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This Was Life in SODOM 4_500 Years Ago _ The Day God Burned It to the Ground · truthunedited

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: 24 hours before fire rained from heaven and two cities
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  Speaker 1: were wiped from the face of the earth, the people
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: inside them were eating dinner, closing business deals, and planning tomorrow.
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  Speaker 1: There was no warning in the sky, no crack in
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  Speaker 1: the ground, no sign that anything was wrong. The markets
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: were full, the streets were loud, the sun set the
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  Speaker 1: same way it had set for generations, and by the
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  Speaker 1: time it rose again, there was nothing left but smoke.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: This is the hour-by-hour record of the last day of
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  Speaker 1: the most judged civilization in the Bible. And the three
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  Speaker 1: things that happened in those final hours will change how
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  Speaker 1: you see your own life. It begins with three strangers
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: on a road. Eighteen hours remain, Genesis chapter 18, verses
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  Speaker 1: 1 and 2. The Lord appeared to Abraham by the
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  Speaker 1: oaks of Mamre as he sat at the door of
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  Speaker 1: his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted
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  Speaker 1: up his eyes and looked. And behold, three men were
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: standing in front of him, the heat of the day, midday,
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  Speaker 1: the sun directly overhead, pressing down on the plain like
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: a weight. Abraham is resting in the shade when three
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  Speaker 1: figures appear on the horizon. Abraham does not wait for
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  Speaker 1: them to approach. He runs to meet them. He bows
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  Speaker 1: to the ground. He offers water, bread, rest in the shade.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: But what he actually prepares is a feast. He tells
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Sarah to bake fresh bread from fine flour. He selects
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a tender calf from the herd and has it prepared.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: He brings curds and milk and sets everything before the visitors.
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  Speaker 1: And then he stands under the tree while they eat,
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  Speaker 1: not sitting with them, standing, serving. Abraham does not yet
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: fully understand who is sitting at his table. But one
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  Speaker 1: of these visitors is the Lord himself, and the other
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  Speaker 1: two are angels who will be standing inside the gates
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  Speaker 1: of Sodom by nightfall. This is the first of two
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  Speaker 1: meals that will take place on this day. This one
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  Speaker 1: happens under open sky, in the shade of ancient oaks,
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  Speaker 1: with generosity and peace. God sits at the table. Life
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: is about to be promised. The air is still. The
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  Speaker 1: bread is warm. and while Abraham pours milk for the
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  Speaker 1: creator of the universe, someone in Sodom is closing a
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  Speaker 1: business deal they will never collect on. The visitors ask
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Abraham a question, Where is Sarah your wife? Abraham answers
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  Speaker 1: that she is in the tent, and then one of
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the visitors speaks a promise that changes everything. Genesis chapter
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  Speaker 1: 18 verse 10 I will surely return to you about
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  Speaker 1: this time next year, and Sarah, your wife, shall have
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  Speaker 1: a son. Sarah is listening from inside the tent, behind
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  Speaker 1: the visitor. She is ninety years old. Abraham is nearly
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: a hundred. The promise sounds impossible, and Sarah laughs to herself.
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  Speaker 1: She laughs because the idea of bearing a child at
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  Speaker 1: her age seems beyond the reach of nature. The Lord responds,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Is anything too hard for the Lord? God is simultaneously
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: giving life to a barren womb and preparing to take
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  Speaker 1: life from a corrupted plane. Creation and judgment happening in
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the same afternoon, from the same mouth, in the same conversation.
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  Speaker 1: 24 hours from now, Abraham will stand on this same
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  Speaker 1: hill and look east. And where two cities now stand,
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  Speaker 1: there will be nothing but smoke. The men rise from
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  Speaker 1: the meal and look towards Sodom. Abraham walks with them
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  Speaker 1: to see them on their way. And then God does
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: something extraordinary. He pauses. He deliberates out loud. Genesis chapter
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: 18 verse 17. Shall I hide from Abraham what I
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  Speaker 1: am about to do? God decides to tell him. The
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  Speaker 1: outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin
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  Speaker 1: is very grave. I will go down to see whether
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  Speaker 1: they have done altogether according to the outcry that has
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  Speaker 1: come to me. And if not, I will know. The
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  Speaker 1: two angels continue toward the valley. The Lord stays with Abraham.
