Arrogant, Overfed, and Unconcerned — Jackie Pullinger

Sodom’s Sin: Arrogance, Excess, and Neglect

Wicked city called Sodom. This scripture is in Ezekiel 16, verse 49 and 50. In case we think we know why Sodom perished, this is what Ezekiel 16, 49 and 50 says. Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom.

She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detest of all things before me, therefore I did away with them, as you have seen.

They were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned, which led to their perishing. One more thing that will happen as we minister with the poor. You'll find that they don't need training in evangelism. One person once gave a definition of evangelism as one poor man telling another poor man where to find bread.

That's just it. We have these old grannies. Now these old grannies live in cages. I mean they're called cage houses. It's like they are bunk beds. They may be three tiers high but they've enclosed each tier with wire netting so the granny can keep her clothes and belongings inside and lock the cage.

So we have all these old grannies and they're terribly funny. They're about four foot nothing and they can't read. We have people who have met a granny and then prayed to the granny and then prayed for another granny and prayed for another granny.

Then we have a sea of grannies. I mean a sea of grannies. We can't stop them coming because all grannies have got sore wrists and you only need one granny's wrist to be healed. And she's told all the other grannies because they're always talking about their wrists.

I mean they talk about their backs and their wrists and they're very interested in their backs and their wrists. They have places where they gather in the park because you can't stay in your cage all day.

So they tell the other grannies, oh you need to come and meet Jesus because he touched my wrist. They bring their friend and we pray for their friend. We don't explain a whole lot about Jesus but we do sort of like I told you.

They run to fetch other grannies. We don't give them a personal evangelism course. They couldn't read the book anyway and they wouldn't remember it was Wednesday. But they run to find the other granny.

Faithful Presence Among the Poor

This is what will happen when you minister with the poor. Ministry of the poor will be much, much slower than any other ministry to start with. And I think the reason it will be much slower than any other ministry is it's got to be realer than any other ministry.

You see I can stay here and I can talk to you and I go away and it's not very real because we just had a service. This isn't ministry, not remotely. To stay around the poor on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and then every week and then every year and then still to love them.

They will notice. They will notice. They can't resist their heart like that. You know they're all hoping there is one. They really are. They really are. And why should they be impressed immediately? Oh I know some of you all have power encounters and you'll get the word the first time but really they just want to know that somebody will keep coming.

That would be the miracle. That would be the power encounter. It's much easier to pray for the power of God to fall upon the block and go once. That's not really ministry. That was an exceedingly short ministry trip and it's okay it's valid but it isn't going to build up the community of God's people.

It isn't and in the places where we want people to be built up there aren't yet people so you better go and hang around a bit and it will take a bit of time and they'll know what he's like by what you're like and if you're impatient with them they'll think that's what Jesus is like and if you bless them when they curse you they'll know that's what he's like and when they ask if you always give, by the way you don't always have to give what they've asked for but you always have to give always for your sake.

If you always give when they ask and they'll know what he's like. That's the only way they will know what he's like will be if you will go and so you'll live it with your life and they'll read you like an epistle and they'll understand and once they've understood this cannot stop them from telling their friends they can't keep it in and they'll run around their friends bring them to Christ.

God’s Promise to the Poor and Needy

Isaiah 41 17 the poor and needy search for water but there is none their tongues are parched with thirst but I the Lord will answer them I the God of Israel will not forsake them so that people may see and know may consider and understand that the hand of the Lord has done this that the Holy One of Israel has created this.

When the poor cry out the Lord will hear and the world will notice. I often used to wonder because there was a time I was walking around some drug dens and I thought you know this is terribly unfair. I was born in a quite nice place and my family was not rich but we weren't poor and I mean I could go to school and we had a garden and I was not immoral but the people I met in in Wallstreet the girls I met they they only had to make one mistake and it was the whole of their life gone the whole of their life and maybe it wasn't even them who'd made the mistake.

Maybe they'd been sold or tricked because there was a number of policemen that used to have parties in order to seduce girls to sell them. That's how many men feel it's their right to live. And I thought God I don't understand why why I'm born here and they are born there.

