But this escape of Lot's only served to put fresh honor upon Abraham, for we read that "when God destroyed the cities of the plain, _he remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow_" (ver. 29). Thus, as Abraham's sword had delivered Lot in the time of the conquest of Sodom, his prayer delivered him in the time of its final overthrow, "for the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Nor does the contrast between those two men stop here. There is yet another scene in which they stand at a great distance from each other as to the moral condition of their souls. "Abraham gat him up early in the morning, to the place where he stood before the Lord" (ver. 27). Here the man of faith, the holy pilgrim, once more raises his head amid the mighty scene of desolation. All was over with Sodom and its guilty inhabitants, "the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Sad spectacle! The din and bustle of that once stirring city was hushed; silence reigned around--the buying and selling--the eating and drinking--the marrying and giving in marriage--all the intercourse of social life had been awfully broken in upon. The solemn "UNTIL" had come at last--the only one in all that wicked place who, notwithstanding his failure, could be regarded as "the salt," had been removed--the measure of Sodom's iniquity had been filled up--the day of divine longsuffering closed, and nothing now met the eye of Abraham but misery and desolation throughout all the plain. How melancholy! And yet it was but a type of the far more terrible desolation which shall sweep across this guilty world when the Son of man makes His appearance, "when every eye shall see Him, and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn and wail because of Him."