And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD:
Abraham rose early in the morning after Sodom's destruction and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord, while its overthrow was still unfolding. From there he looked toward Sodom and saw the aftermath of fire and brimstone from heaven, which left the once beautiful and fertile valley bleak, bare and desolate. The judgment came because Sodom's corruption had grown until it reached heaven, with pride, idleness, lawlessness, licentiousness and contempt for restraint and for God, until mercy ceased to plead and God consumed the cities to rid the earth of their influence. It stands as a warning that Lot chose his home for outward beauty and temporal advantage without regard to its moral influences, and though he was preserved, he left with nothing, his family broken and his life work lost, proving worldly gain at the cost of eternal interests to be terrible loss. The same ruin awaits the corrupt cities of the present age, so the home's moral and religious surroundings must be considered first, evil associations fled, and even the most sinful cities worked while mercy still pleads, for obedience to all of God's law is essential to eternal life.
Abraham's Early Morning Return
Abraham got up early in the morning and went back to the place where he had stood before the Lord. That return took place on the morning after the destruction of Sodom. It occurred while the destruction itself was still unfolding.
From that place he looked toward Sodom and saw what fire from heaven had done. The cities of the plain had been consumed, and their entrancing beauty blotted out. What God had once made very beautiful in the Jordan valley and its suburbs was left bleak and bare. The surrounding valley became a desolate waste, later part of the wilderness of Judea.
Sodom's Corruption and Judgment
Sodom's corruption grew as its inhabitants taught others their defiling practices, until sin kept increasing and reached heaven. It was a place of great wickedness, marked by depravity, cruelty, violence, and crime. Its days stand as the picture of a world degraded by sin and facing destruction.
Its course degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins that called forth wrath in dreadful destruction. Those sins included pride, abundance of provision, idleness, and failure to help the poor and needy. People were taught that desire is the highest law and that they are not accountable for their conduct, leaving virtue with no safeguards. They sought freedom from all restraint by casting aside God's law, which is the service of Satan bringing only wretchedness and misery and distress with no repose and rest. Inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self became their god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated by selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. They corrupted their way and became corrupt in body and soul, steeped in licentiousness, carnality, want of strict purity, and adultery even among those professing godliness. They did not discern the difference between the pure affections given by God as attributes of human nature and destructive lusts, and by indulgence and wicked inventions made themselves as sinful as those before the Flood. They let gratification of appetite in eating and drinking occupy thoughts and time to the neglect of eternal interests, abusing the body, destroying health, unbalancing the mind, and strengthening animal propensities, made money a god, and, warmed by wine, turned to blasphemy and contempt for the Son of God.
When mercy ceased to plead with its guilty inhabitants, God in wrath visited the cities of the plain with destroying judgments. Fire and brimstone sent down from heaven consumed them the same day Lot went out of Sodom. All were consumed except Lot, his wife, and his two daughters. The fiery blasts blotted out the entrancing beauty of that highly favored city and its suburbs, to rid the earth of the curse of their contaminating influence.
Lot's Fateful Home Choice
Lot chose his residence by outward appearance and for temporal advantage, drawn to a beautiful, fertile and flourishing place that promised worldly wealth, honor and prosperity, without reference to its moral and religious influences and associations. He entered Sodom wealthy and fully intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he signally failed and left with nothing, led out by an angel's hand as the city was destroyed. He lost his possessions, some of his children perished, his sons-in-law rejected his warning and perished with the city, his wife became a pillar of salt, his own soul was barely saved, and his life work was lost as a sad failure.
The corrupting atmosphere around him weakened his own faith, counteracted parental influence, and bound up his children's interests with those of Sodom's inhabitants. That atmosphere was one of worldliness, unbelief, lax morality, indifference to religious things, rebellion against parental and divine authority, and association with infidels, unbelievers and enemies of God, drawing the youth into unfavorable associations and attachments and casting in their lot with them. It hindered piety and right character and prevented the forming of Christian character in the family. Worldly wealth and honor so gained at the expense of eternal interests and title to the immortal inheritance proved a terrible loss, ending in ruin to his children.
