But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
On the very day Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone fell from heaven and wiped out all who remained in the city. Up to that morning life went on as usual in eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, while pleasure and excess dulled conscience and ripened the city in impurity and violence. With Noah's flood, this sudden ruin is given as the picture of the day when the Son of man is revealed, when Christ will come unexpectedly as a thief to a secure and mocking world. The same corrupt principles now leaven cities and villages, and present calamities show that judgment again hangs over them in proportion to their sins. Therefore readiness means constant watching, prayer and work, using food, business and pleasure only to sustain life and never letting excess crowd out eternal interests.
Sudden Judgment Described
The same day Lot went out of Sodom fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all, leaving none alive in the city. That departure and that destruction belong to one very day, with judgment falling immediately after the righteous was removed. The ordinary pursuits of life continued until that day, and then sudden judgment came without further delay.
Until that day the people went on with common life, eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. They were absorbed in ordinary activities and plans, with pleasure-seeking and the pursuit of vanity, treating sin lightly until what was lost was realized too late. Lawful business and what sustains life were not in themselves the fault, but excess and indulgence crowded out concern for eternal life and left them unprepared.
Warning and opportunity to escape went forward before the judgment fell. Lot warned his family, but he was mocked as a fanatical enthusiast, and while some heeded the warning others mocked those who did. Their unbelief and dismissal of the warning did not prevent the predicted destruction, which came when they did not expect it and left them no time to prepare.
Sodom was a beautiful city made rich by the blessing of God like the land of Eden, yet its goodness did not bring its people to repentance. Not even ten righteous persons could be found in it, though mercy had been extended and the world today stands before God just as those people did. Its days were marked by widespread impurity and licentiousness, with corrupting influences and depraved conduct present before the cities were destroyed.
Pattern for Final Coming
Together with the days of Noah and the flood, the days of Lot illustrate what it will be like in the day when the Son of man is revealed. On the very same day Lot went out of Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all. Until that day ordinary daily life continued unchanged, with people eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, absorbed in ordinary pursuits that did not prepare them for judgment. The people of the world today stand before God just as those people did, so the same sudden destruction will come when the Son of man is revealed. Excessive eating and drinking dulled moral sense, made sin seem harmless, allowed passion to control them, and fostered corruption and crime, and Christ warns that this condition will also exist at His coming.
As Sodom's ruin fell suddenly and unexpectedly on the very day Lot left, while people were absorbed in ordinary activities, so Christ's coming will overtake the unprepared with no time to prepare. To those who are not watching and praying and working, the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. Those who have treated sin lightly will realize too late what they have lost when the Son of man is revealed. Even thus shall it be, with sudden destruction overtaking those who have resisted the Spirit of God step by step until spiritual blindness takes the place of light, evidence becomes questioning and doubt, every appeal and reproof is misconstrued and despised, and the most solemn warnings of Scripture are laughed at and ridiculed. People may mock warnings and remain absorbed in ordinary life with a feeling of security, but their unbelief will not prevent the predicted destruction.
The fire from heaven that destroyed a wicked city on the very day Lot left displays God's power and just authority to destroy wicked cities by fire as well as by water after the Flood, warning those who disregard His law. As the flood came despite unbelief and mockery, a baptism of fire will come despite scoffing. Those who believe and obey God's word will find pardon and shelter. Those who have the light must therefore walk in the footsteps of Jesus and work out their own salvation with fear and trembling in this time of peril.
The sudden and complete destruction of everyone left in Sodom pictures what will happen in the day when the Son of man is revealed, and the present world has reached that time, with society corrupt in every phase just as Sodom was. It declares God's verdict that the wicked are incurable, with no disposition to submit to divine authority. Through Satan's deceptive power workers of iniquity obtain sympathy and admiration and constantly lead others to rebellion, as it was in Noah's day and in the time of Abraham and Lot and as it is now. In mercy to the world and to the universe God blotted out the wicked then, and He will finally destroy the rejecters of His grace. Lot's escape followed by final punishment shows God's forbearance before judgment, yet the crisis can come before men recognize that their time of preparation has ended, for the world's disregard of God's law and widespread wickedness have made it like Sodom and Gomorrah and its corruption is nearing its limit unto complete destruction soon.
Sins That Ripened Sodom
Gluttony and drunkenness and indulgence of perverted appetite dulled moral sense and helped foster the corruption and crime that brought sudden fire when Lot left. Excessive eating and drinking enfeebled moral powers so that sin did not appear sinful, excused crime, let base passions control the mind, and rooted out good principles until God was blasphemed. Appetite and its gratification consumed time and attention while eternal interests were neglected, abusing the body, harming health, unbalancing the mind and strengthening animal propensities into conduct that brings punishment. Intemperance and harmful excess of eating and drinking marked the days of Lot and left the people unprepared for judgment on the day he went out.
