Fire and Brimstone P. 2

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Therefore, my beloved flee from idolatry First Corinthians ten fourteen. Dear Lord, we thank you for being our refuge. We thank you for being our light. Your wisdom is perfect, and your mercy is without end. You have blessed us in countless ways. Lord, We confess our weakness, We admit our need for You. Each day. Too often we are tempted by idols. We chase after possessions, we seek fleeting pleasures, We long for the approval of others. These distractions draw us away from You. Forgive us, Lord for our wandering hearts. Show us the idols we cling to, give us the courage to let them go. Help us to worship you alone. Teach us to desire your presence above all else. Fill us with the Holy Spirit. Give us the strength to resist temptation. Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Guide us to walk in faith, and shape us to live with devotion and truth. May our lives reflect your holiness, and may our hearts remain faithful to you always. 00:01:25 Speaker 2: Amen. 00:01:27 Speaker 1: Thank you for praying with me today. You're listening to the Chosen People. Remain here for a dramatic story inspired by the Bible. Be sure to follow this podcast so you never miss an. 00:01:39 Speaker 3: Episode previously on The Chosen People. 00:01:45 Speaker 4: The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is immense. The victims of this terrible wickedness plead for justice. The sin of both Sodom and Gomorrah is extremely serious. 00:01:59 Speaker 2: Yes, your judgment will be carried out according to your will. 00:02:04 Speaker 5: My lords, be welcome to the city of Sodom, the pride of the great cities of the Plaine. Please allow me to be your host while you stay here in these walls. 00:02:16 Speaker 3: Lot was so unattuned to the presence of God that he hadn't noticed what Abraham noticed. He did not recognize the divinity veiled behind their handsome faces, or the authority vibrating from their voices as they spoke. 00:02:31 Speaker 6: What who is it you're hosting in there? Who those pretty men you're keeping all to yourself? 00:02:40 Speaker 3: The wood of the door was immediately met with the dull funk of the blade of a dagger, followed by two pairs of fists. Just then Lot felt a pair of strong, sure hands grasp his shoulders and hurl him aside. A blinding light illuminated the street behind the door. The light that prefracted through the door rain and the front windows was brighter than even the sun at its zenith. 00:03:04 Speaker 6: Ah, I've been blinded. Can you see anything? 00:03:09 Speaker 5: Where? 00:03:09 Speaker 6: Where is the daughter? What? What did you do? 00:03:12 Speaker 5: Ros? 00:03:12 Speaker 6: What fun and saucery is this? 00:03:18 Speaker 2: The evil and vile atrocities have caused a great outcry against its people. 00:03:24 Speaker 7: It has become so great before the God Almighty that he has sent us to destroy it. 00:03:31 Speaker 3: Despite all lod had seen earlier that night, with the more and the blinding light, and even all the acts of Abraham's God in the years since they left Haron, he hesitated. The visitors watched his silent calculation, and as if in response, they swooped upon him, grabbing his hands and dragging him from the threshold of their home into the streets of the city. 00:03:57 Speaker 2: You need to leave. Now, take your wife and your daughter's or you will be swept away from the punishment of the city. 00:04:10 Speaker 3: This episode of The Chosen People contains explicit content that may be triggering for some listeners and inappropriate for young children. Listener discretion is advised. 00:04:22 Speaker 2: Get up, keep moving, don't stop, and don't look back. 00:04:27 Speaker 3: Lot stumbled, his knees stinging as it met sharp gravel, along the streets out of the city. The two messengers were still forcibly dragging Lot and his stun family, pulling them up when they fumbled, and spurring them on with words and hands toward the distant gates of Sodom. As they fled, Lot's eyes caught sight of the crumbling stone structures, delicate fishes, spider webbing beneath his feet. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, but the vision remained a harbinger of the city's imminent doom. His youngest daughter, Milker, tripped on a step, her satchel spilling its precious contents, clothing, heirlooms, trinkets, tumbling down the roughly carved steps. Her cry for help went unanswered, the messenger hauling her along with a single minded determination. Lot turned to protest, but a stern look silenced him. There would be no slowing down, no stopping. A grumbling far beneath his feet convinced Lot to surrender any thought of a second appeal. The great upheaval caused Lot to stumble again, and his messenger tightened his grip on his elbow and doubled their pace. In the distance, frightened voices began to cry out, and the sounds of panic began to rise from every valley, corner and courtyard. City guards poured through the streets, doors