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  Speaker 1: And what follows is one of the most remarkable conversations
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  Speaker 1: in all of Scripture. What Abraham does next has never
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  Speaker 1: been done before in the Bible. He argues with God,
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  Speaker 1: and God lets him. Twelve hours remain. Genesis chapter 18
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  Speaker 1: verses 22 through 25. Abraham steps forward. He does not bow.
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  Speaker 1: He does not retreat. He speaks. Will you indeed sweep
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  Speaker 1: away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50
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  Speaker 1: righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the
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  Speaker 1: place and not spare it for the 50 righteous who
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  Speaker 1: are in it? Far be it from you to do
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  Speaker 1: such a thing, to put the righteous to death with
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  Speaker 1: the wicked. so that the righteous fare as the wicked.
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  Speaker 1: Far be that from you. Shall not the judge of
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  Speaker 1: all the earth do what is just? This is extraordinary.
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  Speaker 1: Abraham is not questioning God's right to judge. He is
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  Speaker 1: appealing to God's own character. He is asking God to
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  Speaker 1: be consistent with his own justice. And God answers, If
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  Speaker 1: I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I
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  Speaker 1: will spare the whole place for their sake. Fifty righteous people.
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  Speaker 1: that is all it would take fifty people who walked
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  Speaker 1: with God in a city of thousands and God would
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  Speaker 1: spare everyone every man every woman every child for the
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  Speaker 1: sake of fifty but Abraham knows the city he knows
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  Speaker 1: his nephew lot lives there and he suspects the number
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  Speaker 1: will not hold so he pushes again Genesis chapter 18
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  Speaker 1: verse 27 behold I have undertaken to speak to the
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  Speaker 1: Lord I who am but dust and ashes. The humility
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  Speaker 1: is deliberate. Abraham knows he is negotiating with the creator
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  Speaker 1: of the universe. And still he pushes. Suppose five of
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  Speaker 1: the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole
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  Speaker 1: city for lack of five? God answers, I will not
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  Speaker 1: destroy it if I find forty-five there. Forty-five, then forty,
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  Speaker 1: then thirty, then twenty. Each time Abraham lowers the number,
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  Speaker 1: each time God says, yes. The mercy is staggering. God
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  Speaker 1: is not looking for a reason to destroy. He is
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  Speaker 1: looking for a reason to save. While Abraham negotiates for
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  Speaker 1: 40 lives, the men of Sodom are beginning to gather
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  Speaker 1: in the squares as the heat of the day breaks.
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  Speaker 1: They do not know that a man on a hill
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  Speaker 1: is fighting for their survival. They do not know that
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  Speaker 1: their existence now depends on a number. And then Abraham
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  Speaker 1: reaches his final number, ten. Oh, let not the Lord
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  Speaker 1: be angry, and I will speak again but this once.
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  Speaker 1: Suppose ten are found there. God answers, for the sake
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  Speaker 1: of ten, I will not destroy it. Ten righteous people
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  Speaker 1: in the entire city. That is the final threshold. If
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  Speaker 1: ten people in Sodom still walked with God, every soul
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  Speaker 1: in that city would be spared. Genesis chapter 18, verse 33.
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  Speaker 1: And the Lord went his way when he had finished
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  Speaker 1: speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. Abraham
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  Speaker 1: stops at 10. He does not ask about 5. He
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  Speaker 1: does not ask about 1. Perhaps he believed that surely
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  Speaker 1: Lot and his family would account for at least 10.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps he could not bring himself to go lower. But
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  Speaker 1: the silence after this conversation is devastating, because the reader
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  Speaker 1: already knows what Abraham does not yet know. There are
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  Speaker 1: not ten righteous people in Sodom. There are not even five.
