Friday, July 19, 2019

Updated: Thoughts and Prayers Related to Iran

Update #2 on January 4, 2020
Yesterday's US drone attack that killed that leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard reminds me of the continuing need to pray for all involved: political leaders, the military, and people living in Iran and neighboring nations. See the notes and prayer below.

Update on September 16, 2019 (in italics)
About two months ago I shared this post with some thoughts and prayers concerning the situation in Iran. This past week Iran, or forces supported by Iran, launched a bold attack on Saudi Arabia oil refineries. Iran also recently openly announced that it is now using advanced centrifuges for uranium enrichment. There is no good reason for Iran to increase the level of uranium enrichment. Higher levels are not needed for civilian nuclear plants. Higher levels are needed for nuclear weapons. At the same time, Iran continues to seize ships belonging to other nations. All of this increases the likelihood of a military response from the US and our allies. Perhaps because I served for 5 years in the US Navy, and then later I lived in a Muslim nation for 14 years where I had opportunities to share the gospel with my neighbors, I see and care about multiple dimensions of this issue. Everything I wrote below two months ago is even more relevant today. I continue to pray for our political leaders, our military, and the people of Iran. Please join me in prayer as the Lord leads you.



This afternoon I read with concern the news that Iran has seized a British operated tanker in the Straight of Hormuz. This is the latest in a continuing series of provocative and evil actions taken by Iran. Just in the last couple of months they have been bombing oil tankers, capturing other tankers, shooting down a US drone over international waters, threatening other ships, and most ominously of all openly declaring that they are exceeding previous limits on both the amount and level of uranium enrichment. In the meantime, they continue to support Hezbollah, a large, radical, extremist Islamic organization and also support the evil regime in Syria.

Will all of this lead to a military response from the US and our allies? If so, will it be a limited military strike, or will it expand into a war? Hezbollah is already talking about attacking Israel from Lebanon and Syria if Iran is attacked. Of course, talking about attacking Israel and doing it are two different things. Still, the possibility of a regional war is a real danger.

There are risks if the US and other nations don’t take action against Iran. There are risks if we do. There are no easy or safe answers. I don’t know what the best course is, but I know how to pray. I also know that in addition to all these political, military, and economic issues that there are much deeper and more important things going on spiritually.

It has been widely reported for quite a few years now that many Iranians have been turning to Christ (see this article as an example of many reports on this good news). This is despite the fact that doing so risks severe persecution. It may be that part of the reason for the advance of the gospel is that many are repulsed by the extremist version of Islam that dominates Iran’s government. God can bring good out of evil.

I don’t know all the answers. I don’t even know all the questions. But I know how to pray to the One who does know and who has power to work for good. Here is my prayer. Please consider actually praying this prayer, not just reading it. Modify it as you feel led.

A Prayer Concerning Iran

Heavenly Father, You see all that is happening related to Iran.

We ask that Your Kingdom will come and Your will be done in that part of the earth called Iran and the surrounding waters and nations.

Lord, we ask You to give government leaders and their military advisors in the US, Britain, and other affected nations all the wisdom, patience, courage, strength, and understanding they need. Help them to make good and right decisions.

Heavenly Father, if military action is called for, we ask that it will be successful with as few casualties as possible on all sides. If it is right for the US and other nations to take military action, I ask that you will give us swift victory that will result in greater peace and good in the long term. If military action is not best, please don’t allow our leaders to be provoked into it. You know what is best, Lord.

Lord, we know there is much more at stake than oil, freedom of navigation, and even the threat of Iran gaining nuclear weapons. Heavenly Father, we pray that you will use all that is happening for the advance of Your gospel and for the good of those who love You.

We know You love the 82 million people of Iran. Please work powerfully so that more and more of them turn to Jesus Christ. And please especially be with those Christians there who are facing persecution or living with the constant threat and danger of persecution. Protect them from evil.

In all that happens, we pray that ultimately You will be glorified.

In Jesus Name, Amen.


Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

VBS Is a Great Way to Follow Instructions from Moses



These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.
Repeat them to your children.
Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road,
 when you lie down and when you get up.
Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead.
Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.
(Deuteronomy 6:6-9 CSB17)

We need God’s Word in our hearts. When the truth of God is worked down into our hearts it changes how we think, how we act, what we say, where we go, and everything else about us. God’s word in our hearts will protect us from temptations and produce in us the wonderful fruits of the Spirit.

Getting God’s Word into human hearts doesn’t happen automatically or quickly. Having a Bible sitting on a shelf in your house won’t do it. God gave us instructions through Moses for how to get His Word into human hearts. He specifically tells us to start the process with our children.

