fire from heaven overthrew the cities, the whole plain and all who lived in them. Choosing a home for temporal advantage rather than for moral surroundings ruins children, loses the life work, and leaves parents to barely save their own souls, for choosing worldliness surrounds children with lax morality, unbelief, indifference to religious things, rebellion against parental and divine authority, and attachments to infidels and enemies of God, counteracting parental influence and hindering piety and right character. Voluntarily living in an atmosphere of worldliness, lax morality and unbelief displeases God, drives holy angels from the home, destroys Christian character, and trades eternal interests and title to the immortal inheritance for advantages that prove a terrible loss, leaving life-work lost and life a sad failure. Even little children perished with the guilty because evil had been transmitted to them by their parents, and Lot's daughters and sons-in-law mocked his warning and perished, showing how needless exposure to unfavorable influences should be avoided though those placed in trying positions where duty calls can stand uncorrupted by watching and praying and trusting in the grace of Christ.
All who would escape the doom brought by pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness and failure to strengthen the poor and needy must shun that course, cutting off every influence, habit and tie that keeps families from full committal to God. They must seek retired situations where children can be shielded from temptation and trained for usefulness rather than left to street education, evil associates, vice and dissipation in crowded cities, making homes as far from corrupt places as possible by keeping out of the large cities and locating in the quiet retirement of the country where the influence is best, even if wealth is lost by so doing, in order to protect children from evil associations and keep them busy with useful labor. Because fire and brimstone rained from heaven will come upon modern large cities in an hour not expected, with each city visited in proportion to its sins, God's people must locate miles away from the large cities, come out and be separate, and when a city is destroyed must not treat it as a light affair by building homes again in that same destroyed city when favorable opportunity offers. Schools and sanitariums are not to be centered in the cities but established in quiet retired country places surrounded by nature, fresh air and sunshine, in places with a purer atmosphere and fewer temptations where the atmosphere is not polluted, and the cities are to be worked from these outpost centers while students and the sick are taken away from the cities. The cities will become as Sodom, filled with iniquity and confusion, with violence and crime that will increase till the end, with temptations, liquor saloons, constant noise, blasphemous language, and sights and sounds that corrupt the thoughts and defile the soul, and they are even now hotbeds of vice ripe for the same destruction from heaven.
Because that destruction is coming, warning and counsel is given to get out of the cities, to make no more centers or investments in them, and to take children away from the sights, sounds and temptations of city life so faith, hope, love, happiness, and physical, mental and spiritual health can be preserved and families prepared for translation into the heavenly courts. Modern cities becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah when the world grows worse and worse is a sign to be discerned, warning against making large plants and establishing business interests and families in cities, and in the coming time of trouble the cities will become worse and worse, full of strife and bloodshed, and will be visited by earthquakes that throw buildings down and by fire from heaven that consumes them. Men should walk humbly before God, not purchasing or erecting large buildings or business plants in the cities for sanitarium work. Well-equipped tent meetings should be held in large cities to warn them and prepare them to hear the gospel before destruction comes, for the Lord visits cities that become as Sodom and Gomorrah with wrath in destructive judgments. Even so, a great and wicked city like New York holds a people of God who pant after pure waters, and because such seekers are there and the city is ready to be worked, the power of God is to carry the truth there, with self-denying workers going forth to let the light of heaven shine into its darkness rather than leaving that field untouched to bring rebuke. The comparison of cities to Sodom presents them as places in need of warning, and San Francisco and Oakland becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah will not long hence suffer under judgments when visited in wrath.
Youth should be guarded from depravity and ungodly practices and kept as far from Sodom as possible, shielded from temptation, street education, evil associates, vice, dissipation, excitement-loving training and immodest conduct, and instructed in truth and temperance and trained for usefulness. Bringing youth among worldly people is like Lot taking his family into Sodom, a choice used as warning against placing young people among worldly influences. Cities and towns compared to Sodom and Gomorrah present moral corruption linked to youth being trained to love excitement, glorify themselves and follow evil desires, with depravity, cruelty, violence and crime as resulting evils, and the world becoming like a second Sodom through its corrupting influence on the young. Delay in obeying God's call to leave an evil setting can bring loss, for Lot lingered despite danger and his wife murmuring and looking back became a pillar of salt. Judgment came on the very night when the cities were absorbed in pleasure and inhabitants mocked warnings, showing that people who dismiss calls to escape may perish when judgment comes suddenly and the door of mercy closes to the careless in sin. Loss of possessions in following God should not discourage, for Sodom's destruction consumed Lot's property yet saving even part of one's family is better than losing them all.
Those who look for the coming of the Son of Man and know they are right upon the borders of the eternal world with every advantage of light must set an example in harmony with faith by maintaining purity and holiness opposite to Sodom, for those who do not maintain purity and holiness are not accepted of God. The time of Sodom was a time of great danger now compared with the present world, calling for greater refinement in thought, relationships, words and conduct. God's people must get ready to meet Christ in peace by being as wholly consecrated to Christ and His service as the world is wholly given over to evil, living pure and holy lives, with cleansing and sanctification to be fit vessels unto honor for the Lord's use and worship of God in the beauty of holiness for His excellent majesty and power, refusing to be controlled by the enemy of truth and righteousness. This terrible condition of overwhelming iniquity, violence, revelling and drunkenness, with minds diverted from eternal realities and the church itself converted by the world while the law is declared of no consequence, faces imminent ruin at the end of all things at hand and should stir followers to new life from the Source of all life and to earnest, untiring, powerful proclamation of a crucified and risen Saviour to save souls ready to perish. The destruction warns to be wide awake, shunning every tie that hinders full committal, not trusting human wisdom and strength but laying hold by faith on the infinite arm of God, as Abraham who trained his children rightly pleaded for honest inhabitants yet only ten righteous could be found.