sermonette: Sodom and Egypt
The Culture of Israel
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 03-May-03; Sermon #610s; 20 minutes
I want you to turn to Revelation 11. And verse 8 Revelation 11 and in verse 8. And their dead body shall lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom in Egypt where also our Lord was crucified. I do not think any one of us has a doubt as to what city is being referred to here, but just in case you haven't thought this through, it's the city of Jerusalem. That's where
Christ was crucified, and spiritually in the mind of
God, it is associated with Sodom. And with Egypt, both of them vile places. Sodom Their particular brand of vileness seems to focus on those things which are sexual in nature. So there is a great deal of immorality associated with Jerusalem, and then Egypt is associated with slavery. It's a type of
the world. It's where Israel was held slavery. It's where they were freed from, and so. The association there is slavery, and so we have at least figuratively violence and slavery associated with the city of Jerusalem. Now there is another type there of, and that is in the city of Jerusalem itself. God very frequently uses the city to represent the entire nation. And so we can expand the application of this one verse from the city of Jerusalem, just like here in the United States, writers, journalists newsmen, they will say Jerusalem said this or Jerusalem said that and we automatically understand that Jerusalem or Washington. I said Jerusalem. Washington said this or Washington said that and it is speaking for the entire nation. Well, that's how God is using Jerusalem here, that the entire nation. Is Sodom. And Egypt. It is a nation that is filled with vileness and with slavery, slavery to
sin, slavery to
Satan. Now, I want to expand this out just a bit further yet. Because I think for those to whom I am speaking right now, we would tend to associate this with the United States of America because we live here, we know what we are seeing on television news, reading in the newspapers, and so we know that these things are going on in the United States, but you'll notice Jerusalem was the capital of Israel. And so these things are not going on just in the United States, they are going on in the rest of Israel. So we can expand this out to Canada, South Africa, Australia, and all of the Israelite people who are in northwestern Europe as well. I think that you might be aware, but if you're not the murder rate in Britain now is higher than it is in the United States. Your chances of being mugged in London are higher than they are in any American city. Things are getting bad everywhere and Americans are almost being surpassed by other Israelite nations, at least in certain areas. Uh, sexual sins, I think, have always been associated, not so much with the United States, yes, it's bad here, but how about the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden and Denmark, where things are really loose. Uh, I know the very first time that Richard and I went to Europe together. We were in Amsterdam, that went up to the 2nd floor of the hotel that we were in, and there was a picture of a bare-breasted woman. I mean, right out in the hotel, and I thought, wow. We are prudes in the United States by comparison to this. And then a little actually it was a little bit earlier than this my sister-in-law, who returned from London came with a picture that she took out of the London Times. It was right in the newspaper of that movie star, um, Bridget Nielsen, bare-breasted right out on the beach in England. OK, the titles, Sodom and Egypt fit very well. Not just for the city of Jerusalem but for anywhere in Israel. Now last week I Talk to you about an article that I'd read by Walter Williams and he was making a kind of a humorous comparison between Michael Jordan and himself and could not understand, you know, why Michael might make more money than he does and you know, he initially said, well, it's. Because he's better looking than Walter Williams is, but then of course he analyzed it and broke down in simple terminology so that we can understand why Michael Jordan makes more money than Walter Williams. Walter Williams has the doctor's degree. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University, which is really important because he's teaching the younger generation about economics. And by comparison, all Michael Jordan does is bounce a ball up and down on a course and court and put it through a steel hoop, and yet Michael Jordan's making about $32 million a year, and Walter Williams says he's only making less than 0.1% of what Michael Jordan does. But the reason he said is because Michael Jordan is doing things that the public wants to spend money on. And so the public is very willing to spend money. To go see Michael Jordan play basketball and then because Michael Jordan is so influential in the public, then manufacturers hire him to be their face, their representative, their agent out in the public, and they pay Michael Jordan tremendous amounts of money for that. Tiger Woods is another one. But these two men do not stand alone because there are a great number of them and you know, around this, this part of the world, why Dale Earnhardt's name was gold for Companies, corporations to invest in him to be their representative and I dare say that in a sense he made more money from that than he did from racing. From being a company representative. OK, that's why those people become wealthy. The public is willing to spend their money on the product that these people represent. They would rather spend it on Dale Earnhardt, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, EA than they would on Walter Williams or you and me. Now this week Uh, there was an article that David clipped from, I say clipped, but he cut it out of the internet. Very interesting because it was written by a Brit who was in the United States, apparently in Los Angeles, and but he's a journalist writing for the Manchester Guardian. And You will find this, I think, something that you are aware of, at least generally, that maybe you aren't aware of how big. This that this article about it's in the United States of America. The title of the article is with porn. Pornography And pot, marijuana, outstripping corn. The kind you eat, America's black economy. Now it doesn't mean racial black here, it means the black market or