Genesis 19

27 And Abraham get up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord 

28 And looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah and towards all the land of the plain, and behold, and lo, the smoke if the country went up as the smoke of a furnace 

Sodom’s smoke of destruction rises up thickly before the eyes of Abraham as he now, early this morning, stands in the same place of intercession with the Lord and two angels in the dusk of yesterday – just before the angels left for Sodom. The rising smoke is mixed with most intense spurting huge white and bright flames. It’s a foreshadow of the coming dawn of man in his readiness for self immolation in nuclear dust. This will be in the days of the end of Babylon

Abraham has got up to resume his intercession watch, and before him, a vast devastated space in flames. Man is yet reaching for that point. This is when God will seize the opportunity to intervene and massively save man from himself. In the days of Lot, this destruction was from the hands of angels, but just before the dawn, the final move for self destruction will come from man himself and what his wisdom has saved, stockpiled and preserved for the hour, the day, the year… And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of man (Revelation 9:15).

Abraham rises at the dawn. But judgement has been passed and Sodom is no more. It’s us the readers that know that Lot and her two daughters have been saved and are presently holed up at Zoar, and that his wife has turned to a pillar for disobeying the instruction of the angels that the escapees shouldn’t look back. It’s easy for Abraham to think, in his present state, that his intercessory prayers of yesterday were no answered by the Lord. But no, God actually honours Abraham.

Only Lot and his two daughters were saved. And delivered just Lot (2 Peter 2:7) Even his wife perished on the road of escape. Lot wasn’t a marry man as at the time of parting from each Abraham, or the scripture was silent about it. Perhaps the wife was from the stock of Sodom. If so, she looked back because her soul had merged with the land and it was difficult to forget the perishing past and journey to a new life.

Jesus assures that man is more valuable than many sparrows. Jesus, says Paul, wants everyone to be saved. He’s still at it, and He will always find a way to pull out a drowning man who cries and owns up to his powerlessness to save self. …. who’s ready to go forward with Him, forgetting the longing of the soul. ….and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? (Isaiah 53:1). Only the humble who acknowledges his or her weakness. He that is healthy, says the Lord, is not in need of a medical doctor. Unfortunately, many of us are sick and don’t know it. Lot was saved because of righteousness, which was imputed; it wasn’t a righteousness emanating from him, but from the Lord. Man can only come into Divine righteousness by claiming God’s righteousness in Christ. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations; and to reserve the just unto the day of judgement to be punished (2 Peter 2:9).

Sodom was right in the centre of man’s enlightenment regime, man’s civilisation which often makes him most daring. Civilisation of man is a location where he knows so much that God’s consciousness becomes a weight that must be cast off. Every civilisation is built on preexisting one. Now, the present human attainment of knowledge and enlightenment is doing everything possible to make God irrelevant in the affairs of man. Salvation includes how to handle the present while walking with God and still being conscious of Him; it’s confessing the Lord and not being ashame of Him. For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed… (Luke 9:26).

In the twilight of human self-rule, Babylon will pop up again. Babylon is the complete mystery of human intelligence. And we stand today in the mystifying presence of Babylon, revived. There will be untold wealth, a most glorious economy the earth has ever experienced. Man will yield control to science and technology. This loftiness of intelligence existed in the bible’s land of ancient Tyre. The prophet speaks clearly of the guiding spirit of the land, With thy wisdom and thy understanding thou hath gotten thee riches, and hath gotten gold and silver in thy treasuries…. thou hath increased riches,…thou hath set thy heart as the heart of God…(Ezekiel 28:4-8). Here man has become God. As in Babylon, this will run so far and no more. Sodom and Tyre and other forms of rebellions and civilisations are in Babylon. Babylon doesn’t only define solely the immorality of a milliu but of its outright rejection of God and His Son by Whom He made and saved the universe. Babylon will suffer the same fate as her offsprings. Just before the dawn, Babylon will go and the world will wail for her passing while the saints in hope and expectation will rejoice in songs of praises. And again, they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose forever and ever (Revelation 19:3).

At the dawn of a new day, Abraham went out to the place where he met and discussed with the Lord and found that what was left was the rising smoke of Sodom; the saints in the presence of the Lord will witness the rising smoke of Babylon, and will sing, Alleluia!

So before the dawn, all these things shall be dissolved, they will pass away – all that man lives for today. Then the dawn.  But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night: in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up ((2 Peter 3:10). And the same Peter counsells, Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness (2 Peter 3:11).

Lord we pray that we will learn to wisely live here in all holy conversation and godliness while handling these things that will pass away.

Thank You Lord for this