I don't understand why when I look at a hundred people in a drug den 60 of them sticking needles into their arms and I know that the little girls are going to have to pay for it with their bodies. But I don't understand why was I born here and they were born there why.

For most of them it looks like there wasn't a choice. I mean it was just where they live. Maybe for some in your cities it is just where they live. But why. And the Lord answered me through Psalm 102.

Psalm 102 and God’s Answer to the Destitute

And this is what I want to finish with it. It's um I sometimes call it an addict psalm because it's a psalm about a man who cannot eat who sits on a rooftop who is reduced to skin and bones. He is despised.

Who is lonely who is outcast Psalm 102. And this is much like many of our poor. I eat ashes as my food verse 9. And mingle my tears with drink because of your great wrath. And then in verse 13 it says you will arise and have compassion on Zion.

For it is time to show favor to her. The appointed time has come. Verse 17. He will respond to the prayer of the destitute. He will not despise their plea. Let this be written for a future generation that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.

The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high from heaven. He viewed the earth to hear the groan of the prisoners and release those condemned to death. So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion.

And his praise in Jerusalem when the people and the kingdoms assembled to worship the Lord. I found my answer. You see our people have been the some of the most despised but not more than people a few yards from here outside.

The Poor as Bearers of the Good News

And this is what they say now they say together with the factory owner that I shared this afternoon. The rich ones they say thank God we were poor. Thank God we were addicts. Thank God we were not born in the rich places of Hong Kong.

For those people die without their knowing their need of a savior. And we had no other option but to call. And when we called he heard. And when the poor cry he always sends the savior. I don't know if the savior always goes because it could be you.

He whenever a poor man cries and they will be out there will be a woman saying is there a God. Is it justice. God. If you're real show me. And God will someone here or someone else who knows him he'll say it's for you to go.

I don't know if they will go. I'm not sure if God sends substitute. I haven't worked that one out. All I know is whenever he hears he answers. And he answers to the savior like that that's how they meet him.

Otherwise he'd do the whole thing by dreams and video. You know he wouldn't need people. And so they say thank God we were addicts but we tried everything and we had no we had no choice. We had to call out to the Lord and he heard our cry.

And even better even better than hearing the cry. This is what happens in verse 18. A future generation of people not yet created praise the Lord because of what the Lord has done in us. The lowest the poor the despised the unnoticed those that were not wonderfully.

The world has heard about a savior who reaches down from heaven. And people who were not born when our addicts were suffering have come to know of the love of Jesus. See it's all redeemed. We who are the most poor have become the bearers of the most good news.

And the world comes to Jesus and joins in the worship with us. But they have seen those that were condemned to death no longer prisoners. See. So I don't ask why anymore. I trust that it's all the other way around.

God doesn't love the poverty more. I want to look at why poverty came into the world. What we can do about it. They think it's God's will that much of the world lives like it does not at all. But I do know that he allows this for his purpose and that he will work redemption through this and through the cross everything's turned around and we who are the lowest become the ones with the brightest trumpets.

And we who were despised have nothing else to talk about but him. For he has heard us. And then the world does. And they run to him whom they always hoped was true. So folks you want to reach the world by the year 2000.

Go for the poor. Go for the poor. Go for the poor. Go quickly. Go quickly. Because there are many who even this night have called out God are you there. God will you help. They cannot free themselves.

They need a savior. If you and close your eyes you may hear them. Don't close your ears. I'm going to ask some of you to come and share shortly who you hear. What's the situation. There's a woman in this city by the name of Cassandra whom my wife and I have had the pleasure of getting to know.

Hearing the Cries of Those Without Help

She grew up the youngest of several children. Her mother died when she was 13. Her father died when she was 15. She had her first child when she was 13 and her second when she was 14. She didn't graduate high school.

She's never worked a day in her life. She's 34 years old right now. She's always lived off of the government. She's an alcoholic since her teenage years. Her children are grown now and they're wildly off course.

