Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The Ten Righteous


Sodom and Gomorrah have been used countless times to demonstrate the wickedness of man as well as the consequences of God against sinful people. This story shows a God who is fed up with two cities and is going to destroy them in order to protect the people living around their evil cities.

The cities are toxic and must be destroyed.

Before God goes there though, He sends three angels (some believe these represent the trinity)to go and inspect the city. On their way to the city (apparently they couldn't just 'beam' there, they had to walk...), they stop and eat with Abraham. Abraham figuring out what the intentions of God are, asks them, if they would spare the cities if there were 50 righteous people found within the walls. God grants this request and will not destroy the cities if fifty righteous are found. Next Abraham goes down to 45 righteous, and God relents again. This process continues until Abraham takes Him down to just ten righteous individuals, God agrees and the angels leave Abraham to go and inspect the city. I am sure you know what happens next...

I have always wondered what 'fire and brimstone' is actually like. It says that the cities were completely consumed never to be found again, so this fiery brimstone must be pretty potent stuff.

March 19, 2003 mark the date that the Iraqi War (Operation Iraqi Freedom) started. This war started with the dropping of millions of dollars worth of bombs and munitions in order to 'shock and awe' the Iraq's into submission. Many areas of the country were completely destroyed and/or left in ruins.

Iraq rests in the center of the Muslim world, but also has an interesting Christian heritage. Christians have been living there for the last two thousand years. It has been attested that almost one million christians lived in Iraq before the first Gulf War and about 800,000 lived there before Operation Iraqi Freedom. In case your wondering, that is one of the highest populations of christians within the Muslim world. Currently though this population has dwindled far below 800,000 and continues to dwindle as the persecution against christians continues.

Many questions have swirled around the United States and the world before, during and currently about this conflict in Iraq. Should we be there? Are our troops adequately equipped? What should the strategy be? While these questions are good ones to think about, I want to add another:

Should we drop a bomb on a nation if there are fifty righteous? Forty-five? Thirty? Twenty? What about only ten righteous, should we drop a bomb if there are ten righteous?

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