Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #11 of Genesis, chapter 19. I will read Genesis 19:4-9:

But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

I will stop reading there. In our last couple of studies, we have been looking at the historical circumstances on that day long ago in the year 2068 B.C. Now we are living well over four thousand years later. And here we are in our present day, reading this ancient book, the Bible, and this ancient account where God came to the city of Sodom in the form of “two angels” or two messengers. The men entered in to Lot’s house and then the wicked men of Sodom compassed the house round. And we are daring to say that this applies to our day, even though this happened over four thousand years ago. Moses was inspired to scribe these things at some time after the exodus, which would have been about thirty-four hundred years ago. But we dare to say that God knew full well that He had our day in mind. God’s mind is infinite and boundless. We have severe limitations regarding our own minds, because we are creatures. God, the Creator, has no such limitations. From everything we can tell, there is no limitation on the brilliant and infinite mind of Almighty God. So, yes, we dare to say that God, in a very calculated way, controlled and organized the circumstances and events to happen as they did, even in the case of these wicked men who only had evil in their minds as they compassed Lot’s house round.

We do not know anything about Lot’s house. We do not what kind of house it was or what it was made of or how big it was. We do not know if it was a house by itself or if he had other neighbors. We are not told anything a about his house and it is not important, but all we know is that Lot’s house was compassed round about by these wicked men. Again, God (who knows the end from the beginning) allowed Lot’s house to be compassed about to draw a spiritual picture, such as what we found in Revelation, chapter 20 and Luke, chapters 19 and Luke 21. It says in Revelation 20:7-9:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

If you have been following along in this study series, you are correct if you believe that the historical event in Genesis 19 was orchestrated in that way by God to teach, spiritually, about Satan’s loosing at the end of time and what would then happen to the churches and congregations of the world, so Lot’s house became another “figure,” and the city of Sodom became a figure of the apostate church at the end of time.

God was in the house with righteous Lot, but now Lot’s house was being compassed round, which can only be a picture of Jerusalem or the house of God, both of which typify the New Testament churches and congregations.

There are so many “types and figures” in the Bible and the Bible is a spiritual language that must be learned. First, we must have the indwelling Spirit of God to enable us to interpret spiritual language, because the spiritual language of the Bible is God’s language; God’s Spirit speaks this language. And who can know the mind of God? No one can know the Spirit of God except the Spirit of God, so it is required that God’s Spirit must help us to discern and understand what God is saying on a spiritual level. The Holy Spirit guides the elect children of God in to all truth and He does so by teaching us the language of the kingdom of heaven, the spiritual language of God.

And how do you teach the spiritual language of God? Again, a prerequisite is that you must be “spiritual,” through salvation and have spiritual life in your soul and the indwelling Holy Spirit. Then you have been qualified to learn the spiritual language of the kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit teaches in a similar way to how we teach children an earthly language. In the case of English, we teach them the letters of the alphabet and then we teach them words. We say to children, “That is a tree. T-R-E-E.” We identify the word with what the word represents. Then they began to learn and when we say the word “tree,” they comprehend what a tree is, and so forth.

God teaches us through parables. Obviously, that is why Jesus spoke in parables and without a parable He did not speak. He was instructing us in the language of the kingdom of heaven. If you want to learn the things of God and the will of God, you must learn the language of the Bible. Therefore, when we read the Bible, we look for words that are defined in a spiritual way. For example, we learn the definition of a “rock” in the Bible, as we read in 1Corinthians 10:4: “…and that Rock was Christ.” That is a spiritual definition: the rock equals Christ. Or, we can look at the word “water” and we can see how it relates to the Gospel, and so forth. We go slowly through the Bible and we find spiritual definitions for the words. The word “Jerusalem” could be the earthly Jerusalem or Jerusalem above or it could be the eternal church or the corporate church. The word “house” could be “house of God.” Mountains can represent kingdoms, whether it is the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Satan.