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  Speaker 1: God set the threshold at the lowest number Abraham dared
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  Speaker 1: to name, and the city will still fail to meet it.
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  Speaker 1: The mercy was real. The offer was genuine. And it
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  Speaker 1: was not enough. Not because God's mercy was too small,
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  Speaker 1: but because Sodom's righteousness was. As Abraham walks home in
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  Speaker 1: the fading light, two angels are approaching the gates of Sodom.
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  Speaker 1: and they are about to discover exactly how far the
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  Speaker 1: city has fallen. Everything that happens from this point forward
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  Speaker 1: takes place in a single night, and by morning, every
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  Speaker 1: person you are about to meet will either be dead
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  Speaker 1: or running. Six hours remain. Genesis chapter 19, verse 1.
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  Speaker 1: The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and
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  Speaker 1: Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. Evening. The
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  Speaker 1: sun is going down. The shadows are lengthening across the plain,
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  Speaker 1: and Lot is sitting at the city gate. In the
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  Speaker 1: ancient world, the gate was not just an entrance. It
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  Speaker 1: was a courthouse, a marketplace, a seat of governance. Elders
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  Speaker 1: and leaders gathered there to judge disputes, settle contracts, and
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  Speaker 1: make decisions. Lot has a position in this city. He
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  Speaker 1: is not hiding in Sodom. He is integrated. When Lot
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  Speaker 1: sees the two strangers, he immediately bows with his face
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  Speaker 1: to the ground. He urges them to come to his house.
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  Speaker 1: My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and
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  Speaker 1: spend the night and wash your feet. The angels decline.
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  Speaker 1: They say they will spend the night in the town square,
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  Speaker 1: but Lot presses them strongly. His urgency is not hospitality.
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  Speaker 1: It is fear. Lot knows what happens to strangers who
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  Speaker 1: spend the night in the open, in this city. He
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  Speaker 1: has seen it before. They reach his house. Lot prepares
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  Speaker 1: a feast and bakes unleavened bread, and they eat. This
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  Speaker 1: is the second meal of the day. But everything about
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  Speaker 1: it is different from the first. Abraham's feast was under
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  Speaker 1: open sky, in the shade of oaks, with peace and generosity.
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  Speaker 1: Lot's feast is behind locked doors, inside the walls of
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  Speaker 1: a condemned city, with fear in the room. Abraham served
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  Speaker 1: God at his table with joy. Lot serves angels at
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  Speaker 1: his table with dread. The same day, the same bread,
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  Speaker 1: two completely different worlds. This is the last peaceful hour
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  Speaker 1: inside Sodom. Then comes the sound. Genesis chapter 19 verses
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  Speaker 1: 4 and 5. Before they had gone to bed, all
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  Speaker 1: the men from every part of the city of Sodom,
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  Speaker 1: both young and old, surrounded the house. And they called
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  Speaker 1: to Lot, Where are the men who came to you tonight?
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  Speaker 1: Bring them out to us, that we may know them.
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  Speaker 1: Read that again. All the men from every part of
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  Speaker 1: the city. both young and old, not a mob, not
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  Speaker 1: a radical faction, not a fringe group emboldened by darkness,
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  Speaker 1: the entire male population. The text is explicit. Every generation,
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  Speaker 1: every neighborhood, every household, they came together with one purpose.
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  Speaker 1: Most people stop here. Most people think they know why
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  Speaker 1: Sodom burned, but most people have never read what God
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  Speaker 1: himself said was the root of this city's guilt, not
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  Speaker 1: in Genesis. In Ezekiel, Chapter 16, verse 49. Behold, this
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  Speaker 1: was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her
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  Speaker 1: daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but
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  Speaker 1: did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty
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  Speaker 1: and did an abomination before me. The scene at Lot's
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  Speaker 1: door was the final eruption, but Ezekiel reveals the disease
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  Speaker 1: that had been growing for generations underneath it, pride. excess, idleness,
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  Speaker 1: and the absolute refusal to help anyone who could not
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  Speaker 1: help them back. A civilization that had criminalized compassion had
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  Speaker 1: logically arrived at its final destination, organized predation against the defenseless.