rattled in their frames, and the very stones shook and frackedatured underfoot, sucking the. 00:06:03 Speaker 8: Ashvil pits out of the valley, like. 00:06:08 Speaker 3: The ones that clued the lives of so rendering the vision. Lot's eyes widened at the sight of substantial cracks forming in the road. The earth groaned and the rocks sank into the thick sulfuric slime beneath. He remembered the sidin valley where King Cadelaeuma's men had been swallowed by the treacherous brimstone pits. Almost impossible to detect, the acrid mud held you fast as you sank beneath its toxic depths. The pits drew in surrounding debris, so unless you knew what to look for, you could find yourself caught in its orbit before aid could arrive. The oozing slime was incredibly flammable, as the frequency of summer wildfires out in the plains had taught them. Lot had always assumed that the safety of the Stone City would protect them, but Apparently the danger had lurked beneath the foundation of the city all the way, chaos reigned around them. Looters roamed the streets, arms laden with stolen goods, while others turned to drink and debauchory, embracing the uncertainty with reckless abandon Bloody daggers flashed in the hands of n'a duels, and lynchings took place in shadowed courtyards. The city in moments had descended into anarchy, its veneer of civilization stripped away to reveal the rotting core beneath. How could such repulsions have erupted so swiftly had Lot been blind to the simmering of these abominations. It was as if scales were falling from his eyes as he finally viewed the horrors of the place he had come to call home off its leash. At last, in one alleyway, Lot spied a truly grusome scene. Feared that the blind Durac in his lackeys somehow found Chavar Lot's friend, whom he had just defended me at hours earlier. They were brutally delivering their vention of justice. He had been stripped naked and His face had been beaten to a pulp, almost beyond recognition, and he limply hung between Durac and Covin as Turvan further shamed him right in the very street. Lot's stomach turned and bile rose from the back of his throat as this horrific spectacle played out. He knew this would have been his own fate if the messengers had not intervened. The crumpled body of a city guard laid off to the side, it appeared there would be no rescue for poor Chavar. Lot didn't look over to see whether his wife and daughters had seen. The two messengers deafly navigated Lot and his family around the deteriorating ground. They had an almost sterile efficiency in moving them through the violence exploding around them. That left Lot feeling unnerved. He couldn't bring himself to look up again until we've reached the city gates. 00:09:09 Speaker 2: What we said we would do, we have done. You have been delivered safely outside the city. Now you must run for. 00:09:17 Speaker 6: The little ladas, run to the mountains. 00:09:20 Speaker 2: Or you will be swept away by the destruction that is abouted before the city. 00:09:26 Speaker 7: Remember, don't stop anywhere on the plane you must keep going and don't look back. 00:09:33 Speaker 3: With that final warning, the messenger, who had been holding him fast throughout their journey, gave Lot a firm push through the now abandoned city gate. The moment his feet passed the threshold, a different sort of panic washed over Lot. His chest felt constricted. He couldn't breathe, He couldn't bring himself to be that exposed, that out in the open. The terror seized his body. His thoughts raced, and his breathing came in and out in shallow puffs. 00:10:04 Speaker 2: Was he dying? 00:10:06 Speaker 3: Why couldn't he breathe? Lot had next to nothing between his pack and those carried by his family, but at that moment, he would have given it all to make this sensation, this waking nightmare stop. Something snapped inside of Rod's mind. Sheer self, preservation, instinct and desperation bore in him an idea Wildly. Lot squinted into the night before them. Yes, there in the foothills, just as he remembered it. 00:10:40 Speaker 5: Wait, my lords, please, I beg you whatever favor I have in your eyes, even if it's on account of my uncle Abraham, I beg you. 00:10:51 Speaker 6: I can't run to the mountains I can't live in the mountains. 00:10:55 Speaker 5: I can't, I can't. Ah, Oh, disaster, disaster will overtake me and I'll die. 00:11:06 Speaker 6: You just saved my life, but now you're gonna leave me to go to my death. Please show me this kindness. I cannot be without the walls. 00:11:17 Speaker 3: The stone in my back. 00:11:20 Speaker 2: I need it. 00:11:21 Speaker 3: I need the stones. 00:11:22 Speaker 6: I need the stones between me and my enemies. 00:11:28 Speaker 8: Father, what are you saying? 00:11:32 Speaker 3: What because I have? 00:11:34 Speaker 5: Oh? 00:11:35 Speaker 6: Yes, yes, Please please look. 00:11:38 Speaker 9: There's this small town up ahead on the plain. Used to be a part of the City of the Plains Alliance Bella. It was called a small place that's close enough for me to flee. To allow me the chance to get behind its walls before you bring on the destruction. 