Her fiance beats her to the point of sending to the hospital. And my wife and I took her out to lunch three Saturdays ago and we thought that we had done her a great justice. She'd never been in a restaurant.

She didn't recognize any of the foods on the menu. She was so uncomfortable. All she could keep doing was say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you sir. Ma 'am much older than the both of us. She called us both sir and ma 'am and we thought we had done at least I thought I had done such a wonderful job.

I have not been back to see her since she has no one. I'm so sorry. I hear thousands and thousands of addicts living in the streets of Atlanta living in the crack houses that I used to live in. They live under the back porches.

When people come out from the houses they beg they beg for just crumbs so that they can maintain that sickness that the crack brings on the sickness in the mind. And I hear them because I am one of them.

And after 16 years of sobriety and being taken to church by some wonderful christian people and taught the word of the lord. I never knew the lord of the word. And these people hear the word of the lord spoken to them all the time.

But they don't see the lord of the word in the people coming to them. And this is what this is what we need. This is what I have. I hear Karen she's one of our kids in Costa Rica lives on the same property that we do.

There are six children in her family. Her mother is mentally ill. Her father is an alcoholic. Their home has a roof and doorways and part of it has a concrete floor. Part of it doesn't. Her oldest brother found her father last year hanging himself shut him down saved his life.

The father's now left the home. Karen goes to school she cooks cleans for her family while her mother works on the farm she irons and cleans for other people in the community and she's 16. I hear a lot of young people men and women living in parks and little five points.

And I lived in the neighborhood for now seven years and walk through that neighborhood every day and not stop and say anything eyes wide open to see and not really doing. And I see that they search they want they're looking they go for refuge.

But you just walk through that park every day and say hello. And I think that mostly when my heart has been ready to get out of the country. I think I need to turn around and look the place where God has put me now and pray reaching out being available being vulnerable and being.

All I heard at first is I know these people that there's the correct time for us to weep which we must do in case when we get there our weeping is louder than theirs. They don't need that we may accompany them in in their weeping.

It's the correct time for us to express our grief here or at home or in prayer and our sorrow for it where we've failed a wicked city called Sodom in the scriptures in Ezekiel 16 49 and 50 in case we think we know why Sodom perished this is what Ezekiel 16 49 and 50 says.

Returning to Sodom’s Warning

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters were arrogant overfed and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them.

As you have seen they were arrogant overfed and unconcerned which led to their perishing. One more thing that will happen as we minister with the poor you'll find that they don't need training in evangelism.

One person once gave a definition of evangelism as one poor man telling another poor man where to find bread and that's just it. We have these old grannies. Now these old grannies live in cages and I mean they're called cage houses.

It's like they're a bunk bed and they've enclosed. They may be three tiers high but they've enclosed each tier with wire netting so the granny can keep her clothes and belongings inside and lock the cage.

So we have all these old grannies and they're terribly funny. They're all about four foot nothing and they they can't read. And we have people who have met a granny and then prayed to the granny and then prayed for another granny and prayed for another granny.

And then we have a sea of grannies. I mean a sea of grannies and we can't stop them coming you know because all grannies have got sore wrists and you only need one granny's wrist to be healed. And she's told all the other grannies because they're always talking about their wrists.

I mean they talk about their backs and their wrists and they're very interested in their backs and their wrists. And they have places where they gather in the park because you can't stay in your cage all day.

And so they tell the other granny oh you need to come and and and meet Jesus because he he touched my wrist and they bring their friend and we pray for their friend. We don't explain a whole lot about Jesus but we do sort of like I told you they run to fetch other grannies.

We don't give them a personal evangelism course. They couldn't read the book anyway and they wouldn't remember it was Wednesday but they run to find the other granny. This is what will happen when you minister with the poor ministry the poor will be much much slower than any other ministry to start with.

And I think the reason it will be much slower than any other ministry is it's got to be realer than any other minister. You see I can stay here and I can talk to you and I go away and it's not very real because we just had a service.

