As we have been studying the book of Jude together, Jude our writer has been sharing examples of those who once believed in God but forsook Him and His ways. We have seen how the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt, but later did not believe God to enter into the promise land. We have noted one third of the angels who left their first estate and in rebellion against God were cast out of Heaven, and today we see what Jude has to say about Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them as an example of those who rejected God. Jude wrote in verse seven:
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Much has been written and spoken about Sodom and Gomorrah. Jude uses them as an example and shares with us where they went apostate from God. He says they were “giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh”. Sodom means “burning” and Gomorrah means “submersion”. Their very names were indicative of their condition. They were given over to fornication which is from the Greek word “ekporneuō”. Notice the middle of this Greek word used, “porneuo” from which we get our English word “porn”. Fornication is whenever a person has sexual relations outside of marriage. Of course some people will strain to define “sexual relations” in various ways, but the word itself means any kind of sexual activities outside of marriage. Sodom and Gomorrah were famously noted for these acts. Homosexuality became the norm, and even when Lot was visited by two angels while in the city, the men of the city desired that Lot released the men that they might “know them.” (See Genesis 19:5)
Ezekiel gives us a clue to what happened in Sodom as he writes concerning apostate Israel. He wrote:
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 16:49,50
Pride, fulness of bread, abundance of idleness, not strengthening the hand of the poor and needy were their traits. They were haughty and committed abomination before God. Because of their industrial ways to produce food and commerce, they had idle time on their hands, and sinful acts and prideful hearts were the natural outcome of their abundance and idleness. They forsook the ways of God, and decided for themselves the way things should be. Of course, as Jude wrote they “suffered the vengeance of eternal fire” because of their ways. Though God pleaded, and Abraham negotiated, Sodom and Gomorrah suffered God's judgment as recorded in Genesis chapter nineteen and verse twenty four:
Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. Genesis 19:24
Jude's appeal to his readers through the example of Sodom and Gomorrah is that those who are apostate from God will naturally fall into pernicious and sinful ways. They forsake the word of God and formulate their own doctrine for living. In other words, they make up their own rules rather than obeying the Lord's. We must look through these passionate examples of Jude to see our Heavenly Father pleading with Jude's readers to not be as these apostate Israelites, angels or as those from Sodom and Gomorrah. The very fact that we are reading about these examples should tell us to keep away from the paths of these who fell away, and rather than falling may the Lord bless us with the drive and ability to continue in our walk with Him.
Next time we will take a look at what Jude has to say about other characteristics of those who have forsaken the ways of God, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.
Until tomorrow...there is more...
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