00:11:55 Speaker 8: Please take pity on us, my lords. What my father means to say has don't strip him of any chance to earn a livelihood. Surely this small place can be saved. Yes, this would surely be better than us living in the mountains. How would we survive there? 00:12:14 Speaker 9: Please listen to my daughters and my wife. 00:12:17 Speaker 6: Let us run to this small town. 00:12:20 Speaker 3: Every breath was still a battle, and lot felt as if a great beast was perched upon his chest as he watched the two other worldly men consider his family's petition. The first seemed unmoved, but after what felt like an eternity to Lot's anxiety, the second finally turned to them after receiving an almost imperceptible nod from the first. 00:12:43 Speaker 7: We will grant you your request. We will not destroy the small town you mentioned, but you must go now. Remember what we told you. Don't look back, and don't stop. 00:12:57 Speaker 2: Now go. We cannot complete our task until you get there. 00:13:03 Speaker 3: Without waiting for the first man to have a chance to change his mind, Lot took off without a second look back at the two men. As the sun steadily climbed into the sky, it assaulted the sky above Sodom with its crimson glow. If they had not descended into seeing chaos and villany, the inhabitants would have found it ominous and foreboding. But so intent on their evil deeds, they also failed to see the gathering clouds creeping over the plains like a sly predator stalking its oblivious prey. Swirling in the depths of the clouds was a crackling, fiery lightning. The pent up energy of the storm loomed high above Sodom, the disciplined breath before a mighty war cry that some unseen signal. The first wave of lightning struck the ground below. The strikes ignited the exposed brimstone, causing it to melt immediately to catch fire. The dull, yellow, acrid mud beneath the surface of Sodom turned blood red as flame lit sulfur. One deposit of inflame self he met the others and spread like cracks on ice, spider loving throughout the entire city. A ghostly blue flame sprang up and encased the burning holes of melted sulfur, consuming everthing, stone, blood, and flesh in its part. Animal and man alike went screming tore fire of death. Some evil doos to w all out from their foul leaves before the fire law consumed them. Others hidden cellars ran to roofs in vain. No one and nothing escaped the flames of judgment. The lightning strikes and ensified a harrowing force of nature and judgment. It was as if thick tongues of flame were little In the city of Sudden. The bright white infernal of light fiber met the blue flames from below and all the cool time, ridle was melted into the molten mass that writhed beneath the blue purifying fire. The flames dancing atop the melted sulfur were like the sea, the wind with the fire into waves that rippled over the landscape and lapped a charred bones and silinged buildings. The smell of the acid fumes burned their eyes and lumbers, leaving their minds intact just long enough to feel the tortuous poison. 00:15:44 Speaker 10: Over time, the blues of thick black smoke sprang into the air and could be seen for miles and miles. Held in the sickening snow of a lot of eggs that could haunt, allowed for weakness and. 00:15:58 Speaker 3: Months to come. Obeying the commands of the mysterious men, they did not look back to the streets of Sodom. Lot's wife kept her head from turning, averting her eyes from the destruction falling behind them. It was when they reached the outskirts of the small town of Bella that the agonizing screaming and inhuman shrieking of thousands of men and beasts being burned alive began. Even at a distance, Their anguished chorus made the hair on the back of her arms rise and she covered her ears to block it out, but to no avail, and nothing could block out the booming thunder and crackling lightning that plummeted out of the sky. It was then that the smell affronted their senses. Edith's eyes watered instantly, and she gathered at the nauseating, rancid smell, sul of smoke and burnt flesh. She pulled her hands from her ears to cover her mouth and nose, but the smell was everywhere. It seeped into her skin, clothes, and hair. She felt she may never be clean again. The clouds over the city cast dark shadows before them, and they were outlined by a bright white light every time the lightning illuminated the sky. They reached the pitiful town walls that were the once respectable town of Bella, and the horrified faces of the townsfolk told them just how harrowing the sight behind them truly was. Milker attempted to turn and look behind them now that they were nearing the city gate, but Lot roughly turned her head back to the. 00:17:40 Speaker 8: Ground before them leave her alone. She just wants to see what happened. Aren't we far enough away now? 00:17:49 Speaker 3: Edith started to turn around herself when Lot lunged for her and took her face in his hands. 