At Sodom’s Gate

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My mind is impressed, as the day of Israel’s sixty-fourth birth into the modern era arrives, that God’s dealing with man seems about to make full circle. By that, I mean that the Book given to humanity that is his love letter and His manual for living life on this planet, given through His chosen nation, opens, in my spiritual mind, to the pages of the time of Lot and his life in Sodom.

It seems to me that we can sense, if we consider the headlines today, the angels of judgment at the gates of our own nation. Are they there, sent by the Lord of Heaven, after having entertained the efforts of God’s servants–like Abraham those thousands of years ago—to find, percentage-wise, ten righteous people who have a heart for the things of the Lord?

Israel is the prototype nation--i.e., all successive nations have had Israel to use as a template of how to act, not act, react, and conduct the affairs within the human conditions of their time in the spotlight of history. We are at just such a time of examination, in my estimation, of our own much blessed country.
It is striking to me that a first-time author has hit it big with a book that deals almost precisely with the premise of this commentary. The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn uses just such a template to dissect the Almighty’s dealings with Israel as juxtaposed against the recent history of America.
This isn’t a review of that book, so I won’t say a great deal about it. Suffice it to say that I find the relevant points of similarities between the two nations quite remarkable, as presented by the author. I recall my own opening remarks in a book written not long after the attacks on the U.S. of September 11, 2001, as I reflect on what Mr. Cahn has written.

Television screens across America and the world repeatedly flashed videotape of the huge passenger jet crashing full-throttle into the enormous building. Dazed people watched in awestruck disbelief while trapped victims leaped from the building’s top floors, some holding hands with others when they jumped. The massive twin towers disintegrated and crumbled to flaming rubble. It was the most heinous terrorist attack ever recorded. Almost immediately, angry, frightened people began demanding answers to the insanity now forever etched in their memories. Many churches were filled the Sunday following the attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. There was an instinctive sense that those murderous acts of terrorism were somehow foreordained. That the carnage now known as “Ground Zero” and the uncertain future is, in some troubling way, linked by prophetic destiny. (Prophecy at Ground Zero: From Today’s Middle East Madness to the Second Coming of Christ.)

The author of The Harbinger reaches much of the same sorts of conclusions as did the authors who collaborated with me in our book, released in 2002. He gets much more specific about Ground Zero in Lower East Manhattan than did we, providing some really chilling similarities between things written in prophecy about Israel and their fulfillment, and what has happened in America since that fateful 9/11 date. He does a credible job of postulating–with strong scriptural backing—on how the U.S. judgment looks to have begun taking place in earnest at the time the towers fell on September 11, 2001.

The bottom line is that events just this past week bring home in an almost eerie way that the angels of judgment must be at the very gates of our own nation. We have long recounted the many signals of impending prophetic fulfillment. The nation Israel is at the center of hatred in the U.N.; the reviving Roman Empire is rearranging daily into prophetic configuration; the "Roadmap to Peace" plan is being pushed to make Israel conform to the wishes of the international community; the world is moving swiftly toward one world–especially toward global economy that threatens to bring the dollar down and install some sort of electronic funds transfer system.

As if that weren’t enough evidence of where we stand on God’s prophetic timeline, there is Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the whole Islamic world coming together in a way that indicates the Gog-Magog prophecy of Ezekiel 38-39 is shaping for soon fulfillment. China represents a growing hegemonic threat not only in all of Asia, but in the whole world, economically speaking.

And now, astonishingly, the first sitting president of the United States in history, on the heels of his vice president first doing so, puts America directly at the gates of Sodom with his declaration that marriage should be made legal as between a man and a man and a woman and a woman. That is, it would indeed be astonishing—except that the U.S. citizenry have been desensitized by years of news and entertainment media inculcation, putting forward the idea that there is no difference between heterosexual and homosexual relationships. So, where at one time–no more than a decade ago—an incumbent president proposing such a thing would have sealed his own defeat, we now have no way of knowing if it will adversely affect his election chances.

Again, we hear the words of Jesus echo in forewarning of when He will next catastrophically intervene into earth’s history: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:28-30).


http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html

"If God doesn't soon bring judgment upon America, He'll have to go back and apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!"

[GodsStudent]

Yes....the heathens are raging. What can any of us say? It's true......we know it.

I don't like the phrase "God will have to go back and apologize to Sodom and Gamorrah!"

Who is ANY MAN to suggest that our Sovereign Lord need DO anything? I get what they are saying, but it is, in my mind, akin to talking up to a parent.....you just don't do that. JMHO.

[Jericho]

I don't think were under judgement yet... but heading in that direction. I think we are slowly seeing God lowering his hedge of protection. 9/11, the economic crash, terrorism, all shots across the bow to wake us up. Unfortunately I don't think the message is getting through. Most people think the economy is what's most important, money is there God now. Never mind about abortion or gay marriage or that God has judged nations severally for such thing. There is still a chance for revival, but I see the world making a mad dash toward tribulation.

[Exit40]

Hi GS. I agree wholeheartedly. Yes the world is becoming more wicked, but to challenge the Lord's Word in this way is either mocking Him or testing Him, neither of which is proper and acceptable, and seems to be more than a little self righteous and lacking in patience.

God Bless You

David

[Keeping Alert]

I am actually quite ok with the phrase used. I think God is always true to His character and whatever He did in the past is an evidence that He would do the same when the same situation comes up.

In fact, if anyone of us were to pray that God stay His Judgment on the world, this would be a good reason to bargain with Him, just as Abraham did with God regarding Sodom and Gomorrha.

Blessings,
KA

[Jericho]

"If God doesn't soon bring judgment upon America, He'll have to go back and apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!"

This statement frequently attributed to Billy Graham, actually originated with his wife, Ruth, during a review of her husband's manuscript for his book, World Aflame, published in 1965. He had just finished a chapter vividly describing the sinful conditions in America, and gave it to Ruth to read. She was very much sobered by the writing and returned the document to the study where he was writing and laid it on his desk, saying, "Billy, if God doesn't come soon and bring judgment upon the United States, He's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!" The account was recalled briefly as an illustration in a message by Dr. James Kennedy (pastor, Coral Ridge Presbyterian, Fort Lauderdale, Florida), entitled "Prayer and the World Crisis", at the National Prayer Congress, Dallas, Texas in 1976. The statement has frequently been requoted by many others since that time.

By Dr. Dale A. Robbins

http://www.victorious.org/graham_quote.htm

[Tevye]

Speaking of....

Life in latter-day Sodom (a.k.a. Tel Aviv)
Several years ago, I worked for an organization whose goal was to show the world
the sides of Israel that had nothing to do with conflict and war.
www.haaretz.com

[redeemed1953]

The United States, and other places, are surfing in the sewers at Sodom's gate, embracing what God HATES, and treating it as a gift. WOE to the people who perpetrate this evil.

I keep wanting to cover my head so I don't get hit as judgment increases in strength.