Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #33 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 were looking at Psalm 11:6. In our last study we saw that God spoke of raining “snares, fire and brimstone” upon the wicked. This is the portion of their cup. We went to Luke 21. Let me read it again, because I know I have a bad memory when it comes to spiritual things because we have bodies of flesh. It is the reason that God constantly brings us to remembrance. When He wrote the Bible, He went over spiritual truths, again, and again, to drive them home to us.

Again, it said in Luke 21:34:

And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

Judgment Day will come as a “snare.” God will rain “snares, fire and brimstone” from heaven upon the wicked. That alerts us and it perks up the ears of the child of God because it is obvious that God would not literally rain down “snares” from heaven. There would be no traps or cages (whatever you would use to snare an animal) that would fall from heaven during the Day of Judgment. We are safe in saying that, which means it is a statement that must be understood spiritually. God will entrap the world. It says that a snare will come upon all the inhabitants of the earth, as it goes on to say in Luke 21:35:

For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.

Everyone will be snared. Everyone that is unsaved will be snared, without exception, according to the Word of God, the Bible. Should we not wonder in what way every unsaved person in the entire world could be snared? How could God snare billions of these people?

Well, we can just look back, because we have an excellent vantage point in having lived through the Great Tribulation. We have lived through this remarkable time in the history of the world in which a teaching from the Bible declaring Judgment Day as May 21, 2011 and reached the ears of essentially everyone on the planet. There was a serious warning from the people of God that were given, by the grace of God, a platform by which to reach all the world at once. And it was not because we were a huge organization like the churches. God had ended the church age and He did not use them in the slightest bit to take part in the proclamation of the warning of Judgment Day to the people of the earth. As a matter of fact, their only involvement was their opposition to the message, as they tried to comfort people by telling them not to listen, and so forth.

But how was it possible for a tiny organization of Family Radio, its listeners and a handful of supporting ministries to take that message worldwide and cause everyone to hear? The only answer is that God did it. God also made it possible by expanding the technological ability of mankind by opening man’s understanding of the electronic medium to allow for the development of TV, radio and internet at precisely the same time as the warning needed to be proclaimed from the Word of God to all the people of the world. Without the electronic medium, even if you had a huge organization you would not be able to reach seven billion people. But with the electronic medium a relative handful could bring the message to all the world in a manner they could not ignore, which man is typically prone to do, but they were unable to turn away this one time. It never happened to this degree before in history and it will never happen again, but for this one occasion they were forced to hear all these things. When it apparently did not happen, there was great rejoicing and great mockery toward anyone that had brought that message. There was great relief in all the unsaved inhabitants of the world and then they went about with their business in the churches and in the world. This is the reason God said, “For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.” A snare is when you are taken “unawares,” and that was the word that was used in 1Thessalonians 5:2-3:

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

The Greek word translated as “sudden” is the same Greek word translated as “unawares” in the same context is Luke 21:34. It was “unaware destruction.” You see, the snare comes because you are unaware of it.

Can you imagine this scenario of May 21, 2011 that was looked toward for years and proclaimed to billions and when the day finally comes, nothing outwardly happened? There was nothing physical. The earth did not shake, and so forth. So, there was an incredible “sigh of relief” by the unsaved: “Whew!” They did not like hearing about it, so there was rejoicing and ridiculing, but at the exact moment and day that the world was rejoicing, God did what He said He would do and what His faithful servants had proclaimed. He brought to pass Judgment Day on the world, but it was not done in the realm of the natural or physical realm. He did it in the spiritual realm.

But, again, it was a very real and significant judgment. There cannot be anything more significant than shutting the door of heaven and ending a salvation program that had been carried out throughout the history of the world, to that point. Finally, and suddenly, God ended His salvation program and sealed the fate of all mankind, including all the unsaved that were rejoicing over what they thought was a failure. In the moment of their rejoicing, God sealed their eternal fate and, for all intents and purposes, He slew them. He rained “fire and brimstone” from heaven in a spiritual way and destroyed them. Yes – there is the matter of time working itself out as God accomplishes this prolonged judgment period for His own purposes. By God’s grace, He has opened our understanding to many of the reasons for that, but, nonetheless, He slew the wicked. They were taken in that awful snare set by God Himself and they were taken by Christ as He came as a thief in the night and robbed them of everything of real value; the only thing of value in this world is that which will last into the next world and is eternal. So, if God ends the possibility of eternal life and its eternal blessings through the hearing of His Word, He has taken away the most valuable thing mankind had, which was the potential to become saved. In the day of salvation, God was saving people and we could never know who He would save and who He would not save, and that possibility has been taken away. The light of the Gospel has been taken away.