One of the main methods God gives us to get His truth, His instructions, and His promises down into our hearts is very simple: saturate our lives with His Word. Talk about the Bible all the time. Have Bible verses written all over the place.

I thank God that VBS is a great example of putting this important principle into action. In VBS we teach God’s Word to children. We project His Word onto screens. We sing songs based on His Word. We lead the children in memorizing parts of His Word. During VBS, God’s Word is getting into the hearts of children (and adults, too!).

I thank God for the children’s programs, including VBS, that I was a part of as a child. God has used the Bible truths I learned there to shape my entire life. Of course, getting keeping God’s Word in our hearts is a lifelong process, and as adults we are called to continually meditate on God’s Word (Psalm 1:2). In my case, that lifelong process was given a big boost by VBS and the children’s programs at the church I grew up in. The truths I learned as a child in VBS helped me through my teen years and college, through five years in the Navy on Submarines, through Bible Seminary, through fourteen years of serving the Lord in Indonesia, and for the last 9 years of pastoral ministry. We don’t know where the Lord will lead the children in our VBS. But wherever He leads them, and whatever challenges they face, they will be better equipped to face them with God’s word in their hearts.

May God bless all who serve in VBS! And May God bless our children and transform their lives through His beautiful Word!



Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .



Another blog post about VBS:



Other Blog Posts about Getting God’s Word into our Hearts




Friday, July 12, 2019

Why did God destroy Sodom? Was it homosexuality, violence, neglecting the poor, or something else?



Now the men of Sodom were evil, sinning immensely against the LORD.
Genesis 13:13

Seeking to justify their support of homosexuality, some Christians claim that the story of Sodom really is not about homosexuality at all. Like many lies, this is a half truth. The Bible explicitly tells us that a reason for God’s wrath on Sodom was their lack of care for the poor. But that is not the only sin of Sodom the Bible discusses. God’s Word also makes it clear that God’s wrath was a response to the rampant homosexuality in that evil city and its neighbors.

Let’s take a look at the sins the Bible associates with Sodom and what sins it does not. As we look at this, we dare not treat this as a merely academic question. It is very relevant to our lives and our neighbors. In fact, we will see that today America (and other nations like us) is frighteningly similar to Sodom before it was destroyed by God’s wrath.

The first sin category we will consider is the sin of inhospitality.


What about “inhospitality to strangers”?

If you haven’t googled Sodom’s sin or heard it discussed, you may be surprised to find that some people say Sodom’s main sin was inhospitality to strangers.

There is no doubt that the Bible teaches that we should be hospitable towards strangers and care for them. By “strangers,” the Bible seems to mainly mean people from outside the area where we live who are either passing through our area or have moved into our area. Here are some examples:

You must not exploit a resident alien or oppress him, since you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt. (Exod. 22:21 CSB17)

You are also to love the resident alien, since you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.
 (Deut. 10:19 CSB17)

You will regard the alien who resides with you as the native-born among you. You are to love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God. (Lev. 19:34 CSB17)

Don't neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it. (Heb. 13:2 CSB17)

Many more verses could be added to these, not to mention the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Now, there is no doubt at all that the men of Sodom were not hospitable to the two visiting strangers who were angels disguised as men. But does this mean we should view Sodom’s sin and the reason for God’s judgment as being primarily a lack of hospitality? If terrorists walked into a nursing home and slaughtered all the elderly residents with machine guns, we wouldn’t categorize their sin as merely failing to honor the elderly. Likewise, it hardly seems fitting to categorize Sodom’s attempt at mass, violent, homosexual, gang rape as merely a case of being inhospitable!

We should also note that a lack of hospitality (which is a vast understatement, to the point of being misleading) is never explicitly mentioned in verses which later refer to Sodom’s sin.


What about failure to help the poor?

While lack of hospitality is not mentioned in Bible verses looking back on Sodom, their failure to help the poor is explicitly discussed:

Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn't support the poor and needy. (Ezek. 16:49 CSB17)

Notice the exact nature of their sin. It is not merely that Sodom failed to help the poor. It is that even though they were blessed with an abundance of resources, they pridefully kept it all for their own comfort and enjoyment while failing to help the poor and needy.

This specific type of sin is later addressed by Jesus in the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus. The rich man had abundant resources but failed to help poor Lazarus who was in great need. Both Sodom and the rich man suffer God’s fiery wrath as a result of their greed, selfishness, and failure to help the poor.

