SODOM AND GOMORRAH
CHRISTIANITY OASIS HAS PROVIDED YOU WITH THIS SODOM AND GOMORRAH STUDY. SODOM AND GOMORRAH IS ONE OF THE MOST FRIGHTENING STORIES IN THE BIBLE. MOST HAVE HEARD OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH BUT ARE WE AWARE OF THE TRAGIC EVENTS THAT FELL UPON THE SINFUL SODOM AND GOMORRAH AND THE TRUTH OF WHY THEY WERE DESTROYED. LET US SEEK THE TRUTH OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH TOGETHER, SHALL WE?

BOOK OF GENESIS

CHAPTER 19

            HEY, LOOK WHO IS BACK ... So good to have you back again to join me in our Daily Bread Bible Study.  We will be looking into the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Just the names Sodom and Gomorrah raise the brow and bring up the guard of those familiar with the places. As we look in on Lot, Abraham’s nephew, we find him sitting at the gate of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The “gate” is a term used for the entrance of the city.  While sitting there, the two angels who were with Jesus visiting Abraham, in our last episode, arrive just as it turns evening.  When Lot sees them, he gets up to meet them and invites them to his house to stay the night.

            The angels turn down the offer and say that they’ll remain in the street all night.  Lot, having lived in the city for some time and knowing about the evil of the place, pleads with these two strangers to reconsider.  The angels accept his offer and Lot makes them a feast. 

            Before they all turn in for the night, the wicked men of the city surround the house and call out to Lot, asking him where the men are that went into his home, and shouting to send them out so they could defile them. See in Sodom and Gomorrah, murder, rape and homosexuality were commonplace. That is why the men of the city were demanding for Lot to send out his two new "friends" ...

            Lot goes outside and hurriedly shuts the door behind him to try and resolve the issue.  He says to these men, Please, I beg you, don’t do such wickedness.  And he said, Listen, I have two virgin daughters, let me bring them out to you and do to them what you think is right, but don’t harm these men, that’s why they’re under the protection of my roof.

            Now that's odd huh? Strange as it may seem, as I revealed in the last story, it was very honorable to be accommodating to strangers before even your own family, and for Lot to offer his daughters in order to protect the angels was their custom.

            The men of the city shouted and mocked Lot, saying, You aren’t even from here, you’re a stranger yourself and you want to be a judge?  Now we’ll deal worse with you than with those two.  They came close to breaking in the door, when the angels reached out and pulled Lot into the house to them. The angels then struck all the men outside with blindness, so that they couldn’t even find the door to Lot's house.

            The angels told Lot that if he had any loved ones in the city, to get them out, because the Lord had heard how loud the cry is that comes from Sodom and Gomorrah, and He has sent these two angels to destroy it as to stop the tears.  So Lot went and warned others to hurry up and leave the city because the Lord was going to destroy the city, but they didn't believe him.

            At the break of dawn, the angels told Lot to hurry and take his wife and his two daughters that lived with him and leave quickly so they wouldn’t be devoured by the wickedness of the city. 

            Lot hesitated.  Certainly not because he enjoyed living among all the evil and wickedness that was all around him, but remember, he had been there for a while now and was rich in flocks and herds and gold and such.  There wasn’t time to round up all the livestock.  These strangers were saying get out, and get out now. 

            So here’s Lot, lingering around.  But because of the Lord’s mercy, the angels took hold of him by the hand and his wife’s hand and the hands of his two daughters, and led them outside the city. 

            Then the Lord said, Run for your life and don’t look back, and don’t stay anywhere in the plain, but go to the mountain so you won’t be destroyed.

            And Lot said, You’ve been graceful and have shown me mercy by saving my life.  I can’t go to the mountain or else some evil will find me there and I’ll die.  But there is a little city near there, Oh please let me go escape there and my life will be saved.

            The Lord said to Lot, I’ll allow you this, and I won’t destroy the city that you’re talking about.  Now hurry and go there because I can’t do anything until you get there.  When Lot arrived in Zoar (the name means Little), the sun had risen and the Lord rained fire and brimstone out of heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.  All the plain and all the people of the cities there and all that grew out of the ground was destroyed. 

            But Lot’s wife looked back, despite the warning from the two angels and she turned into a pillar of salt.

           Lot, traveled to a little city called Zoar, which is at the south end of the Salt Sea for those of you who are interested in geography.  His wife, who could not resist looking back, as the Lord had warned, is standing somewhere in between, as a pillar of salt.

            Meanwhile, Abraham, got up early that morning and stepping outside of his tent, went to the place where he was last in the company of the Lord and two of His angels, pleading for the lives of any innocent in the city where his nephew lived.  When he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the plain of Jordan, all he could see was smoke, as if it was coming out of a furnace.  But God remembered Abraham’s request and sent Lot out of the middle of the destruction.

            But Lot didn’t stay in Zoar.  He, in fact, was afraid to live there and ended up going to the mountain that the Lord told him to go to in the first place.  His two daughters went with him and they settled in a cave.

            One day, the older daughter said to the younger one, Our father is old.  Let’s make him drink wine and we will lie with him so that we can keep our father’s bloodline alive.  So the first night, the older daughter went in, and the second night, the younger went in.  But, Lot was passed out from being drunken and didn’t even know that anything happened. 

            The older daughter had a son and called him Moab, which is where the Moabites came from, and they inhabited the area on the east side of the Salt Sea.  And the younger daughter also had a son and called him Benammi, which is where the children of Ammon came from, and they populated the area northeast of the Salt Sea.  Both of these are the area which is today called Jordan. 

            Remember the story of the Fallen angel's offspring with the daughters of men in the Noah's Ark story we talked about? Well, here’s a little more to that giant story for you.  The area where the Moabites (descendents from Lot and his oldest daughter) lived was once the area where in times before the Great Flood it was where these giants lived.  They had “families” or “clans” or “tribes” or whatever they called genealogical lines of giants.  The Moabites referred to this particular group as Emims.  The area of Ammon was also known as a land of the giants that the Ammonites called Zamzummims and they lived there after the previous giants, the Anakims were destroyed by the Lord.  Notice that the giant’s sect names end in “im.”  You can find this information as well as more about other giants in Chapter 2 of the book of Deuteronomy.

            So what have we learned from this story.  First of all, don’t stick around in surroundings that you know are bad because sooner or later, God will come a calling and when you are on your way leaving your past always remember the echo of the Angel's words ... "Don’t look back" ...  Secondly, Hebrews 13:2 says ... Don’t forget to entertain strangers, because by doing so, some have entertained angels without even knowing it.  And third, when the Lord or His representatives (Angels) tell you to do or not to do something like, "Don’t look back" ... DON'T.

           Next time, we’ll look in on Abraham and Sarah again and find out what has been happening to them, so set your dial to Daily Bread and come back and visit.

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