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  Speaker 1: The crowd turns on Lot. Genesis chapter 19 verse 9,
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  Speaker 1: Stand back. This fellow came here as a foreigner, and
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  Speaker 1: now he wants to play the judge. We will treat
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  Speaker 1: you worse than them. They surge forward. the door is
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  Speaker 1: about to give, the angels reach out, pull Lot inside,
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  Speaker 1: and slam the door shut. Then they strike every man
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  Speaker 1: standing outside with blindness, young and old, from the nearest
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  Speaker 1: to the farthest. Darkness falls on the entire crowd in
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  Speaker 1: an instant, and here is the detail that reveals the
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  Speaker 1: absolute depth of what Sodom had become. After being struck blind,
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  Speaker 1: unable to see their own hands in front of their faces,
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  Speaker 1: The men of Sodom did not stop. They did not scatter.
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  Speaker 1: They did not cry out in fear or confusion. Genesis
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  Speaker 1: chapter 19 verse 11 says, They wearied themselves trying to
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  Speaker 1: find the door. They kept groping. Blinded by the power
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  Speaker 1: of God, in total darkness, they still tried to force
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  Speaker 1: their way inside. They kept groping for the door. The
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  Speaker 1: investigation is over. The angels have seen enough. There are
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  Speaker 1: not ten righteous people in Sodom, There are not five.
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  Speaker 1: There is Lot. And Lot is barely holding on. The
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  Speaker 1: clock is no longer measured in hours. It is measured
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  Speaker 1: in minutes. And the angels deliver the only message that matters.
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  Speaker 1: Get out. Now. Three hours remain. Genesis chapter 19 verses
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  Speaker 1: 12 and 13. The angels say to Lot, Have you
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  Speaker 1: anyone else here? Sons-in-law? Sons? Daughters? Or anyone you have
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  Speaker 1: in the city? Bring them out of the place. For
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry
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  Speaker 1: against its people has become great before the Lord, and
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  Speaker 1: the Lord has sent us to destroy it. The language
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  Speaker 1: is final. Not God is considering it. Not there is
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  Speaker 1: still time to change course. We are about to destroy
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  Speaker 1: this place. The verdict has been delivered. The countdown is
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: no longer theoretical. It is operational. Hours remain. Not days.
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  Speaker 1: Not weeks. ours. Lot runs through the dark streets to
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  Speaker 1: the homes of his sons-in-law. He tells them what is coming.
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  Speaker 1: Genesis chapter 19 verse 14. So Lot went out and
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  Speaker 1: said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, Up,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: get out of this place, for the Lord is about
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: to destroy the city. But he seemed to his sons-in-law
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to be jesting. God told the angels. The angels told Lot.
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  Speaker 1: Lot told the sons-in-law, Four links in the chain. The
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: most reliable chain of witness in the ancient world. God
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  Speaker 1: himself was the first link. And the sons-in-law laughed. They
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  Speaker 1: thought it was a joke. The sky looked normal. The
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: streets were quiet now. The markets would open in the morning. Destroyed?
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  Speaker 1: For what? By whom? The old man has lost his mind.
