Lot was a man who lived several hundred years after the great flood, in a city near the Jordon River. That valley was well watered and beautiful, so no doubt the city was pleasant. But the people had become as wicked as the people before the flood.
Lot believed God, but had chosen to live in the wicked city to be near good lands for his cattle (Genesis 13:10, 13). God saw the awful evil of the people and knew the city must be destroyed. He seems not to have given a long warning, like as was given to the people before the flood. But the night before, two angels came and told Lot to bring all his family out of the city, because God had sent them to destroy it.
Lot told his sons-in-law, but they did not believe him, and took it as “mocking” or what would now be called, “a joke.” Even Lot did not hurry to leave, and the angels had to lead him and his wife and two daughters outside the city, and told them to flee to a safe place.
God did not destroy the city by water, but by fire, and it was known by all the people of the countries near as a terrible disaster. Moses and several of the prophets wrote of it, and the ruin and ashes left were a warning against evil deeds (Deuteronomy 29:23; Amos 4:11).
Jesus spoke of this several times to people; here His words are: “As it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.”
The plans of those people for houses and business did not change or stop the judgment of God. Several other wicked places near also were destroyed, there was no escape. Brimstone is sulphur, or like it, and its fumes suffocate people.
Our Just, Not Angry, God
It is written that God “does not afflict willingly,” and to send punishment is His “strange work,” not natural or pleasing to Him, as His to show mercy. He does so only when people know His words and refuse Him, (Lamentations 3:33; Isaiah 28:21; Joshua 10:8-14).
Even in the time of Lot, it is told that God first sent to Sodom to know if the people were as wicked as had been reported (Genesis 18:21).
But when people will not repent of sin, they become worse and worse and lead their children and others with them, as all the people from every part of Sodom, both young and old followed the leaders in wickedness (Genesis 19:4).
Some now think people would not be as wicked as in those days, but the Lord Jesus knew the future time, as He did the past, and He said, “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”
He, the Son of Man, has not been seen on earth for many, many years, but He is to be “revealed,” or seen. People will then be doing things as they please, some sleeping, some working, and those who have not believed God will be taken in judgment. There will be no mistake even in two so close as in the same bed, one will be taken, (Luke 17:34), the other left alive for Christ’s peaceful reign on the earth for 1,000 years which is yet to come.
Further Meditation
1. What is brimstone?
2. Today people like to think of themselves as more sophisticated, intelligent, knowledgeable, and progressive than the men of Lot’s day. In what ways are we very similar in moral character to the men and women of that day?
3. A solemn but necessary booklet on the history of Sodom and its parallels with our day can be found in The Last Night of Sodom and of Christendom by C. E. Lunden.