THE TRUTH OF SODOM’S SIN

The author “Liz” is trying to Biblically justify homosexuality. She writes:

“Jesus teaches us that loving each other is far more important than strictly following Jewish laws.” https://serendipitydodah.wordpress.com/2017/02/27/the-clobber-verses/

While Jesus did teach love, He clearly has a different understanding of love than does Liz. He also required us all to repent of our sins:

·       And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.  Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:2-5)

This is also true of sexual sins:

·       “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28)

Jesus warned a woman caught in adultery to “go and sin no more” (John 8:11). If adultery was wrong in Jesus’ eyes, then also the practice of homosexuality, which is consistently condemned in the Bible.

Following the lead of others, Liz also tries to claim that the sins of Sodom didn’t include homosexuality:

“The sin of Sodom is about hard-heartedness, abuse, insult to the traveler, and inhospitality to the needy (Helminiak, pg. 46), not about committed homosexual relationships that exist today.”

The sin of Sodom was also about homosexual rape. The Book of Jude is particularly revealing about Sodom’s sin:

·       Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh (“perversion;” NIV), are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. (Jude 7)

Besides, my homosexual friend has confided (along with others) that there is no such thing as a sexually monogamous male homosexual marriage.

Liz also tries to minimize the warnings against homosexuality in the Book of Leviticus as just a cultural requirement of that time:

To Bible readers of today, the word “abomination” [used in Leviticus 18 and 20 regarding homosexuality] conjures up disgust, horror, or evil, but to the ancient Hebrews the word we translate as “abomination” simply meant unclean, taboo, or forbidden.

However, the context of these two sets of verses argues against a limited cultural interpretation and in favor of a permanent and universal one:

·       “And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion. Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean.” (Leviticus 18:20-24)

This passage equates homosexuality with adultery, child sacrifice, and bestophilia. From all indications, these practices continue to be abominations before God. Besides, contrary to Liz, they applied to all peoples. The last verse indicates that these prohibitions also applied to all the surrounding nations. This was why the Lord was going to destroy them.

The next set of verses associates homosexuality with the same perversions as above:

·       “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them.  If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:10-16)

Liz then claims that Paul was speaking only against uncommitted sexual relationships and not the committed form that we see today:

“But these were not the committed homosexual relationships that we see today. In that culture, their only perspective was that “natural intercourse meant the penetration of a subordinate person by a dominant one.”

However, there is no textual evidence that Paul was making this distinction. Instead of a right and a wrong homosexual practice, Paul was condemning the entire practice of homosexuality as unnatural:

·       Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:24-27)

Homosexuality represents a perversion of the intended gift of sexuality. Therefore, any who practice homosexuality are punished with “the due penalty for their error.” In fact, there is not a verse in the entirety of Scripture that would give the slightest allowance for even committed homosexual relationships.

Liz and those whom she cites are clearly more concerned about pushing this militant agenda than with any concern about faithfulness to the Word of God.

How then should the Christian love the gay person? The same way that God does, by pleading with them to turn from their sins, the same thing that we all must do!

PTSD, DENIAL, AND GOD

I heard something very illuminating about PTSD. It is caused by trauma, but not always the trauma that the sufferers have seen and experienced but the trauma that the sufferers had inflicted! Not only had the sufferer done horrible things during a war. He actually found that he had enjoyed it. However, such self-awareness proved so painful that it had to be denied and suppressed.

When we regard ourselves as “good” but then find that we are not good, we experience a monumental meltdown – PTSD. We might try to forgive ourselves or soften-the-blow by telling ourselves, “Many others had experienced the same thing,” this realization remains too threatening to our concept of self. It is a realization that we cannot accept – that “I am a monster.”

However, what is suppressed does not disappear. Instead, it does its dirty work in the darkness. A monster that lurks in the basement is more terrifying than a monster that we can confront. I know something about this. I too had been in denial – not about war crimes but about other things that I couldn’t face about myself. I had to always be on the right side of the argument. Therefore, I would suppress any awareness of my guilt. Of course, this interfered with my relationships. When all sides are convinced that they are right, conflicts cannot be resolved, only suppressed. However, in the darkness the unresolved continue to fester.

As with the PTSD sufferer, it was impossible to face myself. However, our defensive reactions are worse than the shame and inadequacies that we are trying to cover-up.

How do we face our dark-side and come into the light of truth and transparency? My psychotherapists had utterly failed me. Ultimately, their strategy had been the same as mine – to cover up the problem with layers of positive-affirmations and self-esteem raising techniques.

Underlying this problem of denial and suppression is the reality that we are moral beings who need to live according to our moral nature. Therefore, to do good to other is to satisfy our nature; to do evil is to violate and injure it. What, then, can we do to address the evil we have committed? The accumulated wisdom of the religions of the world argues that we need to confess our sins and make reparations.

As essential as this is, it is not enough. We are still left with the realization that we are monsters, and it is hard to live with a monster, especially if the monster is us. Consequently, even when we confess our wrongdoing, we still have our excuses and rationalizations, even if we don’t verbalize them.

In order for me to come into the light and to accept my many failings, I had to know that I was accepted, not by a psychotherapist or even by the one I had wronged, but by the One who created me and designed our moral standards. I also had to know that God loved me. For years, I had wondered if He is a sadist. That’s the way it had felt. However, after I was convinced that He had died for my sins, I became assured of His love:

·       God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Romans 5:8-10)

I had even been God’s enemy, but, even then, Jesus died for me. Now that He has converted me into His friend, I can be even more assured that He will never let me go, even though I don’t deserve the slightest goodness from Him.

I pray that other sufferers will also come to this liberating realization.

