“Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens.”
~ Genesis 19:24
Hi James and Ellen,
What kind of book is the Bible to you? Is the Bible to you a big book that has stories in it that have happy endings? Or is the Bible to you a big book that has stories in it that have sad endings? Do you think that the Bible can be read like a storybook? Do you think that the Bible can be read once and then not be read again? The Bible does have stories in it which have happy endings. The Bible also has stories in it which have sad endings. The Bible is not a storybook. The Bible is a teaching book. To really internalize what the Bible can teach you, every word in every chapter in the Bible should be read, daily Bible readings should be thought about all day long, different Bible verses should be memorized and the Biblical truths that are uncovered should be personally applied. The words that are found in the Bible are living words. The book that is known as the Bible is an edited tome that is comprised of sixty-six distinct books. God the Spirit breathed on different guys what is written in the different Bible books. God had different guys over the years combine the sixty-six books into what is called the Canon. Canon once meant measuring stick. A book could only be included in the Canon if the book fit certain requirements. Books that did not fit the Canon’s requirements were coalesced as an apocrypha. Apocrypha implies that an early manuscript as being obscure or ambiguous – which means that the books that make up the Apocrypha did not clearly fit into the Canon’s requirements. The Catholic Church has included fourteen apocrypha books in the book that they use as their Bible. The books that are in the Bible were written over about a 1500 year period. Do you remember the name of the first book of the Bible? The first book of the Bible is called Genesis. Genesis means beginning. Do you remember who wrote the first book of the Bible? Moses wrote the first book and the next four books that begin the Bible. When Moses wrote his five books – which became known as the Pentateuch, guys and gals had lived on planet Earth for a thousand or so years after God had completely inundated planet Earth with a flood. Guys and gals who had been living on planet Earth a thousand or so years earlier had terminally polluted planet Earth through having acquiesced to living before the universal flood filthy, sinful lifestyles.
Your grandpaa hopes that you are not thinking right now that what your grandpaa is writing is boring. Your grandpaa wants you to know how the Bible came about. Your grandpaa wants you to know how the Bible’s books were written, who wrote the Bible’s books and how all the Bible’s books ultimately ended up together. When stories are read in the Bible which have been written about bad guys who did bad things, your grandpaa would like you to know that God wants these stories in a Bible book for every guy, gal and kid to read. Moses began the book that became the first book in the Bible by taking his readers through the early days of God’s creation. Just six chapters later in Genesis, Moses is writing about the flood which completely swamped planet Earth. By the time that Moses scribed what is now Genesis 19, planet Earth is again being corrupted by very wicked guys. Moses is writing at this time about Abraham and Abraham’s nephew Lot. Abraham and Lot are living in Canaan. God would have Canaan be the land which He would have His specially chosen guys, gals and kids to always to have to live in as their very own land. Lot had been doing very well in Canaan. Lot probably had gotten quite rich. Lot was living with his wife and his two daughters in a town called Sodom. Sodom may have had the very worst guys living in it than in any other town – other than a neighboring town called Gomorrah. Both towns were filled with perverted guys who did disgusting, evil things with each other. God could see what these immoral guys were doing. God will not consent to wickedness to continue. What do you think that God did to these aberrant, vile guys who wanted to do depraved, degenerate things with each other? God destroyed them.
Before God destroyed Sodom, God sent two angels to talk to Lot. God sent angels to warn Lot to leave Sodom. God did not want when He eradicated Sodom to have Lot to die with all the guys, gals and kids who were living in Sodom. Lot could not convince the guys who were to marry his two daughters to leave with him because the guys thought that Lot was not being serious. Lot was convinced that God was going destroy Sodom. The two angels still needed to grab Lot’s hands and the hands of Lot’s wife and Lot’s two daughters to pull them out of Sodom before what Moses wrote in verse 24 happened to Sodom and Gomorrah “Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens.” God had also told Lot and his family to not to look back once they were out of Sodom. Lot’s wife could not resist looking back. What do you think happened to Lot’s wife when she disobeyed God and looked back? Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt. Bad things will happen to guys and gals who just will not listen. Bad things will happen to guys and gals who do things which are not right to do. Something very bad happened to Sodom and Gomorrah because the guys in these two towns were doing bad things. God destroyed these two towns and all the guys, gals and kids in the towns with something which smells awful. Sulfur smells like rotten eggs. God was sending a message to every guy, gal and kid how bad the smell of evil is to Him when God did what He did when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Being deviant is being like the smell of rotten eggs to God. There is a rotten egg stench all over planet Earth today. Homosexual lifestyles have become a life norm that is stinking up planet Earth. You are a pleasing smell to God if you are being obedient to God’s Word.
Genesis 19 (95)