How does this relate to us living in American (and other relatively wealthy nations)? To answer this question, we need to begin by realizing that compared to most of the world, the average American is rich. You may not feel rich, but that is because you are comparing yourselves to movie stars and basketball players instead of considering the billions of people who are much poorer than you are. There is no simple, precise, easy way to compare the average wealth of people living in one nation to those living in other nations, but per capita GDP gives a rough estimate. The following graphic contains some sobering statistics:




The above graphic tells us that on average people in the US are a little more than five times more wealthy than the average person in the world. People living in Mexico are slightly less wealthy than the world average but are two and a half times wealthier than the average person in Indonesia. While the average person in Indonesia only has roughly 1/16th the wealth of the average person in the US, Indonesians are nearly twice as well off as those living in India. But India is doing great compared to Haiti, which has less than half their GDP, and Niger has less than half the GDP of Haiti.

I lived with my family in Indonesia for fourteen years. People living in a nation producing 1/16th the GDP per person as the US are not, with some tragic exceptions, starving. But many are not well nourished. Also, most have very simple homes which are vastly less comfortable than your home. They have a low level of health care that results in a lot of preventable suffering, poor educational opportunities for their children, and many live constantly on the brink of not being able to provide for the basic needs of their families. In a hundred other ways, they suffer due to the economic reality they were born into. Compared to the average Indonesian, a middle class American family is very rich.

So, why don’t you feel rich? Part of the answer lies in the increased cost of living in the US. But another part of the answer is that many (most?) Americans are constantly buying things (houses, cars, electronics, eating at restaurants, vacations, and more) that keep their budgets stretched thin. Many families would be able to give more to help others if they purchased less expensive cars, lived in a less expensive house, ate at home more or at least at less expensive restaurants, spent less on electronics, etc.

Should we feel bad because we live in a nation that (like Sodom before it was destroyed) is economically prosperous? No, we should feel thankful. But we should also feel a weight of responsibility to help others. God has not generously blessed us just so we can use all He gives us for our own enjoyment:

At the present time your surplus is available for their need, so that their abundance may in turn meet your need, in order that there may be equality. (2 Cor. 8:14 CSB17)

Throughout the Bible, God’s people are encouraged to give to two broad causes: (1) the teaching and spread of His truth and (2) providing help for the poor and needy. I know that some Americans are giving generously and some even are giving sacrificially. But I fear that many give just a tiny amount (relative to their income) and fool themselves into feeling good about that while they are surrounded by a world of desperate need. Like Lazarus, the poor are longing for crumbs from our tables. And like Sodom, God’s fierce wrath may be coming our way.

Sodom’s sin included neglecting the poor. We should talk about that and be concerned about it. But some people, wanting to have their cake and eat it too (in this case: they want to go along with the promotion and celebration of homosexual sins while still claiming to follow the Bible), claim that neglecting the poor was Sodom’s only sin and the only reason for its destruction. That’s not true.

What about homosexual sin in Sodom?

Since the story of the destruction of Sodom includes men wanting to have sex with other men, and since this activity is explicitly forbidden by God (see Leviticus 18:22), it seems obvious to many people that homosexuality was part of the great evil in Sodom that led to it’s destruction. But some people, reading Ezekiel 16:49 and seeing that neglect of the poor is mentioned, wrongly conclude that the problem wasn’t homosexuality after all. They should have read the next verse:

They were haughty and did detestable acts before me, so I removed them when I saw this. (Ezek. 16:50 CSB17)

The Hebrew word translated “detestable acts” is toebah (tow-ay-baw). It is the same word that God used to describe homosexuality:

                You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable (toebah). (Lev. 18:22 CSB17)

Thus, while it is true that Ezekiel refers to Sodom’s greed in 16:49, he refers to their homosexual sin in 16:50.

In addition to Ezekiel’s reference to detestable acts, we have Jude’s inspired comment in the New Testament:

Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns committed sexual immorality and perversions, and serve as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7 CSB17)

Jude explicitly mentions sexual immorality and perversions. The most natural interpretation in light of the story of Sodom is that Jude is referring to homosexuality. He may intend to include other types of sexual immorality as well, but homosexuality fits both the story of Sodom and Jude’s description precisely.

Because the term translated “perversions” in the CSB is more literally “strange flesh,” or “other flesh,” some have proposed that the problem was not homosexuality, but that the men wanted to have sex with angels. This view claims support from the mention of angels in the previous verse in Jude. However there are several problems with this view. First, there is no indication that the men of Sodom knew that Lot’s visitors were actually angels. In fact, they ask Lot to send out “the men” (Genesis 19:5) to have sex with them. Was one of the most severe judgments in human history executed because of a sin the men did not even know they were committing? That seems unlikely. Second, God had already seen Sodom’s evil and was prepared to destroy Sodom before He sent the angels. Third, whatever Jude means by “perversions” is something that was going on not only in Sodom, but also in “Gomorrah and the surrounding towns.” There is no indication that these other locations ever had angelic visitors similar to Sodom’s. Identifying Sodom’s sin as men trying to have sex with angels does not fit the facts. Identifying their sin as men trying to have sex with other men fits the facts and the rest of God’s word precisely.

