Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #45 of Genesis, chapter 19. We are going to read Genesis 19:30-38:

And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. nd the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

I will stop reading there. This passage brings us to the end of the chapter. We have been carefully going through Genesis 19 because it has a lot to do with our present time. As we know, we are living in the Day of Judgment and the Lord Jesus referred to the destruction of Sodom, as well as the destruction of the flood in the days of Noah, in Luke, chapter 17. Then He added, “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” This reveals to us that it has everything to do with the Great Tribulation and Judgment Day, the time of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God and the revelation of Christ as the Judge of all the earth.

When God went to Sodom, appearing as two men to forewarn Lot, Lot then warned his family regarding approaching judgment, and we saw that this had to do with God’s judgment on the corporate church. Sodom was used as a type and figure of the churches and congregations of the world. The command to get out of the city and flee to the mountains related to God’s command to leave the corporate church during the Great Tribulation. We spent a lot of time on that and we understand it very well.

From that point, Lot, his wife and two daughters left the city and entered into Zoar, after Lot interceded on behalf of Zoar, pleading that God will allow him to go to that little city. We saw that Zoar was being used as a city of refuge, a city that pointed to salvation. God had told Lot to haste and get into the city because He could do nothing until Lot had entered Zoar. As soon as Lot entered Zoar, God began to rain down fire and brimstone from heaven, which identifies with the beginning of Judgment Day on the whole world. At that point, the corporate church had been (utterly) destroyed. The 23-year Great Tribulation was a time when the elect could come out of the churches, but after the 23 years (8400 days) had passed, it was too late to come out of the churches because the eternal condition of all mankind was fixed and cannot be changed. So, the destruction of Sodom and the other cities of the plain identifies with the grievous destruction that fell on the corporate church and the entire world. The plain of Jordan pictures the whole world and the corporate church is now part of the world, so the fire and brimstone destroyed both the churches and the world, spiritually.

Historically, it literally destroyed all the cities of the plain, with the exception of the little city Zoar, which was near Sodom, and this was the reason Lot wanted to flee there. After the two men had told him to flee to the mountain, he had spent time tarrying as he tried to convince the rest of his family to leave. Finally, God took him by the hand and literally dragged him out of the city; it points to God moving Lot in his will to come out of the city. But because he felt that judgment was now close at hand, he needed to go to a near location. Again, Zoar points to God’s elect, the remnant of the whole of mankind that is out in the world. God’s elect came out of the churches and the great multitude was among the nations of the world outside of the corporate church and, therefore, Zoar was spared, along with all its inhabitants. It points to the fact that when God shut the door of heaven and “darkened the sun” on that Day of Judgment that began on May 21, 2011, it did not harm any of God’s elect, spiritually. They had found refuge in Christ and Zoar typifies this.

We do not know the exact geography of the plain of Jordan. As far as I know, we do not have a map of where these cities were located. All we know is that these five cities were in the plain of Jordan and the plain may have been banked by mountains on a couple sides. All we read is that Lot was to flee to the mountain. There was a large area of the plain where people had built their homes and these five cities sprung up. The fire and brimstone fell from heaven directly upon the plain. It destroyed Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, but it did not destroy Zoar. It is incredible that the Lord could send down fire and brimstone from heaven upon the entire plain, but it misses the little city Zoar that was near Sodom. This little city was spared. We can be sure that no fire and brimstone fell upon that city. Not even a “stray” piece of brimstone fell within the city limits of Zoar. In other words, God had a built-in targeting system for the fire and brimstone – it was falling only upon those He determined it should fall upon. It did not fall on the others that He had decided to spare because of Lot’s presence in the little city. Again, that would point to the Lord Jesus, the “righteous One,” making many righteous and sparing them from the final destruction. That is incredible. Just try to imagine if it were rain or snow falling from heaven in your local tri-city area. All around there is heavy snow, but there is not even a flake of snow that fell in one of the locations. It is incredible that Zoar was spared the fire and brimstone, but the smoke would have been intense. It would have bellowed through the streets of Zoar, perhaps from every direction, making it a very fearful place to be in.

So, again, this is after the effects of the fire and brimstone were occurring. We must understand that when Abraham saw the smoke rising as the smoke of the furnace, Lot and his two daughters were still in Zoar. Lot feared to dwell there because of the effects of the destructive fire and brimstone, which spiritually points to what God did on the beginning Day of Judgment. We have learned that Judgment Day is not just a day, but a prolonged period of time. But it had to have a beginning point and May 21, 2011 was that beginning point. The elect, like Lot, are alive and remaining on the earth in the Day of Judgment. We have looked at verses like we find in Isaiah 26, where it says that the whole earth is burned and “few men left.” The “few men” are the elect, that great multitude. We can find a few verses that say the same thing.

