Genesis Chapter 18 Part 3: The Greatest Intercession

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And welcome back to our study in the book of Genesis. Before we get started today, I just want to remind you that I am available for preaching on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, special events, things that your church might have. I just got back from Georgia. There was an amazing conference that took place over there on Saturday. It was a student ministry group for Saturday morning and Saturday night. A lot of amazing students and youth leaders and youth pastors who attended, and we had lots of great conversations and prayer time. And then on Sunday morning, I had the opportunity to teach a young adult, college age Sunday school class. Lots of great questions, and I'm still getting a few emails and texts from that. And so if you would like to have me come to your church, just speak with your leadership and have them reach out. Money's not an issue. If there's an offering or anything like that involved in it, I would be happy to come. And if there's no money whatsoever, I would still be happy to come visit you. So just feel free to reach out. Now, in Genesis chapter 18, so far, what we've seen is this. We've seen the two visitors have returned towards Sodom. God has told Abraham what he is about to do, and Abraham is still standing before the Lord. The meal is over, the announcement has been made, the divine deliberation has been shared. And Abram, or Abraham now, does not leave. He stays. And what he does in the next 12 verses is one of the most remarkable things that any one person does in the entire book of Genesis. He argues with God, not from arrogance or rebellion, but he argues from a place of love, from a deep understanding of who God is. The intercession of Abraham for Sodom in Genesis chapter 18, verses 22 through 23 is the greatest model of intercessory prayer in the book of Genesis. And it contains more theology about the nature of prayer and about the nature of God than most systematic theologies devote to the subject. And so let's read the text here. Let's start in chapter 18, verse 22 through 23. It says, Then the men turned away from there and went towards Sodom while Abraham was still standing before the Lord. Abraham came near and said, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from you, shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly? And so the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account. And Abraham replied, Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes. Suppose the fifty righteous are lacking five, will you destroy the whole city because of five? And he said, I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there. And he spoke to him again and said, Suppose forty are found there, and he said, I will not do it on account of the forty. Then he said, Oh, may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak. Suppose thirty are found there, and he said, I will not do it if I find thirty there. And he said, Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, suppose twenty are found there, and he said, I will not destroy it on account of twenty. And then he said, Oh, may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once. Suppose ten are found there, and he said, I will not destroy it on account of the ten. As soon as he had finished speaking to Abraham, the Lord departed, and Abraham returned to his place. In these twelve verses we see six rounds of negotiation, six divine concessions, and a man who understood that the judge of all the earth always deals justly. So let's start with verse 22. It said, Then the men turned away from there and went towards Sodom while Abraham was still standing before the Lord. So the two visitors have left. The meal is finished, the conversation about Isaac and Sarah is over, and Abraham is still standing before the Lord. This is the posture of intercession. Not one bowing down in awe, as he was when God appeared in Genesis chapter 17. He is standing, present, remaining after everyone else has moved on. The Hebrew reads more like Abraham was yet standing before the face of the Lord, before the face of the Lord. Abraham is exactly where God called him to be, and he is using that position to plead for someone else. This is the nature of intercessory prayer. The intercessor does not leave the presence of God while others are in danger. He stays and he uses his access to God on behalf of those who may not have it. Verse 23 says, Abraham came near and said to him, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Abraham came near. Keep that in mind. This is the same movement Moses will make at the burning bush. Elijah will make the same movement at the cave. And the disciples will all make this move again in the garden. Coming near to God is always an act of courage and intimacy simultaneously. And the question Abraham brings is not a complaint, it is a theological argument grounded in God's own character. Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Abraham is not challenging God's right to judge Sodom. He is not arguing that Sodom is innocent. He is asking whether God's judgment will be precise enough to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent. Abraham has walked with this God for 25 years. He knows that God does not act unjust. The question is not one of skepticism. It is a question of a man who knows God's character so well that he can appeal to it. And this is what we read next. Far be it from you to do such a thing to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly? This is one of the most significant theological statements in the Abraham narrative. Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly? The Hebrew reads more like, Will not the judge of all the earth do justice? Three things are packed into this question. Number one, first, God is the judge of all the earth, not just of Israel, but all the earth. Every nation, including Sodom, God's jurisdiction is uh and justice are universal. Second, justice is an attribute of God's character. Abraham is not asking God to do something external to his nature, he is appealing to what God already is, just, and arguing that the nature of God guarantees the outcome that he is asking for. The third is this: this is an argument from God's own nature against God acting contrary to his own nature. The most effective intercessory prayer is a prayer that grounds itself in who God is. Abraham is not trying to change God's mind. Abraham is asking God to act consistently within his own character. This question is the foundation of all biblical thought. Every generation that has ever wrestled with suffering and divine justice is asking the question Abraham asked in Genesis chapter 18: Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly? And the Bible gives the answer from Genesis chapter 18 through the cross to Revelation chapter 20, and the answer is yes, he deals justly. He will, he always does, and the cross is proof. Verses 26 through 32, we read six rounds of negotiation. And this is one of the most remarkable prayer conversations we find in Scripture. Six rounds, six numbers, six divine responses. And not once does God refuse, not once does he say, No, I'm not going to give that to you. 50 righteous is where it starts. God says, For 50 righteous, I will spare the whole city. What about 45? If there's 45, I won't destroy it. What if there's 40? I will not do on account of the 40, 30. I will not do it if I find 30 there. 20. I will not destroy it on account of the 20. 10. I will not destroy it if I find 10 on the account of 10. Every round, Abraham reduces the number, and every round God concedes. God never looks at Abraham and says, Enough is enough. God never says, You're pushing me too far. God never says, I've already made my decision, and that's final. Every time Abraham asks, God answers. And Abraham replied, Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes. Between the first and second realm, Abraham pauses. He acknowledges in this moment who he is before the one he is addressing. I am but dust and ashes. The word dust, the substance from which he was made, this goes back to Genesis chapter 2, verse 7, and Genesis chapter 3, verse 19. And ashes, this is the residue of what is consumed by fire. And so the intercessor knows his own smallness. He has not forgotten that he is a creature standing before the Creator. This is the foundation of effective intercession. Abraham is bold, but he isn't arrogant. He presses his case, but he never loses sight of who God is. He says, I ventured to speak, meaning I dare to speak, not because I have the right, because I have been given access and I am using it for someone else. This is the posture that James describes in James chapter 5, verse 16. This is what we read there. It says, the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Righteous, not perfect. Righteous, the man whose faith has been credited as righteousness, standing before God in the status that his faith provides, and praying with the boldness that that status makes possible. Now, twice in the intercession, in verse 30 and verse 32, Abraham says, Oh, may the Lord not be angry. And this phrase reveals something important about Abraham's emotional state during the intercession. He is not negotiating from a position of calm confidence. He is pressing his case with a genuine anxiety about how far he can go. He is afraid, not of the outcome for Sodom, but whether he is exceeding the boundaries of his access. The intercessor who prays with tears, who feels the weight of what he is asking, who is afraid to stop but afraid to go too far. That's the picture of Abraham here in verses 30 and 32. And God is never angry with him. Every time Abraham asks, God answers quietly and completely. The God who said, Do not fear in Genesis chapter 15 is not irritated by the man who is afraid to stop asking. And he said, Oh, may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once. Suppose ten are found there. And he said, This is talking about the Lord, and he said, I will not destroy it on account of ten. This is the final round. I shall speak only this once. And there's a great question here. Why did Abraham stop at ten? Why didn't he go down to five or just one? And this question has occupied commentators for centuries. And there's been several answers that have been proposed. The first is this that 10 was the minimum for a Jewish congregation to come together and make decisions. Ten righteous people represented a viable covenant community. And if there were ten righteous in Sodom, there was still a community worth saving. Abraham, the second is this Abraham stopped at 10 because he knew Lot's household. Lot, his wife, his two daughters, his sons-in-law, the number approaches 10. And so Abraham may have calculated that if the L if Lot's own household could constitute a righteous remnant, then 10 was the very bottom, 10 was the floor. And third, some commentators suggest Abraham stopped at 10 because he could not bring himself to ask for the city to be spared on fewer than 10, the number below which individual righteousness rather than community righteousness must be invoked. Now, whatever the reason, God agreed to that low number of 10. And there were not 10 people there. Lot's sons-in-laws, though thought he was joking, and we'll read that in the next chapter. The city was destroyed beyond saving, the floor of grace had been reached, and the fire