Why Exactly Were Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed?

Moral depravity involves a progressive decline.

The most severe sins which people commit are arrived at by sins that were precursors to those.

The Lord judging a society for a particular sin would not necessitate that the judgment was also not against other sins which prevail in that society.

Directly rebuking the sins which are precursors to even more severe sins can be an effective way to deal with those more severe sins.

No direct mention of the sin which Sodom is most known for in a description of its wickedness does not mean that a rebuke of that particular sin is not implied there.

Ezekiel 16:48-50 says (note that in its context this is a rebuke against Jerusalem by comparing it to Sodom): “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, fullness 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.”

The Jews in Ezekiel’s time rightly understood Sodom to represent moral depravity and an entity that was especially fit to receive an utterly severe judgment from God. It is seen in Ezekiel 16 how the pride, the gluttony, the laziness, the neglect of the poor and needy, and the haughtiness within Sodom led to abomination being committed there which ultimately led to God consuming it in His wisdom. God is basically telling the Jews there that the same wickedness which led to Sodom committing the abominable action which it was ultimately destroyed for prevailed among them. This was aggravated due to how the light of truth had shined so much brighter among them.

The sins which Sodom is directly rebuked for in Ezekiel 16 especially describe America and other nations where the prominent known sin of Sodom is normal and acceptable on a societal level.

A key term related to this is decadence. Dictionary.com defines decadence as “a state of moral, cultural, or physical decline, often characterized by excessive self-indulgence and a loss of standards.”

The concept that mankind has been steadily evolving morally does not correspond with reality. What happens when you take away the delusion that it has been doing so, when you take away the pride, when you take away the decadence, and when you take away all the evil associated with Sodom described in Ezekiel chapter 16? No society would come to normalize the LGBT stuff without these things already abounding within it. It is evident that poor nations have not embraced LGBT stuff nearly as much as richer nations have.

The mob in Genesis chapter 19 would not have been seeking what they were seeking from the visiting angels in human form who came to Sodom without a lot of experience in that regard already and without already being on a morally declining slope where satisfaction eluded them?

Genesis 19:24-25: “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.”

There is no contradiction between the diagnosis of Sodom found in Ezekiel chapter 16 and the conclusion set forth by Jude in the New Testament.

Jude 7: “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.”

We read in Mark 6:11: “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.”

Jesus affirmed the historicity of the Genesis account by the preceding statement about Sodom and Gomorrah which He made as He separated His twelve apostles to go out to preach and cast out unclean spirits. We also have greater accountability than the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. We have their example and access to a completed Bible to instruct and warn us.

We then read in Mark 6:12: “And they went out, and preached that men should repent.”

Consider then what repentance for the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah would have had to involve in order for God to spare them. Without ruling out other potential ways, they would have had to confess their pride as evil and get rid of it. They would have to turn from their gluttony. They would have to turn from their idolatry- including their idolatry of ease, pleasure, comfort, etc. They would have to forsake their disregard of the poor and needy (and this does not equate to advocating for a Left-Wing government- most in the first world are rich compared to most in the 3rd world). They would have had to forsake their lofty looks. They would have had to stop justifying the abominable behavior in God’s eyes which was prevalent among them.

It would be foolish to believe that repentance for people now wouldn’t have to involve forsaking the sins which Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for and which their guilty inhabitants will suffer eternally in hell for.