Writers like John Shelby Spong try to tell us that the reason Sodom was destroyed was for inhospitality rather than homosexuality, or as has often been called since then and as we saw last week, was called so by Josephus, Sodomy. Sodom has never had a positive connotation in the Scriptures and came to be a symbol of wickedness. Let’s look at other places it’s mentioned.
Deuteronomy 29:23
The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in fierce anger.
32:32
Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness.
Isaiah 3:9
The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.
Jeremiah 23:14
And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen something horrible: They commit adultery and live a lie. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his wickedness. They are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”
Ezekiel 16:48-50, which we will be looking at more later:
48 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.
49 ” ‘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. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
2 Peter 2:6
if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
Jude 1:7
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
The account of what happened is located largely in Genesis 19. God was looking for ten righteous people in the city and did not find them. Instead, the angels visited Lot’s house and he did not want them to stay in the public square. (Geez. Could it be that Lot knew that the men would be gang-raped?) Granted, there was the rule of offering shelter to visitors as hospitality was valued back then, but I suspect there’s more here.
Then come the men of the city and they say they want to know the men who came. The word know does not mean an interview. This was not a fact-finding mission. We know Lot understood it this way because he tried to offer his daughters to appease them. The intent is clear. They wanted to have homosexual sex with the angels, who they thought were men.
But what about Ezekiel? He doesn’t put homosexuality on the top!
As if that means it isn’t there….
Verse 50 speaks of the detestable things. The Jews would have known what that was, especially in a passage rampant with figures of adultery. In fact, this seems to be the natural progression that takes place in Romans 1. There comes the pride and separation from God and that ends in homosexuality. Could it be Sodom was just the end-result of living life apart from God?
Now again, someone can deny the account or say that God was wrong in what he did, but let’s be clear on what the account means.
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