The Increasing Vices of Sodom
By T.
The last few years have been giving us some entirely new expressions that are truly significant. We have the “white slave traffic,” the “vice trust,” and “commercialized criminality.” These are forms of expression that are coming to be quite common, and practically every one knows what they mean. But if they had been spoken twenty or twenty-five years ago they would have needed explanation. In every part of this country and throughout the civilized world honest courts and officers are grappling with this “white slave” problem. As we recently stated, a leading jurist in one of our Western cities affirms that the “white slave traffic” is one of the greatest problems of the civilized world. Think of what it means for men and women to be engaged in stealing young girls for the house of ill fame! Think of what it would mean to you to have your own daughter in the innocency of young womanhood literally stolen by one of these wretches, and spirited away to a life of shame, never to have any communication with you again! Thousands of girls are stolen in this way every year and are never heard of again. “The vice trust” holds a “corner” on this fiendish business by being in league with corrupt officials that will protect them in their infamous work for a share of the gain. We have had “trusts” that have cornered the transportation facilities, and that have gained control of the petroleum products, and that have combined the ownership of one commodity and enterprise after another so that a few men could hold things in their own hands; but when it comes to having a “trust” that holds the control of the vices of Sodom for business gain it seems unbelievable. And yet it is literally true. To be sure such a trust can not operate in the open, neither can it incorporate under any state laws. But it has a power that is just as substantial as if it were legally incorporated. The trafficker in “white slaves” is the one who is interested in forming the “vice trust,” and he is also the one who laid the foundation for “commercialized criminality.” For while in the large cities the prostitute is to a large extent held in the iron grasp of the “vice trust,” it is also true that the common thug and cutthroat is allowed to operate through the organization of commercialized criminals. But while you may be fully aware of these things, did you ever take a view of them in the light of the following scriptures? “As it came to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the Flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all: after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of Man is revealed.” Luke 17: 26-30. The “days of Lot” are described in the nineteenth chapter of Genesis. The vices of the time were of the lowest conceivable depths, and the foregoing scripture indicates that the days when the Son of Man is revealed the second time will be a period of similar moral depravity. The following additional texts speak after the same tenor: “And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose sentence now from of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not. For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, having made them an example unto those that should live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, sore distressed by the lascivious life of the wicked (for that righteous man dwelling among them, and seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds): the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgment; but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise dominion.” 2 Peter 2: 5-10. In the same line with the foregoing from Peter are the following words from Jude: “Now I desire to put you in remembrance, tho ye know all things once for all, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, He hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in like manner these also in their dreamings defile the flesh, and set at naught dominion, and rail at dignities.” Jude 5-8. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah “are set forth as an example.” Sodom was the home of Lot, and as it was in the days of Lot, so will it be when the Son of Man is revealed. God overthrew the wicked cities in that time because of their licentiousness, and made them an example to the wicked cities that should come after. Nothing could be plainer than this teaching of the inspired Book. And since it is a known fact that all the cities of the world are being made to reek with the corrupting vices of fornication, we may know that the time can not be long delayed when God will destroy them as He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah of old. And besides, we have these following direct statements that ought to leave the subject beyond a peradventure in the mind of any believer in the Bible: “I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of Jehovah, and before His fierce anger.” Jer. 4: 26. “And the seventh poured out his bowl upon the air; and there came forth a great voice out of the temple, from the throne, saying, It is done: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men upon the earth, so great as earthquake, so mighty. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.” Rev. 16: 17-19. Thus do we have the multiplied testimony that the cities are to be especially visited, in the great day of Jehovah, by His destructive power. The cities become the centers of vice and crime, and there the judgments of God fall with the greatest weight. The thing is divinely foretold, and it is just. In view of these things, it is well for men and women to be turning away from the cities as a place of dwelling, just as rapidly as possible. The judgments of God must rest there more and more.