that economy which is not on the surface, but rather it is under the surface. But huge. With pot and corn outstripping corn, America's black economy is flying high. Now, here is the overall economy in the United States. It's in kind of a depression. It's not really a depression, but at least it has declined for quite a bit over the last several years. The opening paragraph says, Marijuana, pornography, and illegal labor, three areas of the black economy. Marijuana, pornography, and illegal illegal labor have created a hidden market in the United States which now accounts for as much as 10% of the American economy according to the study. As a listen to this, as a cash crop. Do you know what the biggest cash crop is in South Carolina? It's trees. Loblolly pines is the biggest cash crop in South Carolina, but as a cash crop, marijuana is believed to have outstripped maize, which is what the British call corn. And hardcore porn revenue is equal to Hollywood's domestic box office takings. Now, you know, you know how big the entertainment industry is in, in Hollywood, you know, it's capital city, its tentacles reach out worldwide. American movies go everywhere, drawing in money from India, from Pakistan, from Africa, France, you know, anywhere. And yet the pornographic industry in Hollywood is greater than all of those studios out there, you know, United Artists and Universal and, you know, all of those put together do not equal the amount of money that pornography is pulling in. Now This is what I'm going to tell you is not in this article, but I have read it elsewhere. That the pornographic industry in the United States is bigger than not only the movies, you know, we will say the the legitimate movies, but it is bigger than baseball, football, basketball, and the movies all put together. Bigger than Michael Jordan, bigger than Tiger Woods, bigger than National Football League, National Basketball Association, all of them put together. is overwhelmed by the pornographic pornographic industry. Despite laws that punish marijuana cultivation more strictly than murder. In some states, Americans spend more on illegal drugs than on cigarettes, and despite official disapproval of pornography, the United States leads the world in the export of explicit sex videos, according to Reefer Madness, sex, drugs, and cheap Labor in the American Market by Eric Slaughter. No aspect of farming has grown faster in the United States over the past 3 decades than marijuana, with 1/3 of the public over the age of 12 having smoked the drug. With the nation's largest legal cash crop, corn, largest legal cash crop, corn produces. Revenues of about $19 billion. Plausible estimates for the value of marijuana crops reach 25 billion. You know, when you go out in the Midwest, and you're going through Illinois and Iowa and Kansas, you see field after field after field, mile after mile of corn. And the marijuana crop is bigger. Slasher writes. Although although popular stereotypes depict marijuana growers as aging hippies living in Northern California or Hawaii, the majority of the marijuana now cultivated domestically is grown in the nation's midsection. A swath running from the Appalachians west to the Great Plains and throughout this marijuana belt, drug fortunes are being made by farmers who often seem to have stepped from a page of an old Saturday Evening Post magazine. Some of the most expensive crops are grown indoors on the West Coast using advanced scientific methods, but the American heartlands account for the largest volume. Some estimates suggest 3 million Americans grow marijuana. 3 million Americans are growing marijuana. Now he goes on to say, mostly for their own own and their friends' use, but between 100 and 200,000 are doing so for a living. Are we rotten or what? From the top of our head to the soles of our feet. We have 100s of thousands. Of people who are living two lives. Maybe we should say millions of people who are living two lives on the outside, like he said, they look like good upstanding American citizens in their bib overalls driving their tractor or whatever. But the second life. They're crooks. And they are participating in an economy that is just under the surface. It is illegal. But they are thriving on it. Now listen to this. We'll go on to pornography. Americans spend more money at strip clubs. Then Broadway, just think of all of the theaters there are in New York City. Americans spend more money at strip clubs than at Broadway, regional theaters, so we add now to what is in New York City to places like Charlotte and Raleigh and Greensboro and Greenville and Columbia and on and on. And orchestra performances, you start putting all of the city symphony orchestras and things like that together. Americans spend more money at strip clubs than at Broadway, regional theaters, and orchestra performances combined. Are we perverted or what? The industry has mushroomed since the 70s when a federal study found that it was worth a little more than $10 million not billion dollars, million dollars. Now, the United States leads the world in pornography. About 211 new films, pornographic films are produced every week. 211 It seems like that's about equal for the whole legitimate Hollywood for a whole year. I believe that I saw a figure not too long ago that the figure for the major Hollywood studios for the entire year was something like 270 films. Now here is 211. Every week, the Los Angeles area is the center of the film boom, and many of those in the trade are otherwise respectable citizens. The internet has provided a fresh and profitable outlet. In 1997, about 22,000 porn websites existed. Now the number is closer to 300,000 and growing. He then goes on to talk about the illegal. Farm workers. Just one part of the illegal labor market in the United States and I think all of you recognize those of you who are holding jobs and so forth what impact it is having upon you. And it is very interesting. That there are outcries in the newspapers and in magazines virtually every week, every month. People want the INS to do something about this. The INS hands are tied. By businessmen Who on the outside are legitimate, but they are breaking American laws because it's cheaper to hire the illegals than it is to hire an American. So We are being destroyed from within. There is absolutely no doubt about it, and God legitimately calls. The Israelite people, Sodom, and Egypt.