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  Speaker 1: Two men heard the truth from a man who had
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: heard it from angels who had heard it from the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: mouth of God. And they laughed. They went back to sleep.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: And by morning they were dead. The warning was clear.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: The source was reliable. The evidence was overwhelming. They simply
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: could not believe that the world they were living in
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: was about to end. Because the sky looked normal. Because
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the streets were quiet. Because the markets would open in
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the morning. The markets did not open. Genesis chapter 19
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: verses 15 and 16 As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, Up,
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  Speaker 1: take your wife and your two daughters who are here,
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  Speaker 1: lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: But he lingered. But he lingered. Three words that should
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: terrify every person listening to this. Lot knew the fire
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: was coming. He believed the angels. He had spent the
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: entire night watching his city confirm its own judgment. He
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: had seen the mob at his door. He had watched
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: them struck blind and still groping. He had heard the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: verdict from the mouths of heaven's messengers. And when the
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: moment came to leave, he hesitated. He lingered. He could
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: not let go. So the men seized him and his
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  Speaker 1: wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord
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  Speaker 1: being merciful to him, and they brought him out and
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  Speaker 1: set him outside the city. The angels had to grab
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  Speaker 1: his hand. They physically seized him and his family and
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  Speaker 1: dragged them out of the city. The text says the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Lord being merciful to him. This is what mercy looks
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  Speaker 1: like when the clock has run out. Not a gentle whisper.
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  Speaker 1: Not an open invitation. A hand around the wrist pulling
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  Speaker 1: a reluctant man out of a building that is about
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  Speaker 1: to collapse. Not an invitation. An extraction. God did not
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  Speaker 1: wait for Lot to decide. God decided for him and
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  Speaker 1: dragged him out alive. The sun is rising. Lot is
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: running toward Zoar. And behind him, the sky is about
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: to open. The sun has risen. Genesis chapter 19, verse 17.
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  Speaker 1: As they brought them out, one of the angels said,
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  Speaker 1: Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop
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  Speaker 1: anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you
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  Speaker 1: be swept away. One command. Do not look back. Do
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: not stop. Do not slow down. Run. Lot begs to
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  Speaker 1: flee to Zoar, a small town nearby instead of the mountains.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: The angels agree. The town will be spared. But the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: instruction stands. Do not look back. Genesis chapter 19 verses
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  Speaker 1: 23 through 25. The sun had risen on the earth
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: on the ground. The sun had risen. It was morning.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: A normal morning. The same sun that rose every day
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: over the Jordan plain rose on this day too. The
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: first traders would have been opening their stalls. Somewhere, a
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: mother would have been waking her children. Somewhere, a merchant
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: would have been counting last night's earnings. The routines of
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a living city beginning again the way they had begun
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  Speaker 1: every morning for generations. And then the sky split open.
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  Speaker 1: Sulfur and fire. From the Lord out of heaven. Not lightning.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Not a natural disaster. Not an earthquake. Fire from God.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: The text is specific. The destruction came from the Lord.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: It was deliberate. It was targeted. And it was total.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: The city's the valley, the inhabitants, the vegetation, everything, overthrown.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: The Hebrew word means to turn something completely upside down.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: God flipped the cities inside out. The bitumen pits that
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: had produced generations of wealth ignited instantly. The fields that
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: had once reminded Lot of the garden of the Lord
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: burned to black stubble in minutes. The sons-in-law who laughed
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: were in those cities. The men who groped at the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: door in blindness were in those cities. The merchants, the homes,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the markets, the grain silos, the walls that held it
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: all together. Everything that existed in the space of a
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: single sunrise ceased to exist. Genesis chapter 19, verse 26.
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  Speaker 1: But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: a pillar of salt. She was out. She was safe.
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  Speaker 1: She was walking away from judgment with her husband and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: her daughters on the road to Zoar. The angels had
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: pulled her by the hand. She had survived the night.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: She had survived the mob. She had survived the blindness.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: She had survived the warning. And she looked back, one glance,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: one turn of the head, and she became a monument,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: a pillar of salt standing on the ridge above the valley,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: a permanent marker for the cost of divided loyalty. She
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: was physically rescued but emotionally still inside the city, saved
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  Speaker 1: by angels and still turned toward what God was destroying.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus referenced this moment in Luke chapter 17 verse 32.
