Editorial
From the Newsletter of Revesby Presbyterian Church
March 2007
Rev Dr Peter Barnes
John Newton once commented: ‘If I ever reach heaven I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some I had not thought to see there; second, to miss some I had thought to meet there; and third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there.’ God is surprising, and what the Bible says about Abraham’s nephew Lot is as surprising as anything that we read of in Scripture. The Bible affirms that Lot was a saved man. He is described by Peter as ‘righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked’. Indeed, Peter speaks of Lot’s say in Sodom as long agony of soul: ‘for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds’ (2 Peter 2:7-8).
Our first response might be to wonder if there is another Lot in Scripture, because Abraham’s nephew was guilty of being prepared to sacrifice his two virgin daughters to a mob of crazed homosexuals (Gen.19:8) and, later, of becoming so drunk that he descended into incest and so fathered Moab and Ben-Ammi (Gen.19:30-38). How was this man righteous? And if he was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked, how was it that he added to it? What can we learn from the life of Lot in the homosexual culture of Sodom?
Sin is invariably alluring.
Back in Genesis 13, Lot made the choice to live near Sodom despite its great wickedness (Gen. 13:10-13). Victor Hamilton tries to defend Lot here, and says: ‘He can hardly be blamed for his choice.’ Surely Lot is responsible for this disastrous choice. All that Lot could see was the lush pastures of the Jordan Valley, which were like the garden of Eden or like the Nile delta with its rich soil. The close proximity of Sodom did not come into his calculations. It was a decision that cost Lot almost everything except his soul. He became used to what he saw every day, and his spiritual life nosedived. What appears on the surface to be attractive and exciting an be a lure to sin – the job with wonderful prospects, fast cars, fast living, discos, the person with outward beauty but no substance, offers of wealth and prosperity, popular movies, advertisements, and spam.
John Bode’s hymn has the lines:
O let me feel You near me,
The world is ever near;
I see the sights that dazzle,
The tempting sounds I hear.
Bode goes on to ask Jesus to draw near to him, and shield his soul from sin. Bode was a man who was aware of human frailty. He actually wrote those words for his two sons and his daughter at their confirmation. Lot, however, was blind to what Bode saw. He envisaged the sights that dazzle and heard the tempting sounds, and did not ask God to shield his soul from sin. Instead, he drew near to sin.
Sin is a downward spiral.
In Sodom, the homosexual culture was aggressive and all-consuming. The Sodomites demanded that Lot allow them to violate his visitors (Gen.19:5). Sodom was the San Francisco of the ancient world. On the surface it looks like a place with gentle people with flowers in their hair. But it is as Chuck McIlhenny said, a case of When the Wicked Seize a City. There is no such thing as gay liberation; the reality is homosexual enslavement to sin. It is when God gives up on a culture because of its sinful idolatry that we find a debased homosexual culture emerging (Rom.1:21-27). Lot became so accustomed to the sin around him that he lingered in Sodom and had to be dragged out by the angels (Gen.19:16).
It looks like the old illustration of the frog that became too used to a kettle where the water was being slowly boiled. Finally, the frog is scalded to death. In fact, frogs are smarter than that, and will escape before they are boiled. Lot was less perceptive than a frog! He remained where there was great moral and spiritual danger.
Sin can darken the perception of true believers.
The account of Lot is all the more startling because it is the account of one who trusted God and was destined for heaven. This is not just ancient history. Today the Western world is being held captive by the homosexual culture. In parts of the world, where once the Bible was regarded as the foundation for life, the Christian Scriptures have come to be regarded as hate literature because of their clear condemnation of homosexuality. Not surprisingly, significant parts of the professing Church – notably those armed with liberal theology – have embraced this culture. The head of the Episcopal Church in the USA, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is a woman who favours the ordination of homosexuals and the celebration of so-called gay unions. We have arrived at
the point where, as Charles Spurgeon put it in the late nineteenth century: ‘one reason why the Church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the Church.’
The saddest thing about the strength of the homosexual culture is not that counterfeit Christians accept it, but that even true Christians barely grasp the level of apostasy that it signifies.
Peter Barnes