Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #44 of Genesis, chapter 19. We are going to read Genesis 19:27-29:

And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before JEHOVAH: And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

We have been spending a lot of time in Genesis, chapter 19, especially on these last few verses, because they are very important. We are looking at a historic account that is (definitely) teaching about our present time, as God’s elect are alive and remaining on the earth during Judgment Day. We are awaiting that last day when God will complete this period of Judgment Day, just as Lot was in Zoar after the fire and brimstone had begun to fall. The smoke was the evidence of the destruction and he was experiencing the smoke as it was “running wild” in the streets of Zoar. So, what we are reading from here to the end of Genesis, chapter 19 has to do with the time after the Great Tribulation, the Day of Judgment.

You may be wondering how Lot and his daughters fleeing from Zoar and going to the mountains (to live in a cave where his daughter will get him drunk, lie with him and have children by him) relate to the Day of Judgment. We will look at that later and we will see it does have to do with Judgment Day, but right now we are looking at Historically, Abraham was in a different location and he was in a position where he could see the plain of Jordan and the smoke as it was rising out of the plain. But, spiritually, he is a picture of God who is watching Judgment Day unfold. He is seeing the results and consequences of His action in shutting the door of heaven and ending His salvation program and then raining down “fires and brimstone and snares,” spiritually, upon the inhabitants of the earth. God is especially concerned with His people who are still here on the earth. How are we going to respond and conduct ourselves during the Day of Judgment? God commands us: “Glorify ye JEHOVAH in the fires.”

What else could this verse in Isaiah 24 possibly mean? How can people glorify JEHOVAH in the fires? The only ones we could look at in the entire Bible that may have fulfilled that statement were Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego; they trusted in God as they were cast into the burning, fiery furnace and they were not burned up in that fire because there was a fourth man with them “like unto the Son of man,” the Lord Jesus. That account also identifies with Judgment Day as it began at the house of God, a picture of God’s protective hand over His people during the Great Tribulation period. And God’s elect did glorify the Lord in that fire that came upon the corporate church. We glorified Him by obeying Him and hearkening to His command to come out of the congregations. Then we glorified Him by carrying the Gospel message to the entire world during the Latter Rain when God saved the great multitude.

But this is not the picture of the Latter Rain or the Great Tribulation. This is a picture that takes place after the Great Tribulation ended and after the day of salvation ended. But God’s people are still on the earth and, again, Lot was present in Zoar as Abraham was looking toward Zoar and Sodom and Gomorrah and all the plain. So, this is evidence of it.

We discussed the smoke, as Abraham beheld it, as it says in Genesis 19:28:

… and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

We saw that this word translated as “smoke” is only found a few times in the Old Testament, but it is derived from a word that is translated as “burn” or “burn incense.” We looked at Leviticus 1 in our last study where this word was translated as “burn.” It was used over 100 times and, in every case, it was related to burning incense or burning a sacrifice. (Sometimes, it was used when people burned incense in their high places unto idols, but it still had to do with burning incense.) That is the meaning of that word, Strong’s #6999. I think we can apply that meaning to what happened as Abraham was beholding the smoke of the country going up as the smoke of a furnace. When smoke is rising, it is going toward heaven and it is as though it is entering into the nostrils of God. You see, eternal God was pleased with the smoke of the sacrifice of Christ on behalf of His people. And He is pleased with the atonement the sinners were making on their own behalf because it satisfies the Law’s demand, whereas the sacrifice of animals never could do so because the sacrifice of an animal could never take away a person’s sins. The sacrifice required is the person’s own blood, if they did not have a Saviour. So, when that sinner died as God took his life in payment for sin, there is satisfaction and it is like the smoke of incense or the smoke of a sacrifice pleasing to God.

We read this same word in Exodus, chapter 30. The word that is related to the word translated as “smoke” in Genesis 19 is used in Exodus 30:6-8:

And thou shalt put it before the vail that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee. And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning: when he dresseth the lamps, he shall burn incense upon it. And when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual incense before JEHOVAH throughout your generations.

It has everything to do with the sacrifice. Remember on the Day of Atonement the high priest would enter into the Holy of holies once a year with incense and it would form a cloud of smoke, making it very hard for him to see anything within the Holy Place.

So, this is the word that is related to our word translated as “smoke.” As I mentioned before when we discussed “salt,” every sacrifice was salted with salt. Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt. We read in Mark 9 of the fire that is not quenched. It says in Mark 9:49:

For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

To be burned up is like being “salted” by the fire itself, which consumes the sacrifice. That is the picture here regarding all the inhabitants of the plain and regarding Lot’s wife. They had become a sacrifice. There was the smoke of their burning. It was not just smoke from buildings and everything else, but the people themselves were burned to death and their smoke was ascending. This was what Abraham beheld: “…and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.”

The reference to the smoke of a furnace is significant. We read of the same thing in the book of Revelation 18, a chapter in which God tells us, _“Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” What does that mean? Historically, Babylon fell at the end of 70 years, which typifies the end of the Great Tribulation. Spiritually, Satan’s kingdom (as represented by Babylon) fell after the 23-year period of the Great Tribulation, which ended on May 21, 2011. Then the things we read about in Revelation 18 began to take place spiritually. God says of this judgment on Babylon in the day of her fall, in Revelation 18:8-10:

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

They shall see the “smoke of her burning.” We also read in Revelation 18:18:

And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!