Evil associations are always detrimental to piety and devotion, because persons of that character have a molding influence upon other minds and principles approved by God may be undermined by unfavorable circumstances. Sodom stands as moral pollution whose atmosphere and associations call for flight rather than a home, and carrying unsubdued appetite and passions into such a place is disobedience that keeps God from prospering and blessing. Its danger is especially great to one weak in moral power.
Mercy, Warning and Obedience
Men cannot reject God's merciful warnings without punishment, for in the time of Abraham mercy ceased to plead with the guilty inhabitants of Sodom, and because they rejected the warning God sent them in mercy all but Lot with his wife and his two daughters were consumed by fire sent down from heaven. When His warning is finally rejected He withdraws His Spirit and leaves the guilty to destruction. As sin kept increasing, Sodom was destroyed by bolts of fire from heaven, proving that God means what He says when He threatens judgment.
Sodom's punishment stands in the account where the Sodomites were punished with fire fallen from heaven for disobedience to God's requirements while righteous Lot was saved. It proves that God executes the final penalty for transgressing His law and does not take transgressors by mercy straight into glory. Obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life, and salvation depends on ceasing to transgress. The destruction was not a passage into glory, and God's mercy does not make disobedience harmless.
God abundantly blesses and is full of compassion and ready to pardon, yet in mercy He proved Himself a God of vengeance. He will show Himself strong to punish persistent, independent despisers of His grace, for the inhabitants of Sodom walked in the imaginations of their own hearts in headstrong, independent, wicked lives of impurity and crime that He could not perpetuate. God did not forget Lot when judgment came, but preserved him. Lot was saved because he had not corrupted his way before God, and he stood uncorrupted amid that moral pollution.
Sodom was moral pollution whose atmosphere and associations are dangerous to one weak in moral power, and carrying unsubdued appetite and passions into such a place is disobedience to God and keeps Him from prospering and blessing. The voice of God calls to flee from such a place as from Sodom and not to make a home there, and one who has returned to live in such a place must repent, confess sins and forsake them, arouse the will while relying wholly on the strength of Jesus to become an overcomer, and separate entirely from the class formerly associated with. Only a few escaped despite having been warned, illustrating that the majority may perish and that few are saved.
God's close, terrible judgments in righteousness fall upon those who have great light yet have not lived up to it. Those now on the very borders of the heavenly Canaan and the eternal world, with all advantages, light, and evidences of truth, carry the same guilt as Sodom if they do not purify their souls by living up to them. Those who look for the coming of the Son of Man must set an example in harmony with their faith by maintaining purity and holiness, for without purity and holiness they are not accepted of God. Forward, common flirting and breaking down reserve and true decorum makes professed Christians fast becoming like the Sodomites, destitute of the Spirit of God, and unless converted and refined by Christ every soul will lose heaven and reap a harvest they will not be pleased to garner.
Warning to Modern Cities
Sodom's destruction by fire from heaven stands as an example of God's judgment on wicked cities. It is a warning of the ruin facing a world turned from God. It was given for the same evil found in Canaan.
The present age of moral debasement is a second Sodom under the same danger. The same desire for lawless freedom and casting aside of all restraint and of God's law has made the world today corrupt as in the days of Noah and polluted as Sodom and Gomorrah were. Its course has degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins, with inclination and passion bearing sway over reason, self made god, and the knowledge of God nearly obliterated by selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. Carnality, want of strict purity, and adultery even among men and women professing godliness are now being repeated, with licentiousness spreading until the world is made like a second Sodom and Gomorrah. As it was in the days of Lot, so it shall be in the days of the Son of Man. Those on the borders of the eternal world must therefore set an example in harmony with their faith by maintaining purity and holiness, without which they are not accepted of God. They must be temperate and seek those things which are above rather than letting gratification of appetite in eating and drinking occupy thought and time to the neglect of eternal interests, abuse the body, destroy health, unbalance the mind, strengthen animal propensities, and awaken the sword of justice. They need watchfulness, prayer, and strength to resist evil desires.
Large cities are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah as the world grows worse and worse. San Francisco and Oakland are among them, and the same wrathful visitation of destroying judgments that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah will soon fall on them. Melbourne is becoming in the same condition. This likeness is a sign of the times to be discerned, calling for no large plants to be made in the cities. Well-equipped tent meetings should be held in those cities before the judgments come.
