Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #26 of Genesis, chapter 19. We will be reading Genesis 19:17-24:

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. And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord: Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then JEHOVAH rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from JEHOVAH out of heaven;

I will stop reading there. We have come to the point where Lot was outside the city. He had been brought out of the city of Sodom by the two messengers who were God making His appearance as two men. Again, the word “abroad” in verse 17 assures us that Lot was now outside 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.” In the next verse, Lot responded in Genesis 19:18:

And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord:

Now we have an interesting problem or an interesting and apparent contradiction. I do not know if I fully understand this, but I think I am slowly starting to understand. But we can know this: historically, when Lot came out of the city the commandment of the two men (God) was to “escape to the mountains.” We have looked at that before and we see how it agrees with Matthew 24 and other Gospel accounts, regarding Christ’s command when we “see the abomination of desolation” stand in the holy place, then He said in Matthew 24:16:

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

We have understood that parabolic statement, with Judaea being a type of the corporate church and the mountains being as a figure of God Himself. It says in Psalm 125:1:

They that trust in JEHOVAH shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so JEHOVAH is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.

The picture that God has developed in Matthew 24 is to come out of the churches and to go to God. And the way to go to God is to go to the Bible. That is the problem when we read this historical parable because everything seems to fit with the whole idea of the end of the church age and the necessity to flee before it was destroyed. The command of God was to escape to the mountain lest they be consumed. The word “consumed” means to be destroyed. But then Lot responds, “Oh, not so, my Lord.” Lot then acknowledged God’s goodness toward him in Genesis 19:19:

Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life;

So, after he acknowledged the grace and mercy of God in saving his life, but then he said, in Genesis 19:19:

…and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:

Lot is disputing with God. He is arguing with God, in a way, by saying, “Not so, my Lord.” And Lot puts forth another idea in Genesis 19:20:

Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.

That little city was Zoar. Zoar was a city of the plain. There were five cities of the plain of Jordan. There was Admah, Zeboim, Sodom, Gomorrah and Zoar. Zoar was also known as “Bela,” as we saw in Genesis, chapter 14. There were five cities and God had marked all these cities of the plain for destruction, which points to the destruction of God upon the whole world. The whole world is to be destroyed and within the world there is the apostate churches, as pictured by Sodom, and that is where Lot dwelt for a time. But then God, being merciful to him, commanded him to come out because the churches were to be destroyed, along with the world. Of course, we have learned it is spiritual destruction.

This is the situation and, yet, Lot is interceding on behalf of this little city Zoar. We will try to look at this a little later and what it may be teaching. In fact, God hearkened to Lot’s plea that he be allowed to flee to the little city that was near. It says in Genesis 19:21-22:

And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

Curiously, God changed His own plan, so to speak. God is the one that said, “Escape to the mountain.” Normally, God does not make adjustments like this. It is up to His people to make the adjustments and to bend and humble ourselves in submission to the will of God. So, you can see why this is difficult. God had said to escape to the mountains and we can see what that means through other Scriptures and, yet, the Lord seems to pull back on that commandment. We know that later Lot and his two daughters would go to the mountains after all, so this is very curious and very interesting. What was the departure to the little city Zoar all about and why was God so accommodating to Lot by allowing his plea to be accepted? When Lot said, “Not so, my Lord,” and made his plea to go to Zoar, God could have said something like we read in Acts, chapter 10 where the Lord made a major change in His doctrinal program of dealing exclusively with the nation of Israel to sending forth the Gospel to the Gentiles or the nations. To highlight this change in doctrine, God appeared to Peter in a vision. It says in Acts 10:9-16:

On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.

This was done “thrice” or three times, pointing to the purpose of God. But Peter had responded, “Not so, Lord,” just like Lot had responded. God did not hearken to Peter, did He? Peter had said, “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.” Peter was a Jew and God had given commandments regarding the type of animals a Jew could eat and those they could not eat, and Peter obeyed and followed those commandments. That is why he was protesting and rejecting this vision: “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.” But, you see, God was making a major change. He was now going to include the Gentiles as fellowheirs and the church age was being developed, so God did not accept Peter’s rejection: “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.”

