Sodom and Gommorah

Hebrew 12, near the end of the chapter reads, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake....

Today's thoughts are about listening to God.

Hebrews chapter 12 begins with that part about laying aside our sins and keeping our focus on Jesus Christ...who endured such "contradiction of sinners" against himself, (KJV..) ... or as the NIV says, "opposition from sinful" men.. or in the NASB.."endured such hostility by sinners against Himself."  In contrast, I have always been one to run away.  Gods word, bringing home the reality once again of Christ's suffering ,serves to remind me not only of the importance of listening to God's commands, his words and his instructions, his promises... which are all fine and good, but to also look at Jesus as an example of who God is, and his love for sinners, his love that endures forever and to remember how much hatred from evil men he endured for... what?  Doing that which is right... raising the dead to life, healing the sick, the blind, the deaf and ultimately trusting not in men at all, but trusting God. I want to keep my eyes upon Jesus, even when I am discouraged.

It's easy to get discouraged.   It's easy to give up believing God and what he has told us is true and right and good, in exchange for being accepted by others. 

Jesus, being crucified, being spit upon and hated, didn't seek to gain the approval of man  HE didn;t argue with them to prove himself right and he didn't get made when they refused to believe the things he said.  He simply pressed on.  He spoke the truth to them and he called a viper a viper.  He even forgave them as they did evil things to him because he would not submit to their every beck and call.  As I consider it, I think that he was probably discouraged when Pilate looked at him and asked him, "What is truth.?" Bliinded by his own ambition unto greatness and man's apporoval Pilot didn;t recognize truth, or  God, even when it was right before his eyes.  For Jesus, this must have been just a little bit discouraging...and yet, he pressed on...trusting what he know to be true and right and good, knowing first and formost, he had the love and approval of his Father.  Jesus God with us was fully human, loving God and fully God, was demonstrating his love for sinful man.

Funny how often people think they know better than God does.  Even Peter the apostle thought he did when he told Jesus he would not be killed and raised again from the dead.  (Matthew 16:23)   Jesus told him, right then and there, where every thought that is not captive to the will of God and subject to the revelation of his Holy Spirit  is from.  We do not know more than God does.  Jesus said it, God recorded the truth in his word, and as children of God, we may not always understand it, but we must be willing to stand under it, and declare that it is true.  Yet, remarkably, some people think that they know so much more than Almighty God..

Take for example, the  issue of homosexuality.  Some people  think that they know better than God about the matter.  Some even faulting those who bear Jesus' name, Christians, for  "wrongly" thinking that homosexual behaviors are wrong.  Using the scriptures they even argue that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality, but inhospitably and violence; and their own great wisdom and understanding, they declare emphatically that the bible and the Christian church has actually got the whole sodomy story wrong. 

"The sin of Sodom," they say, "is not homosexuality," (which if they do not personally participate in, they endorse, support and give lip service to.) "It is the sin of not being loving..for example,  to those who might be considered "sinners" in the eyes of God," (and in particular homosexuals, because the church says that this behavior is "a sin.") 

It's time to set the record straight, tell it like it is: God does not hate homosexuals... what he does hate is lies and perversion of the truth.  Let's make no mistake about it; the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is outright rebellion and unrepentant hearts.  The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is not loving, or willingly obeying God. But let's call a viper a viper if he is one.  The men of Sodom and Gomorrah did not hide the sin of homosexuality in any closet.  In fact, in today's terms, they were openly quite "gay."

Look at the Biblical account:
Lot is living in Sodom when some angelic beings come to him and being a hospitable person, he welcomes them into his home, feeds them and gives them shelter for the night, knowing that it would not be safe for these men to be out in the night on the city streets.. Lot, though he lived in such a city,  was showing hospitality to these men, even though they were strangers to him , he had never seen them before.  When all the men of the city, young and old surrounded his house and demanded that the strangers be handed over to them, saying, “Bring them out to us that we may know them.” Lot refused, knowing that the men of the city were not simply showing hospitality, wanting to befriend these strangers, be their friends.  Lot, and bible readers understand what they said to mean that they want to  “know” the visitors in a sexual way.

It's a rather bizzare story in the Bible, but it only gets stranger when  Lot desires to protect the strangers ( who are really angels in disguise) and offers the mob at his door his virgin daughters, telling them,  “do to them as you please” with them.  