00:17:55 Speaker 6: It is no you heard what they said. Don't look. We can only go forward now. We have to get beyond the walls of the city to safety. 00:18:04 Speaker 3: Edith tore his hands away from her face and shoved him hard in the chest walls of the city. 00:18:12 Speaker 8: You call this a city? 00:18:15 Speaker 6: How are we to live? 00:18:17 Speaker 3: Look at these people. 00:18:19 Speaker 8: You would have us live in squalor and poverty among these country bumpkins. 00:18:24 Speaker 6: Ugh, Edith, Edith, you beg these men to send us here, same as me. What are you saying? 00:18:31 Speaker 8: I can't I can't do this, Lot, I cannot follow you again. We've already lost so much. We crawled our way back. I can't do it again. Mother, Please, we'll find a way to survive. I promise we'll find a way together. What do you know of it? I've handed you everything. I got you a husband, secured your future, and gave you stability. You would have nothing without me, Mother, Follow your sister, heed her. She's the best chance you have. See if she can provide for you as I have to. 00:19:18 Speaker 3: Lot's horror. His wife kissed their younger daughter on the forehead and squeezed the eldest's hand before turning around to face the destruction of Sodom. She drew herself up to her full height, squared her shoulders, and began walking in the direction of the smoldering ruins. 00:19:40 Speaker 6: Eh Ish, wait, turn around, what are you doing? Where are you going? 00:19:53 Speaker 8: Mother? 00:19:56 Speaker 3: Lot threw his arms protectively around his screaming and stuff daughters to keep them from following her. He hauled them forward through the final steps that led through the city gate, and together they all collapsed to the threshold. The guards had long since abandoned their posts to gape open mouths of the terrible judgment raining down on Sodom and the surrounding plain. Lot's young daughters then broke from his grip and ran to roughly human embrasures in the stone wall to peer out. Lot shakily found his feet and followed them to the dreary lookout to see what fate had befallen his wife. She was no more than a hundred paces away. That thick smoke polluted the air, and she was soon no more than an outline. The girls whimpered and continued to shout her name in vain. Suddenly the wind shifted as she was in full view from the wall. She gazed upward as if in provocative protest, on outstretched, and her screen was cut short, and she stood still as a pillar. But then her body fell love It did not fall, but began to crumble. To Lot's revulsion, the outline of her very body was falling in on itself and dissolving into what appeared to be sulked. The wind carried larger and larger chunks until there was a small pile where she once stood. Him petrified, his daughters stopped screaming, their eyes wide in horror. Time stood still as the three of them watched a smoky gust carry the rest of her away on a fell wind. His daughter's keening cries filled Lots he as, driving him to his knees. He couldn't bear to watch his city burn again. About thirty miles away, Abraham was walking his territory, walking stick in hand, surveying the land as he did each day. A dark spot in the sky drew his attention, and he turned off his path to climb the gentle slope of a nearby oak tree grove to get a better vantage point. Squinting in the bright sun of midday, he saw plumes of thick black smoke steadily overtaking the horizon. Even from this great distance, he could see the blurry haze of angry red flames, and their outline wavered as their heat rose. Sodom Its judgment had come at last, just as his God had promised. Though he knew this apocalypse was coming, he still stood in terrible awe at the magnitude of the destruction. It was final. Definitive generations from now would speak in hush tones of Sodom's fate, and even further into the future there would be debate as to where it actually stood. He trembled at the power and might of his God, capable of wiping an entire population off the face of the earth and obliterating its very history. Even as sick astonishment washed over him, he again felt that comforting presence in the back of his mind. He knew this was going to happen, knew it needed to happen, and he also knew with absolute certainty that the Lord was safe. This prey dog comproduction is only made possible by our dedicated team of creative talents. Steve Gattina, Max Bard, Zach Shellabager and Ben Gammon are the executive producers of The Chosen People. Narrated by Paul Coltefianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Cotton, Aaron Salvado, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwold, Sylvia's Saradoc, Thomas Copeland, Junior, Rosanna Pilcher, and Mitch Leshinsky. Music by Andrew Morgan Smith, written by Aaron Salvato, bre Rosalie and Chris Baig. You can hear more Prey dot com productions on the Prey dot Com app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If you enjoyed The Chosen People, please rate and leave a review,