Making eating and drinking paramount was a most important lesson against giving up to indulgence, for Christ's life was earnest work, self-denial, diligence, perseverance, industry and economy rather than indolence. Eating and drinking and dressing carried to excess become crimes and are among the marked sins of the last days and a sign of Christ's soon coming, when blind passion rules and lust overrides reason. Time, money and strength entrusted by the Lord are wasted in needless superfluities of dress and luxuries for perverted appetite that lessen vitality and bring suffering, corruption, disease and decay, so the body cannot be presented as a living sacrifice. Sodom before its destruction was wholly engrossed in the things of this life and gratification of its own desires, ripe for vengeance, requiring God's people to separate more and more from conformity to the world and expenditure of entrusted means in worldliness and pride.
The days of Lot were also marked by widespread impurity and licentiousness, and the spread of immoral practices brought certain judgment by fire. The last-day condition like Sodom includes rebellion and disregard for God's law, with widespread iniquity growing until God intervenes in crisis when the Son of man is revealed. It includes the passion to accumulate possessions and retain power, selfish buying up of wheat and goods to force the needy to buy at whatever price is demanded, money-hoarding as co-partnership with Satan in robbing the poor, and selfishness and violence of man over his fellow man. The exasperation of the robbed and injured produces stubborn resistance, violence, wickedness and cruelty, while dishonesty, robbing God, oppression of the poor, and setting aside the Sabbath ripen the world for vengeance as Sodom was ripened.
The moral corruption and depravity seen in the world matches the description of conditions just before Christ's second coming. People in the present age, like people in Lot's time, have departed from God's purposes and ways, and corrupting influences and depraved conduct like those before the cities were destroyed are present again. The judgment that fell when Lot left shows the seriousness of the dangers people face in the present age and the need to live with greater refinement in thought, speech and conduct.
Today's World Paralleled
The cities and villages of today are leavened with the same principles that prevailed in the days of Lot, and society is corrupt in every phase just as Sodom was. The likeness is a sign of the times to be discerned, for ordinary eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building continue while sudden destruction is pictured for the day when the Son of man is revealed. The present time is like the days of Noah and of Sodom, when people face great dangers and need greater refinement in thought and conduct, including words and associations. Christ's coming will be in earth's darkest period, when deception and apostasy spread and God's people face trial, weeping, and persecution for the truth, yet in that darkness God's light will shine for them.
Large cities have become deeply wicked like Sodom, yet they still contain honest people who may respond to God's message, which calls for urgent work in the cities rather than abandoning them. They stand under warning of fiery destruction in proportion to their sins, so that when danger is recognized there must be flight without delay, and homes are not to be rebuilt in a city after it has been destroyed. That judgment on cities will come suddenly, one after another, few will escape, and those who have God's Word but do not follow its light will face solemn judgments. Present sickness, disasters at sea and on land, fires, floods, and earthquakes mark the state of the world Christ foretold, showing God's protection and restraint being withdrawn as violence and crime increase and the close of earth's history approaches.
Outward life goes on unchanged while destruction is ready to fall, with the sun still shining its usual round and the heavens still declaring the glory of God. Men keep eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, buying and selling, jostling for the highest place, and crowding to theaters, horse-races and gambling for pleasure and excitement. That absorption is dangerous because probation's hour is fast closing and every case is about to be eternally decided, and ordinary pursuits and worldly preoccupations can continue amid widespread resistance to truth until the crisis comes before preparation has ended. Satan knows his time is short and sets all his agents at work to deceive, delude, occupy and entrance minds until the day of probation ends and the door of mercy is forever shut, and then comes sorrow that no human balm can heal.
Sodom before its destruction was wholly engrossed in the things of this life and the gratification of its own desires, a condition that made the people ripe for the vengeance of God, and divine judgment answers such worldly self-indulgence. Destruction comes upon people who do not regard life as serious but are selfishly engrossed in pleasure seeking, eating and sleeping and dressing and pursuing every form of vanity, pride and selfish indulgence, dying and going into their graves without thought of preparation for eternity. That same planting and building now fills the cities, with passions stimulated to intense activity by games, horse racing and intemperance of every description, with fever in every vein and restless unhallowed emotion. Thousands upon thousands are sunk in stupid lethargy as deep as a poisonous drug, dead in trespasses and sins, and the entire tendency of the cities is toward corruption whose end is moral prostration meaning death to the soul.
