Genesis 19:23-29

The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky. He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahweh. He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.

It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

God showed us through this record, that He will not tolerate evil. It clearly tells us that the
Bible doesn’t hold “tolerance” to be a virtue. God does not give mankind the permission to destroy the wicked, however. I think He does this because only He knows who the righteous and the wicked are and he will not destroy the wicked with the righteous. That’s that other thing we see clearly in this record. God will drag the righteous out of the way if He has to in order to save them, even if they are not living in a good relationship with Him.

We also learn that God cares and remembers those who have faith and pray to Him. It is wonderful to know that God longs to have a personal relationship with those who are willing to trust in Him and believe what He says.

We also learn from Lot’s wife that we shouldn’t prefer a comfortable life of evil over a less comfortable life of righteousness. If we are unwilling to leave the pleasures of sin, then we do not believe in God. Even though Lot believed in God and was saved, he lived a life outside of a proper relationship with God. He ended up losing everything, including his family, to wickedness.

Finally, we see that it sure is dumb to pick a fight with God. He destroyed every living thing in that whole plain. Mankind is no match for God, yet the heart of mankind is so prone to evil that we are willing to shake our fists at God and challenge Him. Now we know who wins.