PITCHING OUR TENTS TOWARD SODOM

Anglican Morning Devotion for 28 June 2021 Anno Domini
A ministry of the Anglican Orthodox Communion Worldwide

“And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. ¹¹Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. ¹²Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.”  (Genesis 13:10-12; all scripture quoted is from the King James Version)

Please do not find fault with God’s Holy Word if it reiterates time and again the patterns of sin to avoid. Repetition is a learning technique that reinforces our ability to recall important matters – and sin is a deadly important matter. “Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. ¹⁰For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.”  (Isaiah 28:9-10) We know from repeated references in God’s Word that sin is most often a slippery slope which declines more and more and draws the victim by his own weight into the maelstrom of ruin.

You remember a recent study in which David remained where he should not have, walked where the lure to sin was great, and consummated his sinful desire in action. Eve, too, walked where she should not have, stopped in the wrong place, and conversed with the Adversary of her soul in abandonment of faith. This is a pattern starkly revealed in the very first Psalm that is prelude to all that follow: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” (Psalms 1:1) The unwise venture to the place of temptation, delay in that place too long, and finally make themselves one with the evil company.

The sordid and covetous choice that Lot made in choosing the fertile plains over against Sodom presents both a personal and a national lesson for us today – a lesson for each of us who believe, a lesson for the church, and a lesson for the nation. Lot was willing to subject his family and relations to the most decadent people then living in order to gain economic standing. When we pitch our tents toward Sodom, our righteous influence will crumble before the weight of evil there and we will suffer from that bad odor of death that proliferates in such an environment. Justice and liberty are corrupted by those dark influences just as we witness a corrupt judicial branch today in America along with the best Congressional members money can buy (with a few notable exceptions)!

The sins of Sodom were grossly evil and perverse, yet, we have taken up those very sins to indoctrinate our precious children to manners and customs alien to a moral and godly people. “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. ¹⁵Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” (James 1:14-15)  What has happened to parental responsibility, as well as natural love, in nurturing our children in the “way that they should go?”(see Proverbs 22:6)

Are we blind to the depravity taking place among us – a sudden propensity to drug abuse, suicide, murder, abortion, perversions in sex, promiscuity, etc. When did these deplorable sins begin to proliferate in America? Please observe a timetable of Supreme Court decisions in which the Constitution was silent, but the Court resorted to legislating law instead of interpreting it:

1. June 25, 1962, the Supreme Court ruled Prayer unconstitutional in school. There is not a single line in the U.S. Constitution prohibiting school prayer. In fact, the 1^st Amendment guarantees that freedom.
2. June 18, 1963, the Court ruled Bible reading or posting of the Ten Commandments unconstitutional.
3. January 22, 1973, the Court ruled that abortion of babies was constitutional and thusly abrogated the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution and set forth in the Declaration of Independence (our very founding document)
4. June 26, 2015, the Court ruled homosexual marriage a right under the Constitution. The Constitution does not even mention marriage.

When will this insanity end? Only when red-blooded, patriotic American Christians stand up and say “Enough is Enough!”