Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed! (Gn 19)

"I am Going to send fire down from the sky and destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah!" God told Abraham.

"Please, God." Abraham pleaded . " My nephew Lot is a good man. He and his family are living in Sodom. I ask you to spare the city."

"There is just too much evil there. I cannot spare the city. But I will save Lot and his family." God answered.

The next evening, God sent a couple of angels to the city of Sodom. They found Lot sitting at the gate of the city. Lot saw the men/angels and knew they were special. "Come home with me for the night. I will give you a hot meal and a bed." Lot said. At first the men said no, but Lot insisted and they agreed.

"You have to get you family together and leave this evil city." One of the angels told Lot after they had gone back to Lot's house. Lot's wife and his two daughters were there and heard as the angel continued. " Sodom is an evil city and is has been marked for destruction by God himself. If you have any other family members, like sons or son-in-laws..... let them know!"

Lot's wife said, " Be careful and hurry back." as Lot ran off to tell his sons-in-law about what God had in store for the city of Sodom. When Lot returned home he told his wife and daughters that he couldn't convince the sons-in-laws to leave Sodom because they thought he was joking.

One of the angels shouted, "OK, well it's time to get going!" But Lot and his wife started to look around at everything they had. Lot was rich and they would be leaving a lot of stuff behind.

" I can't believe it! You guys are worried about what you are leaving behind! If we don't leave right now...." The angel said as they grabbed Lot and his wife by the arm."... you will be burned up with all your stuff! Just start running toward the mountains and whatever you do, don't stop and don't look back!" The angels had to pull Lot and his family out of the house.

"There is a small city named Zoar." Lot told the angels. " The mountains are quite far and it would be hard to live there. Can't we just go as far as Zoar and stop there?"

"OK." said the angel, " Zoar will be spared and you can start a new life there. But get there quickly, because as soon as you get to Zoar, fire will fall from the sky and destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah!"

Lot, his wife and two daughters ran a fast as they could, remembering not to stop and not to look back. As soon as they reached the city gates of Zoar, Lot and his family could see the sky brightening and they knew that fire was falling from the sky behind them. Lot and his two daughters continued to head into the city and not look back, but Lot's wife stopped and looked behind her. and she became a pillar of salt!

Abraham got up early the next morning and stood on top of a hill. He looked down toward Sodom and saw very thick smoke coming from where the city once was. He knew that his nephew was safe, because God promised to spare him and God always keeps his promises.

Wow! What a story! We can learn a few things from Abraham, Lot and Lot's wife.

1. Abraham was asking God to spare his nephew's life. We can talk to God! Isn't that amazing that we can talk to the same God that Abraham talked to. The same God that created the earth!

It's called PRAYER. When we are praying, we are talking to God. When we are talking to God, we are praying. We can pray for other people. God wants us to pray for others.

2. Lot's son-in-laws didn't believe Lot. Why? Probably because Lot had not told the truth all the time. We have to be careful not to lie. Because then people won't believe us when we tell them the truth.

3. Lot and his wife almost didn't get out in time because they were looking at everything that they were leaving behind. Because we are in God's family now, we can't live the same way that we did before.

4. Lot's wife looked back and she became salt. She looked back with her eyes and her heart. This word looked means "longed for". She wanted what she left behind. If we keep looking back at what we can't do or can't have now that we are Christians... we will miss what God want for us and what purpose He has for our lives.

TRY THIS: Put a penny on the floor at the base of a wall. Now you to the opposite side of the room. Start walking toward the penny, but look at something on the wall behind you. ( a picture of a clock etc...) Now try to pick up the penny while you are still looking backwards. How did you do?

Abraham believes God

After God confused the language of the men building the Tower of Babel, the people moved to different lands. Hundreds of years later, God talked to a man named Abram. (God changed his name to Abraham .. we'll find out why later)
So God told Abraham to gather up his family and all his belongings and go. He didn't tell Abraham where he was going, He just said to head east. So right away, Abraham took his wife, his nephew Lot, his servants (Abraham was pretty rich) and all his stuff. Wow! Abraham really obeyed God! It was probably pretty hard leaving the place where his father had made a home for them. Abraham was 75 years old when he left his home. He followed God for hundreds of miles to a place called Canaan. When they arrived, God told Abraham, "See all this land, I will give it to you and your children and their children." But Abraham didn't have any children. But he didn't question God, instead he built an alter to thank God for all the blessing in his life.

Abraham couldn't stay in the land however. It hadn't rained for a while and it was hard to find food. So Abraham took his family and all his belongings to a place a couple of hundred miles away along the Nile river where there was plenty of food. When food became a little easier to find back in Canaan, Abraham took his family again and headed back toward the land that God has promised.

So let's see. God tells Abraham to leave is comfortable home and travel for months to a place where there is no food. So Abraham has to travel for a few more months to a place where there is food.... then he has to travel for a few more months back to the place that God promised to Abraham's kids... and he doesn't even have any kid's. On top of that, Abraham is about 80 years old! If I was Abraham, I'd be thinking " God... are you sure?"

We are so blessed that we get to see the whole story in the Bible. We know that God ALWAYS knows what He's doing. He ALWAYS keeps His promises and He's ALWAYS good and he ALWAYS will be good.

Ok back to the story. Remember that Abraham took his nephew Lot along with him. Abraham took him along because Lot's father, Haran, had died and Abraham had taken care of Lot as he was growing up. Well Lot was a man now, and as Lot and Abraham headed back to the promised land, they realized that they had to go their separate ways. It was too hard to travel together since both men were very rich and had a many cattle and sheep. Abraham gave Lot a choice and Lot decided to go toward the best looking land, so Abraham headed in the other direction.

Sometimes the best looking things are not really the best. That's why we should pray about our choices. We see the outside but God sees the whole picture. He knows best. As it turned out, the land that Lot chose was full of a lot of evil men. Also there was a war going on there and Lot was taken prisoner. Abraham was living peacefully with his wife Sarah when he heard about what happened to Lot. Abraham got 318 of his men together and they rescued Lot and all the other people that were taken prisoner. Abraham gave God all the credit and the king praised God. We should always give God the credit. That's called glorifying God and then other people may realize what great things that God does and give Him the credit too.

So Abraham went back home. He was living just outside of the land that God promised. There were people living in the land at the time. Finally Abraham asked God. "Remember when you said that this land would be my children's and their children's? Were you saying that I am going to have children? Or did you mean my servant's children?"

God answered Abraham by taking him outside. "Look up at the stars Abraham." God said. " If you could count every star, it still would not be as many as your own descendants." Abraham believed God and because he believed, Abraham was now in God's family.

We can learn a lot about trusting God, following God and believing God from Abraham. The Bible is God's word. First we have to trust what He says in His word. Second we have to do what He says in His word. That's what following is all about. Finally God want's us to believe that he sent His son Jesus to die for our sins so that we can spend eternity in heaven with Him. When we believe Him, we become part of God's family... just like Abraham.

Next time we will find out how long Abraham had to wait for a son and why God changed his name from Abram to Abraham.