November 17, 2023: Jude 7 - The Consequences of Not Remembering Sodom and Gomorrha's Destruction
“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” - Jude 7
The words from Jude are stern warnings, warnings, warnings to us - can I say it enough? They are warnings to us - to be on guard and to be careful to whom we listen and for us to contend earnestly for our faith. Just as Jude warned us, there are deceivers all around us. While we expect this to happen in the unbelieving world that has not put their faith and trust in Jesus to save them, it is also happening in churches, even churches that once were solid in their preaching and teaching.
Jude gave us the warning of the children of Israel whom God delivered out of Egypt but whom were so quick to murmur and complain against Him when they missed the foods they used to have and when they struggled on their way to the Promised Land. They even created and worshipped a false god, a golden calf they had made with their own hands, and said it was that calf that had delivered them out of Egypt instead of the mighty hand of God. Their hearts grew hard against God and they turned away from believing and trusting in Him. As a consequence, except for Joshua and Caleb, none of the generation that was twenty years old and above made it into the Promised Land but died in the wilderness. Instead, God used a generation of young people that as children and young people, they had to rely on and trust in Him for their every need, to believe on Him.
Jude also warned us of the fallen angels and how God has not spared even them because of their sins against Him when they decided that their first estate, the place He had put them in the heavenly realm, was not good enough for them. The apostle Peter describes angels as “greater in power and might” (2 Peter 2:11) when compared to mankind. However, these fallen angels were not content with what they had and where they were, and they wanted more and because of that, God has bound them in chains in darkness, where they will remain until they will be judged on the great day. Do we think that we are better than these fallen angels that God would not spare them but would spare us from our sin and our unbelief in Him?
In this third warning, Jude tells us to remember Sodom and Gomorrha and the cities about them and their sins which caused God to destroy them and cause them to suffer “the vengeance of eternal fire.” Likely, you have heard about their sins, which Jude describes as “giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh.” Prior to discussing that, let’s read about the type of environment that existed in Sodom, Gomorrha and the surrounding cities of Admah and Zeboim (Deuteronomy 29:23 mentions both Admah and Zeboim in addition to Sodom and Gomorrha). Ezekiel wrote about how Sodom lived. As you read these words, read them carefully and see if they describe a society that sounds eerily similar not only to the United States but also modern day Israel, the latter of which is whom the prophet Ezekiel was writing to in Ezekiel 16, warning Israel to “…cause Jerusalem to know her abominations…”:
“As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.” (Ezekiel 16:48-50)
The attitude that existed in Sodom and the surrounding cities at that time was one where the people were puffed up with pride, had an abundance of food and idleness, and ignored the plight of the poor and needy. For quite some time, the USA has been the most powerful nation in the world, a superpower. However, instead of giving God all the glory and obeying His commandments, we as a nation became puffed up in our pride, giving ourselves all the glory for all that has been accomplished, thinking we are invincible and that no harm could ever come to us. We no longer honor and obey God and have thrown Him out of everything and have replaced Him with our false idols and false gods, including the false god of self. This false god feeds on that which is not of God, and like Sodom and Gomorrha, we have committed fornication and gone after strange flesh and rejected God’s perfect plan for mankind.
We have become fat and lazy as we feed ourselves to excess. Per a January 25, 2023 article from forbes.com, the USA ranks 12th overall in the world’s highest obesity rates and the highest overall in high-income countries. (See: https://www.forbes.com/sites/omerawan/2023/01/25/has-the-obesity-epidemic-gotten-out-of-hand-in-america/?sh=57564fb366e6) Per an article from the Harvard School of Public Health, “Roughly two out of three U.S. adults are overweight or obese (69 percent) and one out of three are obese (36 percent)” (See: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-trends-original/obesity-rates-worldwide/). It’s not just a food problem, it’s a drug problem. The further we move away from God, the bigger the hole within our heart becomes, and we try to fill it with things that satisfy us, including sexual fornication and drug abuse, both with prescribed and illegal drugs. In a September 28, 2022 article from military.com, it states: (See: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/28/new-pentagon-study-shows-77-of-young-americans-are-ineligible-military-service.html)
“A new study from the Pentagon shows that 77% of young Americans would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, using drugs or having mental and physical health problems.”
When a clear majority of a nation’s people are unfit for military service, it leaves that nation vulnerable and you can certainly bet that the enemies of that nation know this and will take advantage of that vulnerability and attack and destroy that nation. With our nation’s borders being all but erased and left undefended, our enemies have certainly crept in unawares, just as they have infiltrated churches unawares, and I do believe we will be attacked on several fronts. It’s just a matter of time.
In our pride of self and in our idleness when many of the jobs that require physical work have been replaced by sedentary work, we have become gluttons and have forgotten God and how He once blessed our great nation. Instead of working to improve the lives of those most at need, we fed ourselves more and more, and we abandoned the commandments of God and indulged ourselves in the most disgraceful of sexual sins. We have become so immersed in ourselves and all the while, Satan is there on the sidelines, leading us into the pit of hell through our deception, confusion, and chaos to the point where we cannot even define what a woman is, we think there are an unlimited number of genders, that women can become men and men can become women and even now that we can become an animal by putting on a costume and imitating an animal’s behavior. Just as Sodom and Gomorrha caused even young children to commit sexual fornication and to go after strange flesh (Genesis 19:4), so have we. We even now believe that children have the right to decide for themselves to try and become the opposite sex and have their body parts mutilated by wicked “doctors” who are deceived by Satan. We believe that an unborn baby in a woman’s womb is not human and can be aborted/slaughtered even up to the moment of birth in the name of women’s “reproductive rights,” where the living human being inside of her has no right to exist at all. We believe that sexual relations with anyone and anything other than a man and a woman who are married is not only acceptable but is promoted over that what God commanded, even in the so-called churches!
We have become like Sodom and Gomorrrha, and like them, we believe that we will not be judged by God, that we will not be destroyed for our sins against Him. All that God calls good we now call evil, and all that God calls evil we now call good. It’s in our government, education, media, entertainment industries, sports, and even in our churches, just as Jude said there would happen. However, just as Sodom and Gomorrha were wrong about God, so are we and many other countries, and sadly, so is Israel. We are not hearing and heeding the warnings of Jude when he wrote of Sodom and Gomorrha that they are “set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Our nation is in a free fall from morality because it has abandoned its faith in the one true God, Jesus Christ, and we will see the ultimate collapse of our nation. I am convinced of it.
God’s judgment and wrath are coming upon us, and not only in America but across the entire world. It truly does feel like we are living in the days right before the time of Jacob’s trouble begins, meaning the time of Israel’s trouble, during which Israel primarily but also everyone on earth will undergo a 7-year period of hell on earth when God executes His wrath on an unbelieving and wicked world. I believe prior to this, all who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ to save us from our sins will be caught up to Him in the clouds, the dead first and then those believers in Christ who are still alive, as the apostle Paul wrote about in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and in 1 Thessalonians 5:9": “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
God is a just God, and that means He must judge the wicked for what they have done, just as He judged Sodom and Gomorrha. However, everyone who believes in Jesus Christ will be saved from God’s wrath. The time of Jacob’s trouble, which is described in detail in the book of Revelation is not Satan’s wrath but God’s wrath. What kind of God would He be if he forever let wickedness and evil run rampant and never be judged? However, along with His judgment, He also provides the way to be pardoned of all of our sins, and that is by putting our faith and trust in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from all our sins. Jesus is not a way but the only way to be saved. And for anyone who believes that God is finished with the Jewish people, you are wrong, for the Bible tells us that at the end of the time of Jacob’s trouble, a remnant of Israel, one-third, will finally come to faith in Jesus Christ and will be saved. (Zechariah 13:8-9). God sent Jesus first to save His people, the Jews, and because of their overall rejection of Him, God then sent Jesus to the non-Jews, the Gentiles. The Bible also tells us that we should not be conceited in our faith by what has happened and it was because of the Jews’ unbelief in Jesus that salvation was offered to us as well. After all, we ALL were once unbelievers in Jesus, lost in our sins:
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happening to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts of and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” (Romans 11:25-32)
Paul refers to the Jews as the natural branches of a tree and the Gentiles as branches that have been grafted in and that if we think the natural branches were replaced by the grafted-in branches, which many churches today believe, Paul warns us:
“Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.” (Romans 11:19-21)
Paul went on to write that we cannot know the mind of the Lord, whose wisdom and knowledge we cannot fathom, for in His wisdom, He provides the way of salvation for all who would believe in Jesus:
“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36)
“But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek [Gentile; non-Jew]: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:8-13)
It’s not too late to put your faith and trust in Jesus to save you from you sins and to save you from what is coming, which I believe is sooner than we might expect. I pray you turn to Him and be saved, before it’s too late, as it was for the world before God sent the flood and spared only Noah and his family and in the days of Sodom and Gomorrha, when God spared only Lot and his family, just as Jesus warned us:
“And as it was in the days of Noe [Noah], so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man [Jesus]. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” (Jesus Christ; Luke 17:26-30) ✝️