The Sin of Sodom
October 6, 2008
Dear Friends,
When you think about God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, what do you think about as the cause? If you are like most people, you associate God’s displeasure with Sodom with the sin that now bears its name in our society – sodomy. While it may have been a factor in their destruction as men of the city tried to rape the angels God sent to them, the Bible tells us clearly three specific sins for which they were destroyed.
The Lord tells us:
As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. ‘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. (Ezekiel 16:48-50)
Are we guilty of the sin of Sodom? Frankly, I never would have thought so of myself because I had narrowed Sodom’s sin to one thing of which I have never personally struggled. However, in light of this passage, I believe I have been guilty of the sin of Sodom.
Arrogant: I have been guilty of believing that just because I held a specific set of doctrines that God was pleased with me even if they didn’t translate into taking care of the poor and needy. Of course we know, as James tells us, that faith without works is dead. However in my mind, works were something I could pick and choose. The works I did were going to meeting, going to Bible class and doing my daily Bible readings. I seldom did the works Jesus did. I seldom did the things which James defines as “pure religion.” I never fed the hungry. I never visited an orphanage in my life. I seldom spent time with people that were sick or poor. Was it arrogant to think that God was pleased with me because of an intellectual assent without following His son’s manner of living? I would have to say “yes.”
Overfed: Is it possible that the sin of Sodom was obesity? Possibly. Is this why He destroyed the city? I don’t think so. The phrase literally means “full of bread.” Personally, I think this sin relates to what we read about the Laodicean ecclesia in Revelation 3: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (v.17 NIV). There is a certain dependence on God when you are hungry and poor. When we are “full of bread” we have a tendency to forget our need for God. I have found that it is orders of magnitude easier to preach to poor people as Jesus did than to rich people. Rich people, for the most part, don’t think they need God which it is why Jesus says it is hard for them to enter the Kingdom of God. Have I been guilty of thinking that I have met my own needs by my own power and might? Sure I have. This is the sin of pride which was so readily displayed in Nebuchadnezzar who said “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” (Dan. 4:30)
I believe this sin also relates to selfishness. Being “overfed” is when we are so consumed with self that we can’t get enough even if we don’t need it. We pile up more and more for ourselves while failing to recognize the needs of others. Jesus said “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.” (Luke 3:11) One of the hallmarks of the early ecclesia was their selflessness. It is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles that,
Great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. (Acts 4:33-35)
Because of our affluence in many parts of the world among the brethren, there is no need to redistribute wealth among the members of our immediate ecclesia. Yet this too is a sign that things are amiss. It is a sign that we have not adequately reached out to the poor. The first century ecclesia was made up of both rich and poor, slaves and free. If our local ecclesial demographics do not represent the city in which we live, perhaps we need to reevaluate how we are preaching and to whom we are preaching.
Unconcerned: When life is going good for you, it is fairly easy to forget that it may not be easy for others. It is one thing to read about a disaster in the newspaper and another thing to see the devastation firsthand. When we isolate ourselves from the poor and the needy, it is easy for them to become concepts rather than people and thereby to become unconcerned.
I remember one time I was with my wife at a downtown hotel for an event. I heard a commotion out front and went out to investigate. Went I went outside, a female police officer had been shot at point blank range in the face by a deranged man and lay bleeding on the ground. When it was apparent that things were under control, I went back inside badly shaken and related this to some of the people at the function. I was appalled that no one really seemed to care. To these people, it was an interesting story. To me, this officer was a real person with a life-threatening wound. I saw it first-hand. The reality and first-hand experience with shooting provoked me to be concerned. Have I been guilty of being unconcerned about the poor and needy because I was isolated from them? Sure.
The passage in Ezekiel 16:49 is disturbing; especially when we remember how violently God demonstrated His displeasure in the fiery consumption of these cities. If we simply dismiss their guilt as purely sexual in nature, we might salve our conscience so that we can sleep in our comfortable beds at night, but we are ignoring the real power of the message. The lesson to be learned is that there is no such thing as a proud or apathetic follower of Jesus Christ. They are contradictions in terms. To be sure, there are many who profess to be believers in Jesus who are ‘arrogant, overfed and unconcerned”, but if we aren’t doing what our Master did, we really can’t said to be his followers for we do not follow. We need to learn the lesson of Sodom, not from popular myth concerning the city like the “apple” in the Garden and the “three” wise men, but from inspired word of God. If we don’t, we too might face “a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” (Heb. 10:27)
Have a great week,
Comments»
Bro Kyle
Everyone seems to think the “Sodom” of Ezk 16 is the same as in Gen 19. But if we keep reading Ezk 16 we’ll see a few interesting details that may point to this “Sodom” as being a typical cryptic/spiritual designation as God also used before, both in Isaiah 1 and in Rev 11:8.
Ezk 16 goes on to tell us that this “Sodom”, (perhaps really Moab/Ammon and/or Edom?) will again be restored (What!?) vs 53-63.
Jer. 48 talks about the restoration of Moab as does Daniel.
I’m just wondering if we are missing the point, perhaps, and sometimes reducing the abhorrence to God of the sin of the real Sodom as outlined in Gen 19, Rom 1 (and the practice alluded to in Deut 23, calling those practitioners of said perversity, “dogs”).
We might be more on the right track if we seek the meaning of Sodom in Ezk 16 as a derogatory way of referring to the places east of the Dead Sea and their cities, styled “daughters” in the Bible.
Thoughts?
LIC Kent
See Deut 32:32 as well… KB