Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #23 of Genesis, chapter 19. We are going to read Genesis 19:15-17:

And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; JEHOVAH being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

We are continuing our study in the book of Genesis and going, verse by verse, through this book. We have come to chapter 19 and we are spending some time looking at the historical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain.

We have seen how this relates to God’s destruction of the corporate church when judgment began at the house of God. We have also looked at some of the language here, like verse 6 where God commanded Lot to get out, lest he be consumed in the iniquity of that city, but Lot lingered. We considered why it would be that a faithful and righteous man like Lot would have tarried in the face of such an urgent command.

Then we saw in the New Testament where God issued the command to flee out of the corporate churches at the time of the Great Tribulation and we read in Luke 17:31-32:

In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot’s wife.

We saw that the Greek word translated as “stuff” is the same word translated as “vessel” in Romans 9 where God speaks of vessels of honour and vessels of dishonour, referring to people. We also saw in 1Peter 3 that the Lord speaks of a wife as the “weaker vessel.” The word “vessel” is the same word as “stuff.” After Luke 17 said not to return to the house to get your “stuff,” the Lord said, “Remember Lot’s wife.” The context is clear. It has to do with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

We speculated a little bit, because God did not give us all the information about how long Lot lingered before he came out of the city or what he was doing during that time. But it is likely that he was speaking to his family – his daughters that married the sons in law or to his wife, as he attempted to assure them it was the right thing to do. He was speaking to all his family. His “stuff” or “vessel” was in the city Sodom. I think that this is why Lot lingered.

Remember that the two men were God, as He made an appearance as two men. Again, it said in Genesis 19:16:

And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters…

We can picture this. One of the two men reached out and grabbed Lot’s hand and the hand of his wife. The other man grabbed the hand of Lot’s daughters. They had them in their hands; that is, God had them in His hands. In the Bible, the “hand” and the “foot” represent the will of a person. When God says, “Turn thy foot,” He means to “turn your will.” Or, when He says, “Remove thy hand,” it has to do with removing our will from a situation. When God takes hold of a person’s hand, it indicates He has taken hold of their “will” and moving them “to will and to do of his good pleasure,” as it says in Philippians 2:13:

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Another way to illustrate this and picture the fact that God works within His people to will and to do of His good pleasure is to say that God “grabs your hand.” Once the hand of Lot, his wife and his daughters were grabbed, they left the city. Notice that they did not grab the hands of the sons in law or the two daughters married to those men. Everyone whose hand God grabbed hold of did leave the city of Sodom, because they were doing so under the operation of the will of God for them. Everyone whose hands they did not reach out and grab hold of did not leave the city before its destruction. It indicates the will of God regarding those that did leave the church at the time of the end of the church age when God issued forth His command from the Bible to depart out of the midst. There were those that came out and those that stayed behind.

What is the difference between the two groups? Were the ones that came out wiser and more in-tune spiritually? In one sense, those that came out were wiser, if they were one of God’s elect. And all of God’s elect did come out of the churches and congregations. But there were also many people that came out of the corporate church, but they were not saved individuals. God’s hand is also in that matter, even though He had not saved them. However, God did operate in some individuals to be obedient in this area, although it was not obedience that came forth from a regenerated heart. But everyone that God did not grab hold of (and move them to will and to do of His good pleasure by coming out of the churches) remained and would not leave the churches and congregations. They stayed right where they were, and they were convinced that the whole idea that the church age could ever end was from Satan and not from God: “We have our church tradition and the churches have been here for almost two thousand years. All the Reformers were part of our church and no one ever taught that there would be a time we would have to come out of the churches at the end of time. This is some ridiculous idea that came forth from Family Radio and Mr. Camping. And, you know, Mr. Camping spiritualizes everything, and he reads too much in to the Bible. He developed his own gospel program.”

Of course, these people were completely wrong about all that. It was not of Satan. It was of God. It was not some other kind of gospel. It was the true Gospel. It was not a wrong methodology to look for deeper, spiritual meaning. It was the right methodology and it was a Biblical methodology taught by the Lord Jesus Christ when He taught in parables. It is the methodology of the Bible and that can be proven, again, and again, in the Bible.