Call to Ready Living
The same day Lot went out destruction fell, and that suddenness means the revelation of the Son of man will find the unprepared with no time left to get ready, so readiness must be constant and the soul prepared beforehand. The day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night to all who are not watching and praying and working, while ordinary pursuits go on and men live in security amid wickedness until decision closes. Those who have light must therefore walk in the footsteps of Jesus and work out their own salvation with fear and trembling in this time of peril, refusing to be distracted by everyday pursuits or pleasure. Selfish indulgence, excess, violence and other terrible events now show the end is near and press the call to prepare for the second coming.
Proper business and other lawful activities are not condemned, and eating and drinking to sustain life are not sinful in themselves. The danger is excess and indulgence that crowd out concern for eternal life, dull the mind and shut it against eternal concerns, when eternity is left out of the reckoning. Ordinary eating and drinking carried to that excess become part of a life of heedlessness that ends in sudden destruction like Sodom's, and those who heed the warning must avoid the course that brings condemnation and punishment and causes loss of eternity.
The likeness to Noah's time and Sodom's time means present moral dangers require greater refinement in thought and conduct, with greater elevation and delicacy in words and deportment and in associations. That refinement includes reserve between men and women, with special peril to youth and to young men and women just reaching manhood and womanhood as well as to mature men and women. Separation from worldliness and pride is required, for widespread wickedness comes when God's law is disregarded, when the Sabbath is set aside and God's power and love are lost sight of. God's people are therefore to live away from large cities, not to rebuild homes in a city after it has been destroyed, and to flee without delay when danger is recognized, walking in the great light given for salvation amid the wretchedness, deformity and disease that ignorance of proper care of the body has spread.
Those who have the light and truth must live as a testimony and give the warning message, for as the flood came despite unbelief and mockery so a baptism of fire will come despite scoffing, while those who believe and obey will find pardon and shelter. God is compassionate and ready to pardon those who turn, yet those who persist in wickedness and despise His grace will face punishment, and those who have received great light but refuse to live by it are as Sodom's inhabitants. Large cities are deeply wicked like Sodom yet still contain honest souls who may respond, so they must not be abandoned but be given urgent work, including work for palsy-stricken souls through medical missionary work and health reform.
On the very day Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone fell from heaven and wiped out all who remained in the city. Up to that morning life went on as usual in eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, while pleasure and excess dulled conscience and ripened the city in impurity and violence. With Noah's flood, this sudden ruin is given as the picture of the day when the Son of man is revealed, when Christ will come unexpectedly as a thief to a secure and mocking world. The same corrupt principles now leaven cities and villages, and present calamities show that judgment again hangs over them in proportion to their sins. Therefore readiness means constant watching, prayer and work, using food, business and pleasure only to sustain life and never letting excess crowd out eternal interests.
Sudden Judgment Described
The same day Lot went out of Sodom fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all, leaving none alive in the city. That departure and that destruction belong to one very day, with judgment falling immediately after the righteous was removed. The ordinary pursuits of life continued until that day, and then sudden judgment came without further delay.
Until that day the people went on with common life, eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. They were absorbed in ordinary activities and plans, with pleasure-seeking and the pursuit of vanity, treating sin lightly until what was lost was realized too late. Lawful business and what sustains life were not in themselves the fault, but excess and indulgence crowded out concern for eternal life and left them unprepared.
Warning and opportunity to escape went forward before the judgment fell. Lot warned his family, but he was mocked as a fanatical enthusiast, and while some heeded the warning others mocked those who did. Their unbelief and dismissal of the warning did not prevent the predicted destruction, which came when they did not expect it and left them no time to prepare.
Sodom was a beautiful city made rich by the blessing of God like the land of Eden, yet its goodness did not bring its people to repentance. Not even ten righteous persons could be found in it, though mercy had been extended and the world today stands before God just as those people did. Its days were marked by widespread impurity and licentiousness, with corrupting influences and depraved conduct present before the cities were destroyed.
Pattern for Final Coming
Together with the days of Noah and the flood, the days of Lot illustrate what it will be like in the day when the Son of man is revealed. On the very same day Lot went out of Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all. Until that day ordinary daily life continued unchanged, with people eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, absorbed in ordinary pursuits that did not prepare them for judgment. The people of the world today stand before God just as those people did, so the same sudden destruction will come when the Son of man is revealed. Excessive eating and drinking dulled moral sense, made sin seem harmless, allowed passion to control them, and fostered corruption and crime, and Christ warns that this condition will also exist at His coming.
