Pleading for Sodom

 By Jim McCarthy - Posted at Reformation21:

Published November 18, 2024

In the early hours of June 21st 1957, a stream of FBI agents burst into Rudolph Abel’s apartment and arrested him on charges of spying for the Soviet Union. At that time the Cold War was nearing its boiling point. Overseas, Americans had been killed fighting the gangrenous spread of communism. At home, the Red Scare had induced a nationwide paranoia. Now, the fear and fury of a country found a focal point, Rudolph Abel, who was so despised that no lawyer would represent him in court, save one, James Donovan, who believed that even the guilty deserved intercession. Despite a rigorous defense, Abel was convicted of the capital crime of espionage. But before the death sentence was issued, Donovan stood between the judge and the guilty, pleading for mercy. The judge heard his cries and spared Abel’s life.

A similar scene unfolds in Genesis 18 as Abraham stands between the Just Judge of the Universe and his neighbors in Sodom, pleading for mercy. For 21st cent American Christians, a more timely and convicting passage of Scripture would be difficult to find. Like Abraham, the land of our sojourning is awash in sexual depravity, from “not-so-secret-gay-agendas” in children’s cartoons to society-upending supreme court rulings. June has become, “pride month,” a federally recognized celebration of abomination. This ethical erosion elicits varied responses from professing Christians. Some retreat in fear. Others lash out in anger. Many downplay the decline in ignorance or embrace it wholesale. But how should believers feel toward our sexually lost neighbors? What is our duty to them? Abraham shows us that we ought to beg God to spare and save them for two reasons.

First, we ought to beg God to spare and save our lost neighbors because he hears the cry of their sin. “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me...” (Genesis 18:20-21). Like the spilled blood of Abel, the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah cried out to the Lord. But why would the all-knowing, all-seeing God need to come down from heaven to investigate? Did he need to verify his intel? Certainly not. He was demonstrating to Abraham and to us, the honor of His justice by further establishing the guilt of Sodom through angelic eyewitness.

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