Sodom & Gomorrah

Sodom and Gomorrah in Ezekiel and Genesis

Let's open to Ezekiel chapter 16, and I know that's not what you're expecting based on what's on the screen, but bear with me, Ezekiel 16. But tonight we're going to be looking at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And I thought about it years ago. This just seems to be, it really is one of those basic Old Testament Bible stories. I remember when I was young, hearing about it in Sunday school and you would hear sermons about it.

People would reference the story of Sodom and Gomorrah often, but I started thinking it's like in the past 10 years, maybe it's just me, but I haven't really heard anyone preaching on this. And it just seems like, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like this is kind of being avoided.

This subject is being avoided. And if that is the case, I could probably guess why. But the reason why we're looking at Ezekiel 16, because when you think, when people hear Sodom and Gomorrah, they think of one thing, right?

I mean, this God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for the sin of homosexuality. I mean, that's, anyone would make that connection. But today there are people that are trying to reinterpret the text and say that really wasn't the issue with Sodom and Gomorrah.

The issue is that they didn't take care of the poor, that that was the real sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. You know, they just didn't have a good enough welfare program or something like that. And I have heard that many times.

Where do people get that idea? Before we get into the whole story, let's just kind of nip that in the bud. Ezekiel 16, 48 through 50, it says, as I live, says the Lord, neither your sister Sodom nor her daughters have done as you and your daughters have done.

Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food and abundance of idleness. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy, and they were haughty and committed abomination before me.

Therefore I took them away as I saw fit. So the first thing I would mention here is the irony of Ezekiel 16. So people say, well, you know, it really isn't about homosexuality, Sodom and Gomorrah. It's how they treated the poor.

Well, notice here, the first thing that the Lord brings up is the sin of what pride and just that word, you know, pride like this is significant because of course we're now in the month of June and we know the word pride is sort of that term that they have chosen to represent that whole lifestyle and ideology.

So I don't think Ezekiel actually helps their argument, but yes.

Okay.

I will admit that the Bible does say that the people of Sodom, they mistreated the poor. That's what it says. It also says that they were lazy and they were violent and they were guilty of a lot.

Of things.

So it wasn't just one thing, but you know, more than one thing can be true at the same time. So with that said, now let's turn to Genesis chapter 13 and we'll kind of start at the.

Beginning.

So the whole story of Sodom and Gomorrah, you could say spans from chapter 13 really gets going chapter 18 and 19. But the reason why we're in 13 is because this is where Abraham and his nephew lot part.

Ways.

Okay.

So back in Genesis chapter 12, remember the Lord had called Abram to leave his father's house, go to the land that I will show you. So this introduces the whole concept of the promise land. So picking up in chapter 13, Abraham is a wealthy man.

Lot is wealthy as well. They have a lot of livestock and now they're running into some problems. Look at Genesis 13 verse five. It says lot also who went with Abram had flocks and herds and tents. Now the land was not able to support them.

That is both of them that they might dwell together for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of lots livestock, the Canaanites and the parasites then dwelt in the land.

So Abram said to lot, please let there be no strife between you and me in between my herdsmen and your herdsmen for we are brethren is not the whole land before you. Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right.

Or if you go to the right, then I will go to the left and lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan and it was well watered everywhere. This is before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

It was like a garden or like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. As you go towards Zor, then lot shows for himself all the plain of Jordan and lot journeyed east and they separated from each other.

Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan and lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom.

Okay.

So you see, this is where it begins. We're a lot decides to go, you know, Abraham goes one way, lot goes the other way and lot is headed towards the city of Sodom and verse 13 look at it says, but the men of Sodom were.

What?

Well, see, they weren't just wicked. They were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. So how's that? Does that explain exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord? Like they're not just bad, they're really, really bad, which kind of tells you something because I think one of the problems with dealing with this whole subject, you know, today it's so common to hear people say, you know, all sin is the same and okay, yeah, there's people that are doing this, but you know, you, you struggle with something too and all sin is.

Equal.

So one thing isn't really any worse than the other. Well, that's not the way God looks at it. I mean, Sodom, they were again, exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. So they were worse than everybody else.

I mean, that's what the Bible saying. All right, now let's flip ahead to Genesis chapter 18. Here in this chapter, the Lord has just visited Abraham and Sarah. He's told them about the birth of Isaac, the son of promise.

So if you remember that story, three men show up and who are these three men? Well, two of them are angels and one of them is the Lord himself. So we would call this a Christophany, right? God visits earth, God visits Abraham in a human body.

So we would say that Abraham is talking to the pre incarnate Christ who then tells Abraham that he's planning on destroying the cities where Abraham knows, hey, my nephew lot who I care about is living here.

