2456. Verse 27-29 And Abraham rose up in the early morning, [and went] to the place where he had stood before Jehovah. And he looked out towards the face of Sodom and Gomorrah, and towards the whole face of the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. And so it was, when God was destroying the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot away out of the midst of the overthrowing when He was overthrowing the cities in which Lot dwelt.

'Abraham rose up in the early morning' means the Lord's thought concerning the final period, 'Abraham' here, as previously, meaning the Lord during that state. '[And went] to the place where he had stood before Jehovah' means a state of perception and of thought which He had already experienced before, 'place' meaning state. 'And he looked out towards the face of Sodom and Gomorrah' means thought concerning the interior state of these people as to evil and falsity. 'And towards the whole face of the land of the plain' means all the interior states resulting from this. 'And he saw, and behold the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace' means a state of falsity, meant by 'the smoke', arising out of a state of evil, meant by 'the furnace', inside the Church, meant by 'the land'. 'And so it was, when God was destroying the cities of the plain' means when they perished through falsities deriving from evil, which are meant by 'the cities of the plain'. 'That God remembered Abraham' means salvation achieved through the Lord's Divine Essence united to His Human 'Essence. 'And sent Lot away out of the midst of the overthrowing' means the salvation of those governed by good and of those governed by truth that has good within it, all of whom here are meant by 'Lot'. 'When He was overthrowing the cities' means when those perished who were governed by falsities deriving from evils. 'In which Lot dwelt' means that even those also who were saved were governed by such falsities.

Everyone knows the phrase "the natural order of things." It means that everything is in its proper place, occupying the niche it is meant to fill. There is also the phrase "the spiritual order of things," meaning that every spiritual thing is in its proper spiritual place, occupying the spiritual niche it is meant to fill. This is, of course, what the Lord intends for us, and happens when we accept life and love from Him by willing what is good and acting according to truth. Of course, things are frequently out of order, because even the best of us indulge in unhealthy self-obsession and attachment to the material world. Ideally, we will repeatedly turn to the Lord and ask for His help with the cleanup, putting things back where they belong in the "spiritual order of things." This is what is meant when the Bible talks about restoring things -- it means putting them back into their proper spiritual place.