LDS Freedom Forum

LONG POST

I want to say something about how obvious it is becoming to me that Lot and Sodom are a type and shadow of the "gay, out, and proud" movement of today, and its agenda, especially as it related to the church and what is going to happen to the church in the future.

Using NIV, because of the plainness of the modern language.

Here's the story.

Genisis 19
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
“My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”
But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.
Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house.
They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing.
Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
“Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.
Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”
So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”
When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them.
As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please!
Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die.
Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”
He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of.
But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.)
By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land.
Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens.
Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.
But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.



Before discussion, I want to remove any doubt that homosexuality is sin (abomination, serious transgression, NOT Eternal, etc.).

Ezekial 16:49-50
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me [my notes - homosexuality and other perversions of the procreative act]. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

Leviticus 18:22
Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

Isaiah 3:9
The look on their faces testifies against them;
they parade their sin like Sodom;
they do not hide it.
Woe to them!
They have brought disaster upon themselves.

Romans 1:27
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Jude 1:5-7
Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

We could add quote after quote from latter-day prophets, but I think these scriptures suffice.

I could just write what I think this all means relevant to our day, but instead I'm going to just ask for your thoughts.

What parallels do you see and expect to see in the future between Lot's story and our latter-day experiences?

1. Who are the people of Sodom?
2. Who is Lot's family?
3. Who are the angels?
4. Where is the parallel for Lot's family being hard-pressed to give in to the demands of the men of Sodom?
5. Where is the parallel for Lot's family leaving Sodom?
6. What is the parallel for Sodom's destruction?
7. What parallels do many people seem to overlook?
8. If the "men of Sodom" don't relent, and if the church embraces their ways, what consequence might we expect?

This all came into my mind powerfully this week. Interested in your thoughts.

"Of the more than thirty ancient events of which Isaiah predicts endtime versions, one is a Sodom and Gomorrah type of destruction. Endtime Babylon will be thrown down “as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah” (Isaiah 13:19). In his oracle addressed to “Babylon,” however, Isaiah defines Babylon as both a people and a place—the “sinners” and the “wicked” of the “earth” and the “world.”
He predicts that Jehovah will “make the earth a desolation, that sinners may be annihilated from it.” Jehovah has “decreed calamity for the world, punishment for the wicked.” He will “end the arrogance of insolent men and humble the pride of tyrants” (Isaiah 13:1, 9–13).

The fourth of seven parallel parts of a literary structure in the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22, 23; 47) additionally gives a structural definition of Babylon.
Babylon consists of an entire conglomerate of nations and peoples who are allied against Zion.
Even those of Jehovah's people who don’t repent ultimately ally themselves with Babylon as the world polarizes into two camps. In that endtime setting, Jehovah calls his own people by the names “Sodom” and “Gomorrah” (Isaiah 1:10), signifying that in that day their wickedness will compare with the wickedness of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah—and that their fate, likewise, will resemble Sodom’s and Gomorrah’s."

Isaiah uses what are called types from the past
to show the future.
What has happened before, will happen again.

ALL THE PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH PERTAIN TO US TODAY
All prophecies in Isaiah are prophecies of the last days.

Referring to our church and the sad condition we are in,
Isaiah begins his book speaking to us,
Ephraim, or the church today.

Isaiah 1:2-4, 13,14
Description of modern Ephraim
(addressing our church he calls Israel)

2 Hear, O heavens! Give heed, O earth!
Jehovah has spoken:I have reared sons,
brought them up,but they have revolted against me.
3 The ox knows its owner,the @#$ its master’s stall,
but Israel does not know;my people are insensible.
4 Alas, a nation astray,a people weighed down by sin,
the offspring of wrongdoers,perverse children:
they have forsaken Jehovah,they have spurned
the Holy One of Israel,they have lapsed into APOSTASY.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10 Hear the word of Jehovah,
O leaders of Sodom;
give heed to the law of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!

To call Jehovah’s people and their leaders by the names Sodom and Gomorrah is to compare their moral degeneracy to that of those cities’ ancient inhabitants.
As the leaders of a people generally reflect the people themselves, and as the political and ecclesiastical leaders of Jehovah’s people parallel each other in the Book of Isaiah, their spiritual condition holds little hope for the rising generation. When things reach that point, Jehovah’s people are fortunate indeed if Jehovah offers them a last warning. For those who accept it, there may yet be a chance of deliverance; otherwise, their destruction is assured.

Hear the word of Jehovah . . . give heed to the law of our God. Knowing that Jehovah does nothing unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7), he sends a warning voice before destroying his people. In the Book of Isaiah, that warning voice is Jehovah’s servant, of whom Isaiah is a type.
Pointing them to Jehovah’s “law” and “word—to the terms of his covenant—the servant directs them to the one thing that has the power to reverse their circumstances.
Replacing current aberrant religious practices with keeping Jehovah’s law and word remains his people’s only hope.

Here is another parallel that I hadn't noticed until this last week. In 2 Kings 23, King Josiah (King of Judah and Jerusalem) is destroying all the temples of Baal, the priests who offered sacrifices to Baal, unlike his fathers who refused to do so. And then there is this:

7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

It is interesting when you look at the Hebrew word derivation of the word translated as"Sodomites " in Strongs Concordance:

"Qadesh: From qadash; a (quasi) sacred person, i.e. (technically) a (male) devotee (by prostitution) to licentious idolatry -- sodomite, unclean"

Other places translate it as male cult prostitutes. So, it is more than just homosexuality. They have elevated their practices to the level of a religious rite. An abomination, indeed. Many religions worldwide had temple prostitutes of one sex or another.

First I would like to note that the JST shows that Lot did -not- offer his daughters to the men who tried to take the angels, but that the evil men demanded the girl's as well, after Lot refused to give up the men.

Gensis19:9 And they said unto him, Stand back. And they were angry with him.
10 And they said among themselves, This one man came in to sojourn among us, and he will needs now make himself to be a judge; now we will deal worse with him than with them.
11 Wherefore they said unto the man, We will have the men, and thy daughters also; and we will do with them as seemeth us good.
12 Now this was after the wickedness of Sodom.
13 And Lot said, Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, plead with my brethren that I may not bring them out unto you; and ye shall not do unto them as seemeth good in your eyes;
14 For God will not justify his servant in this thing; wherefore, let me plead with my brethren, this once only, that unto these men ye do nothing, that they may have peace in my house; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
15 And they were angry with Lot and came near to break the door, but the angels of God, which were holy men, put forth their hand and pulled Lot into the house unto them, and shut the door.

Second, too many right now both in opposition to homosexuality and those in favor of it are standing in the streets of Sodom arguing.

Like Lot, we must follow the Lord's modern messenger, the Prophet, who has told us to stop arguing about this issue and focus on saving our families by gathering Israel and building Zion. For some it is already everlastingly too late, their choice has been made, our job is to protect our families so that we will not be destroyed with them.