What it came down to was that these people trusted in their churches and the traditions of the churches and their creeds and confessions. They trusted these things over and above the Word of God. And many of them never bothered to check the Scriptures to see if what they were hearing about the end of the church age and the command to flee out of the midst was true, or not. It was enough for them that their pastor preached against it: “He is a faithful man. Listen to how he speaks of election, and so forth. If he is against the idea of the end of the church age and our entire denomination is against it, including many other pastors that are against it, then it must be right, and I should not listen to these things. I will stay right where I am.” But what it boils down to is what we read here in Genesis 19:16:

… the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; JEHOVAH being merciful unto him…

God was merciful unto Lot, His righteous servant. You see, it boils down to the mercy of God. In other words, if God was not merciful to Lot, what would the Lord have done? He would have left him in the city of Sodom. He would have left Lot, his wife and his daughters. God could have come to the city and destroyed it immediately, because that was His plan. But Abraham had interceded to God for the sake of the righteous in the city and God had mercy upon His righteous servant, representing the few elect. All we can really prove that were saved out of Sodom was Lot himself. We know his wife was not saved and we even have serious question about his two daughters. But as they came out of Sodom, they were just a small remnant of a few people that were typifying God’s elect that God had mercy upon.

Now we are living on the earth in the Day of Judgment after God has already finished with the corporate church; He has already carried out the 23-year judgment on the churches and He has bundled those in the churches as tares for the burning. All the elect came out prior to May 21, 2011. Not everyone that came out of the churches were elect, but all the elect within the churches did come out. Now we find ourselves outside of the churches, alive and remaining in the world as God carries out the prolonged period of judgment on all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth.

We are hearing reports about individuals that came out of the churches. They may have come out the same time we did, or we met them later on tract trips or at a Bible conference. They had been completely on board and they seemed to have as much understanding as we did. They used to talk about how wonderful it was that they came out of the churches and what a blessing it was, but now we are hearing that some of these same people have gone back to the churches. We are hearing about it less and less, because many had already returned. As time goes on, there is a greater and greater “refining” and the dross is being purged from the silver and the gold is being purified. It is the elect that are enduring to the end and many that clung by flatteries have fallen off and gone back to the churches. But, occasionally, we still hear of someone else that has gone back.

What the Lord is saying here has not changed: “JEHOVAH being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.” God’s act of mercy was bringing His people out of the city Sodom, which we have seen points to the corporate church. It was merciful of God to do this thing on our behalf and to deliver us from a “city” that was marked for destruction. It was a city in which everyone would be killed. Historically, this was true for the people of Sodom. And, spiritually, it is true for the people in the corporate churches. But there are people going back there. What does that mean? God was merciful in bringing people out and setting them without the city, but with the passage of time and their lack of spiritual sight to understand the nature of Judgment Day, they have returned to the churches. That act of mercy is being despised. That act of mercy that they believed had been applied to them as they came out of the churches is now being despised and disdained in their sight. They have gone back to the churches, which indicates they are no longer experiencing the mercy of God. They have left the area in which God had shown them mercy “without the city” and they returned to that area of the falling “fire and brimstone” and the wrath of God.

You see, they did not endure to the end, which would have shown they were saved and had truly received the mercy of God. But God had never pardoned them by making payment for their sins at the foundation of the world. They are like those that say they believe and profess to be a Christian, but it is proven by their conduct and their lack of understanding of the Word of God, the Bible, and their trampling on the faithful doctrines of the Scriptures that they never had obtained mercy. Likewise, their failure to wait upon the Lord and to endure “hardness” as good soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ and their failure to endure sound doctrine and wait for God to carry out this prolonged judgment period is evidence that God never had mercy upon them. They are returning to a place that is under the judgment of God, because they themselves are under the judgment of God.

We are living in a time when no one can “fake it” like the situation was during the church age when the wheat and tares grew together. We could not pull up the tares because we might have pulled up some wheat, so God determined both should grow together (in the churches), but that time is over. God will make certain that it is only His people that are left standing before His judgment seat. It will only be His people that will endure these trials and tribulations and grievous afflictions in the spiritual realm. They will endure to the end, thus proving they are saved.

Lord willing, in our next Bible study, we will come back to this same passage. This is very important and enlightening information that really explains a lot about God’s grace that was bestowed upon us when He brought us out of the corporate churches that were under the wrath of God.