So look at Genesis 18, 22 says, then the men that is the two angels turned away after this conversation from there. And they went toward Sodom because they're going to try to rescue lot, take them out of the city.

But Abraham stood before who?

The Lord.

Okay, so he's talking to a man and this man is the Lord in all capital letters. He's talking to Jehovah in human form. Verse 23 and Abraham came near and said, would you also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

So he hears that the cities are going to be destroyed. He knows lot is there and he is now interceding, trying to get God to change his mind. So would you really destroy the righteous with the wicked?

Who are the righteous in the city? Well, at least lot, lot is righteous by new Testament calls them righteous. We're going to see that. Verse 24 Abraham says, suppose there were 50 righteous within the city.

Would you also destroy the place and not spare it for the 50 righteous that were in it? And he says to the Lord, far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous should be as the wicked.

Far be it from you shall not the judge of all the earth do right. So you're seeing what Abraham's doing. He's Lord, you know, you're, you're so good. You're so just, uh, if there's 50 righteous people that you wouldn't destroy the city, would you God?

Like it's not really a question is that he's kind of telling God, trying to, uh, appeal to the Lord's, uh, good nature or to his grace. So look at verse 26. So the Lord said, if I find in Sodom 50 righteous people within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.

So why is Abraham trying to get God to change his mind? Is it because here, let me ask this. Is it because Abraham cares so much about the men of Sodom? That's not really his motivation. He cares about his nephew and his family.

Okay.

Uh, so you probably know the story, uh, Abraham kind of whittles God down to, okay, 45. How about 40? How about 30?

You know?

And he keeps getting lower because I think Abraham knows that you, you, you probably can't find 50 righteous people within the city. So look at a chapter, not let's flip ahead to chapter 19, but God, they finally agree on 10.

If I can find 10 righteous people, then I'll spare the city.

All right.

Look at Genesis 19 verse. One says, now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. And when Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and he bowed himself with his face, uh, toward.

The ground.

Okay.

So the fact that Lot is sitting at the city gate, what does that tell us? Does anyone know?

Okay.

Yeah.

He's a leader. Uh, sometimes they would be called a judge.

Okay.

Okay.

So the prominent men would sit or stand at the city gate and that was their way of showing they were the ones in charge here. And they would monitor who comes in and, and who goes out. So we see that Lot is acting as one of the city elders.

So he's, you might say he's kind of a high ranking man in the city of Sodom. Now should Lot be living in Sodom? I don't know that the Bible says explicitly one way or another, but the impression you get is now he'd never really should have been there to begin with.

So I think it's safe to say that Lot is not living a set apart life.

Okay.

He's kind of, uh, you know, up to here in all the filth. Now Lot is not like the man of Sodom. He is a believer in the Lord. He's called righteous, but you know, he is, he is there and he is involved.

I try to put things in modern terms so we can maybe understand what it's like. It's not as if Lot is living in Northampton.

Okay.

Let's use Northampton as an example. It's a good comparison, I think, but it's not like he's living in Northampton, but he's on the outskirts of town. You know, he has a farm, the edge of town and he kind of keeps to himself and he fellowships with other believers and he goes to church and he's kind of set apart from the people in town.

Now that's not the way Lot is living. It's like he's one of the select men or he's on the town council of Northampton. You know, he's, he's involved in all the goings on. So he, he can't really claim to live, Hey, I'm set apart from all this.

No, he's, he's in the middle of all of it. So the term we would use for Lot, I should have checked in the library. We have a book in there and it's either called Lot the worldly Christian or Lot, you know, the picture of a backslidden Christian, something like that.

There's a book in there I remember seeing, but we would call today, we would call Lot maybe a carnal Christian. He is at the very least he is worldly.

Okay.

Lot is worldly. So he's at the gate and the angels arrive and remember the word angel means messenger. So as we saw in our revelation series, an angel could just be a human messenger, but these truly were like angels.

As you typically think of them, they were spiritual beings from heaven. Do we all agree with that? But they did take the form of men. So anyone who saw them, including the men of Sodom, they would have just seen two men,.

Right?

So two guys show up to Sodom. Now what are they doing there? We know why they're there. They're there to rescue Lot, but to the men of Sodom, two strangers come, they're visiting the city of Sodom. Sodom has a reputation.

It's not like people don't know what the town is all about. So if two men come to visit Sodom, what would the people in the city think? I mean, you, yeah, you might think they might think that these are two guys here, you know, like people visit Las Vegas.

They're here for a good time. It's yeah. It's not unreasonable to think that the men of the city would have thought that either way they show up and you know, a lot, I think he's going to realize at some point who they are if he doesn't know initially, but look at verse two.

