Was Sodom Destroyed Because Of 'Rape'? Or Homosexuality?

At some point in the last year or so an Austin, TX pastor named Zach Lambert came across my radar. These are, of course, days when pastors of average-sized churches can make a real dent in the American Christian consciousness due to the nature of social media, and Zach is good at writing in such a way as to get noticed, which is not inherently a bad thing. 

Zach, however, regularly uses his communication skills to defend the full slate of LGBTQ perversions, and to do so as a pastor who gives nominal assent to some of the core doctrines of Nicene Christianity. That’s what first brought him to my attention. Here was a supposedly Bible-believing Christian pastor who consistently employed his sizable social media pulpit to defend all the fashionable perversions of our day.

If Zach Lambert simply outright denied the Bible, he’d be less of a danger and merit less attention from men like me. But rather than renouncing the Bible, he wants to make it bless what it forbids, commend what it rebukes, beautify what it calls unnatural, and then still act as though it is authoritative for him and his ministry. Zach wants to keep the credibility of the Bible - and perhaps the parts he personally likes about it - without the cost of real submission to its Author. He clearly desires those who read him and follow him to think he is a man of the Scriptures and to have those who view the Bible highly view him as a man they should listen to. 

Zach Lambert is an example of a danger that faithful men today must confront and oppose. “Pastors” who want Christianity to affirm LGBTQ sins won’t put down the Bible and start a new religion, and of course neither will they obey it, so instead, they twist it. One of Zach’s most frequent, Scripture-twisting arguments for why the Bible doesn’t say what we think it says about homosexuality is that the “sexual immorality” and “unnatural desire” that Jude v. 7 clearly tells us brought about God’s fiery punishment was not men trying to have sex with men, but merely men attempting to “rape angels.”

Zach’s argument is not drawn from the Scriptures, faithfully working out what they say and teach by careful exegesis and application. Rather, it is an example of a man ignoring the words and phrases of Scripture that lead to a conclusion he doesn’t like (homosexual behavior is sinful and unnatural) so that he can get people to believe the Bible teaches what he wants it to. This is Scriptural sleight of hand, tampering with the Word of God, using one’s own cunning and sophistry to make people believe the Bible doesn’t say what it does.

Let’s examine Zach’s “angel rape” explanation for Jude v. 7 carefully against the actual wording of the text.  

Jude v. 7: “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

Notice who Jude tells us indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire: Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities. All the cities of the region receive God’s fiery punishment for indulging in sexual immorality and pursuing unnatural desire. Were Gomorrah and all the surrounding cities involved in that night where Zach hopes to pin all of the sin on “angel rape”?

No. Genesis 19 makes it plain that the wickedness of that particular night was committed by the men of Sodom: “But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house.” (Genesis 19:4)

Incidentally, it also indicates the men didn’t know Lot’s guests were angels: “And they called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.’” (Genesis 19:5). Subsequently, neither Lot nor the angels tell the men of Sodom they’re angels. So it’s not merely that the sin was attempting to sleep with angels as opposed to men, which would supposedly have been acceptable. Rather, they believed they were going to have sex with men, and this was part of their sin.

The Bible tells us Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding cities indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire. Pastor Zach wants his church and his 40,000+ followers on X to believe that that sexual sin and unnatural desire they indulged in and pursued does not include men wanting to have sex with men. He would have us all believe that the God who made Adam, then made a female helper fit for him, and who designed sex to be the fruitful union of husband and wife does not see a man trying to anally penetrate another man as unnatural and sinful. 

The Bible did not get Zach to that conclusion. 

Men like this twist the Word of God. It is unnatural and sinful for a man to have sex with a man. The Word of God is not bashful about telling us that. Nor is it bashful about telling us Christ can save every man or woman from such unnatural desire by grace through faith.

Do not believe Zach Lambert or men who make these same arguments. Do not twist Scripture like this. Trust Christ’s Word. Believe the Bible.

“Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” (Jude 5).