Sodom and Gomorrah

“The men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the LORD” (Genesis 13:13). Pedophilia and unnatural fornication was unrestrained in Sodom (Genesis 19:4, 5). They openly and pridefully celebrated their sin, they did not hide it (Isaiah 3:9).

 

Before the Lord Almighty destroyed Sodom, the Dead Sea region was a fertile plain (Genesis 13:10). Because their sin was very grave (Genesis 18:20) the Lord rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding plain, destroying the cities, the inhabitants and all vegetation (Genesis 19:24, 25).

 

It became a land of sulfur, salt and burning. “It is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there” (Deuteronomy 29:23). It was “overrun with weeds and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation” (Zephaniah 2:9). Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them “having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7).

 

In the time of Ezekiel, God condemned Jerusalem for having a tolerant attitude toward Sodom: “For your sister Sodom was not a byword in your mouth in the days of your pride” (Ezekiel 16:56).

 

Because of their “filthy conduct” and “lawless deeds” God, “turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly” (2 Peter 2:6-8).

 

Jesus said: “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6). “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). Same-sex relationships are a form of fornication (sexual immorality).

 

“Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due” (Romans 1:24-27), “who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them” (Romans 1:32).

 

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is a warning for those committing abomination in our time. In the end, however, there will be no escape: “The Judge is standing at the door!” (James 5:9). The day is coming when the whole universe will be dissolved by fire: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?” (2 Peter 3:10-12). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

 “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). On the day of judgment all sinners will stand condemned unless they have repented and accepted the gift of salvation offered by grace through the blood of Christ. “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Peter 4:18).