And he, Lot said here now, my Lords, please turn into your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise early and go on your way. So a lot, you see, puts them up for the night.

And what do they say? They say, no, but we will spend the night in the open square. And that's when panic, you know, strikes Lot's heart because Lot now feels responsible back in ancient times. If visitors were traveling and they come, you know, they show up at your doorstep or, you know, if you talk to them, you're responsible, you know, Lot felt responsible.

Hospitality was a big deal. So he felt like it was up to him to protect these men. So when they say, we're going to just sleep out in the town square, like he knows this, this is not a good idea. So when they say that he, Lot says, insisted strongly.

So they turned in to him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread and they ate. Now, verse four, before they lay down, you know, so nighttime has come. It says the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter surrounded the house.

And they called to Lot and they said to him, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.

Okay.

Now, does anyone have a different translation? Says something different than know them carnally.

Okay.

Right.

So if you have the NIV or some other modern translation, it's just like blunt to the point. Where's, where's the two guys. Bring them out so we can have sex with them.

Okay.

So this verse tells us clearly what's going on. So the men of Sodom, I'm going to refer to them as Sodomites, right? So like Canaan, if a man lived or was from Canaan, he'd be called a Canaanite, right?

So the men of Sodom are Sodomites. Later the Bible uses that term Sodomite to refer to people who are attracted to the same sex. Even here in the United States, most States had laws on the books against sodomy.

So that specific word, that term was used even in this country in modern times and everyone understood what that meant. So if someone was called a Sodomite, like everyone knows what, what you're talking about.

However, if you look at it, most modern Bible translations, I think every single one except the King James version and the new King James, every single Bible translation now has changed the word Sodomite going forward from Genesis.

They've changed that word to say something like temple prostitute or cult prostitute. In other words, this sort of gives modern scholars an excuse to say, see, sodomy was not homosexuality is not the problem here.

So when the Bible speaks against Sodomites, that's not the issue. It's that they were part of this other religion or that they were prostitutes. So it's kind of a way of, in my opinion, it's a way of kind of watering down this sin and say, actually they were something else that homosexuality is not the problem.

This is just yet another reason why I prefer and would recommend the King James version and new King James version, because the King James and the new King James are the only terms or the only Bible translation that use either Sodomite or as the new King James puts it a perverted person.

So all other translations will say something like temple prostitute, which totally separates it from the sin of homosexuality. So again, that's, that's why I stick to these translations. But back to the text.

One thing nobody can deny, the men of Sodom are asking to have relations with the two.

Angels.

Okay.

And of course, what's Lot's response? Remember, he feels responsible. So if anything happens to his visitors, anything under his watch, I mean, that's on him. So Lot naturally as a believer in Jehovah God, Lot tries to prevent this.

He tries to stop it. So he tries to reason with them. Look at verse six. He says to the Sodomites, he says, please, my brethren. It's not that they're his, I mean, they're certainly not his literal brothers, like physically.

And they're not brothers like in Christ or anything like that. I mean, they're just his townspeople.

Okay.

But he says, please, my brethren do not do so wickedly. Like don't do that. Please do not do this. And then next, I mean, this is a potential area where we could get sidetracked in the story, but what does Lot do to try to, yeah, he offers his daughters to the men of Sodom to try to get them to back off, insisting on having relations with the two angels, which I mean, let's, let's face it.

I mean, that's, it's a pretty disturbing story all the way around. And this part of it, you know, it makes it a lot worse. Why do you think Lot would do that?

Okay.

Maybe he thought they wouldn't take them up on the offer. I mean, that, I guess that's, that's a possibility. You know, nothing really helps. Like I said, it's troubling. Nothing I say is going to really help that.

But what I've read, this is just something about ancient times, hospitality. Men were probably valued more than women. I mean, that's, that's part of it. But if anything happened to the two angels, you know, Lot would have been guilty.

So in that culture, it was the highest priority to protect your guests. They were under his roof. He was responsible. So the last thing in the world he could do is put them at risk. I mean, that's what commentators say.

So like I said, that doesn't really make us feel much better. Whatever is going on in Lot's mind, you can see that he is not thinking clearly. I mean, Lot is, he may be a believer in the Lord, but spending this much time in the city of Sodom has sort of warped his thinking.

I think that's a safe thing to say. So either way, the men of the city refused that offer because they're set on relations with the two visitors.

Marcus.

He certainly cared more about himself than his daughters.

I think that's safe to say as well, right? He cares about himself. So anything that'll get me or them, but me, you know, out of this jam, any other comments on this? And this is one of those, there's a lot of stories in the Bible that are, you know, people read through the Bible and they're like, I can't believe this is in the Bible.

Well, it's not that this is good, it's just the Bible. Part of what the scripture teaches is the sinfulness of mankind. So that this is part of what we're seeing, the depravity of man. And this is just another passage that kind of proves that.

Now what does Lot do? He kind of, so he's saying, no, please don't do this. This is wicked. And they accused Lot of being basically a judgmental bigot. That's what they say to Lot. Who made you a judge over us?

Who's this Lot guy think he is? He's a, yeah, he's a judgmental, you know, homophobic bigot. He won't let us do what we want to do. So Lot is trying to interfere and put a stop to this. Look at verse nine.

And that's when they turn on him. Verse nine. And they said, stand back. And they said, this one referring to Lot came in here to stay here in our city and he keeps acting as a judge. Now we will deal worse with you, Lot, than with them.

So they pressed hard against the man, Lot, and came near to break down the door. Now if you want to disagree with me on this, that's fine. But the way I read this passage, the Sodomites are now looking to do harm to Lot.

The way I've heard this explained is that the Sodomites are just trying to force their way into the house to essentially rape the angels. Is that how you've heard it described? I've heard that my whole life.

Again, I could be wrong. I think that's an assumption though. What they're doing, again, the way I read this, what they're doing is they're trying to get into the house to drag Lot out to give him at the very least a beating.

If not, they would kill Lot.

Okay.

I think that's why they're trying to get in so they can, again, at the very least beat Lot up for being so judgmental. Either way, whether they're trying to commit assault and battery, rape, or even murder, the men of Sodom were both guilty of homosexuality, yes, those desires, and they are guilty of.

Violence.

So can we agree on that, that the men of Sodom were also violent?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Verse 10. But the men, that is the two angels at this point, it says, they reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great so that they became weary of trying to find the door.

Then the men said to Lot, have you anyone else here, son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, take them out of this place for we will destroy this place because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord.

And the Lord has sent us to destroy it. So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who married his daughters. And he said, get up, get out of this place for the Lord will destroy the city. And what does it say about his son-in-laws?

They thought, they thought he was joking. I don't know why he would joke about that, but they're not taking it seriously. So verse 15, when the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry saying, arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here lest you be consumed in the punishment of.

The city.

And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside of the city. So you can sort of see that, you know, they weren't exactly, you know, rushing to get.

Out.

The angels kind of had to drag them out of the city. So it came to pass, verse 17, when they had brought them outside that he said, escape for your life. Do not look behind you. Remember this command, do not look back, do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain, escape to the mountains or else you will be destroyed.

And then for the sake of time, jump down to 23. The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zohar. Then the Lord rained brimstone in fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. Yes, Marcus.

And don't you think that this is another perhaps picture of the pre-tribulational rapture, that God takes his righteous ones out before he pours out his wrath?

Yeah, we're going to get to that once Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt. Jesus will actually make reference to this in the context of the end times. But first, this verse 24, interesting how it's put here.

Then the Lord rained fire and brimstone from the Lord out of the heavens. Well, how can the Lord rain fire and brimstone from the Lord? Well, how does that work? Put it another way, basically God the Son, the Lord on earth, rained down fire.

He called down the fire and brimstone from God the Father in heaven. So the Son was on earth. He calls down the judgment from the Father in heaven. And that's what that is all about. So verse 25, he, the Lord overthrew those cities, all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground.

But verse 26, Lot's wife looked back behind him and she became a pillar of salt. This has to be one of the most unique judgments in all of the Bible. But speaking about the day of the Lord in Luke chapter 17, verse 32, Jesus makes the comment again, in the context of the end times, he says, remember Lot's wife.

In other words, when the time comes during the great tribulation, when the time comes to flee Jerusalem, flee Judea, Jesus says, you know, don't go back, don't back, go, don't go back and get your coat.

Don't, don't just don't do any of that. Just go straight out, head straight out, flee the city. Basically anyone who hesitates or looks back, they're going to lose their life. Why did Lot's wife look back?

Yeah, she, I don't think she wanted to leave. She looks, she looks back because her heart is with the world, you would say, rather than, rather than God. In the book, the wisdom of Solomon, which this is part of the Apocrypha.

So we don't believe the Apocrypha is inspired scripture, but it's interesting that in the wisdom of Solomon chapter 10, verse seven, it says that a pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul.

In other words, Lot was saved, but his wife was not saved. And because she was not saved, her heart was still in Sodom. So because she didn't want to leave Sodom, she, you know, as the song goes, she left her heart back in San Francisco, right?

Because of that, God actually, because she loved that place, God actually made her part of the landscape. She literally became part of the landscape because that region near the Dead Sea, there's pillars of salt and it's not uncommon to see them.

So she's now part, part of the land.

Yeah.

Another instance in scripture where fire is brought down was when Elijah and the prophets of Baal had that contest up on the mountain.

Right.

Right.

Right. So Lot's wife dies. Lot, on the other hand, is spared.

Why?

Because of God's grace. Did Lot deserve to be spared? Not really, based on his choices, his actions, but God's grace, Lot was spared, right? It's Luke chapter 17, verse 32.

Yeah.

Jesus says, remember Lot's wife. Now, how do we know that Lot, because I've made reference a few times now, that Lot was righteous or that he was a believer, a carnal Christian or something like that.

Well, we know that because 2 Peter 2, 7 and 8 says that God delivered righteous Lot who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. It says, for that righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds.

So when you, it's interesting because when you read the story of Lot, it doesn't really strike you as a righteous man, right? That's not the picture you get. Was Lot just the way he lived? Was he really righteous?

Well, he was positionally righteous because he had faith, right? This is what the apostle Paul and teaching about the gospel in Romans chapter four. Remember Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

So Abraham and Lot were righteous because they had faith in the Lord. So this is a, you know, salvation by faith. You see the Trinity here, the son of God, you know, the Lord rained down fire from the Lord in heaven.

You see that you see some sort of concept of salvation by faith and not works here because Lot really didn't have the works. Although he did leave when the angel said, you know, leave, he did took a little doing, but he did leave and he didn't look back like his wife did.

So Lot did a lot of things wrong. But that is why just his behavior, it's why that throughout church history, Lot has been seen or used as sort of the perfect picture of a backslidden believer. You know, he, he trusted the Lord, loved the Lord, but then he moved to Sodom and things kind of went downhill.

He got backslidden, he was carnal, he was, he was worldly. And that's really the application I want to leave you on there. But before, before we do that, just want to touch on one more thing because Wednesday nights we've touched on what the age of the earth, right?

Old earth, young earth, Noah's ark. We've touched on a lot of stories where people are now starting to deny these things or try to reinterpret some of these stories. So what about Sodom and Gomorrah? Do you think most modern, modern scholars, modern seminaries, modern churches, if you were to visit churches in New England, how many actually think this happened?

You know, when I say church, I mean a white building with a steeple on it.

And when you say scholars, what do you mean?

People went to school, you know, they got a degree. Most people today don't think that this ever happened. I mean, they set fire and brimstone from heaven, come on, this, this never took place. So there's, do you know, there's actually physical evidence that demonstrates that yes, this did happen.

So the first thing I did, I went to Wikipedia, not because they're a reliable source, but because they always take the opposite position. So if there's something to do with Christianity, they always say the opposite, right?

So here's what Wikipedia says about Sodom and Gomorrah, because they quote some of these liberal scholars or whatever Marcus wants to call them. Here's what Wikipedia says, it has been suggested that if the story does have a historical basis, the cities may have been destroyed by a natural disaster.

One such idea is that the Dead Sea was devastated by an earthquake between 2 ,000, 2 ,100 BC and 1 ,900 BC. This might have unleashed showers of steaming tar. So Wikipedia says that, you know, if this really has some basis in history, the one thing we know for sure is that the Bible can't be true.

I mean, that's really what they're saying. And that's the way a lot of seminaries will take this. They'll say the same thing. However, the reason why they bring up some historical basis or may have been this, it may have been that, is because they know there's, there's evidence.

So I saw another website, one group of scientists from the University of California in Santa Barbara. They say that based on the evidence that they have examined, they have found proof, they believe, of what they call a cosmic air burst.

Has anyone ever heard of that? Maybe they made this term up just for this one thing, I don't know. But they say, we have found evidence that something back this area, around this time, they say they found evidence of a quote-unquote cosmic air burst.

And they say they have found pottery shards with outer surfaces melted into glass. They have found bubbled mud brick and partially melted building materials. All indications, they say, not us, they say of an anomaly.

Okay, what's an anomaly? Something happened and we, we just can't figure it out. We can't explain it. There is no explanation for this. They said, what we know is that there was a high temperature event in this region around that time.

It was much hotter than anything the technology of the time could produce. So they actually found the site of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah. They know where it is. But what was their conclusion? After finding all of that, they said, our conclusion of the one thing we know for sure, essentially, we know the Bible, you know, that didn't happen.

But they say it's a cosmic air burst. They say it could have been a volcano that erupted. And they have a few different theories. But again, one thing we know didn't happen, the story of Sodom, it can be fire and brimstone from God.