Why God Destroyed Whole Cities

(Based on Genesis 19)

Why would a loving, compassionate, and merciful God completely destroy two whole cities full of people through such a drastic means as fire and brimstone from heaven? This is a question that has troubled Jewish and Christian scholars for centuries, even as they studied the Genesis 19 account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. What was it about these two cities that would make them the targets of such a dramatic outpouring of God’s wrath upon them? As a journalist and a theologian, I look at this incident in the Scripture as a description of what God’s eternal wrath and judgement will look like for those who refuse to repent of their sin, and turn to Jesus Christ for salvation instead. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction, we see what happens when God reaches an end point of patience and mercy with people who simply refuse to stop doing evil, and constantly expand and multiply their evil deeds. This becomes unbearable for our holy God to watch, and people who seek to live for Him to endure.

So who were the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and why were they considered so evil that they merited this kind of sudden, mass destruction from the hand of God? They were the descendants of Amor, one of the sons of Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, Noah’s youngest son. This is the Canaan that Noah cursed as a servant to all of his brothers (Gen 9:25-26), because of Ham’s looking at his father’s nakedness when he was in a drunken stupor. The descendants of Canaan, particularly the Amorites, followed the example of their ancestor, who apparently was obsessed with sex, by virtue of the fact that the nations which grew from his sons developed reputations for idol worship that was filled with lewd, filthy, sexual practices. This perhaps, was the result of the reason for the curse Noah put on his grandson Canaan. Canaan may have formed an attitude of defiance toward his grandfather and the God he served. He may have decided that since the curse came from his father’s viewing his grandfather’s nakedness and joking about it, that he would focus his life on celebrating nudity and sex, which carried over to his descendants. This is why it is written in Genesis 13:13 that the men of Sodom, Amorites, who apparently were the worst of the worst among Canaan’s descendants, were labelled as “wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord.”

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah took place around 2000 B.C., while the patriarch Abraham was living in Canaan in a tent at a place called Mamre, among the Hittite people. These were descendants of Heth, another of Canaan’s sons. They welcomed Abraham as though he were royalty, allowing him to worship and serve the living God. His nephew Lot, who travelled with him from Haran, separated from him there to go eastward to the plain of the Jordan, where the Amorites lived in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. This area was well-watered and excellent for agriculture of various forms. Lot figured he, his family, flocks, and herds, would all thrive there, and he would prosper even more from it. By all accounts, Sodom and Gomorrah were wealthy cities because of the excellent conditions in the Jordan valley for farming. But their prosperity likely contributed to Sodom and Gomorrah’s downfall, because when people are well-fed, well-clothed, and enjoy a lot of luxuries, they then tend to fall into idolatry, sensuality, and immorality. Those cities of the Amorites did, and became havens of the worst forms of sexual deviancy and debauchery imaginable.

But why did God choose to totally annihilate all the people in that valley plus destroy the land around it with the cities, replacing them with the Dead Sea? The word “outcry” in the New American Standard Bible shows up in both Chapters 18 and 19. This is what God describes He is hearing concerning Sodom and Gomorrah, which is His way of speaking in human terms that which He already knows. He does so to demonstrate His desire to show grace and mercy to the Amorites rather than destroy them. This was in keeping with Abraham’s prayer of intercession for Sodom, that if even just ten righteous people were left in it, God would spare the city.(18:32) But the word “outcry” reveals more than just God’s knowledge of what was happening in those cities.

The word “outcry” speaks of other people who visited those cities and fell victim to the evil going on there. We get a clue as to what this involved in 19:4-11, where Lot is hosting the two angels in his home. The men of the city surround his house, demanding that he bring the two men out to them so they could have homosexual sex with them. Prior to this, in verses 2 and 3, we read of how Lot invited the men into his home when they said they would spend the night in the city square. But the scripture says Lot “strongly urged them,” and they went into his home for the night.

What are the implications of all of this? It wasn’t just the practice of homosexual behavior that brought God’s wrath and judgement against the Jordan Valley. It was a prevailing lawlessness that reflected the presence of demonic forces within those cities that would cause any visitor to them, male or female, to be subjected to gang rape and any other forms of violent, perverted sex. This would include not only rape, but murder, and the fact that there is no evidence seen in Scripture to indicate any kind of law enforcement in those cities, making it easier for such monstrous evil to go unchecked. Lot’s offer of his two virgin daughters to the men of the town to do whatever they wanted to them instead of having the two angels for homosexual sex only shows how sensuality and sexual perversion had become so deeply ingrained there. It even affected Lot’s judgement on what was right and wrong, although Lot probably figured the men would reject the offer anyway, because he knew they wanted men, not women, for sex. They then accused Lot of playing judge of them when he was a foreigner, and not an Amorite, as they were.

What this all came down to was that Lot was the only righteous person God found in Sodom, and there were none to be found in Gomorrah. This is evidenced by the fact that lot’s wife turned and looked back at the destruction of Sodom when they were strictly warned by the angels not to, and turned into a pillar of salt. It is further revealed by the incest Lot’s daughters seduced him into so they would be impregnated by him. This is something they obviously learned in Sodom. God destroyed Sodom, Gomorrah, and the Jordan plain because the people there had become so wicked, He could tolerate them no longer. They forced or pressured their practices on everyone who came in contact with the, so God was left with no choice but to annihilate them.

So what about the United States and the western world today? The militant LGBTQ+ rights movement in this country and other western nations is pushing their agenda of the total embracing of, and elimination of all opposition to, the lifestyles and sexual perversions they promote. They want all disagreement with them permanently silenced, especially that which comes on religious grounds. Ultimately, they are being used by the global Marxist movement which wants to see the whole world brought into lockstep with their march to the Godless Utopia they envision. The key question here is, Will God annihilate them through one means or another, as He did Sodom and Gomorrah, or will He be merciful and remove the blinders Satan has put on the eyes of these people who believe these sexual deviances away from God’s original design, are good and right? I pray God does the latter, and won’t have to do the former, because Jesus and His truth can set them free, if they will but turn to Him in repentance and faith.