Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #34 of Genesis, chapter 19. We are continuing to read Genesis 19:23-25:

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; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

We have been looking at Psalm 11, Luke 21 and Isaiah 30. We saw in Psalm 11:6 where God gives us a sort of “red flag” to warn us to watch out for the spiritual meaning of His words.

For example, when Christ spoke to His disciples and He said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,” they wondered if it was because they had forgotten to bring bread. They were thinking on a natural level. Then Christ asked them how it was that they did not understand: “How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?” Just because the Bible does not “advertise” in every instance that it is written in parables, the entire Bible is a parable. In a sense, God has told us because He has done this with the whole Bible – it is all parabolic and it all contains hidden truth.

So, too, this is the case with the “fire and brimstone.” Genesis 19 is a historical parable. By using the word “snares” (in conjunction with “fire and brimstone”) in Psalm 11:6, God is reminding us of this fact as He expects us to compare Scripture with Scripture. When we are reading about “brimstone,” a good rule of thumb is to look up this word in other parts of the Bible, comparing spiritual with spiritual. When we look at the word “brimstone,” it leads us to Isaiah 30:33 where God says that His breath is “like a stream of brimstone.” The Scriptures are God-breathed. The Word of God, the Bible, is the fire and the brimstone. It is the judgment that falls on the world. There is no outward, literal fire falling from heaven or literal, visible brimstone falling from heaven. It is falling from heaven in the sense that the Bible comes down from God above and the Bible is judging the world. The Bible is condemning the world.

First, it is the Bible that told us about the “open door” of times and seasons of salvation. It is the Bible that opens doors and it is the Bible that closes doors. So, God opened up the Scriptures to reveal that He would save a great multitude of people during the second part of the Great Tribulation, which was also known as the Latter Rain period. He would bring in the final fruits in that last harvest. The saving of the great multitude was due to that great open and effectual door – that was how they were brought into the kingdom of heaven.

Second, it is the same Bible that told us that the door was shut. There would be no more seasons of rain. There would be no more seasons of fruit. The rain had fallen, and the precious fruit of the earth had been brought in, insofar as the saving of souls is concerned. All to become saved had become saved. There are no more times and seasons of rain or looking for fruit.

It is over and done with and now God turns His attention…however that works. I do not know how that works. In various times and seasons, people have read the Bible and it has indicated a certain path or a certain truth that is appropriate and fitted to that certain time and season. That information comes down from above in its proper time and season. When the time and season changes, a person could continue to follow something like offering animal sacrifices, but the New Testament era was ushered in and Christ fulfilled all sacrifices, so then different information comes down from above and is channeled through the Word of God, the Bible, to the reader and through God’s Spirit interpreting the meaning as the reader compares spiritual with spiritual. God opens the understanding of the mind of that individual concerning right doctrine (for that time and season). These things are above us, as God’s thoughts are much higher than our thoughts and His ways than our ways. How He operates and works all these things out is just incredible to even think about; and I am sure we are only able to grab hold of little bit of how God operates in these areas as He channels truth according to the time and season. Then He directs His people in understanding that truth, especially when a major change in program has been made.

So, when God shut the door of heaven on May 21, 2011, He began to reveal these things to His elect children as we came to the Bible in those days after that Tribulation. As we read and studied the Word of God in a proper way by the comparison of Scriptures and by the harmonization of Scriptures, then the information started to come forth from above – it rained down.

When God speaks of rain, we see in Deuteronomy 32:1-2:

Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:

His doctrine shall drop as the rain. I think this is one of the reasons that God used the same word for “rain” in the raining down of fire and brimstone as He used for the rain of the flood: “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” It is the same word for “rain,” whether it referred to water or to fire. It is the same word whether it refers to grace or judgment. It is the word God used to point us to the Latter Rain and the salvation of the great multitude. It is the word God used in connection with “fire and brimstone” to point us to the wrath of God and a time of no salvation. But, you see, it all comes from above. It always involves that which comes from above.

A little earlier I mentioned that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts. That statement is found in Isaiah 55:8-11:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith JEHOVAH. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

God’s Word is like the rain. God said His breath was like brimstone. The Word of God is the brimstone. The Word of God is the fire: “Our God is a consuming fire,” as we read in Hebrews. Who is our God? It says in John 1:1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Then it says in John 1:14:

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…

The Word is God. Christ is the Word. Christ is God and our God is “a consuming fire.” The Word of God, the Bible is a “fire.” The Word of God, the Bible, is “brimstone” and it is coming down from above.