As we learn the spiritual definitions, we grow in grace and the knowledge of God. And it helps us when we read things like Matthew 24:15 where it says, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place.” We know the Bible defines the “holy place” in this context as the corporate church; the “abomination of desolation” is Satan. Then we read in Matthew 24:15 where it says, “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains,” and we know that Judea represents the corporate church and the mountains represent the kingdom of God, the Word of God, the Bible, which is the lone representative of the kingdom of God now that the church age is over.

So, we see all these “types and figures” in the Bible and we are seeing another set of types and figures in this passage in Revelation, chapter 20. Satan has been loosed and he gathered together the nations together and then it said in Revelation 20:9:

And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city:

We wonder why it says, “the camp of the saints.” Let us turn to Hebrews 13:10-13:

We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

Twice the word “camp” is used here in Hebrews 13. In both instances, it can only identify with “Jerusalem,” because it specifically mentions that Jesus went forth “without the camp.” It says of Him, “that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.” Historically, where did Jesus suffer in that demonstration of His atonement? It was outside the gate or the walls of Jerusalem and, therefore, since we are to go forth unto Him without the camp, it means we are to go forth out of Jerusalem, bearing His reproach. So, when we read in Revelation 20 of Satan’s loosing and compassing of “the camp of the saints about,” it is the beloved city, Jerusalem. It is very interesting how God says this in Hebrews 13:13: “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.” It is interesting because at the time of the end, this was exactly what God commanded us to do: “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.” We were to go out of Judaea or out of Jerusalem, which typifies the corporate church, and go to the mountains because Satan had overcome the churches. Look at what it says regarding the “two witnesses,” a representation of the witness of God, the Bible, within the churches, in Revelation 11:7:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies “shall lie” in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

This is what we read in Revelation 20, regarding Satan coming up out of the bottomless pit and coming against the camp of the saints. Do you see how all these passages tie together? Satan was loosed and he compassed the camp of the saints round about. The camp of the saints is “Jerusalem” and Jerusalem is where our Lord was crucified. Here, God makes another tie-in back to Sodom and Egypt, because it is all teaching the same thing: the end of the church age and the time of the end of the world. At that time we received the command that came forth from the Word of God, the Bible, as God opened the Scriptures to reveal much truth to His people and opened our understanding. We saw that the abomination was in the “holy place.” Satan had overcome the camp of the saints and we had to depart out and flee the churches and go out into the world. This has already happened, and we are now living in those days after that Tribulation, or after that 23 years of judgment on the churches and congregations. So, we have a very good vantage point to understand these things because we have already lived through that time.

This is the situation, spiritually, as the wicked men of Sodom compassed the house round about. Then, curiously, it says in Genesis 19:5:

And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

They were not speaking face-to-face with Lot; Lot was inside the house. They were round about the house. Lot was with the two men inside, so these wicked men were yelling through the door, “Where are these men? Bring them out!” They did not have bullhorns or electronic sound systems, so they must have been yelling loudly. This was all happening at night and it must have been utter chaos in the city of Sodom. Apparently, no one even took note that all the men of the city had encompassed the house and were yelling at the top of their lungs for Lot to bring the men out to them. Then it says in Genesis 19:6-7:

And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

He left the safety of his house and went out his door. I suppose he would have been in the street. There, he attempted to have a rational discussion and reason with these men that they should not do this evil thing. They would not listen. This was a time when the evil people of Sodom had “shut their ears.” They were given over to their iniquity and they had no ability to listen to reason as they went after their lusts. You know, when you are caught up in lust and you are in the ugly passion of it, you do not have time to talk to people or care about any sense they may make – you just want your evil desire fulfilled. And that was the terrible situation in the city of Sodom.

You know, if anyone wonders why God ended the church age and why He called His people out of the churches and congregations of the world, just look at what was going on in Sodom. It is a parable that illustrates very well the spiritual condition of the churches of the world at the time of the end. It was as ugly as anything could be.

Lord willing, in our next Bible study we will pick up this idea and see how the men of the city came near to break the door and what spiritual meaning is illustrated.