Talk about hospitality...  This was going overboard.  One cannot help wondering what it was that Lot was even thinking with such a gesture. Whatever he was thinking it didn't matter too much because the men outside would have nothing to do with the women.  They didn't want something unless it was defiled.  What they desired could only be a replica of themselves. 

Outside Lot's door were violent, men breaking down his door, so bent on their perversion that they abhored anything pure or natural.  Filled with evil, they would pervert if they could even the angels of God, and nothing would stop them, except an act of God. 

The angels blind the intruders, Lot and his family escape the city and Sodom and Gomorrah gets destroyed by God.  We read about it all and see how homosexuality was not the sin of Sodom, but let's be real.  It was certainly symptomatic, obviously one of the evil fruits that rebellion to God produces in a person's life.   Homosexuality, like other sinful behaviors, is a obvious perversion of the blessed and holy things of God.

Note also that homosexuality was not and is not  the "unpardonable" sin.  Lot knew this.  Maybe this why he even offered them his daughters...his virgin daughters,  hoping perhaps that they would cease their evil...  escape their life of rebellion and sin and be diverted from such violence,  but they would not.  They had a mind of their own to do what they ought not, and they would not relent.

2 Peter 2tells us,  God didn't spare the ancient world when he brought the flood.... (except for Noah and his family... Seven others...) It tells us that God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah  and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; what will ultimately happen to those  "those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority."

What authority?  God.


Sodom and Gomorrah was filled with those who followed, not God, but their own dark and foolish hearts, who did whatever it pleased themselves to do.  You might say that they were completely given over to the love of self.  Rejecting God completely, rejecting all that is pure and holy and good, desiring to even pervert angels who had come into their midst to see if they would change their ways, they were bent on evil and so their cities were destroyed forever, by the judgment of Almighty God.

I am rather dismayed that homosexuality is so pervasive in our society, but I am not surprised.  It's symptomatic.  People want to be great, in control of thier lifestyles... doing what peleases them and keeps discouragement over who they really are, far away from the shore of their lives, far out, "at bay."  Perhaps without even realizing it, they are God haters.  Some of my favorite people in the world have turned a deaf ear to the truth and now think they know better than God on the issue of homosexuality. 

Some boast that they are engaged in homosexual exploration or relationships, explain that they are just being the person that God made them to be, or that they are trying to discover the person they really are deep inside, just being the person they really want to be, never realizing that they have fallen prey to the lying lips of Satan who tells them, man, and man's wisdom is so much better to listen to than God.  It's a matter of pride they say. "Gay Pride."  Pretending to find happiness in rebellion towards God, they call it ,"being gay-." hoping that you  and me and all the world will see how happy they are, leave them alone and ultimately fault God, and Christians who take God at his word, for being so wrong.

Those who hate God, hate wisdom, reject understanding and knowledge, love death.  (see:Proverbs 8)

They also love lies.

We know that  men have healthy, loving and kind relationship with men.  We see examples of fathers who love their sons, cousins who love their cousins,, brothers who  love their brothers.  In the Bible we read about the love of David for another man, one named Jonathan, and you can see how David's love for Jonathan was real, but he was not homosexual. Love can exist between same sexed people  without it playing itself out in any sexual way and to do so is quite real and right and good.  David, had some other sins to deal with though, that of adultery and murder... but he repented too.  It's our unrepentant sins that leads us to our destruction.


Scripture tells in Romans Chapter 1 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men...who hold the truth in unrighteousness . . . . "  To hold the truth in unrighteousness would be to be a mocker or a hypocritical liar, you might say.  In the world of perverted truth sometimes it hard to know for sure who is telling the truth of a matter and who exactly is the liar. 

"But do not be decieved, Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Cor. 6) 

One thing we can be sure of it that the liar is not God, nor can God be mocked.  Christians, true Christians are those who take him as his word and who, despite their own human frailty and weaknesses, believe him and what those who believe him say he says, not because they know better, but because they take him at his word.  Lot did.  In fact, Lot is a lot like a "lot" of us who consider ourselves to be "Christian" today.  And what a lot we are... sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers (does that cover it all?) is exactly " what some of you were."  (1 Cor. 6) 

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8;  and see 1 Corinthians 15:3) 



"And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law..."  Note how the Son in law did not escape when the angel of the Lord ushers Lot and those who believed God away....

"...And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city” (Genesis 19)

Lot's wife... looking back, she became a pillar of salt.