[Special] What Happened to Pompeii, a Resort City of the Roman Empire?
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March 27, 2011 |
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The excavations of Pompeii show us its developed culture and architecture through a paved street, amphitheatre, baker's shop, fresco wall murals, private baths, and mosaic floors.
The Bible records that two biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were totally destroyed by the fire from heaven, and the history testifies that two Vesuvian cities Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed and completely buried by the catastrophic eruption of the volcano of Mount Vesuvius. The destruction of those cities gives a significant lesson to us who are living in this age that is full of evils and sins.
"As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, 'Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?' And Jesus answered and said to them, 'See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, "I am the Christ," and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes, but all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.'" (Matthew 24:3-8)
Pompeii was an ancient city, close to the Bay of Naples, in the Italian region of Campania. It was a port city located at the mouth of the Sarno River in the southeastern area of the volcano Mount Vesuvius. This city was an important passage between other countries and the Roman Empire, and a prosperous center of agriculture and commerce. Pompeii was also a resort city with many visitations of wealthy Romans.
But on August 24, 79 AD, Pompeii and Herculaneum were instantly destroyed and buried by the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. This catastrophe is recorded in www.AllaboutHistory.org as the following: "As early as ten o'clock on that fateful August morning, a plug of pressured lava blew skyward. No one expected that Mount Vesuvius would spew forth fire twenty miles into the sky, revealing a gigantic umbrella pine-shaped cloud. The inverted 'mushroom cloud' produced a 24-megaton eruption -- one thousand times more powerful than the bomb that leveled Hiroshima. As the deep-Earth magma frothed and cooled, it shot "sponge stone" (pumice) skyward at a velocity nearly twice the speed of sound."
An Ancient City Was Completely Destroyed and Buried by the Eruption
The city of Pompeii had been completely buried and forgotten until its excavation was started in 1599 to dig an underground channel to divert the river Sarno. The continual excavations thenceforth have not only given us a vivid vision of a daily life of a Roman society, but also helped us understand the culture, morality, and religion of the Roman Empire.
The city's magnificent culture and arts are revealed through the discovered relics including indoor running water, a thriving marketplace with mills and baker's shop, an amphitheater for entertainment, beautiful frescoes and wall paintings, public baths, cobblestone streets, sidewalks and many private shops, and so many. Those paintings and inscriptions on the walls show us how corrupt they were in religion, moral and culture, and how severely they were indulged in sexual immoralities.
Two Biblical Cities Sodom and Gomorrah Were Also Completely Destroyed
The destruction of the biblical cities Sodom and Gomorrah is well recorded in 2 Peter 2:6 that reads, "If He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter," and in Jude 1:7 that reads, "just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire."
These two verses and the 19th chapter of Genesis tell us how grossly the residents in the two cities went over the moral limitations in the sight of God. The residents indulged themselves in lustful pleasures and sexual immoralities, and also grew imbued with many other sins.
God rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from heaven and overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground (Genesis 19:24-25). The places were completely devastated and have not been inhabited ever since. Today the very location that the two cities were destroyed is located by the Dead Sea. The areas that housed the two cities looked like a garden of God and like the land of Egypt. It was well irrigated everywhere (Genesis 13:10). But, they are now occupied by a salt lake whose surface and shores are 423 meters (1,388 ft) below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface on dry land.
How to Be Saved from the Judgment of God's Justice
How could Lot and his family gain salvation from the judgment of fire in the city of Sodom? It was mainly because God considered his uncle Abraham. When God told Abraham that He would judge and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham earnestly prayed for the salvation of his nephew Lot and his family and eventually a chance for salvation was given to them.
Shortly before the fire of God's judgment covered the city, Lot forsook everything he had including all his possessions and cattle and fled away from the city. He told his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, that the judgment would come, but they thought he was jesting. Lot's wife followed him, but in the middle of her flight, she defied the warning of God that forbade her to turn back, and looked back to the worldly city and turned into a pillar of salt.
The Bible clearly records the signs of the coming back of the Lord and the end time of the world are characterized mainly by the many more appearances of wars, famines, and many disasters that take place all over the world.
The world is becoming filled with many more man-made disasters due to the development of science and civilization, but there remains a way for them to be saved through the effective prayer of a righteous man in accordance with the will of God. It's because the God of love gives everyone a chance for salvation until the last moment and God is amazingly manifesting explosive power of the Holy Spirit to lead many souls to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive salvation.
The believers in the Christ should continually press on to enter the kingdom of Heaven without looking back at the world and seeking any worldly pleasure, and also fill their hearts with the love for the Lord so that the worldly things can never enter their mind.
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