Home Purity and City Mission
God would have the moral and religious surroundings of the family considered first of all in choosing a home, and unfavorable influences not needlessly chosen. Voluntarily placing oneself and one's family where Christian character cannot be formed, in an atmosphere of worldliness, unbelief, lax morality, indifference to religious things, rebellion against parental and divine authority, and association with infidels and enemies of God, displeases God, drives holy angels from the home, counteracts parental influence, hinders piety and right character, and sacrifices eternal interests and title to the immortal inheritance for worldly wealth, honor, prosperity, and a beautiful, fertile, or flourishing place to live. Youth should therefore be guarded from Sodom's corrupt practices and kept as far from such places and associations as possible.
Choosing a home without regard to its influences endangers those who enter it, as Lot endangered his family by taking them into Sodom, for he entered wealthy but left with nothing, led out by an angel's hand as the city was destroyed. Bringing a family into an environment of corrupting worldly influences, and calling youth to places of mixed associations with people of every kind, as in calling them to Battle Creek, is to repeat Lot's act of taking his family into Sodom. The voice of God calls to flee such moral pollution as from Sodom and not to make a home there, for its atmosphere and associations are dangerous, especially to one weak in moral power or carrying unsubdued appetite and passions, which is disobedience that keeps God from prospering and blessing.
Where duty calls to trying positions, God will enable watchfulness, prayer, and trust in the grace of Christ to stand uncorrupted, as Lot stood uncorrupted amid that moral pollution. One who has returned to live in such a place must repent, confess sins and forsake them, arouse the will while relying wholly on the strength of Jesus to become an overcomer, and separate entirely from the class formerly associated with.
Even cities steeped in sin have people like Lot who can be reached and served, and faithful people may be found even in deeply sinful cities. As God had Lot in wicked Sodom, so He has a people in wicked New York who pant after the pure waters of Lebanon as the hart pants after the water brooks. A wicked city is therefore not to be left untouched but is ready to be worked, with self-denial and God's power carrying the truth to those thirsting for it, and reformers are needed to defend God's law.
Abraham rose early in the morning after Sodom's destruction and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord, while its overthrow was still unfolding. From there he looked toward Sodom and saw the aftermath of fire and brimstone from heaven, which left the once beautiful and fertile valley bleak, bare and desolate. The judgment came because Sodom's corruption had grown until it reached heaven, with pride, idleness, lawlessness, licentiousness and contempt for restraint and for God, until mercy ceased to plead and God consumed the cities to rid the earth of their influence. It stands as a warning that Lot chose his home for outward beauty and temporal advantage without regard to its moral influences, and though he was preserved, he left with nothing, his family broken and his life work lost, proving worldly gain at the cost of eternal interests to be terrible loss. The same ruin awaits the corrupt cities of the present age, so the home's moral and religious surroundings must be considered first, evil associations fled, and even the most sinful cities worked while mercy still pleads, for obedience to all of God's law is essential to eternal life.
Abraham's Early Morning Return
Abraham got up early in the morning and went back to the place where he had stood before the Lord. That return took place on the morning after the destruction of Sodom. It occurred while the destruction itself was still unfolding.
From that place he looked toward Sodom and saw what fire from heaven had done. The cities of the plain had been consumed, and their entrancing beauty blotted out. What God had once made very beautiful in the Jordan valley and its suburbs was left bleak and bare. The surrounding valley became a desolate waste, later part of the wilderness of Judea.
Sodom's Corruption and Judgment
Sodom's corruption grew as its inhabitants taught others their defiling practices, until sin kept increasing and reached heaven. It was a place of great wickedness, marked by depravity, cruelty, violence, and crime. Its days stand as the picture of a world degraded by sin and facing destruction.
Its course degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins that called forth wrath in dreadful destruction. Those sins included pride, abundance of provision, idleness, and failure to help the poor and needy. People were taught that desire is the highest law and that they are not accountable for their conduct, leaving virtue with no safeguards. They sought freedom from all restraint by casting aside God's law, which is the service of Satan bringing only wretchedness and misery and distress with no repose and rest. Inclination and passion bore sway over reason, self became their god, and the knowledge of God was nearly obliterated by selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. They corrupted their way and became corrupt in body and soul, steeped in licentiousness, carnality, want of strict purity, and adultery even among those professing godliness. They did not discern the difference between the pure affections given by God as attributes of human nature and destructive lusts, and by indulgence and wicked inventions made themselves as sinful as those before the Flood. They let gratification of appetite in eating and drinking occupy thoughts and time to the neglect of eternal interests, abusing the body, destroying health, unbalancing the mind, and strengthening animal propensities, made money a god, and, warmed by wine, turned to blasphemy and contempt for the Son of God.
