“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee,” Matthew 11:23-24.
“For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire,” 2 Peter 2:20-22.
It is hard to conceive of anyone being made worse off by hearing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ but it is undoubtedly so, for those who hear but reject or those who hear and make a sham profession of faith, are like unto the seed sown on the ‘stony ground’ in the Saviour’s parable of “The Sower”, in Mathew 13.
“Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away,” verses 5-6.
Explanation
The Lord Jesus explains to His disciples what He means by this analogy.
“But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended,” verses 20-21.
There is terrible judgment awaiting those who reject the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and perhaps worse still for those who make a pretence of obeying the gospel only to cast it aside later.
Sodomites
The judgment that awaits the sodomite is explicitly spelt out by Jude.
“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire,” Jude 1:7.
They suffered the “vengeance of eternal fire”! It is true that “The LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire . . . out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt,” Genesis 19:24-26.
Destroyed
However, that fire only destroyed “Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them” in a physical sense. The inhabitants of these cities DIED under that judgment. (more…)
