REMEMBER LOT’S WIFE AS THE END OF THIS AGE APPROACHES!
ON THE SAME DAY THE FOUR RAN OUT OF SODOM IT RAINED
DOWN FIRE AND BRIMSTONE FROM HEAVEN TO DESTROY
RESIDENTS – EVEN THUS SHALL IT BE AT A 2ND ADVENT!
PLEASE READ THE EXCERPT FROM THE JERUSALEM POST!
August 27, 2010
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Luke 17:28-32 – Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; [29] But THE SAME DAY that Lot went out of Sodom IT RAINED FIRE AND BRIMSTONE FROM HEAVEN, and destroyed them all. [30] EVEN THUS SHALL IT BE IN THE DAYWHEN the Son of man is REVEALED. [31] In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. [32] Remember Lot’s wife.
The word “REVEALED” in both English and Greek means to be exposed, to be seen.
This is not what is referred to as the “rapture,” which occurs on the sound ing
of the seventh trumpet, prior to the pouring out of the vials of the wrath of God. It is the DAY of Christ’s coming to end the final battle of Armageddon, as described in Revelation 1:7 and Luke 21:7.
Revelation 1:7 – Behold, he cometh with clouds; and EVERY eye shall SEE him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.
Even so, Amen.
Luke 21:25-27 – And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; [26] Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. [27] And THEN shall they SEE the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
The phenomena described in Luke 21, verses 25 and 26, begins in Revelation 6:12-14, and then continues to increase in frequency and intensify until Christ’s Second Advent, which occurs at the final battle of Armageddon.
One of the greatest jokes in the Bible to unbelieving scientists has long been the account of Lot’s wife becoming a pillar of salt. However, in the running to and fro of man above the planet, across the planet, and in particular, below the planet’s surface, sufficient knowledge has come to light to understand the methodology God used to being the event to its final conclusion.
Daniel 12:4 – But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Genesis 19:23-26 – The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. [24] Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; [25] And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain,
and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. [26] But his wife looked back from behind him, and she BECAME a pillar of salt.
The “plain” to which the writer refers is the wide, flat rift valley fault at the southern end of the Dead Sea. Sodom and Gomorrah, before their obliteration, sat directly over the fault (F2) on the southeastern side of the Dead Sea shore (See Birth Pang Archive Figures 24 and 27). Examination of the geological substrata in this area is very interesting.
The Bible gives a description which reflects that numerous shallow oil deposits existed in this zone prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Genesis 14:10 – And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.
The vale of Siddim (valley of the fields) was the territory south of the land tongue which protrudes into the Dead Sea from its eastern side (See Birth Pang Archive Figures 24 and 27). The great cataclysm which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah was followed by subsidence of all the vale of Siddim, and up until the last century it lay submerged beneath the southern end of the Dead Sea south of the land tongue of Lisan. The “slime pits” were bitumen or asphalt pits. The words for slime pits in Genesis 14:10 are the Hebrew words “chemar beer,” and represent a pit of bitumen that extended downward into the substrata of the earth. Asphalt is a brown to black bituminous substance that is obtained as a residue in petroleum refining. A great deal of the asphalt of ancient times came from the Dead Sea, which was also called Lacus Alphatites. Asphalt is a mixture of hydrocarbons, in part oxygenated, the softer types generating toward petroleum.