When mercy ceased to plead with its guilty inhabitants, God in wrath visited the cities of the plain with destroying judgments. Fire and brimstone sent down from heaven consumed them the same day Lot went out of Sodom. All were consumed except Lot, his wife, and his two daughters. The fiery blasts blotted out the entrancing beauty of that highly favored city and its suburbs, to rid the earth of the curse of their contaminating influence.
Lot's Fateful Home Choice
Lot chose his residence by outward appearance and for temporal advantage, drawn to a beautiful, fertile and flourishing place that promised worldly wealth, honor and prosperity, without reference to its moral and religious influences and associations. He entered Sodom wealthy and fully intending to keep himself free from iniquity and to command his household after him, but he signally failed and left with nothing, led out by an angel's hand as the city was destroyed. He lost his possessions, some of his children perished, his sons-in-law rejected his warning and perished with the city, his wife became a pillar of salt, his own soul was barely saved, and his life work was lost as a sad failure.
The corrupting atmosphere around him weakened his own faith, counteracted parental influence, and bound up his children's interests with those of Sodom's inhabitants. That atmosphere was one of worldliness, unbelief, lax morality, indifference to religious things, rebellion against parental and divine authority, and association with infidels, unbelievers and enemies of God, drawing the youth into unfavorable associations and attachments and casting in their lot with them. It hindered piety and right character and prevented the forming of Christian character in the family. Worldly wealth and honor so gained at the expense of eternal interests and title to the immortal inheritance proved a terrible loss, ending in ruin to his children.
Evil associations are always detrimental to piety and devotion, because persons of that character have a molding influence upon other minds and principles approved by God may be undermined by unfavorable circumstances. Sodom stands as moral pollution whose atmosphere and associations call for flight rather than a home, and carrying unsubdued appetite and passions into such a place is disobedience that keeps God from prospering and blessing. Its danger is especially great to one weak in moral power.
Mercy, Warning and Obedience
Men cannot reject God's merciful warnings without punishment, for in the time of Abraham mercy ceased to plead with the guilty inhabitants of Sodom, and because they rejected the warning God sent them in mercy all but Lot with his wife and his two daughters were consumed by fire sent down from heaven. When His warning is finally rejected He withdraws His Spirit and leaves the guilty to destruction. As sin kept increasing, Sodom was destroyed by bolts of fire from heaven, proving that God means what He says when He threatens judgment.
Sodom's punishment stands in the account where the Sodomites were punished with fire fallen from heaven for disobedience to God's requirements while righteous Lot was saved. It proves that God executes the final penalty for transgressing His law and does not take transgressors by mercy straight into glory. Obedience to all of God's law is absolutely essential to eternal life, and salvation depends on ceasing to transgress. The destruction was not a passage into glory, and God's mercy does not make disobedience harmless.
God abundantly blesses and is full of compassion and ready to pardon, yet in mercy He proved Himself a God of vengeance. He will show Himself strong to punish persistent, independent despisers of His grace, for the inhabitants of Sodom walked in the imaginations of their own hearts in headstrong, independent, wicked lives of impurity and crime that He could not perpetuate. God did not forget Lot when judgment came, but preserved him. Lot was saved because he had not corrupted his way before God, and he stood uncorrupted amid that moral pollution.
Sodom was moral pollution whose atmosphere and associations are dangerous to one weak in moral power, and carrying unsubdued appetite and passions into such a place is disobedience to God and keeps Him from prospering and blessing. The voice of God calls to flee from such a place as from Sodom and not to make a home there, and one who has returned to live in such a place must repent, confess sins and forsake them, arouse the will while relying wholly on the strength of Jesus to become an overcomer, and separate entirely from the class formerly associated with. Only a few escaped despite having been warned, illustrating that the majority may perish and that few are saved.
