Read Genesis 19, Nehemiah 8, and Psalm 18.
This devotional is about Genesis 19.
A few years ago, just after 8 p.m., I was driving to pick up one of my kids from an event. All of a sudden, the sky lit up with blue light. It was so bright that it startled me, and the source of that light seemed to be behind me. Then it flashed brightly and was gone. I kept waiting for a sound…, something. A crack of thunder to accompany the lightning? No, it was bright for too long to be lighting and the weather conditions certainly didn’t seem right for that. Was it an explosion? That didn’t seem right either because the light was so blue.
The next morning, news headlines said that what I’d seen was a meteor. I’d never seen something like that before. It was completely unexpected.
This is what the judgment of God on Sodom and Gomorrah was like. Abraham had never seen anything like it and I’m sure his heart sank when he saw it (v. 28). Likewise, when Lot tried to warn his would-be sons-in-law, they “thought he was joking” (v. 14b). Even Lot himself and his family had to be hustled out of Sodom by the angels (v. 16). The prophecy they received about God’s coming judgment seemed unbelievable because they’d never seen anything like it before. When it happened, it was surreal because they’d never seen anything like it before.
This is how it will be when Christ returns to judge the world. It is hard to visualize that happening because none of us has ever seen anything like it. Whether we can visualize it or not, it is true and it will happen in reality. Like Abraham and like Lot, we should take God’s promise of judgment seriously and we should warn those around us that God’s judgment is coming. It might seem to those we warn that we are joking (v. 14b), but God is merciful and has promised to save some in this age.
The return of Christ and his judgment will be like nothing you or I have ever seen before. But it is true and it will happen. What are we doing about that?
Here’s a video of that meteor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SqbKhRaqHg