“The Cry of Sodom and Gomorrah”

Genesis 18

16 And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.

Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring cities were exceedingly sinful before the Lord. They declared their sins openly. Violence was rampant, and their sexual perversions were not hidden. Their sin reached unto heaven and God could no longer keep silent. God decided to destroy them, but he was looking for someone to turn away His fierce wrath from them. Our society today has surpassed Sodom and Gomorrah in sin. God’s judgement is surely coming, even as Billy Graham once said that, “if God does not judge America, He will have to apologise to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Lot lived amongst them, but was no testimony. His only concern was for his own safety. He wanted to be saved, and considered the others beyond hope. Many Christians today live similar lives. They consider the homosexuals, rapists and murderers beyond salvation. They pray God’s judgement upon them, and not for their salvation.

God found Abraham, who interceded earnestly before God for Sodom and Gomorrah. He pleaded with God that they might be spared and come to repentance. Lot however, even after being delivered out of Sodom and Gomorrah, still only sought his own safety. He did not even pray for his wife or children.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, in 1Cor 6, that neither adulterers, effeminate (that is homosexuals and lesbians), fornicators, murderers, etc. will inherit the Kingdom of God. But then he writes to them, “… such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus …”. Jesus saves to the uttermost. He can lift the biggest sinner from the miry clay and change his life completely into a Spirit-filled saint of God. Abraham teaches us how we ought to pray for the wicked – not that they might be doomed and damned, but that they might come to repentance and salvation. He did not pray to God to spare them that they might continue in their sins, but that they might come to salvation.