'Nudity's so atomic-Sodomic, man!'

Listening to WBBM News Radio this morning, the broadcaster announced cheerily, “It will be a steamy 94 degrees today, perfect for the city's annual World Naked Bike Ride.” He could have just as easily been promoting this weekend’s Printer’s Row Lit Fest with his “fun-for-the-whole-family” tone.

The evening event encourages full frontal nudity (or, if you prefer, body paint) as cyclists traverse popular city arteries with their private parts bouncing along with their bike tires.

Of course, public nudity is all the rage today. Today’s Drudge Report has a link to a Daily Mail review of a just-opened all-nude restaurant in London that boasts a waiting list of 46,000.

“On the way to the restaurant I realise I'm feeling pretty intense nerves, like first date nerves, which is weird because I never get naked on first dates,” confesses the Mail's reporter. “Being nude doesn't bother me at all - I'm more than happy with my body - and I'm feeling a sort of thrill knowing I'll soon be swanning around as naked as the day I was born. I picture myself as an ethereal creature, casting off my clothes and prancing around like one of Joseph Tomanek's Nymphs Dancing to Pan's Flute. There are certainly some Dionysian vibes in The Bunyadi. The waiters and waitresses are naked despite some leaves and flesh-coloured underwear covering their most intimate parts. It's all very Ancient Grecian.”

*****

In the Bible, God’s commandments concerning "uncovering the nakedness" of another is a euphemism for illicit sexual relations. When Leviticus 18:14, for one example, says, “Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother,” it’s a reference to sodomy.

“In the Bible, when sodomy shows up in Israel--go back and trace it through Kings and so forth--it almost always shows up in a religious context, which tells you the thing that keeps sodomy out of a culture is the teaching of God’s Word,” says Richard Jordan (shorewoodbiblechurch.org).

“When Israel would reject God’s Word and go into the lie program--go into Baal worship and all--that’s when sodomy would raise its head.

“In Romans 1, Paul says they don’t like to retain God in their knowledge. That’s when it shows up. That perversion, that violence, that idolatry--all of that is wrapped together in Judges 19 and that was back before there was a king in Israel.

“Hosea 10:9 says, ‘O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.’

“That takes you back to Judges 19. Hosea 9 says, ‘You know how bad you are? It is with you just like it was back in Judges 19.’

“The last verse in Judges 19 says, ‘And it was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day: consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds.’

“There’s something that happened in Judges 19 that was the worst--it sunk lower down than ANY Gentile nation on the earth at that time. Israel had sunk morally, spiritually and culturally so low they were down LOWER than the nations God sent them in the land to destroy. Judges 19 is a standard of that.

*****

“In a nutshell, what happened in Judges 19 is there’s a Levite and he had a concubine and the concubine, well, they didn’t have such a great relationship. In verse 2 she went out and played the harlot, the whore, and went away from him. Remind you of the whore in Hosea?

“She goes back to her daddy’s house. The Levite goes and gets her; he starts taking her home. He comes down by Jebus (it’ll be Jerusalem after it’s taken away from the Jebusites by David) and verses 12-13 says, ‘And his master said unto him, We will not turn aside hither into the city of a stranger, that is not of the children of Israel; we will pass over to Gibeah.
[13] And he said unto his servant, Come, and let us draw near to one of these places to lodge all night, in Gibeah, or in Ramah.’

“An old man takes him into his house so he didn’t have to sleep on the street (I’m duding this up a little for you here). When he takes him into his house, and gives him hospitality, you remember what happened to Lot in Sodom when the angels came?

“It’s the same thing going to happen here. Gibeah was morally, spiritually, culturally corrupt—in fact, more corrupt than Sodom was. So verse 22 says, ‘Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.’

*****

“If you look up the ‘sons of Belial,’ you’ll find those are certain special satanic operatives Satan placed in the land to hold the land and make Israel function in a way that they couldn’t accomplish God’s purpose in the land.

“So these are satanic emissaries. It says ‘that we may know him.’ They’re not talking about checking his ID. This is a homosexual assault, trying to take this stranger that they hadn’t known; take him out and have their way with him. 

“The passage goes on, 23] And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.
[24] Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.
[25] But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go.

“Look at the value system they got there! I mean, to save face--his honor as a hospitable dude--he’s willing to take his virgin daughter and throw her to the dogs, take the concubine and throw her to the dogs, he’s thinking, ‘Well, at least that’s not a homosexual thing.’

“You see why he said the spirit of the men is mad and the prophet’s a fool? This is what it leads to.

“Read verse 25. Say what you want to about the guy but they didn’t have a very good relationship. She goes a-whoring on him and now he’s going to throw her out to the dogs to save his neck.

“Verse 26 says, ‘Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light.’

“I read that and I say, ‘I don’t know about you, but if my wife had been taken out like that I don’t think I’d have gone to bed and had a good night’s sleep. I think I would have been pacing the floor most of the night.’

“This dude just went to sleep. You know, the value system! Verse 27 says, ‘And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold.’

“He’s leaving town! It didn’t say he went out looking for his wife! He’s figured that’s a done deal.

*****

“The chapter ends, [28] And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place.
[29] And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.
[30] And it was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day: consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds.

“Finally the guy got mad! He takes his dead wife, cuts her up into 12 pieces and sends each piece to one of the 12 tribes of Israel. Now people get mad at him for doing that, but the problem here is not what he did to her; it’s what was done to her by the people who killed her.

"That’s why he says what he says in verse 30. The thing they’re objecting to is not him cutting her up and sending her away. What he’s doing is saying to Israel, ‘Look what’s happening in our midst and you don’t care anything about it!’ He used a little shock treatment there to get their attention. You keep reading,  you’ll see that he does.

“The point of the story in Hosea is that the nation had gotten to that corrupted condition that they were guilty of the same sinful abominations that Israel was back there; the same carelessness of life.

“And Hosea said, ‘What it was back there, there would have never been a day like that, that bad, but now you guys are WORSE than that and that’s why judgment’s coming!’ "

(new article tomorrow)