It’s also worth noting that Jude does not mention violence as the issue. This doesn’t mean the violent nature of the men in Sodom who were demanding to have sex with Lot’s visitors did not make the sin much worse. It does mean that Jude, inspired by the Holy Spirit, focused on the sexual nature of the sin without mentioning violence. Thus, while it is not wrong to see sexual violence as part of Sodom’s sin, Jude was inspired by the Holy Spirit to focus on the sexual nature of their sin. The Bible teaches that all homosexual acts are sinful, not only the violent ones.  Jude’s language of “other flesh” echoes Paul’s thoughts about homosexual desire in Romans 1, where he describes those desires as being “contrary to nature” (Romans 1:26). Nothing in Paul’s discussion of wrong homosexual desires and sinful homosexual acts limits the sin to those cases where violence is involved.


And proud of it . . .

There is still more to Sodom’s sin. God said that Sodom’s sin was “extremely serious” (Genesis 18:20). In many places and at many times there has been both neglect of the poor and many types of sexual immorality, including homosexuality. What made Sodom’s sin stand out so that they became an example of God’s wrath against “extremely serious” sin for the rest of human history? Perhaps it was that they were not only committing these terrible sins, but they were actually proud of their evil. God revealed to Isaiah the problem of Sodom’s gay pride:

The look on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom, they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster on themselves. (Isaiah 3:9 CSB17)

We don’t know how Sodom flaunted their sin. Did they have a month to celebrate homosexuality? Perhaps they had parades where homosexual pride was on display? Could it have really gotten that bad? Are we worse than Sodom?

Instead of discouraging sinful behavior, some of Israel’s false prophets encouraged it. In doing so, they were acting like Sodom. Jeremiah, speaking for God, wrote:

Among the prophets of Jerusalem also I saw a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, and none turns his back on evil. They are all like Sodom to me; Jerusalem's residents are like Gomorrah. (Jeremiah 23:14 CSB17)

We should notice that encouraging evildoers in other sexual sins, like adultery, also makes us like Sodom in God’s eyes. Today many in our entertainment industry, our athletic champions, our teachers and professors, our government leaders, and even tragically some who claim to teach the Bible, are encouraging people to go ahead and give in to whatever wrong sexual desires they have. They especially encourage people to give in to homosexual desires. God says of these false teachers and ungodly leaders, “They are all like Sodom to me.”

Jeremiah isn’t the only one who writes about this. In the first chapter of Romans, Paul paints a terrifying picture of the downward spiral of humanity in rebellion against their Creator. It begins with suppressing the truth about who God is. That leads to various types of idolatry and sin. One sin that Paul especially focuses on in Romans 1 is homosexuality. The bottom of this downward death spiral occurs when we are not merely sinning, but applauding those who sin:

Although they know God's just sentence-- that those who practice such things deserve to die-- they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them. (Romans 1:32 CSB17)

Have you seen the crowds applauding homosexuality? Are greed and materialism celebrated and promoted everywhere? Are more and more sins of many types approved of and openly practiced?

God help us.

What should we do about it?

Don’t give in and don’t give up!

Don’t give in to the widespread cultural pressure to approve of homosexuality or any other sin.

Don’t give in to the pervasive cultural pressure to use every dollar you earn (and many dollars you haven’t earned – loving those credit cards) in a vain effort to find comfort and security through material possessions. Give more of your money away to help the poor and to spread the gospel. Use your time and energy the same way.

Don’t give in to whatever wrong sexual desires you have. With God’s help resist temptation and set your mind on the things of the Spirit, not the things of the flesh.

Don’t give up hope. God would have spared Sodom if there had been just ten righteous people in it. By choosing to live a righteous life in Christ you may be giving your neighbors more opportunity to repent and come to the truth. God may yet send us a time of revival and spiritual renewal.

If you have sinned in the areas of greed or any type of sexual immorality, know that Christ died for your sins and you can be forgiven and transformed. That doesn’t mean all your wrong desires and temptations will magically vanish, but it does mean that your sins will be forgiven and you do not have to be controlled and defined by whatever temptations you have:

9 Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males,
 10 no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God's kingdom.
 11 And some of you used to be like this. 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. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 CSB17)

Keep praying. Keep sharing God’s truth. Keep loving your neighbors, both those across the street and those across the ocean. Stay strong in Christ. Be faithful. Jesus is coming back. It will all be worth it.




Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .



Here are some other posts that discuss sexual sins and/or resisting temptation and dealing with sin in general:











Jude mentions “the punishment of eternal fire.” This phrase refers to a punishment that is indeed terrible, but is often misunderstood. Read more about that here: