A Suburb of Sodom — E.A. Johnston

A City Described as a Suburb of Sodom

My city is a suburb of Sodom. It is lined with strip clubs and massage parlors. Prostitutes roam the streets in broad daylight looking for customers. My suburb of Sodom is paved with liquor stores and gay bars and dens of vice and iniquity.

There are some churches scattered here and there but they have little influence upon the society in which they exist because the community grows more wicked by the day. The forces of darkness blanket this city with evil and immorality.

The Loss of Shame and the Normalization of Sin

But things were different when I was a little boy in the 1950s. If a naked woman walked down the street she was arrested for indecent exposure. Now women can parade down the street in thong bikinis and we are to accept public nudity and be silent about it.

Like I said, my city is a suburb of Sodom. There used to be a sense of shame in society but we lost that years ago because there is no fear of God in the land. Television programming is an open sewer that spills out into our living rooms and by watching salacious entertainment we have become desensitized to sin.

The Church’s Silence About Sin and Hell

We out-sin Sodom and Gomorrah today and act like God is okay with it. But I don't blame the White House and I don't blame the courthouse and I don't even blame the schoolhouse but I do blame the church house.

When the churches stop preaching against sin they quit preaching man's duty of repentance from sin and the modern church has been silent on the sins of the land. She's been silent on God's unsparing justice for sin and she's been silent on a place called hell where there will be a certainty of penalty for sin in the damnation of all who die outside the saving blood of Christ.

The church is silent on divine retribution and silent on God's justice pleasure for sin. Instead we speak of a God who is tolerant towards sin and we can close our eyes at night and lay down in our beds and sleep peacefully in our suburb of Sodom because our view of God is different from the one found in my Bible.

Peter’s Warning About Divine Judgment

God is not soft on sin. We have more to be afraid of than we realize for the apostle Peter declares for if God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment and spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person a preacher of righteousness bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemning them with an overthrow making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly.

Political Silence and John the Baptist’s Courage

Like I said friends my city is a suburb of Sodom and if you were honest before God you would admit that your city is a suburb of Sodom as well. The church is vocal about who we should have as president but she is silent on the sins of that president but John the Baptist cried out against the sins of King Herod saying it is not lawful to have her and it cost him his head but we are silent on sin because of our self-preservation.

The Warning of Nazi Germany’s Silence

The days in which we live remind me of the days of Nazi Germany where a German pastor made the following comments about the increasing evil in his day and his failure to cry out against it. He said first they came for the communists and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist then they came for the socialists and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.