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  Speaker 1: Three words. The shortest command in the Gospels. Remember Lot's wife.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Genesis chapter 19 verses 27 and 28. And Abraham went
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: early in the morning to the place where he had
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: stood before the Lord. and he looked down toward Sodom
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and he looked, and behold, the smoke of the land
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: went up like the smoke of a furnace. And now,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the three lessons hidden inside those twenty-four hours, the three
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: things this story was always trying to tell you. The
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: fire has fallen, but the story is not over. Because
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: hidden inside those 24 hours are three warnings that Jesus
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: himself said would repeat before the end of the world.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And the third one is the one most people alive
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: today are guilty of right now. Lesson 1. God's mercy
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: has a deadline. God did not destroy Sodom without warning.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: He came to investigate. He told Abraham his plan. He
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: allowed Abraham to negotiate. He agreed to spare the city
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: for 50 righteous people. for forty-five, for forty, for thirty,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: for twenty, for ten. He sent two angels to personally
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: extract the one family that could be saved. He gave
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Lot time to warn his sons-in-law. He waited through the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: entire night. He let the dawn come before the fire fell.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: The mercy was enormous. It was patient. It was generous
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: beyond anything the city deserved. And it had a deadline.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: 2 Peter chapter 2 verses 6 through 8. God condemned
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: ashes and made them an example of what is going
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to happen to the ungodly. An example, a pattern, a
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: specimen placed in the display case of human history for
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: every generation that would come after. The question is never
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: whether God is patient. He proved his patience by negotiating
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: with Abraham down to ten. The question is whether you
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: will still be lingering when the patience runs out. Because
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the sun rose on Sodom like it rose on every
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: other day, and then the fire fell. The deadline did
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: not announce itself. It simply arrived. Lesson 2 When God
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: says leave, do not look back. Lot's wife was saved.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: She had been pulled from the city by angelic hands.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: She was on the road to Zor with her husband
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: and her daughters. She had survived the most terrifying night
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: in the history of the ancient world. And she looked back. Why?
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: The text does not say. But the implication is devastating.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: She looked back because part of her was still in
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: that city. Her home, her neighbors, her routine, her comfort,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: her life. The city was burning behind her and she
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: could not stop herself from turning toward it. She was
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: physically out of Sodom, but Sodom was not out of her.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Jesus used her as a warning for the end of
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: the age. Luke chapter 17 verses 28 through 33. Just
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: as it was in the days of Lot, they were
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. So
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: will it be on the day when the Son of
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: is on the housetop not go down to take his goods.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: And likewise, let the one who is in the field
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to preserve
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: will keep it. The warning is not ancient. It is prophetic.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Jesus is saying this pattern will happen again. Not with sulfur,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: but with finality. And when it does, do not look back.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: When God tells you to leave something, a habit, a relationship,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a season, a version of yourself that he has already judged, leave.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Do not turn back. Do not mourn what God is removing.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Do not become a monument to what you refused to release.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Lesson 3. Stop Lingering. Lot knew the truth. He believed
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the warnings. He had watched his city confirm its own
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: judgment with his own eyes. He had seen the mobs
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: surround his house. He had watched them struck blind and
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: still reaching for the door. He had heard angels tell
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: him to his face that the city would be destroyed.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And when the moment came to leave, he lingered. Not
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: because he doubted the warning, not because he questioned the source,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: but because leaving is harder than believing. It always has been.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: 2 Peter 2, verses 7 and 8 calls Lot righteous.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: He was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: deeds he saw and heard day after day. He hated
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the sin around him. He grieved over it daily. He
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: was not comfortable in Sodom. He was miserable in Sodom.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: And he still could not make himself leave. That is
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the most dangerous position in the world. Knowing you need
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: to go and not going. Believing the warning completely and
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: not moving. having every piece of evidence in front of
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: you and still sitting in the chair. Not because you
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: disagree with the truth, but because the familiar is more
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: powerful than the frightening. Even when the familiar is killing you.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe you are in your own Sodom right now. Not