We were forewarned in Psalm 11:6 to think spiritually of Judgment Day. Do not think of literal “fire and brimstone.” If you do not think of literal “fire and brimstone,” you would not think of literal, physical destruction. So, it must be spiritual. It says in Isaiah 30:27:

Behold, the name of JEHOVAH cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:

We see God is referring to Himself and His tongue. Of course, He is Spirit and does not have a tongue. The Lord Jesus has a body, but that is not in view here. We would say the Word of God comes forth from the mouth. Our words come forth from our mouth and our tongue and that is the idea. The Word that comes out of His mouth is a devouring fire. Then it says in Isaiah 30:28:

And his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err.

Again, His breath is an overflowing stream. It is even more specific in Isaiah 30:33:

For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of JEHOVAH, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.

Here, God’s breath is likened to a stream of brimstone. Think about this. Remember that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. When we look at the Greek word translated as “inspiration.” It is a compound word made up of two words that literally mean “God breathed.” The Scripture, the Bible, is God breathed. It is the Word that came out of His mouth. It is “the breath of JEHOVAH, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.” The Word of God, the Bible, is the “brimstone.” The Word of God, the Bible, is the “fire.” The Word of God, the Bible, is also the “snare.” It is that righteous judgment that the Bible reveals.

God has revealed judgment on the churches and He has destroyed the corporate church, like Sodom was destroyed, by “fire and brimstone.” The Word of God has spiritually destroyed the churches and congregations of the world. But they have not been destroyed physically - they are still on the local street corners and you can still walk past them. Some people still err by entering in to them, but they have been destroyed as far as the Word of God is concerned. They have been destroyed by “fire and brimstone.”

Likewise, the world is still here, and the inhabitants of the world are still here. It is functioning, but not functioning very well; there is much chaos. But day after day passes and people go to work, and people go about their lives in this world, so it is functioning in that sense. And, yet, they have been destroyed by the righteous revelation of the judgment of God and the Bible’s “fire and brimstone,” as God opened His Word to reveal the coming of Christ on the cloud. The clouds identify with the Scriptures or the commandments of God, according to Numbers, chapter 9. We “see” Christ coming in the clouds. We saw Him coming as the Lord opened our eyes to see His wrath being poured out upon all the unsaved people of the earth. They have been taken in the snare. They do not see it. It is God’s people that see it.

You know, it is just amazing if anyone will not believe something because the world does not see something. What does the world see? Do you believe in God? Does the world see God? There are growing numbers of atheists and agnostics. And those that say they believe in God are mostly paying “lip service” to their idea of God that they got from some television program or movie. No – the world does not believe that which they cannot see, but God’s people believe in God because we have been granted “eyes of faith.” We do not just hope there is a God. We are not just making an educated guess regarding the existence of God. We know God exists and we know the God of the Bible and He is exactly who He declares Himself to be on the pages of the Bible. We know this without having seen Him with our physical eyes. We see Him as Moses saw Him. Moses endured by seeing Him who is invisible, as it says in Hebrews 11. How do you see things that are invisible? The Bible says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This is how God’s people follow God. We do not follow what our physical eyes see. If we followed what our eyes see, we would be like the world and like the corporate churches that have become part of the world. We follow what God reveals to us as He opens our understanding to receive and follow the truth of the Bible.

So, we believe because the Bible tells us that the natural man’s soul is dead. But unsaved mankind does not understand that. We believe that God has judged the churches and that He is finished with them, but there are about two billion people populating the churches that claim they have “eyes of faith,” but they do not. We believe in the future eternity to come and the future kingdom of God, which we cannot see right now with our physical eyes. We cannot see the God who tells us about it. We cannot see the kingdom of the God who tells us about it. We cannot see anything in the spiritual realm with our physical eyes.

This is the reason it is so incredibly foolish to say, “Well, I did not see anything happen on May 21, 2011 and, therefore, I can draw the conclusion that nothing happened.” You can draw that conclusion, but that sets you with the unbelievers that are dead in the spirit and must be shown something before they will believe it.

God’s people look to the Bible and we “see” it as God proves it and confirms it through comparison of Scriptures, with the Holy Ghost teaching us. Then we believe it.

Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will continue this interesting chapter of Genesis 19.