This isn't ministry not remotely to stay around the poor on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and then every week and then every year and then still to love them they will notice. They will notice they can't resist their heart like that.

You know they're all hoping there is one they really are. They really are. And why should they be impressed immediately. Oh I know some of you will have power encounters and you'll get the word the first time.

But really they just want to know that somebody will keep coming. That would be the miracle. That would be the power encounter. It's much easier to pray for the power of God to fall upon the block and go once.

That's not really ministry. That was an exceedingly short ministry trip and it's okay it's valid but it isn't going to build up the community of God's people. It isn't. And in the places where we want people to be built up there aren't yet people.

So you better go and hang around a bit and it will take a bit of time and they'll they'll know what he's like by what you're like. And if you're impatient with them they'll think that's what Jesus is like.

And if you bless them when they curse you they'll know that's what he's like. And when they ask if you always give by the way you don't always have to give what they've asked for. But you always have to give always for your sake.

If you always give when they ask and they'll know what he's like. That's the only way they will know what he's like will be if you would go and so you'll live it with your life. And they'll read you like an epistle they'll understand.

And once they've understood you cannot stop them from telling their friends they can't keep it in. And they'll run around their friends bring them to pray. Isaiah 41 17. The poor and needy search for water but there is none.

Their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them. I the God of Israel will not forsake them so that people may see and know may consider and understand that the hand of the Lord has done this that the Holy One of Israel has created this.

When the poor cry out the Lord will hear and the world will notice. I often used to wonder because there was a time I was walking around some drug dens and I thought you know this is terribly unfair. I was born in a quite nice place.

I mean my family was not rich but we weren't poor. And I mean I could go to school and we had a garden. And I was not immoral. But the people I met in in Ward City the girls I met they they only had to make one mistake.

And it was the whole of their life gone the whole of their life. Maybe it wasn't even them who'd made the mistake. Maybe they'd been sold or tricked because there was a number of policemen that used to have parties in order to seduce girls to sell them.

That's how many men feel is their right to live. And I thought God I don't understand why why I'm born here and they are born there. I don't understand why when I look at a hundred people in a drug den 60 of them sticking needles into their arms.

And I know that the little girls are going to have to pay for it with their bodies. But I don't understand why was I born here. And they were born there why. For most of them it looks like there wasn't a choice.

I mean it was just where they live. Maybe for some in your cities it's it's just where they live. But why. And the Lord answered me through Psalm 102. And this is what I want to finish with it. It's um I sometimes call it an addict psalm because it's a psalm about a man who cannot eat who sits on a rooftop who is reduced to skin and bones who is despised who is lonely who is outcast.

So I'm 102 and this is much like many of our poor. I eat ashes as my food verse 9 and mingle my tears with drink because of your great wrath. And then in verse 13 it says you will arise and have compassion on Zion.

For it is time to show favor to her. The appointed time has come. Verse 17. He will respond to the prayer of the destitute. He will not despise their plea. Let this be written for a future generation that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.

The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high from heaven. He viewed the earth to hear the growth of the prisoners and release those condemned to death. So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem when the people and the kingdoms assemble to worship the Lord.

Redemption Through the Testimony of the Poor

I found my answer. You see our people have been the some of the most despised but not more than people a few yards from here outside. And this is what they say now they say together with the factory owner that I shared this afternoon the rich one.

They say thank God we were poor. Thank God we were addicts. Thank God we were not born in the rich places of Hong Kong. For those people die without their knowing their need of a savior. And we had no other option but to call.

And when we called he heard. And when the poor cry he always sends the savior. I don't know if the savior always goes because it could be you. He whenever a poor man cries and they will be out there there'll be a woman saying is there a God.

Is it justice. God. If you're real show me. And God will someone here or someone else who knows him he'll say it's for you to go. I don't know if they will go. I'm not sure if God sends substitutes. I haven't worked that one out.

All I know is whenever he hears he answers. And he answers to the savior like that that's how they meet him. Otherwise he'd do the whole thing by dreams and video. You know he wouldn't need people. And so they say thank God we were addicts but we tried everything and we had not.