So, as it says in our verse in Genesis 19:24:

Then JEHOVAH rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from JEHOVAH out of heaven;

In other words, we must remove ourselves from the physical picture. We read of “fire and brimstone” and we can just see the molten lava falling from the sky. But step back and look objectively at what the Bible is saying. The Bible is saying that on a spiritual level the “fire and brimstone” is when the decree comes down from above that God’s judgment is upon the earth. When God determines, in His program of times and seasons, that it is Judgment Day, from that point on it is the Word of God, the Bible, and the things it reveals that are the “fire and brimstone” that is falling upon the inhabitants of the earth. It is a “fire and brimstone” that is destroying the whole earth.

That is the picture here as we go on to read Genesis 19:25:

And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

He overthrew those four cities out of five. The city of Zoar was not overthrown, but four cities were destroyed. The number “four” would point to universality or the four points of the compass – North, South, East and West – or the whole world. He overthrew the plain of Jordan, which also pictures the whole world. He overthrew all the inhabitants of the cities, representing all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth. Billions of people are in view in what this spiritually points to.

Then it says, “and that which grew upon the ground.” That statement almost slips by us. We should keep that in mind when we are reading a verse. We should not think, “I will just look at the main words in a verse. I will look up the main words and not look up the other words. I get the main idea and I do not have to go in to any more detail.” We are naturally lazy when it comes to spiritual things; we are in our physical bodies and in our bodies, we want to get away from the Bible, a spiritual book, as much as possible. Even when we are trying to “bring the body under,” by the grace of God, we still must guard against laziness and taking the short cut. We should look up every word.

So, when we see that God added, “and that which grew upon the ground,” it is not incidental. It is a very important statement that is expanded upon in Deuteronomy 29 where God refers to a disobedient people that have provoked Him to anger. It says in Deuteronomy 29:22-24:

So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which JEHOVAH hath laid upon it; And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which JEHOVAH overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath: Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath JEHOVAH done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?

Historically, we understand this is referring to Judah. Did God ever pour out “fire and brimstone” on the land of Judah or upon Israel in the North that was also apostate and unfaithful? I do not think we read about that in the Bible. We read about Sodom and the cities of the plain, but we do not read anywhere that God literally poured out “fire and brimstone” upon His disobedient people. And, yet, it says here: “And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein.” I do not think anyone can find a verse or passage that indicates that God literally poured out “fire and brimstone” on rebellious Judah or the city of Jerusalem. And, yet, it says He will do it. He never did it historically and, yet, the judgment that He brought upon them was by removing Himself from Israel in the North and allowing them to be destroyed by the Assyrians; and by removing Himself from Judah in the South and allowing them to be destroyed by the Babylonians. Then God rent the veil of the temple in twain at the time of the cross and He removed Himself from Israel and they were no longer His representatives to the world. God brought “fire and brimstone” upon the institution of the nation of Israel. He brought judgment. That judgment upon Israel points to the judgment on the corporate church at the time of the end. God did not rain down literal “fire and brimstone” upon the churches and congregations, but He did so spiritually through His Word.

We also see another very important truth in Deuteronomy 29:23:

And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning…

When something experiences that kind of trauma or catastrophe, it goes on to say, in Deuteronomy 29:23:

…that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim…

In other words, there is no more sowing of seed. There is no more growing of fruit or even grass in a land that has experienced “fire and brimstone.” Nothing can be grown upon it. Why is that significant? Well, to what does the Bible liken God’s salvation program? Just read the parable of the sower in Mark 4 or Matthew 13. The sower went forth to sow and it is likened to the sowing of the Word of God upon the hearts of men. But when the fire and brimstone falls (Judgment Day), there is no more sowing in the land. It affects the whole world. Judgment Day has come upon all the earth and it is not to be sown any longer.

Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will look at what God has in view when He says that He overthrew that which grew upon the ground. We will look at this verse in Deuteronomy that explains that we cannot go about business as usual and we cannot think, “Well, we will just keep sharing the Gospel like we always have and encourage people to go to God and cry for mercy and maybe God will save because we are just sowing seed.” No – we cannot do that any longer.