In Genesis 19, the rubber hits the road. No longer can anyone look at God’s word to Abraham as though it were pie-in-the-sky, wishful thinking. Instead, God’s word now rains down from the sky in the form of burning, sulfuric judgment on the wicked. If anyone has been tempted to keep God’s word at arm’s length, toying with the options of belief and unbelief, that time of leisurely consideration has come to an end. The time of asking whether God’s word is true is past. Now, only one question remains: On which side of God’s word will you fall? Will you be saved by God’s promises of grace, or will you be swept away according to God’s sentence of judgment?

The wrath of God against the ungodliness of Sodom and Gomorrah, then, is more than an event in history. What happened against the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is a pattern that tells us something of the greater that will come on the day of the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus states twice that the judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah will be more bearable than the judgment that he will bring upon his return (Matt. 10:15; 11:24). The urgent question of Genesis 19:1–29, then, is not ultimately about what happened to those cities, but about what will happen to us. Against the backdrop of God’s righteous wrath against the wicked, what hope do we have that God will save us? Genesis 19:1–29, then, gives us this answer: God remembers the prayers of the righteous when he judges the wicked.