God’s elect are “seeing” the smoke of Babylon’s burning at this time, as we have come to realize that Babylon is a picture of the kingdom of Satan of this world and God has judged the world with a spiritual judgment, a spiritual fire that is seen through eyes of faith. It is invisible, but it is seen through the faith of God’s people. That is the language of the Bible. We “see” Christ coming on the clouds, as clouds represent the Scriptures and we read of His coming in judgment in the Bible and we “see” the spiritual burning of this world and all the unsaved people of the nations. That is what Babylon pictures.

In the next chapter of Revelation, it says in Revelation 19:1-3:

And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God: For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.

The “great whore” is another reference to Babylon. The “smoke rose up for ever and ever.” We know there is no eternal suffering of the wicked, but we can understand this in one of two ways. It could be as though when God finally destroys by fire the creation, the unsaved, Satan and the fallen angels, the “smoke” is the evidence of the fire, signifying their eternal destruction for evermore. They are destroyed with an eternal destruction and it is as though the smoke is the evidence of the final sacrifice of the wicked. Or, it could be that the “smoke” rises up to for ever and ever, as God will finish everything on the last day and they are completely destroyed with fervent heat up until the start of eternity or to “for ever and ever.” Either way, things are finished at that time and there will be no more troubling of the wicked to the people of God.

Let us look at one more verse. It says in Revelation 14:8:

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

Do you see how God brings the teaching of Babylon’s fall together with the final judgment? We can certainly see it in Revelation 14:10:

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

Were the wicked of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed in the presence of Lot? Yes – in a very real way, because Lot was still in the plain. Is God presently destroying the wicked of the earth in the presence of His holy messengers? Yes – because He has left the elect on the earth in the Day of Judgment.

Then it says in Revelation 14:11:

And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

The smoke ascends up to the point of eternity. “Day and night” is a time reference because it is being carried out in time over the course of this prolonged judgment period.

We also read in Isaiah 34:8-10:

**For it is the day of the JEHOVAH’S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

The smoke is ascending. Again, the smoke of the sacrifice of the atonement of unsaved mankind is rising up to God. Finally, the Law’s demand for justice for the incredible number of offences that mankind has committed against it is being satisfied or appeased. God’s anger is being carried out and upon its completion, there is the “smoke,” a pleasing aroma to God in the sense of the justice it brings.

I will read the next verse in Genesis 19:29:

And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

We just completed a long discussion of what it means to, “Remember Lot’s wife.” It had to do with a deeper, spiritual meaning. But, if you will remember, I mentioned earlier concerning “remembering,” that God remembers His covenant and the promises He has made. This is what is in view when the Bible says, “God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow,” as Abraham had interceded for the righteous. And God did deliver the righteous out of the city of the plain because God did deliver Lot out of the midst of that destruction. God was faithful in remembering Abraham. This reminds us of Luke 1 when the promise was fulfilled regarding the coming of the Messiah and the Virgin Mary was soon to give birth to the Lord Jesus Christ. But, first, God came to Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist and the birth of John was also a miraculous birth because his mother Elisabeth was an old and barren woman. It says in Luke 1:67-75:

And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear,

The oath to Abraham regarded a “seed” and the land of Canaan, which would be an everlasting possession. God visited Zacharias and Elisabeth and gave them a child, John the Baptist, that would be the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then God visited Mary and she conceived a child of the Holy Ghost and the Messiah would finally enter the world to carry out the things that the Word of God had long promised to His people. God was remembering the covenant and the oath to Abraham.

This is the reason in this historical account in Genesis 19, God delivered Lot, who represents the seed of Abraham. Christ is the “seed,” but all those that are saved are counted for the seed in Him. As God delivered Lot, it was as though He was delivering all the seed of Abraham, thereby remembering His promise and oath to Abraham. God is giving us a “mini illustration” of God remembering Abraham by sending Lot “out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.”

Well, all of this covers the “easy part,” as it were, of Genesis, chapter 19. But, coming up in verse 30 to the end of the chapter in verse 38, it gets more difficult. This passage is one I have never understood before and I have never heard anyone explain it, as far as a spiritual meaning. Of course, anyone can explain the historical situation and the historical context, but this is the Bible. Why did God give us this long passage about Lot and his daughters and this unseemly account of incest? What is the point? What is the spiritual purpose behind it? Why is it taking place in the mountain? Was that not the place God told them to go? And when they went to the mountain, why did they dwell in the cave? Why did the daughters get their father drunk on successive nights? Of course, they got him drunk because he would not have allowed them to carry out their plan, so it was necessary to get him drunk. That tells us that Lot was the “righteous one.” Again, he is a type and figure of the elect. He would not have agreed to their plan because their plan was sinful. They were doing evil in committing all kinds of ugly sins and, yet, God has recorded it for us.

I have mentioned this before, but everything that happened after the fire and brimstone began to fall is teaching us about Judgment Day. How can this account regarding incest with a father and bearing children have anything to do with Judgment Day? We will look at this when we get together in our next Bible study.