Untitled Sermon

Genesis 18:20 NIV

Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous

Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me1

1 @book{The New International Version_2011,

place={Grand Rapids, MI},

publisher={Zondervan},

year={2011},

pages={Ge 18:20–21}}

Homosexuality has been practiced all through history and is not a new practice.Gen. 19:1–11. The messengers (angels) sent by Jehovah to Sodom, arrived there in the evening, when Lot, who was sitting at the gate, pressed them to pass the night in his house. The gate, generally an arched entrance with deep recesses and seats on either side, was a place of meeting in the ancient towns of the East, where the inhabitants assembled either for social intercourse or to transact public business (vid., Gen. 34:20; Deut. 21:19; 22:15, etc.). The two travellers, however (for such Lot supposed them to be, and only recognised them as angels when they had smitten the Sodomites miraculously with blindness), said that they would spend the night in the street—בָּרְחֹוב the broad open space within the gate—as they had been sent to inquire into the state of the town. But they yielded to Lot’s entreaty to enter his house; for the deliverance of Lot, after having ascertained his state of mind, formed part of their commission, and entering into his house might only serve to manifest the sin of Sodom in all its heinousness. While Lot was entertaining his guests with the greatest hospitality, the people of Sodom gathered round his house, “both old and young, all people from every quarter” (of the town, as in Jer. 51:31), and demanded, with the basest violation of the sacred rite of hospitality and the most shameless proclamation of their sin (Isa. 3:9), that the strangers should be brought out, that they might know them. יָדַע is applied, as in Judg. 19:22, to the carnal sin of paederastia, a crime very prevalent among the Canaanites (Lev. 18:22ff., 20:23), and according to Rom. 1:27, a curse of heathenism generally.1

1 @book{Keil_Delitzsch_1996,

place={Peabody, MA},

title={Commentary on the Old Testament},

volume={1},

publisher={Hendrickson},

author={Keil, Carl Friedrich and Delitzsch, Franz},

year={1996},

pages={148–149}}