When exposed to the air it hardens partly by oxidation and partly by evaporation. There was once a large build-up of this petroleum based bituminous material surrounding the area of Sodom and Gomorrah, because the writer states that it was “full of slime pits.” Even today an occasional chunk of asphalt will suddenly bob up to the top as a sulfur vent erupts on the sea floor of the Dead Sea. There are, to this day, large sulfur springs that deposit heavy loads of sulfur over the Dead Sea flats in this area. Here, in the hey-day of Sodom and Gomorrah, was a great subsurface powder keg of petroleum hydrocarbons and sulfur, just waiting for a giant match to ignite them. Another compound, sodium chloride, better known as salt, has always existed in the upper surface layers of this zone as vast block formations hundreds of feet thick. So, here is the disaster, waiting for the God who formed it, to ignite it with what he put beneath the layers of salt, sulfur, and petroleum based material – thick deposits of salt immediately under the surface, petroleum hydrocarbons boiling up through cracks in the salt layers, and sulfur springs rippling into the salt zone both vertically and horizontally. All this formation needed to trigger it was a vertical thrust of the igneous magma into the crack running through the Sodom-Gomorrah area (See Birth Pang Archive Figure 27). As you can see on Figure 27, a vast molten sea of magma underlies the earth’s outer crust, and it is closer to the earth’s surface in this area than in many other parts of the world. Numerous fumaroles occasionally release hot gasses and vapors to the surface from old volcanic vents that still extend deep into the underlying magma, bearing testimony that intense heat pockets exist just below the surface.
Zoar was not resting on top of the powder keg.
When Lot entered the safety zone to which God had directed him, then God pulled his tectonic trigger and completely destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. I believe that God opened his Dead Sea Fault
just enough to allow the fiery magma to push up through the vents of salt layers he had long saturated with sulfur and bitumen.
This touched off a tremendous ch
ain of explosions that roared through the entire vale of Siddim. The explosions weakened the upper crust and great fiery swirls of pyroclastic materials were blasted high into the heavens. The writer describes it vividly by stating, “brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.”
But what of Lot’s wife – how did she become a “pillar of salt?” First of all, she disobeyed God, and remained in the disaster zone – “But his wife looked back from behind him.” When Lot was safely inside Zoar, his wife was still standing in the danger zone “looking back.” This tells us why she became a pillar of salt – she disobeyed God!
Now, let us explore how “she became a pillar of salt.” She observed the great vents of fire that went up into the heavens from the chain reaction, but before she could clear the danger zone a blanket of of pyroclastic material from the eruption rained down on her – and yes, you guessed it – the pyroclastic material was composed of hot, liquid, pyrochemical salt. She actually “BECAME a pillar of salt,” exactly as the Word of God proclaims.
This sort of thing is not unheard of – pyroclastic materials of the local area covered the residents of Pompeii in 79 A.D. – They were actually encased, in perfect body form, by pyroclastic materials of the local area called “rapilli” that were thrown into the heavens by the eruption of Vesuvius. They became pillars of rapilli rather than pillars of salt. The Italian Florelli devised a method of making casts of the former residents by pouring plaster into the rapilli shell coverings. When the material rained down from heaven the residents of Pompeii were in the danger zone. I am convinced the same thing happened to Lot’s wife. The residents of Pompeii did not become “pillars of salt” only because the upper layers of the crust in their area were not composed of salt layers.
As the sulfur and petroleum based substances continue to burn both externally and internally, a great deal of the valley mass went up in smoke. Additionally, the salt blocks fused into more compressed strata and the limestone layers gradually shrank after the initial ignition by magma. This chain of events caused a further local subsidence of the graben valley floor. As it gradually sank below the level of the Dead Sea to the north of it, its murky water flowed slowly southward across the area like a great smothering blanket over the smoking valley, and much of what remains today of this great holocaust lies hidden beneath the shallow waters of the southern Dead Sea.
Please do not believe I am trying to “explain away” a miracle. God does as he wills with his own creation. I simple believe this is what God did. The sight that met Abraham’s view the morning after Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt, is a flawless description of a local opening of the tectonic plate along the Dead Sea Fault.
Genesis 19:26-28 – But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. [27] And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: [28] And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.
I believe God opened the Dead Sea Fault in a small local area to cause the terrifying picture Abraham witnessed in the aftermath of the cataclysm. I am convinced that God will once again open this fault in the last 1260 days of the tribulation period. But this time it will not be local – the opening will stretch from the southern tip of the Dead Sea via the land of Idumea to the northern extension of the Red Sea into the Gulf of Eilat or Aqaba (See Birth Pang Archive Figure 23). I believe the prophet Isaiah saw this happening in his vision of destruction in Idumea during the tribulation period.
