Sodom and Gomorrah?

the thing is when he escaped, literally ran for his life,

What impresses me about Sodom and Gomorrah is God's reaction to their sin. God would not destroy the city if there were remnants of His people in the city. It tells me that we Christians are important to the Lord.

What impresses me about Sodom and Gomorrah is God's reaction to their sin. God would not destroy the city if there were remnants of His people in the city. It tells me that we Christians are important to the Lord.

At some point many churches need to contemplate and reconsider their views on homosexuality. DON'T SHOOT.....I know it's a sin and earnestly pray for those who have been deceived. Yet time and time again I hear churches and preachers rail against this " abomination" as if it were the only sin, or perhaps the greatest of sins. This sin is held up and pointed out as the sin that proves our degeneration. I rarely hear sermons about about drinking, smoking, lust, abortion; or the cause if all sin, the soul crushing sin of pride.

In my experience organized Christianity sometimes has difficulties with the repentance they preach to others.

OK....let it begin.

Someone in a recent post suggested that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was that the men were idle and neglected the poor. I'm sure that this is not the reason that the Lord destroyed all the cities in the plain. This reason is evident when the men wanted Lot to bring out those two angels and Lot responds with "don't do such a wicked thing!" And also offers up his daughters claiming that they had never slept with a man. This in itself tells us exactly what this mob wanted, which was to have sexual relations with those angels.

I gave Scripture, which you disagree with

My wife's friend states its about pedophilia!! How does everyone interpret it?

I do not wish to be confrontational, nor do I craft lies. I am not LGBT+, but am a regular pew-dweller and fellowship follower who listens to what is said.

What impresses me about Sodom and Gomorrah is God's reaction to their sin. God would not destroy the city if there were remnants of His people in the city. It tells me that we Christians are important to the Lord.

He didn't run for his life. He hesitated so the angels took him by the hand and dragged him out.

Speaking of Sodom, there's a guy on You Tube that believes he's found the city. He has a 9-part you tube presentation on what he's found. I found it interesting.

well, I think he was running but he didnt want to run TOO far to the mountains. Just to Zoar the nearest city.

So true! And from the conversation that Abraham had with the Lord, He does not punish the righteous with the wicked.

Hello Seeker47, we preach exegetically at my church, so if a particular sin is on the pages of the Bible that the sermon is taken from, that's the one we hear about.

As for churches discussing homosexuality more than any other sin (save Westboro Baptist, of course ), I think it only 'looks' that way because it's so often made public, so it enters the news cycle and regularly makes its way onto headlines, and into social media outlets, of course.

The other, obvious reason that the sin of homosexuality seems more prevalent in discussions today is because it's always in our faces.

For instance, if there had been.....




.....then those sins would be front and center in our lives too.

Fortunately, that's not what happens with other types of sinful behavior because, normally, people are ashamed of all of the other sins (to one degree or another), so they don't make them into a public spectacle and insist that their sinful behavior is normal and that it must be accepted as such, rather, they do their very best to hide the fact that they are involved in those sins.

~Deut
p.s. - just FYI, this 'idea' that our churches, in general, have become homophobic and overly concerned with a single sin has no basis in fact whatsoever. Rather, it's a well-crafted lie that's being perpetuated as part of the LGBTQ+'s political agenda (and thanks to the folks at Westboro Baptist, it's a lie that everyone, so far, has accepted as believable, even though there have been no demands for any factchecking concerning it).

Hello again Seeker47, I'd like to apologize if my words seemed confrontational to you, because that was never my intention. I was simply trying to convey my thoughts, knowledge, and personal experiences about this topic (just like you were).

I also want to make sure that you know that I was not pointing my finger at you as the one who "crafted lies". That honor goes to certain, talented folks who work for the various LGBTQ+ organizations and are paid to come up with them, and who make sure that they are propagated widely.

This topic is a sensitive one for me, because I have so many gay friends and family members (I'm from a family of more than 5,000, and I went to music school and then made my living for about three decades as a symphony musician, where my best friend was, in fact, gay).

I also became a Christian at age 30, and because of music, my large family, my church, and my involvement in parachurch missionary organizations, I've attended or been part of church services in at least 100 different churches/denominations, as well parachurch services and regional and national conferences that were not part of my own church, and I have NEVER experienced what you described in your first post at any of them.

In fact, I've experienced the very opposite scenario on many occasions in different liberal churches (e.g. Lutheran, Episcopal, Unitarian and, of course, my old denomination, the PCUSA), and that as far back as the early 90's. Typically, it's always the liberal and unorthodox churches that spend $$ on the arts .. well, and Catholic churches too, of course (who are also never guilty of preaching day in and day out on homosexual sin, just FYI).

In services at those denominations, homosexuality was never referred to as a sin, rather, the only thing about homosexuality that was considered to be sinful was a congregant's choice to call it a sin So, rather than teaching against homosexuality, these churches promoted it by preaching pro-gay messages from the pulpit, ordaining practicing homosexuals as ministers, marrying gay couples, etc., which is done out in the open now, but was done in secret for decades.

So you and I come at this from very different places. I have no doubt that there are milder versions of Westboro Baptist out there among our churches (perhaps yours in one of them), but I do not believe that such churches are representative of even a small minority of our churches, in general. I would be saddened to find out otherwise, but for that I would need to have substantial evidence, which as I said earlier, simply does not exist (to the best of my knowledge).

God bless you!

~Deut

actually... i think he's full of it in Genesis 19:18-20

Lot was arguing with the angels yet again disobeying what they told him to do. they told him to go to the mountains, and he said oh, it's too far. the guy who is being carried by the hand of angels. so he wanted to go to Zoar instead, one of the wicked cities being destroyed - and amazingly, again, the angels concede to him, and spare that city from being destroyed.
he says in verse 19 he doesn't want to go where they are sending him 'lest some evil overtake me' -- i mean his argument isn't that he's too tired. his argument boils down to he doesn't think God will protect him if he goes where God is sending him. same God who just forcibly & supernaturally dragged him out of Sodom and saved him from a mob consisting of every single man in the whole city surrounding his house. Lot thinks a mountain lion is going to get him or something?? it's kind of faithless on his part, IMO??

so Lot and his two remaining daughters go to Zoar against the advice of the angels. after that it's not exactly clear how they end up in a cave ((where God was intending him to go in the first place?)) with a lot of wine and why his daughters think there are no men left on earth ((verse 31 - tho maybe this just means they thought no one on earth would have them?)).



all through this account it really strikes me, and i'm amazed by how obstinate and contrary Lot is about the whole thing. the angels want to stay in the plaza but he argues with them. the angels have to convince him to go talk to his family but he only talks to half of them. he's out there trying to negotiate and the angels have to drag him back into his house. fire and brimstone are about to come down and he doesn't want to leave, they have to grab him and take him out. they tell him to go to the mountains and he tries to talk them out of it. he ends up in the mountains anyway. it's like almost all of his salvation is sort of against his will!
he's the kind of example someone who hates predestination & believes in eternal-insecurity-of-the-believer really wants to avoid talking about! and then Peter calls him righteous, not because of his works or faith, but because he was vexed by all the evil he saw every day where he lived. this is amazing!