Reality Check For the Church

Sarah and Matt live in an area of West Virginia that is prone to floods, so they’ve developed a plan to be prepared at all times: valuable heirlooms are stored in plastic in their attic, copies of important documents are kept in a safety-deposit box, and the car never has less than half a tank of gas in case they need to evacuate quickly. Sarah and Matt live in an area of West Virginia that is prone to floods, so they’ve developed a plan to be prepared at all times: valuable heirlooms are stored in plastic in their attic, copies of important documents are kept in a safety-deposit box, and the car never has less than half a tank of gas in case they need to evacuate quickly.

Because of the frequency of floods, it has kept Saran and Matt living in reality that there is a good chance there could be another one. You have to admit, the more floods that occur, the more people are prone to be prepared for future ones.

In the similar manner, God wants His people to live in reality. This means facing the truth, even if it does not sit right. God has sent judgments of the past – a flood, a fire and deportation. All designed to motivate His people to live in reality.

When I speak of living in reality with reference to judgment, here is what I have in mind: As a pastor, I often hear Christians wax eloquent on the Bible, God and Gays.  Everyone has their opinion and listening to them can be enlightening at times.

But one thing I have noticed when I listen to people who associate the judgment of God with the increase in gay rights is this: “God is angry with this country. It is only a matter of time before we will end up like Sodom and Gomorrah and be completely destroyed.” 

Because of the great influx of Christians who hold to this view – all or to some degree, their attitude toward gays is not that loving to say the least.

So, what I would like to do for just a short time is to give us all a reality check using the Bible of course, as our guide.

Let me begin with this question: “Why did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah?” If you were to ask this to the average believer, he or she would say, “Because the whole place was filled with homosexuals!”

But when I read the bible, that’s not what I discover. Look with me in Genesis 18. God and Abraham are dialoging about the subject of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Abraham asks God this question: “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked” (v. 23)? Then Abraham goes off into a few scenarios:

What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing —to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake. ”

27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”

“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

29 Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”

He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

30 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

31 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”

He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”

32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

To sum this all up, God is saying, “If you can find me just ten righteous people living in this city, I will spare it from judgment.”

Here was a city that had several thousand people living in it. God said, “I will pass this city by if I can find ten righteous ones.”

Well you know the story in Genesis 19. God rains down fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Why? Because of the proliferation of homosexuals?  NO! Because of the absence of righteous people! Did you get that? Reality check!  Don’t read Genesis 19 without reading chapter 18 with it. If you do, then you will come away with a distorted view of reality and why God brought judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

So then, since God destroyed both Sodom and Gomorrah, was it the gays who were at fault, or was it something deeper that most Christians look the other way from? Yes, Sodom and Gomorrah were populated with gays. But at the same time, these cities were unpopulated with righteous people – so what the in world was Lot doing all those years as he lived there? He was blending in rather than bleeding out the love of God. No one looked at Lot and said, “I want what he has!” As a result, the gay population increased while righteousness was found in less than ten people. Therefore, the fault clearly lies on the godly and not on anyone else. 

Still not convinced? One passage ought to convince anyone. But if you are still not convinced of what I just said, then notice what God says in Ezekiel 16:48-50: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.

49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

Again, this is God speaking. God says, “this was the sin of your sister Sodom.” What was the first sin mentioned?

1.    Arrogance. Is this only true of some people or do Christians battle with this?

2.    Overfed. Now this never occurs within Christendom. None of us can identify with this, right?  :)

3.    Unconcerned. Again, this only occurs among other people, not those who name the name of Jesus!

4.    Not helping the poor and needy.  And may I add that this also applies to members within our own family. I find it disheartening when I see believers going out of their way to lend a hand to help a stranger, but when it comes down to their own immediate blood, there is a deep level of lack of concern.

5.    Haughty (v. 50). Which reiterates the sin of arrogance.

6.    Doing detestable things.  Now you can add to this whatever you choose to, but one thing you cannot do is to subtract all the sins mentioned before it.

My point: Do you still think that God simply rained down fire from above because it was all a gay issue?  It was because of all these things that there was a lack of ten righteous people.

Still not convinced? Two passages ought to do it, but you are asking for more?

How about Jeremiah 5? Here is what God says in verse 1: “Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem,
    look around and consider,
    search through her squares.
If you can find but ONE person
    who deals honestly and seeks the truth,
    I will forgive this city.”

In the case of Sodom, God says, “Fine me ten righteous people.” Here regarding Jerusalem, God says, “Just fine me one righteous person.”  Jeremiah could not find one, and so God sent the Babylonians to invade the city in 605 and 586 B.C. and leveled the land and deported the people as slaves into Babylon. And by the way, Jerusalem was not known to be a gay city. When it came to judgment, it all boiled down to the lack of righteous people.

Remember reading about the flood in Genesis 6? God sent a universal flood that wiped out not only just a city or two, but the whole world! Why? Was it because of the proliferation of evil people?  Here is what God told Noah: “For you ALONE I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time” (Gen. 7:1).  It’s the same principle over and over. It is not the proliferation of evil people, but the absence of righteous ones that finally brings down the judgment of God.

Therefore, the church needs a reality check. Don’t read your newspapers and listen to the news and say, “Oh my God, we’re heading for hell in a hand basket! Look at all the sinners out there!”

Rather we all should say, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. Help me to be passionately involved in fulfilling the Great Commission which entails for me to go out and make disciples” (i.e. other righteous people). 

Because in the end, when America goes down, and it is only a matter of when, it won’t be because of the proliferation of gays, adulterers, fornicators, child-molesters, drunkards, swindlers, etc., it will be because of the lack of righteous people.  This then could only mean one thing: Judgment occurred as a result of the church not doing her job and living up to the standard God has equipped her to live by. Rather than bleeding out the love of God to those who do not know God, we blend in with the rest of the world our own form of judgmental attitude, hatred, strife, malicious gossip and a separatist holier-than-thou-mentality.

Again, here is a reality check: “For it is time for judgment to BEGIN with the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17). Make no mistake about it, God will judge sin and the sinner, but not before He deals with us.