We had no choice. We had to call out the Lord and he heard our cry. And even better even better than hearing the cry. This is what happens in verse 18. A future generation of people not yet created praise the Lord because of what the Lord has done in us.

The lowest the poor the despised the unnoticed those that were not wonderfully. The world has heard about a savior who reaches down from heaven. And people who were not born when our addicts were suffering have come to know of the love of Jesus.

See it's all redeemed. We who are the most poor have become the bearers of the most good youth. And the world comes to Jesus and joins in the worship with us. But they have seen those that were condemned to death no longer prisoners.

So I don't ask why anymore. I trust. But it's all the other way around. God doesn't love the poverty more. I want to look at why poverty came into the world. What we can do about it. They think it's God's will that much of the world lives like it does not at all.

But I do know that he allows this for his purpose and that he will work redemption. Through this and through the cross everything's turned around and we who are the lowest become the ones with the brightest trumpets.

And we who were despised have nothing else to talk about but him where he has heard us. And then the world does. And they run to him whom they always hoped was true. So folks you want to reach the world by the year 2000.

Go for the poor. Go for the poor. Go for the poor. Go quickly. Go quickly. Because there are many who even this night have called out God. Are you there. God will you help. They cannot free themselves.

They need a savior. If you and close your eyes you may hear them. Don't close your ears. I'm going to ask some of you to come and share shortly who you hear. What preparation. There's a woman in this city by the name of Cassandra whom my wife and I have had the pleasure of getting to know.

She grew up the youngest of several children. Her mother died when she was 13. Her father died when she was 15. She had her first child when she was 13 and her second when she was 14. She didn't graduate high school.

She's never worked a day in her life. She's 34 years old right now. She's always lived off of the government. She's an alcoholic since her teenage years. Her children are grown now and they're wildly off course.

Her fiance beats her to the point of sending to the hospital. And my wife and I took her out to lunch three Saturdays ago and we thought that we had done her a great justice. She'd never been in a restaurant.

She didn't recognize any of the foods on the menu. She was so uncomfortable. All she could keep doing was say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you sir. Ma 'am much older than the both of us. She called us both sir and ma 'am and we thought we had done at least I thought I had done such a wonderful job.

I have not been back to see her since she has no one. I'm so sorry. I hear thousands and thousands of addicts living in the streets of Atlanta living in the crack houses that I used to live in. They live under the back porches.

And when people come out from the houses they beg. They beg for just crumbs so that they can maintain that sickness that the crack brings on the sickness in the mind. And I hear them because I am one of them.

And after 16 years of sobriety and being taken to church by some wonderful Christian people and taught the word of the lord. I never knew the lord of the word. And these people hear the word of the lord spoken to them all the time.

But they don't see the lord of the word in the people coming to them. And this is what this is what we need. This is what I have. I hear Karen she's one of our kids in Costa Rica lives on the same property that we do.

There are six children in her family. Her mother is mentally ill. Her father is an alcoholic. Their home has a roof and doorways and part of it has a concrete floor. Part of it doesn't. Her oldest brother found her father last year hanging himself shut him down saved his life.

The father's now left the home. Karen goes to school she cooks cleans for her family while her mother works on the farm. She irons and cleans for other people in the community and she's 16. I hear a lot of young people men and women living in parks in little five points.

And I've lived in the neighborhood for now seven years and walk through that neighborhood every day and not stop and say anything eyes wide open to see and not really doing. I see that they search they want they're looking.

They go for refuge but you just walk through that part of the day and say hello to me. And I think that mostly when my heart has been ready to get out of the country I think I need to turn around and look the place where God is sitting now praying reaching out being available and being vulnerable and being like all I heard at first.

I know these people that there's a correct time for us to weep which we must do in case when we get there our weeping is louder than theirs. They don't need them. We may accompany them in in their weeping is the correct time for us to express our grief here or at home or in prayer and our sorrow for where we've failed.