Here we are in the aftermath of that grievous and terrible day of JEHOVAH that has fallen after God had warned of it for thousands of years. Now it has come to pass. That the evil day, the great day of the Lord and day of the wrath of God has come. And we are left here to deal with the consequences. We are going through the smoke of the burning, spiritually, just as Lot and his family experienced it historically. We are trying to go, day by day, in this world and looking to the Word of God, the Bible, while trusting in the Lord and waiting patiently for Him. At the same time, it is the most horrible circumstance imaginable. No one in history has had the experience what we are now experiencing.

It had always been the work the people of God to be watchmen and to warn others of that approaching day. It had always been a future event and something that was coming, but that is no longer the case. Now it has happened, and we have this vantage point that no one in the history of the world has ever had before. Lot had a historical vantage point of having lived after the physical destruction. And Noah had the historical vantage point of having gone through the difficult trial of living on the ark for about a year after the flood; then he came out of the ark to live on a “new earth,” as it were. But those were historical situations that always pointed to our present day. Those judgments impacted people. In the case of the cities of the plain, perhaps it was thirty thousand people, but we do not know the number. The impact of the destruction of the flood affected a handful of millions, at most. And today we have one city in the world that has a greater population than the number of people living on the earth in the days of Noah.

God set up these historical parables to instruct us and to illustrate what would happen when the “real” final judgment of mankind would arrive and impact the greatest number of people. We know that Judgment Day came when there were about seven billion people living on the earth. Out of that number, God possibly saved as many as 150 million or 175 million people. We do not know exactly, but it was a great multitude when viewed singularly, but compared to seven billion, it was a tiny remnant.

This is why God had taken so much care to hide these things until the time of the end, because at the time of the end there would be the largest number of people living on the earth and the majority of the elect would also be living on the earth at that time. Therefore, just due to the numbers of people, it was a more urgent and important time than at any other time in the world. So, God had in mind our present time when He wrote Genesis 19, and then He opened the understanding of His people to the deeper spiritual truth and the hidden mysteries we now see in Genesis 19 and in many other parts of the Bible.

Also, we see Lot’s experience with his two daughters as they found themselves in Zoar and the smoke was so frightening. They were so close to the judgment. They could probably have gone to the gate of the city and seen the fire still burning or they may have looked out a window and seen the fire and experienced the smoke. It was as if all the world had been destroyed, except for them.

In a real sense, in the spiritual realm this was what God did when He shut the door of heaven; He sealed the eternal fate of everyone. For all intents and purposes, God has destroyed all the wicked of the earth. It is just a matter of time until this prolonged period of judgment gives way to physical destruction through the annihilation of all the unsaved on the last day.

But, again, there is an intermediate stage from the time of the beginning of the judgment until the end of this prolonged Judgment Day. Here we are. What are we to do? We had been given much insight and direction from God regarding what we were to be doing during the Great Tribulation. I am sure you can tell me what the elect child of God was to do. We were to come out of churches and flee to the mountains. Lord willing, we may look at that in our next Bible study and review some of these verses. We understood that we were to go to God and His kingdom, as signified by the Bible – we were to go to the Bible. We were to leave the churches and find our refuge in the Bible. God’s people did so. As we clung to the Word of God, we were given instruction and direction. We saw that there was the great multitude and the Gospel must go forth to sound the alarm and warn the people by blowing the trumpet. God worked it out and we had almost step-by-step knowledge of what we were to do in that time period.

But what are we to do after May 21, 2011, after Judgment Day has begun? Where are we to go? In Genesis 19, what was the first thing that happened after the fire and brimstone began to fall? Lot’s wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt. So, the first thing we know not to do is that we are not to go back to the churches or we will die. To put it plainly, as God has done, if we go back to the churches we will die: “Remember Lot’s wife.” Jesus emphasized that in Luke 17. So, that tells us what we are not to do, but what are we to do? This is the reason God caused Lot to fear and make this decision, in Genesis 19:30:

And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

This was the time after the fire and brimstone was falling and, surprisingly, this reference to the “mountain” comes back in to view. We thought this was settled earlier when God commanded him to go to the mountain, but Lot interceded for Zoar. But now there is no more salvation program and there is no more need to plea for the “little city.” There is no more desperate flight for safety. There is only the fact of living on the earth in the Day of Judgment, a time when we are to go to the mountain. So, God is reiterating the command given during the Great Tribulation when He commanded us to come out of the churches and flee to the mountains. But now when we find ourselves out in the world after judgment has fallen and the door of heaven is shut, the identical command is issued: Go to the mountains.