God's close, terrible judgments in righteousness fall upon those who have great light yet have not lived up to it. Those now on the very borders of the heavenly Canaan and the eternal world, with all advantages, light, and evidences of truth, carry the same guilt as Sodom if they do not purify their souls by living up to them. Those who look for the coming of the Son of Man must set an example in harmony with their faith by maintaining purity and holiness, for without purity and holiness they are not accepted of God. Forward, common flirting and breaking down reserve and true decorum makes professed Christians fast becoming like the Sodomites, destitute of the Spirit of God, and unless converted and refined by Christ every soul will lose heaven and reap a harvest they will not be pleased to garner.
Warning to Modern Cities
Sodom's destruction by fire from heaven stands as an example of God's judgment on wicked cities. It is a warning of the ruin facing a world turned from God. It was given for the same evil found in Canaan.
The present age of moral debasement is a second Sodom under the same danger. The same desire for lawless freedom and casting aside of all restraint and of God's law has made the world today corrupt as in the days of Noah and polluted as Sodom and Gomorrah were. Its course has degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins, with inclination and passion bearing sway over reason, self made god, and the knowledge of God nearly obliterated by selfish indulgence of corrupt passions. Carnality, want of strict purity, and adultery even among men and women professing godliness are now being repeated, with licentiousness spreading until the world is made like a second Sodom and Gomorrah. As it was in the days of Lot, so it shall be in the days of the Son of Man. Those on the borders of the eternal world must therefore set an example in harmony with their faith by maintaining purity and holiness, without which they are not accepted of God. They must be temperate and seek those things which are above rather than letting gratification of appetite in eating and drinking occupy thought and time to the neglect of eternal interests, abuse the body, destroy health, unbalance the mind, strengthen animal propensities, and awaken the sword of justice. They need watchfulness, prayer, and strength to resist evil desires.
Large cities are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah as the world grows worse and worse. San Francisco and Oakland are among them, and the same wrathful visitation of destroying judgments that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah will soon fall on them. Melbourne is becoming in the same condition. This likeness is a sign of the times to be discerned, calling for no large plants to be made in the cities. Well-equipped tent meetings should be held in those cities before the judgments come.
Home Purity and City Mission
God would have the moral and religious surroundings of the family considered first of all in choosing a home, and unfavorable influences not needlessly chosen. Voluntarily placing oneself and one's family where Christian character cannot be formed, in an atmosphere of worldliness, unbelief, lax morality, indifference to religious things, rebellion against parental and divine authority, and association with infidels and enemies of God, displeases God, drives holy angels from the home, counteracts parental influence, hinders piety and right character, and sacrifices eternal interests and title to the immortal inheritance for worldly wealth, honor, prosperity, and a beautiful, fertile, or flourishing place to live. Youth should therefore be guarded from Sodom's corrupt practices and kept as far from such places and associations as possible.
Choosing a home without regard to its influences endangers those who enter it, as Lot endangered his family by taking them into Sodom, for he entered wealthy but left with nothing, led out by an angel's hand as the city was destroyed. Bringing a family into an environment of corrupting worldly influences, and calling youth to places of mixed associations with people of every kind, as in calling them to Battle Creek, is to repeat Lot's act of taking his family into Sodom. The voice of God calls to flee such moral pollution as from Sodom and not to make a home there, for its atmosphere and associations are dangerous, especially to one weak in moral power or carrying unsubdued appetite and passions, which is disobedience that keeps God from prospering and blessing.
Where duty calls to trying positions, God will enable watchfulness, prayer, and trust in the grace of Christ to stand uncorrupted, as Lot stood uncorrupted amid that moral pollution. One who has returned to live in such a place must repent, confess sins and forsake them, arouse the will while relying wholly on the strength of Jesus to become an overcomer, and separate entirely from the class formerly associated with.
Even cities steeped in sin have people like Lot who can be reached and served, and faithful people may be found even in deeply sinful cities. As God had Lot in wicked Sodom, so He has a people in wicked New York who pant after the pure waters of Lebanon as the hart pants after the water brooks. A wicked city is therefore not to be left untouched but is ready to be worked, with self-denial and God's power carrying the truth to those thirsting for it, and reformers are needed to defend God's law.