June 21

The Lord Is About To Destroy The City

So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”

When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them.

Genesis 19:14-16

Charles C. Finney was the most noted revivalist of the early nineteenth century, partly because he was very controversial. He parted company theologically from the staid Calvinistic Puritans of Colonial New England, and preached sermons that stirred up his listeners to the point of frenzy as they agonized their way to God. Finney’s style was unconventional, to say the least, and he had a reputation for being “a half-crazed fanatic.” Yet, many souls were saved through his preaching.

Early in his ministry he was invited by an old man to speak at a little town in Western New York. “Finney arrived and gave out a hymn, but the singing was so awful—they bawled very loudly and so out of tune—that Finney with his trained musical ear literally put his hands over his ears and got down on his knees and prayed until they had finished.”

As he prayed, “the Lord gave him a text—he had deliberately not chosen his subject, feeling he should wait until he had assessed the congregation. He was not even sure just where the text was to be found which he felt impressed upon his heart, but he stood up and delivered it: ‘Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city.’ He knew that it came from the story of Abraham and Lot and the city of Sodom and so he expounded the story in his own way. The more he spoke the more he could see the people looking angry; he then applied the Word to them in a particular and pointed way.”

Gradually a change came over the people. “As he pressed home the truth of God upon this rough crowd of backwoods people they suddenly began to fall from their seats all over the building, crying out for God to have mercy on them . . . He began to deal with some of them individually and as he pointed them to Christ, one after another found peace with God.”

Finney later discovered why the people had initially been upset with his text. “The place was known as Sodom and the only good man in the place was the old man who had invited him and whom they nicknamed Lot! They had thought Finney had deliberately chosen his text because of this, but he was completely ignorant of it all and preached without inhibitions because he knew God had given him the text as he prayed.” ²¹