Genesis 19:23-25

"The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came unto Zoar. Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground."

We shall spare the reader any description of just how God did this. We do not know, nor does anyone else! Many plausible theories are available, explaining how a great earthquake, releasing vast quantities of natural gas and petroleum, combined with the inflammable nature of the bituminous soil, ignited by lightening, or hot lava from volcanic action, etc., etc., could have resulted "quite naturally" in the destruction noted here. That is all very well, but how do we account for the sparing of Zoar! We do not believe that the wonder visible here is adequately explained by any, or by all such theories combined. When the time was ripe, God destroyed them by means and in a manner truly known only to God. Just so, at the end of our own age, when human rebellion is finally and irrevocably out of control, God has promised to destroy, not merely a few wicked cities, but the entire world, and we receive God's promises as sure and certain of fulfillment.

There are visible a number of purposes behind God's judgmental action against those wicked cities:

1. It was a great strengthening of Abraham's faith.
2. It warned Lot.
3. "It gave moral and religious instruction for all to come."[15]