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5-26-2019 Weekly Message
Meditations of the Week: Psalms 96:1-13
Text: Genesis 19: 16-32
The title of the book: The present world like Sodom, as well as Israel, and the apostate churches of God

When a thousand years passed by after the first man sinned, hundreds of millions of people in the world, besides Noah, did not believe in or fear God, but the thoughts and imaginations of the minds of men became wicked continually.

After a thousand years passed by, the world could not find any righteous man except Job or Abraham.  God sent angels to judge Sodom, for there were not even ten righteous people, so the judgment of God came upon them. God spoke to Abraham about the judgment of Sodom, and he sent two angels to Sodom to judge:

” And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;

21I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.” (Genesis 18: 20:21)

Abraham, who heard the word of God, remembered his nephew Lot in Sodom and asked God, “Do you want to destroy the righteous with the wicked?” God said, “If I find fifty righteous men in the city of Sodom, I will leave everything for them,”

 And when he said, “  God said, “I will not perish for ten,” and with Lot, a single man, rescued the two daughters, turning down the brimstone and the fire like rain and overturning them.

After a long period of time God sent the prophets to call for repentance to Judah, but the LORD God judged the people of Judah who served the idols by fire through Babylon and made the people slaves to Babylon. When in the land of Babylon God spoke about the reasons for their judgment through the prophet Ezekiel, God rebuked them to be more sinful than the ancient Sodomites:

“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.

49Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

50And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

51Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done. “(Ezek. 16: 48-51)

God has said that the sins of the people of Israel are greater than the sins of Sodom in ancient times. God also spoke of what was the sin of Sodom. When people talk about Sodom’s sin, they think only of doing homosexuality, but before they  had become homosexual, they had become proud and lazy because of the fullness of food. They does not care for the poor, And eventually fell into abominable homosexuality in the sight of God, and we can see that God left them in abominations.

When God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, he spoke of the sin of the Judah at that time:

” Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it..” (Jeremiah 5: 1)

When we look at the present world, we can see that the world is in more serious sins than Sodom or the people of Israel. When we look at the western countries like America and Europe that are rich, God will find it hard to find a dozen righteous people because of their sins.

Apostle Paul prophesied in the Holy Ghost about the fact that the present world we live in will be worse than Sodom:

 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, evenhis eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.“(Romans 1: 18-32).

In addition, the Holy Spirit made the Apostle Paul prophesy that in the last days even the churches of God would leave the faith and apostate to God. When the Church of God is apostasy, it falls away like the world and Israel, and Sodom in ancient times:

“ This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

3Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

4Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

5Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. “(2 Timothy 3: 1-5)

That’s right! Most of the churches in this age seem to believe on God, but it is a religious activity that only works with lips, and in fact they are in apostasy from the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, most churches in the present day confess that they believe in God with their lips, but their minds are not concerned with God. So they naturally joined with the WCC and joined other religions. They say that they are worshiping in the church, but they are not able to withstand sound doctrines, and are turning many of their teachers into eager to please their itchy ears in accordance with their own lust, as well as turning their ears into stories that have been turned from the truth.

The world, Israel, and most of the churches of God have become as Sodom. Therefore, today, godly Christians have to live a life like Lot, who was the only righteous in ancient Sodom   as the Apostle Peter testified:
“ And turning the cities And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

7And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

8(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing

condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

7And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

8(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) “(2 Peter 2: 6-8).

Apostle Paul eventually testified in the Holy Spirit that the Lord will come when the churches will apostasy like Sodom:
“ Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;.” (2 Thessalonians 2: 3)
Amen! Hallelujah!