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a city of fire and sulfur, but a situation, a relationship,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a habit, a pattern, a life that you know God
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: has told you to leave. And you believe him. You
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: know the warning is real. You have heard it clearly.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: You have felt the conviction, and you are still sitting
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: in it. You are still lingering. You are still telling
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: yourself that you will leave tomorrow, that you will deal
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: with it next week, that there is still time. The
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: angels are not coming to grab your wrist, but the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Holy Spirit is doing the same work right now. He
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: is pulling. He is urging. He is pressing against your
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: conscience with the same urgency those angels pressed against Lot's hand.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: He is saying what the angels said to Lot. Up,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: get out, now, lest you be swept away, stop lingering,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: start leaving, the sun is already rising, and one final
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: image to carry with you. 24 hours earlier, Abraham had
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: been breaking bread with God under the oaks of Mamre.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: The sun was warm, the shade was cool. Sarah was
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: laughing inside the tent at the impossibility of a promise
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: that God would keep. The visitors ate. The conversation was unhurried.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: The afternoon stretched out the way afternoons do when nothing
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: seems wrong and the world feels permanent. Now Abraham is
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: standing alone, early in the morning, on the heights near Hebron,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: looking east across the plain, and where two cities used
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: to stand there is only smoke, rising like a furnace, silent, total.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: The markets are not open. The merchants are not trading.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: The children are not playing. There is no sound from
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: the valley. There is nothing from the valley. Only smoke,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: rising in a column so thick and dark that it
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: looks like the earth itself is burning from the inside.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: One lunch. One sunset. One night. One sunrise. That is
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: all it took. 24 hours between paradise and ash. The
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: people who laughed at Lot's warning were under that smoke.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: The sons-in-law who thought he was joking were under that smoke.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: The men who groped at the door in blindness and
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: still would not stop were under that smoke. They had
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: every chance, every warning, every opportunity to leave. The angels
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: came to their city. The warning reached their ears. And
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: they chose to stay. Some because they thought it was
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a joke. Some because they could not imagine their world ending.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Some because the sky looked normal and the streets were
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: quiet and the markets would surely open in the morning.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Jesus said the pattern would repeat. Not with sulfur. But
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: with the same architecture. Total normalcy interrupted by total destruction.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, life
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: proceeding as if tomorrow is guaranteed, and then the day arrives,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: not because God is cruel, but because God is just,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and justice delayed is not justice canceled. Silence from heaven
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: does not mean acceptance from heaven. The sun rising every
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: morning does not mean the fire will never fall. It
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: means the mercy is still running. but mercy, like every gift,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: can be refused for the last time. Abraham negotiated God
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: down to ten. God was willing to spare the entire city,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: every soul, every home, every market, every child, for ten
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: righteous people, and the city could not produce them. The
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: mercy was vast, the patience was real, and it was
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: not enough, not because God's grace was too small, but
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: because the city's repentance was. The smoke rose like a
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: furnace over the plain where two cities used to stand.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And one old man watched it from the heights in silence.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: He had eaten bread with God under the trees just
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: one day before. He had argued for the city's life.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: He had pushed the number as low as he dared.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And it was still not enough. The valley that once
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: looked like paradise now looked like the end of the world.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: And in a sense, it was. For every soul who
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: had lived there The world had ended. Not because they
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: were not warned, but because they did not listen. Not
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: because mercy was not offered, but because mercy was not accepted.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Somewhere in that silence, in the space between the smoke
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and the sky, is the question this story has been
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: asking for four thousand years. It is not a question
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: about ancient history. It is not a question about archaeology
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: or theology or the geography of the Dead Sea. It
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: is a question about you, about this moment, about what
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: you will do with what you have just heard. When
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: God's patience reaches its limit, will you already be gone?
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Or will you still be lingering? If this made you
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: see this story differently, stay with us. Subscribe and turn
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: on notifications. Every week, We go deeper into the mysteries
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the Bible reveals, and the world has forgotten. The evidence
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: is only beginning.