As Sodom's ruin fell suddenly and unexpectedly on the very day Lot left, while people were absorbed in ordinary activities, so Christ's coming will overtake the unprepared with no time to prepare. To those who are not watching and praying and working, the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. Those who have treated sin lightly will realize too late what they have lost when the Son of man is revealed. Even thus shall it be, with sudden destruction overtaking those who have resisted the Spirit of God step by step until spiritual blindness takes the place of light, evidence becomes questioning and doubt, every appeal and reproof is misconstrued and despised, and the most solemn warnings of Scripture are laughed at and ridiculed. People may mock warnings and remain absorbed in ordinary life with a feeling of security, but their unbelief will not prevent the predicted destruction.
The fire from heaven that destroyed a wicked city on the very day Lot left displays God's power and just authority to destroy wicked cities by fire as well as by water after the Flood, warning those who disregard His law. As the flood came despite unbelief and mockery, a baptism of fire will come despite scoffing. Those who believe and obey God's word will find pardon and shelter. Those who have the light must therefore walk in the footsteps of Jesus and work out their own salvation with fear and trembling in this time of peril.
The sudden and complete destruction of everyone left in Sodom pictures what will happen in the day when the Son of man is revealed, and the present world has reached that time, with society corrupt in every phase just as Sodom was. It declares God's verdict that the wicked are incurable, with no disposition to submit to divine authority. Through Satan's deceptive power workers of iniquity obtain sympathy and admiration and constantly lead others to rebellion, as it was in Noah's day and in the time of Abraham and Lot and as it is now. In mercy to the world and to the universe God blotted out the wicked then, and He will finally destroy the rejecters of His grace. Lot's escape followed by final punishment shows God's forbearance before judgment, yet the crisis can come before men recognize that their time of preparation has ended, for the world's disregard of God's law and widespread wickedness have made it like Sodom and Gomorrah and its corruption is nearing its limit unto complete destruction soon.
Sins That Ripened Sodom
Gluttony and drunkenness and indulgence of perverted appetite dulled moral sense and helped foster the corruption and crime that brought sudden fire when Lot left. Excessive eating and drinking enfeebled moral powers so that sin did not appear sinful, excused crime, let base passions control the mind, and rooted out good principles until God was blasphemed. Appetite and its gratification consumed time and attention while eternal interests were neglected, abusing the body, harming health, unbalancing the mind and strengthening animal propensities into conduct that brings punishment. Intemperance and harmful excess of eating and drinking marked the days of Lot and left the people unprepared for judgment on the day he went out.
Making eating and drinking paramount was a most important lesson against giving up to indulgence, for Christ's life was earnest work, self-denial, diligence, perseverance, industry and economy rather than indolence. Eating and drinking and dressing carried to excess become crimes and are among the marked sins of the last days and a sign of Christ's soon coming, when blind passion rules and lust overrides reason. Time, money and strength entrusted by the Lord are wasted in needless superfluities of dress and luxuries for perverted appetite that lessen vitality and bring suffering, corruption, disease and decay, so the body cannot be presented as a living sacrifice. Sodom before its destruction was wholly engrossed in the things of this life and gratification of its own desires, ripe for vengeance, requiring God's people to separate more and more from conformity to the world and expenditure of entrusted means in worldliness and pride.
The days of Lot were also marked by widespread impurity and licentiousness, and the spread of immoral practices brought certain judgment by fire. The last-day condition like Sodom includes rebellion and disregard for God's law, with widespread iniquity growing until God intervenes in crisis when the Son of man is revealed. It includes the passion to accumulate possessions and retain power, selfish buying up of wheat and goods to force the needy to buy at whatever price is demanded, money-hoarding as co-partnership with Satan in robbing the poor, and selfishness and violence of man over his fellow man. The exasperation of the robbed and injured produces stubborn resistance, violence, wickedness and cruelty, while dishonesty, robbing God, oppression of the poor, and setting aside the Sabbath ripen the world for vengeance as Sodom was ripened.
The moral corruption and depravity seen in the world matches the description of conditions just before Christ's second coming. People in the present age, like people in Lot's time, have departed from God's purposes and ways, and corrupting influences and depraved conduct like those before the cities were destroyed are present again. The judgment that fell when Lot left shows the seriousness of the dangers people face in the present age and the need to live with greater refinement in thought, speech and conduct.
