Sodom and Gomorrah
There is a lot to take away from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. This short story in scripture has so many moral lessons attached to it that it may be hard to touch on each one. I will write what the story of Sodom and Gomorrah tells us about the Justice of God, The Mercy of God, and the Wrath of God. It also speaks volumes of our relationship with God, and his relationship with his people.
The story begins with the LORD himself coming with two angels to visit Abraham. Abraham bows to the earth, and pleads that they would stay with him, and the LORD decides that he will eat with Abraham, but also mentions that he cannot stay long. Abraham is portrayed as rushing everywhere getting food ready. He rushes to his wife, and tells her to quickly make bread. He rushes to the calf, and tells the man to quickly butcher it. And after this is all done, he has a conversation with the LORD over his meal. (Which is amazing in and of itself. God actually ate.)
The LORD feels that he must tell Abraham what he is going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah. He tells him of their sinfulness, and his plans to exercise judgement. And Abraham intercedes with God that he would spare the whole city, if only 50 people are found there. God says that he wont destroy the city for the sake of fifty. Abraham says, okay lord, what if there's only 45? And God says, I won't destroy it for 45. Abraham continues to dwindle God down to 10 people, and God affirms that he would not destroy the city if there are 10 righteous people there.
Now this shows a couple things about our relationship with God. God really hears our prayers, and is legitimately concerned about how His people feel about His plans. Abraham's intercessory prayer is him begging God to be merciful. Abraham also has the ability to ask about God's moral character. "Should not the judge of all the world do right?"
This also shows that God is deeply affected by sin. God does not like when humanity is broken. He promised that he would never destroy the whole world again with the flood, but that does not mean that he will not punish cities, and even nations, who have completely been given over to sin's control. God is willing to exercise his wrath.
Which leads us to an answer to the problem of evil. If God is all loving, and all powerful, why does evil exist in the world? If God is loving but not capable to eliminate sin, then he is a weak God. If he is able but unwilling, then he is an evil God. So says the philosopher. What is God's response to this? "I destroyed the world in a flood, and saved a small group of people to start over again. But you messed it up again. If you really want me to deal with the sin problem, I suppose I could just destroy everybody." Even after the flood we see that human beings are still very sinful creatures who refuse to learn from their past errors, and refuse to submit to God, and we are worthy of God's wrath.
We also learn of the mercy and the justice of God. God refuses to destroy a city if there are 10 righteous people in it. He will not destroy the righteous with the wicked. So he will not unjustly punish the righteous for the sins that they did not commit, and he will show mercy on the wicked for the sake of the righteous.
After the conversation that the LORD has with Abraham, the two angels go to Sodom and Gomorrah, to find Lot. Lot invites them to his home, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah form a mob and demand to see the men that Lot took in. They desire to rape them. Lot offers his two virgin daughters instead of the angels, but the mob refuses, and pushes up against the door. Lot pleads with them not to "do this wicked thing." But they call him a no good judgmental immigrant and keep pressing on the door. The angels pull Lot inside, and strike the people with blindness, and pull Lot, his wife, and his betrothed daughters out of the city.
Stop.
So Lot is called righteous right? Right.
So Lot tried to throw his virgin daughters out to a mob to be raped, right? Right.
So how is he righteous again? Good question.
Lot was clearly in the wrong, and he was commiting a sin by offering his daughters to a mob. But there is also a cultural element at stake here. In that time and place, a person who had a guest would do whatever he possibly could to keep his guests safe. Some were known to give away all of their food and money to people who would seek to harm their guests. This was part of what it meant to be hospitable in that culture. Also, throughout history, the percieved value of women has gone up and down, and unfortunately for Lot's daughters, this was a time in history that the percieved value of those women was low. Now, Lot was perhaps not the most righteous person in the world, but he was somebody who trusted God, and tried to fumble along in life during the time and place that he existed. Should we look at the actions of Lot to see the value that God places on women? No.
We should look at what God says in Genesis 1:26 to discern what God feels about women. "God said 'Let us make humankind in our image. In the image of God created he them, male and female created he them.'"
Continuing with the story, the Angels tell Lot and his family to run to the hills, but Lot makes a bargain with them that they should go to the nearest town, and the angel replies "Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there." God was not willing to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of even one, marginally righteous person. This is why when preacher's say things like "Hurricane katrina was the wrath of God against New Orleans" I gawk, because that means that particulat preacher truly does not believe that there was a single, marginally righteous person who trusted God in the entire city.
Now, Lot and his family run away, but his wife looks back at the city, and turns into a pillar of salt. Jesus uses this event as an example of the coming wrath of God. There will come a time when the wrath of God will come again, and those who look back at the sinfulness of the world, either to rejoice over it's fall, or to long to return, will face that same judgement. Jesus uses this metaphor to tell people to be sold out to God, because nobody wants to be in his way when he decides to pour out his wrath.
This is a truly terrifying picture of God, but who says that God is supposed to be safe. To be good and to be safe are two different things. C.S. Lewis writes of Aslan (the Christ-figure in the Chronicles of Narnia) thus:
'If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than me or else just silly.'
'Then he isn't safe?' asked Lucy.
'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver. 'Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'
Now what exactly was the wickedness of Sodom? Many people see the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as just a story that condemns homosexuality. Now, I want to be clear in saying this. I am not defending homosexual practices at all, but the fact that the men in the city were homosexuals does not mean that was why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. And let's be clear. What the men of Sodom were trying to do was not "consenting sex between two same sex partners." The men of Sodom were trying to gang rape Lot's guests. That means that a huge group of men, got together, and predetermined to gang rape a couple of visitors to their town. That is just sickening.
Now, even though the men of Sodom were planning to gang rape the angels, that still is not the reason that God destroyed Sodom and Gamorrah. In fact, the Bible mentions Sodom and Gamorrah over 40 times, and never once in the context of homsexuality. Ezekiel 16:49-50 says "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it." The wrath of God was not poured out on Sodom and Gamorrah because they abused sex, but because they did not care about the people outside their city gates. This should be a chilling reminder to every American who lives high on the hog, but can never spare to give to those who are in need.
What I find ironic is the fact that Lot offers his daughters to be raped by the mob, but then later in this chapter, Lot's daughters get Lot drunk, and rape him. The reason that Lot's daughters rape Lot is because the men that they were going to marry refused to come with Lot and flee the city. They were destroyed along with the city, so Lot's daughters decide to get pregnant from their father to make sure that he has descendants later in life. It is possible that they did not expect the chance to get married again. Whereas Lot was once a very wealthy man, and could have given both of his daughter's very large dowries, now he was poor, as everything he owned was destroyed in Sodom. The girls' lack of dowries would severely lower their chance of getting married.
In Genesis 20, we find another sexual deboncle, but this one involves Abraham. Abraham goes to another king, of another land, and calls Sarah his sister again. Abimelech calls for her, and plans to have sex with her. But God warns him in a dream that if Abimelech does this, he would kill him. Abimelech defends his integrity and claims innocence. He says that he never intended to sin against God, and that it was Abraham's fault for being misleading concerning his marriage to his half sister Sarah. God says "Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart; furthermore it was I who kept you from sinning against me."
This sheds some light on the first time that Abraham did this. Because God warned Abimelech and Abimelech repented, and God knew he would repent, nothing happened. But God did not warn Pharaoh. It's possible that Pharaoh would have killed Abraham and taken Sarah as his own wife, as Abraham had feared, and that is why God did not warn Pharaoh like he did Abimelech.
God: concerned, angry, merciful, wrathful, and loving.
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