Answers to the Questions on Page 593

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 8
 
In Genesis 19 where we find the account of the destruction by fire and the rescue of Lot, only two cities are mentioned as being destroyed—Sodom and Gomorrah. We learn from Deuteronomy 29:23 however, that there were four cities destroyed; they were Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim. These cities were notorious for their moral corruption and wickedness and, after much forbearance and long-suffering, God destroyed them with fire from heaven. We learn from Abraham’s intercession in Genesis 18 that there were not ten righteous persons there, even with Lot and his family as residents.
In Luke 18 we learn that the moral characteristics of the world that was destroyed by the flood in Noah’s day, and of the cities destroyed by fire in Lot’s day, will be again developed “in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.” When the Lord comes back with His saints to execute judgment on the world it will have fully ripened for judgment. We see corruption and violence increasing in the world now and we know that these will get worse and worse. How needful it is that the child of God should “keep himself unspotted from the world”!
One city that was marked out for the fire in Lot’s day was spared—Zoar, meaning “little.” Lot interceded for it because he wished to live in it. He did not want to go to the mountain as he was instructed to do. Abraham had enjoyed sweet communion with God in a high place overlooking the cities of the plain; to such an elevation Lot was afraid to go. Poor man! And yet he pictures many a saint of God who has gotten into the world and away from God. His soul becomes barren and in a time of trouble he even fears a place where another enjoyed communion with God. Lot even then clung to some little part of that defiled world, only to find it did not satisfy, for “he feared to dwell in Zoar.” Surely Lot’s history stands out as a beacon to warn us against the dangers of drifting into the world.