BIAS IS TRUTH AND TRUTH HAS BECOME BIAS

We are a product of our society – our media, educational system, our families, and even our peer groups. As a result, we have inherited its biases. Consequently, those who are more introspective attempt to identify their culturally conditioned biases so that they can rise above them.

However, these biases are so deeply engrained that we are barely aware of them. For example, people are often surprised when I challenge them to point out just one thing that has ever happened naturally (without intelligent and design)? At first, they think I am crazy. They respond:

·       Four hundred years of science has conclusively demonstrated that effects are the result of natural causes described by the laws of science.

I then challenge them to prove that the laws of science are natural and without design. Of course, they cannot! Instead, these laws give every evidence of an intelligent origin and maintenance:

·       They are elegant, and explosions do not create elegance of the precise formulas describing these laws.

·       They are unchanging in this world of continuous change. This suggests that their sustenance and immutability are to be found outside this world.

·       They are universal. These causes affect the entire universe in a uniform and predictable way, suggesting that they do not emanate locally but transcendentally.  In contrast, causal agents of this universe are local and their effects are not uniform. Think of traveling away from a radio station. The impulse becomes increasingly less.

In defense, the one who is convinced of natural causation might offer the case of crystals or snowflakes, claiming that they naturally develop. However, they must still contend with the phenomena of laws of science upon which these formations rest.

It comes down to this – there is no evidence that anything happens naturally, without intelligence. Why then are people so assured that there is evidence for naturalism? It’s a pervasive cultural bias promoted in our centers of education and media.

There are many such biases promoted in the university as truth, such as:

1.    Faith is no more than a blind leap into the darkness.

2.    There is no evidence for God and for His Bible.

3.    You just have to find what is right for you. (as if there aren’t any common moral and spiritual laws/principles that impact all of us like gravity).

4.    Morality is relative.

5.    The meaning of life is just something that we have to create for ourselves.

Try going to a university and questioning any of these “truths.”

THE WORD - HATED AND ADORED

The Bible is increasingly maligned in the West, the ungrateful benefactor of the many blessings that have been derived from this book. Meanwhile, many in today’s Church act as if its teachings are not relevant to their lives.

However decades of depression followed by years of panic attacks have taught me otherwise. Nothing had been able to even put a dent into my suffering - not any of my many lifestyle changes, psychologists, meds, or relationships. I was a lost cause.

Even after Christ had gotten ahold of me, things got worse. My depression was now joined by panic attacks. I never imagined that it was possible to suffer so much, and didn’t know if I could make it from one day to the next. 

My fledgling faith was of little help. Although I knew that the Bible claimed that God loved me and forgave my sins, I was unable to believe it. The terror that I was experiencing mocked my faith and sent it packing. I doubted that I’d ever be able to believe in Jesus again. I was crying out for a solid place to stand, but none seemed to be available.

Nevertheless, there was nowhere else to turn, no other unexplored hope. Jesus had been my last resort. I had nowhere else to go, even though I could hardly believe that He loved me.

However, Jesus wouldn’t let go of me. A number of miraculous events convinced me of His love, but events do not last for long and memories begin to fade. However, Scripture does not:

• The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:8 ESV)

I found this to be very true as the Holy Spirit, over the next years, began to illuminate the Scriptures for me in the most profound ways. I began to understand that if Christ had died for my sins, having paid the supreme price, He would certainly guard His investment by protecting all who would come to Him (Romans 10:12-13; John 6:37):

• God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life! (Romans 5:8-10)

He died for me while I was His enemy. Now that I was His friend, I was assured that He would not allow anything to separate us. However, I was suffering worse than anything I could imagine. How then could He possibly love me? If He loved me, He would bless me, right? Instead, I felt condemned. However, Scripture reassured me, again through the Spirit, that my feelings of condemnation were only my feelings. I found that the truths of the Scriptures were able to combat my feelings:

• There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2)

It didn’t feel this way, but I gradually became convinced that if Christ died for me, He would want to maximize its purchase-power of His death by saving all who would come to Him. This meant that my feelings of condemnation were coming from me and not from God.

However, I was still convinced that God could never make use of someone as broken as I. Again, God’s Word contradicted my fears to inform me that I no longer had to carry the weight of my damaged self. Instead, I now belonged to God, and He would carry me through:

·       I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

The battle and its outcome no longer belonged to me but to my Savior. This verse had become my “Declaration of Freedom.” However, I still had to deal with the reality of my infirmities and weaknesses. Once again, God’s Word rushed to my assistance, as the truth that was setting me free (John 8:31). It showed me that my weaknesses are actually my strengths, as Paul had also learned:

·       But he [God] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

I learned that in Christ, there are no failures or even negatives, since He works all things for our good (Romans 8:28). Everything serves a purpose in the hands of our Savior, who is able to use the manure of our lives to grow the most fragrant roses.

Gradually, I came to know who my Savior is, and this knowledge has become my greatest treasure (Colossians 2:1-4). How so? I still have an impatient, nervous, and anxious personality. But now I know something I had never known before. No matter the disappointments that I must endure, I know that God loves me, will never leave me and will bring me home to be with Him for all eternity.

The world might hate my Lord and His Word, but I now know that I have a treasure.  As a Zen Buddhist, late psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck, wrote the esteemed best-seller, The Road Less Traveled. Fifteen years later, he wrote Further Along the Road Less Traveled to bring us up to date with his spiritual pilgrimage. Peck had been observing that his Christian patients were improving no matter the severity of their condition. This opened his eyes to the reality of Jesus and His Word. He therefore wrote:

·       The quickest way for you to change your attitude toward pain is to accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth.

·       Now what better news can there be than we cannot lose, we are bound to win? We are guaranteed winners once we realize that everything that happens to us has been designed to teach us what we need to know on our journey.

The Scriptures have convinced me that I too am bound to win.