Today's World Paralleled
The cities and villages of today are leavened with the same principles that prevailed in the days of Lot, and society is corrupt in every phase just as Sodom was. The likeness is a sign of the times to be discerned, for ordinary eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building continue while sudden destruction is pictured for the day when the Son of man is revealed. The present time is like the days of Noah and of Sodom, when people face great dangers and need greater refinement in thought and conduct, including words and associations. Christ's coming will be in earth's darkest period, when deception and apostasy spread and God's people face trial, weeping, and persecution for the truth, yet in that darkness God's light will shine for them.
Large cities have become deeply wicked like Sodom, yet they still contain honest people who may respond to God's message, which calls for urgent work in the cities rather than abandoning them. They stand under warning of fiery destruction in proportion to their sins, so that when danger is recognized there must be flight without delay, and homes are not to be rebuilt in a city after it has been destroyed. That judgment on cities will come suddenly, one after another, few will escape, and those who have God's Word but do not follow its light will face solemn judgments. Present sickness, disasters at sea and on land, fires, floods, and earthquakes mark the state of the world Christ foretold, showing God's protection and restraint being withdrawn as violence and crime increase and the close of earth's history approaches.
Outward life goes on unchanged while destruction is ready to fall, with the sun still shining its usual round and the heavens still declaring the glory of God. Men keep eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage, buying and selling, jostling for the highest place, and crowding to theaters, horse-races and gambling for pleasure and excitement. That absorption is dangerous because probation's hour is fast closing and every case is about to be eternally decided, and ordinary pursuits and worldly preoccupations can continue amid widespread resistance to truth until the crisis comes before preparation has ended. Satan knows his time is short and sets all his agents at work to deceive, delude, occupy and entrance minds until the day of probation ends and the door of mercy is forever shut, and then comes sorrow that no human balm can heal.
Sodom before its destruction was wholly engrossed in the things of this life and the gratification of its own desires, a condition that made the people ripe for the vengeance of God, and divine judgment answers such worldly self-indulgence. Destruction comes upon people who do not regard life as serious but are selfishly engrossed in pleasure seeking, eating and sleeping and dressing and pursuing every form of vanity, pride and selfish indulgence, dying and going into their graves without thought of preparation for eternity. That same planting and building now fills the cities, with passions stimulated to intense activity by games, horse racing and intemperance of every description, with fever in every vein and restless unhallowed emotion. Thousands upon thousands are sunk in stupid lethargy as deep as a poisonous drug, dead in trespasses and sins, and the entire tendency of the cities is toward corruption whose end is moral prostration meaning death to the soul.
Call to Ready Living
The same day Lot went out destruction fell, and that suddenness means the revelation of the Son of man will find the unprepared with no time left to get ready, so readiness must be constant and the soul prepared beforehand. The day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night to all who are not watching and praying and working, while ordinary pursuits go on and men live in security amid wickedness until decision closes. Those who have light must therefore walk in the footsteps of Jesus and work out their own salvation with fear and trembling in this time of peril, refusing to be distracted by everyday pursuits or pleasure. Selfish indulgence, excess, violence and other terrible events now show the end is near and press the call to prepare for the second coming.
Proper business and other lawful activities are not condemned, and eating and drinking to sustain life are not sinful in themselves. The danger is excess and indulgence that crowd out concern for eternal life, dull the mind and shut it against eternal concerns, when eternity is left out of the reckoning. Ordinary eating and drinking carried to that excess become part of a life of heedlessness that ends in sudden destruction like Sodom's, and those who heed the warning must avoid the course that brings condemnation and punishment and causes loss of eternity.
The likeness to Noah's time and Sodom's time means present moral dangers require greater refinement in thought and conduct, with greater elevation and delicacy in words and deportment and in associations. That refinement includes reserve between men and women, with special peril to youth and to young men and women just reaching manhood and womanhood as well as to mature men and women. Separation from worldliness and pride is required, for widespread wickedness comes when God's law is disregarded, when the Sabbath is set aside and God's power and love are lost sight of. God's people are therefore to live away from large cities, not to rebuild homes in a city after it has been destroyed, and to flee without delay when danger is recognized, walking in the great light given for salvation amid the wretchedness, deformity and disease that ignorance of proper care of the body has spread.
Those who have the light and truth must live as a testimony and give the warning message, for as the flood came despite unbelief and mockery so a baptism of fire will come despite scoffing, while those who believe and obey will find pardon and shelter. God is compassionate and ready to pardon those who turn, yet those who persist in wickedness and despise His grace will face punishment, and those who have received great light but refuse to live by it are as Sodom's inhabitants. Large cities are deeply wicked like Sodom yet still contain honest souls who may respond, so they must not be abandoned but be given urgent work, including work for palsy-stricken souls through medical missionary work and health reform.