Isaiah 34:9,10 – And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. [10] It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
Begin Excerpt from THE JERUSALEM POST
Pompeii’s destruction: Godly retribution?
By GIL SHEFLER
08/24/2010 01:23
Archaeology editor says Jews thought so
This day in 79 CE began as any other. The inhabitants of the Roman city of Pompeii were going about their business; the men were bathing in
the bath houses, slaves were doing their chores, merchants were selling produce in the market.
Suddenly, the ground began to shake, and from the caldera of the Mount Vesuvius towering ominously above the city, a tremendous force was unleashed.
Within seconds, a fiery cloud of smoke with temperatures reaching 250 degrees Celsius descended on the plains below, killing every living being in its way – men, women, children and livestock.
The catastrophic event, which according to the traditional count took place 1931 years ago today, was one of the most devastating in Roman history. Thousands perished, including much of the Roman elite vacationing in the area.
But for historians and archeologists, the eruption was an endowment that yielded a trove of well-preserved artifacts and information, frozen in time.
And now, from the Pompeii ashes, a new question arises for some: Was the destruction of Pompeii an act of divine retribution by the God of the Jews? Or rather, did Jews of the time see it that way?
The Temple had been razed by Roman legionnaires in 70 CE, only nine years earlier. So did Jews regard the Vesuvius eruption as the Hand of God punishing those who dared destroy His house in Jerusalem?
Hershel Shanks, the editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review, believes Jews indeed made the connection.
In a paper titled “The Destruction of Pompeii – God’s revenge?” in the July/August edition of the magazine, Shanks cited ancient evidence to support his thesis.
Shanks recently told The Jerusalem Post that the idea to examine a connection between the two events came to him on a tour of the ruins of the Roman city located in the vicinity of modern-day Naples.
“On my own visit to Pompeii, I tried to find out when the destruction of the Temple occurred,” Shanks relates. “When I learnt of the supposed date, I thought, ‘Hey I wonder if anyone has connected the two.’” Shanks, described by the The New York Times as “probably the world’s most influential amateur Biblical archaeologist,” said he called Harvard’s Shaye Cohen, who directed him to Book 4 of the Sibylline Oracles, a text composed by “mostly Jewish oracles” shortly after the eruption.
The book first mentions the destruction of the Temple, and then seemingly refers to the Vesuvius eruption: “When a firebrand, turned away from a cleft in the earth [Vesuvius] In the land of Italy, reaches to broad heaven It will burn many cities and destroy men.
Much smoking ashes will fill the great sky And showers will fall from heaven like red earth. Know then the wrath of the heavenly God.”
The second piece of evidence cited by Shanks is ancient graffiti etched onto a fresco at a Pompeii building. The grafitti reads “Sodom and Gomorra.”
In Shanks’s opinion, the text is proof that a Jewish visitor to the ruins believed its fate followed that of the two sin cities that the Bible says were destroyed by God.
In any case, if the destruction of Pompeii was an act of divine retribution, then some Jews were also caught up in his vengeance.
It is almost certain there were some Jewish individuals, perhaps a fullyfledged Jewish community in Pompeii, that perished along with the city’s gentiles.
Shanks said a fresco of King Solomon, the most ancient depiction of a biblical scene, is located not far from where the Sodom and Gomorra graffiti was found. Also, relates Shanks, a vase with what some believe is an ancient kashrut stamp has been found in the famous ruins.
For Jews elsewhere, it is easy to imagine how news of the catastrophe at Pompeii would have been greeted with joy in light of the devastating defeat they had suffered only a few years earlier.
“It attacked the core of Roman society and, as if to emphasize the point, it extended all the way to Rome,” Shanks said. “You had the scary white and dark soot as far as Rome. There’s very good reason to conclude there was a perceived connection and in the eyes of some, God was clearly at work.”
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