Get Out Of Sodom!

I don’t watch TV but the other day on the Internet news they were plugging a new program called GCB.  When I discovered what the letters stand for it turned my stomach.  The words came upon my heart, “The Lord will destroy this place.”  That’s what the angels told Lot when they sought to press upon him the urgency of the hour.  Destruction was at the door.  He needed to get out of that place!

For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it (Gen. 19.13).

There’s no doubt in my mind—hasn’t been for some time—that we live in Sodom.  Only the morally blind think otherwise.  This latest news just clinched it for me.  I understand that sordid lives make prime time entertainment here in Sodom.  Nothing new about that.    The new low of this latest offering on the idol altar of entertainment is that it’s about the so-called lives of so-called Christians.

Meaning that once again the beautiful holy name of Christ is trampled in the mire.

Don’t the men who put this kind of thing out have any fear?  Has God not said plain and clear that what He did to Sodom and Gomorrah was “an ensample to them that after should live ungodly?” (2 Pt. 2.6).  Yet you fly in the face of God, you people who are involved in this?  You continue to live ungodly?  I don’t know how the Lord is going to judge that area of the U.S. where they continue to spew out this vomit… but He is going to do it.  And I tremble to think of it.  It’s not without reason that David said, “Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake Thy law” (Ps. 119.53).

…And what about us who live in the midst of all this day in and day out?

Lot, Peter tells us, was “vexed with the filthy conversation (conduct) of the wicked” (2 Pt. 2.7).  The words are stronger in the Greek.  Lot was worn down, oppressed, with the licentious lives of the lawless.

For that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed (tormented) his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds (2 Pt. 2.8).

Yet still Lot lingered—reluctant to leave.  His heart was entangled in Sodom.  The angels had to lay hold of him by the hand and pull him out, he and his family.  When finally they got them out, even then Lot’s wife looked back, still joined in her heart to the life she was leaving behind.

And she became a pillar of salt.

The story of Lot is, to me, one of the saddest in the Bible.  When it became necessary for him to part ways with Abraham he chose the well-watered plain of Sodom in spite of the fact that “the men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the LORD exceedingly” (Gen. 13.13).  It was prosperous there, and that appealed to him.  It seems he fit in quite well there.  He was even involved in their politics.  This is the implication of his sitting in the gate of Sodom (Gen. 19.1).  But from the look of it, Lot’s testimony apparently hadn’t created much conviction or conversion.  God had promised Abraham He would not destroy Sodom if He could find even ten righteous men there.

Do you look down on Lot for all this?  I think I have.  It kind of amazes me to read that Peter called him a righteous man.  But are not we Christians—whose righteousness consists of faith in Jesus—very much like Lot?  We too dwell in Sodom, and like Lot are vexed from day to day with what we see and hear.  That’s why I don’t watch TV.  It’s like looking for something clean in a garbage can.  A program you might think is okay… suddenly an unclean ad is in your face.

And now comes this GCB program.  It’s the Name of Christ in it that hit me so hard.  That hurt.  Oh, how the beautiful Name of Jesus Christ has been smeared on our day!  Why do these people put out this excrement?  I think maybe I know why.  It’s in vogue these days to put out programs the Christians will watch.  They know the Christians love to watch TV… and, ah, they’ve got money.  So the advertisers are calling for programs with a Christian theme now.  They’re realizing they’ve got to cater to the Christians if they want that money in their pockets.  So the story writers find a way to incorporate something Christian into the programs.  There’s big money in it.

And we are content enough to fork it out, it seems, not even realizing they’re mocking us.  Our eyes have been put out, like Samson, and we tread out the corn for the Philistines even as they mock us.  This new TV show brazenly mocks Christians.  What it amounts to is that Christ’s name is openly blasphemed.  For is it not His Name that is called upon us?  Are we not Christians—Christ-ones?

…But maybe there’s another reason—a harder one to acknowledge—why these people in the entertainment industry are putting out this kind of thing.  It’s what Malachi prophesied—that God would smear the excrement of His people over their own faces (Mal. 2.3).  There is hypocrisy among Christians.  And God is smearing it publicly to our shame now.  Seems it’s easy enough for Him to find those who love to do the smearing…

…And not quite as easy for Him to find those who feel the shame.  Many of us who love His Name feel the shame.  The reproaches of those who reproach Christ fall on us.  We cry to God for the abominations we see all around us (Ezek. 9.4).  Oh that more would join us!

God says, “My Name continually every day is blasphemed” (Isa. 52.5).  And it’s because of His own people that His Name is blasphemed.  “For the Name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Rom. 2.24).  That’s how it was back then among the apostate Jews… and that’s how has become once again among the apostate Christians.  Many of us hang our heads because of this, and many more ought to be hanging their heads.

But notice what God says immediately after this statement about His Name being blasphemed every day because of His people.

Therefore My people shall know My Name; therefore they shall know in that Day that I am He that doth speak: behold it is I (Isa. 52.6).

I long for this and anticipate it—that He who is jealous for His Name is going to cause His Name to be revealed again, as He has promised.  Things may be very dismal just now, but we have great hope!  Jesus said:

I have made known unto them Thy Name, and WILL make it known… (Jn. 17.26).

“I have made known unto them Thy Name…”  He was speaking of His days in the earth when in the midst of all that apostasy and hypocrisy He went about making the Father’s Name known—in righteousness, and holiness, and love, and mercy, and forgiveness, and healing.  It was a time when Jehovah’s name was greatly blasphemed because of the apostasy of His people.  Suddenly here was One who was making that Name known!

And He says He will do it again!  He says, “I WILL make it known…”  He is speaking of the sending of the Holy Spirit, whom He says “the Father will send in My Name” (Jn. 14.26).  Jehovah’s Name will be vindicated again… through those in whom the Holy Spirit of Christ abides!  Again there will be much love and mercy and forgiveness revealed.

But for those despise this love and mercy and forgiveness…

Behold, the Name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with His anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue as a devouring fire… (Isa. 30.27).

He is going to come in fire… with a burning word in the mouths of those who are jealous for His Name, and who are baptized in the Holy Ghost and fire.

And He is going to destroy this place—this Sodom and Gomorrah we live in—this licentious blasphemous “city,” and those in her who continually stick out their tongues at God.   Righteous Christian… get out of her!  Be not a partaker of her evil… or of her judgment.

How do we get out of her?   God knows how.  Trust God, and obey.  He knows how to deliver the godly out of the overthrow that is coming, at the same time meting out righteous judgment to those who thumb their noses at Him and consider this planet their own to do whatever they want in.

I tremble for what is before us.  I am grieved to the quick over the licentiousness and iniquity and blasphemy of our day.  How can God be feeling then?  Our God is a God of tremendous longsuffering and patience, and He is able to wait long—so long that most people think He has abandoned the planet.

But the God of longsuffering and patience is also a God who loves righteousness, and hates iniquity.  And He is going to put an end to it all.