11.8.25 ~ A Great Cry

Good morning!

Many of you are familiar with the concept of the weekly Torah portion (a section of scripture from the Torah, the prophets and the New Testament writings that all parallel one another). This week we have been studying the portion where Sarai gives birth to Isaac (Gen.21), but prior to that we have to deal with Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18,19).

Yeshua said, as it was in the days of Lot, so will it bewhen He returns. I've always been taught, since I first came to the Lord (back when the dinosaurs used to roam the earth) that the world is like Sodom and Gomorrah and that's a pretty good indicator that Yeshua is coming back soon.

In Genesis 18:21, Yahweh Elohim/Lord God says, "I will go down and see whether/tzeaqah they have at all done according to the cry/tzeaqah coming to me. (Gen. 18:21)

Why would a cry go out? I thought they were eating, drinking and marrying and having a good ole time (Matt. 24:38). As in the days of Noah, the days of Ezekiel, the days of Jeremiah, the days of Isaiah, the days of Jonah, and all over the world today, a cry went up to the Lord.  

God hears and has  heard it and decided to, and will bring judgment upon the earth.  But unlike our mistaken ideas about Sodom’s sin, the cry God heard was not about sexual immorality.  Our Sunday school stories do not teach the real sin of Sodom.  It was not homosexuality, lasciviousness, lust or any of the other sexual perversions.  Those were by-products. No, their sin was far greater.  

Their cry has melted together as one, so much so that God brings wrath upon those who embrace them. What does this mean? Enquiring minds want to know :-)

 This is the anguished cry of the oppressed, the agonizing plea of the victim for help in some great injustice.  This is moral outrage at the total disregard for human compassion and civility.  This is the very opposite of what any human being would consider justice; as we will see the opposite in this afternoon's zoom call.  

 This is not simply dishonoring Yahweh.  This is dishonoring our own kind, a wanton display of human insensitivity toward mankind.  If you want to see what this looks like, you do not have to descend into the brothels of Europe or the porn shops popping up everywhere in America.  We see it firsthand when we watch the news about “racial cleansing” across the globe. We are starting to realize that we live in the most brutal, most inhuman, most despicable century that the world has ever known.  And there is no evidence that things will improve.  

The potential genocide in the name of Allah that lurks on the horizon has the possibility of making all other acts of cruelty pale by comparison.  The destruction of human beings in the name of religion, politics and economics makes us all look as though we not only live in Sodom, but that we have also expanded its city limits to the edge of the globe.

Do we really think that Yahweh will not repeat His expunging wrath on a world gone mad with the lust for power, possession and personal gain?  Do we really believe that He can find ten righteous individuals among us (Gen. 18:32)?  On this day of celebration, Shabbat, it is a very frightening thing to contemplate.  How long God’s mercy will outweigh His judgment is a gambling bet no man should ever want to take.

Let me encourage you to push aside the idea that Sodom was only about sex.  Sexual perversion was only one of the symptoms of a culture that cared nothing for those who could be used and abused.  Ezekiel lays the blame right where we need to hear it: 

“Behold, this is the guilt of your sister, Sodom.  She and her daughters had pride, were more than full of food, and prosperous, but did not aid the poor and the needy.  They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them, when I saw it.”  (Eze. 16:49-50) 

What does God see today?  What are you going to do about it before He comes down to see if the cry is great from all humanity? I think I'll do some soul searching, fill my empty vessels with oil (2 Kings 4) and let the light shine into a dark world; reminding myself this is who I was...but not anymore! 

Shabbat shalom!

Alan

Last night's zoom call: An ever growing intimacy with the Lord God

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