The Real Sins Of Sodom

“Behold, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you: ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. And your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. Not only did you walk in their ways and do according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. As I live, declares the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. Behold, 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 an abomination before me. So, I removed them, when I saw it. Samaria has not committed half your sins. You have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed. Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have intervened on behalf of your sisters. Because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.

“I will restore their fortunes, both the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes in their midst, that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you have done, becoming a consolation to them. As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters shall return to their former state, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former state, and you and your daughters shall return to your former state. Was not your sister Sodom a byword in your mouth in the day of your pride, before your wickedness was uncovered? Now you have become an object of reproach for the daughters of Syria and all those around her, and for the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you. You bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, declares the LORD.” [1]

Well might Christians tremble when they read this passage from the pen of Ezekiel. We know Ezekiel as that weird and wonderful prophet who did not hesitate to confront Israel because of their sinful behaviour. The people of his day appear decidedly uncomfortable in the presence of Ezekiel, and we need not doubt that contemporary churches would hesitate to welcome a prophet such as Ezekiel. Nevertheless, there is no question in my mind that modern churches would benefit from a prophet such as Ezekiel.

You see, Ezekiel would never be mistaken as a follower of Norman Vincent Peale, neither was he a clone of Joel Osteen—people didn’t feel particularly good about themselves whenever Ezekiel delivered a message that God had commanded him to deliver. However, if they took his prophetic word to heart, they would draw close to the Living God. On the other hand, if they ignored Ezekiel… Admittedly, Ezekiel’s prophecies are often neglected from the pulpit today. His prophecies demand that we grapple with what he wrote, and they demand that we acknowledge our own sin and cast ourselves on the mercies of the Living God.

This is what I mean. Many Christians will agree that western society mirrors the society of Sodom and Gomorrah before the cities of the plain were destroyed by God. It is evident that contemporary culture is preoccupied with sex. Teenage girls are lured into sexual fantasies on social media, and by ten years of age, few young boys are still able to say that they have never spent time viewing pornography online. Casual sex has become an important part of teenage life. In fact, sexual activity is so important in the mind of many that we are determined to teach even preschoolers how to be sexually active, how to find sexual gratification even before they are seeking such gratification! We even teach kindergartners how to engage in every imaginable perversion as though such activity is normal. There is something highly significant behind our preoccupation with sex, something that we tend to overlook to our own detriment. In our advanced society, we have conveniences that were unthinkable even a generation past.

As a child, I enjoyed reading comics. I don’t suppose I was so terribly different from many boys in those halcyon days of yore. Among the comics I would read was one featuring a detective named Dick Tracy, a master detective that fearlessly faced some truly vicious foes. Dick Tracy wore a watch that allowed communicating via two-way radio embedded in the watch. The concept was pure science fiction. As a child, I could never have imagined such convenience. Yet today, almost everyone has a computer carried in a pocket—and those computers allow communication with people around the world. These tiny computers not only have more calculating power than the computers that first took men to the moon, they allow us to access information contained in great libraries. Of course, we take for granted the smart phone that has enabled us to do so much more than our parents could have ever imagined. We can’t eat a meal without those seated around the table bending their heads to view the glowing screens they hold in their hands. Even watching television, family members will hold their phone, only listening in a half-hearted fashion to what is being said on the big screen on the wall.