We wonder why God did not do the same thing with Lot. Again, it was a command of God: “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.” But Lot responded unto them, “Oh, not so, my Lord,” and then Lot laid out his idea. Then God said unto him, “See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also.” It is a very difficult spiritual picture to understand.

Historically, I think it is a little easier. Apparently, the mountains were further away and that is why Lot was stressing that Zoar was near to flee unto, because it was closer. God had commanded him to go to the mountains and, apparently, the mountains were some distance from Sodom. Remember it was a very urgent command. They were to haste and escape for their lives and get out of the city. As much as God could emphasize the urgency of the matter, He was doing so, but Lot lingered for a time. And, historically, it was probable that Lot wanted to make up for the lost time, realizing that Sodom was soon to be destroyed and, therefore, he was saying, “Let me go to the nearest place. Let me go to this little one, because it is near to flee unto.” Remember what he had said at the end of the verse in Genesis 19:19:

… I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:

The word translated as “take me” is translated once or twice as “overtake” and it has to do with “following hard after” someone. It is the word “cleave” in Genesis 2 where a husband is to cleave unto his wife. When one “cleaves,” one is as close as one can possibly be. So, I think it is just stressing what was in Lot’s mind regarding his fear that the “evil” of the destruction (Judgment Day is an evil day) of Sodom would cleave to him or overtake him if he tried to escape to the mountains because they were distant, and he did not have that kind of time; rather, Zoar was near.

So, historically, I think we are safe in that understanding of why Lot was rejecting the command of the two men (God) and why he put forth another idea of fleeing to Zoar.

There are people that understand to some degree about the end of the church age and, yet, they have taken things a step further (than the Bible allows). They have attempted to be “holier than God” by saying there are not to be fellowships because they are the same thing as the churches. And these people have looked at Genesis, chapter 19 and God’s command to go to the mountains and when Lot determined to go to Zoar, these people conclude, “Zoar is a picture of fellowships. And fellowships are a problem. They should not be.” They are very down on fellowships, for whatever reason.

God has not set in motion any building up of fellowships. EBible Fellowship is the name of this ministry because it is an electronic ministry. The “E” stands for “electronic” and some people mistakenly think we are a “fellowship group,” but the ministry of EBible Fellowship is an electronic ministry in which we fellowship with God through His Word over the electronic medium, and it has nothing to do with a fellowship group, even though we had a fellowship that met weekly for many years. Now we meet in “Day in the Word” once a month, but the fellowship of EBible has nothing to do with that. Again, we are an electronic ministry.

But these people do not like EBible because they do not like the idea that God has shut the door of heaven, so they wrongly think we are a fellowship group. It is really an attempt to say something “bad” that might lead people away from EBible Fellowship by saying there should not be fellowship groups.

But, again, that is not in view in this passage at all. As a matter of fact, if we follow that line of thinking and Zoar was a “type” of fellowships, then it was as though God was accepting and approving them and fellowships would be a place of refuge or deliverance from the wrath of God, because it said about Zoar, in Genesis 19:22-24:

Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then JEHOVAH rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from JEHOVAH out of heaven;

God also destroyed Admah and Zeboim, but He did not destroy the little city Zoar. These people do not realize what they are arguing for because Zoar does not represent fellowships. But if you follow their line of thinking, it would be as if God was establishing fellowships as a place of salvation and refuge from the wrath of God. No – He has not done that. They are just way off base. They have an erroneous understanding in their personal and desperate desire to maintain salvation. They attack a ministry like EBible Fellowship because we continue to proclaim what God caused His people to proclaim to all the earth regarding May 21, 2011 and the shut door of heaven. I do not know what they are thinking in saying that Zoar is a fellowship, because after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah Lot left Zoar to go to the mountains, but he was delivered from the fire and brimstone by being in Zoar. Again, Zoar has nothing to do with fellowship groups.

Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we are going to think more about this historical parable and situation. We have some understanding of why Lot insisted upon Zoar rather than going to the mountains, but, of course, we want to look at the spiritual picture. What could Zoar point to and why was there this delay in fleeing to the mountains? Again, it is very difficult language, but we will try to understand by asking God for help, praying for wisdom that God would grant our request to help us understand these things when we get together in our next Bible study.