came on Sodom. So there were not ten righteous people there. The intercession of Abraham raises one of the deepest questions in the theology of prayer. And it's this does prayer change God's mind? The Reformed tradition has generally said no. God's decrees are eternal and immutable, and prayer does not alter his plans. The open theism tradition has said yes. God genuinely responds to prayer and will adjust his plans according to the prayers of the saints. Genesis chapter 18 suggests a more nuanced answer, however. God's ultimate purpose, which is the display of his justice, the rescue of the righteousness, and the judgment of the wicked, does not change. Again, we see later the fire does fall on Sodom. Lot is rescued, justice is served. But the form that justice takes, the specific number of righteousness required for the city to be spared, is negotiated through Abraham's intercession. The purpose is fixed, the parameters are responsive. God is not surprised by Abraham's intercession. He invited it by telling Abraham what he was about to do. The God who told Abraham about Sodom, knowing that Abraham would pray, was inviting the intercession before Abraham even started it. This is the consistent biblical pattern. In Ezekiel chapter 22, verse 30, we read, I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one. God was looking for an intercessor. Abraham is the prototype of the man who stands in the gap. Prayer does not change what God has decided to do. Prayer participates, though, in how God does it. The most important thing Abraham does in this intercession is to ground every biblical appeal to the character of God. Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly? This is an appeal to the divine justice. He says, far be it from you. This is an appeal to the indiscriminate judgment with God's nature. Will you not spare the place on their account? This is an appeal to the divine mercy responding to the presence of righteousness within God. Abraham does not appeal to the innocence of Sodom. He does not argue that the city deserves to be spared. He appeals entirely to the character of God, and he asks God to be consistent within his own nature. And this is the pattern of the greatest prayers in Scripture. We see it with Moses at Sinai in Exodus chapter 32, David in Psalm 51, Daniel in Daniel 9, and Jesus in John chapter 17 in the high priestly prayer. The most effective intercessory prayer does not tell God what to do, it asks God to be who he already is in a specific situation for a specific people at a very specific time. Now, at first glance, the intercession appears to have fell. Again, Sodom was destroyed, the fire fell, the city is going to be taken away. It's gone completely. But look more carefully at what Abraham asked. Abraham did not ask God to spare Sodom, regardless of how many righteous were there. He asked God to spare the city if there were righteous people in it for their sake. The intercession set the floor. If there are ten, spare the city. Genesis chapter 19, we read in verse 16 that the angel sees Lot's hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters. In verse 29 of chapter 19, it says, Thus it came about when God had destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow. God remembered Abraham. So the intercession, it was answered, not by sparing the city of Sodom, but by rescuing the righteous from it. The prayer did not prevent the judgment, it secured the rescue of the one righteous man in the city. This is how intercession works in a world where judgment is very real. It does not always prevent what is coming, but it secures the rescue of the ones God hears the prayers for. Now the last verse we read here says, As soon as he had finished speaking to Abraham, the Lord departed, and Abraham returned to his place. The intercession ends. Not because Abraham decided to stop, but because God departed. The word his place in the Hebrew is the same word used throughout Genesis for a person's settled dwelling. So Abraham goes home to Hebron, to the oaks of Mamre, to his tent, and his altar. He does not yet know the outcome. He does not know whether the ten righteous will be found. He has prayed everything he knew to pray, and he goes home and he's trusting that the judge of all the earth will deal justly. This is the end of intercession. You pray everything you can pray, and then you go home and you trust the one who heard you. Now, a common objection to the God of the Old Testament is that he is a morally inferior to the ethical standards of what is called modern humanism. Genesis chapter 18, verse 22 through 23 refutes this objection directly. Abraham's concern that the righteous should not be swept away with the wicked is one of the most morally sophisticated arguments in all of ancient literature. The principle of individual justice that teach that each person should be the judge of their own actions rather than the collective guilt of their own community is a principle that ancient Near Eastern legal systems struggled to articulate. In one particular, the Code of Hammurabi, it contains provisions for collective punishment. In the Hittite legal codes, they included family-wide penalties for individual crimes. The principle of precise individual justice, which Abraham defends in Genesis chapter 18, was not the universal standard of the ancient world. And yet Abraham articulates it and God affirms it. The God of Genesis chapter 18 is more morally sophisticated than the legal traditions of his name, not less. The objection that the God of the Old Testament is morally inferior to modern ethical standards ignores that most modern ethical standards, including the principle of individual justice, actually derive from the biblical tradition, not the ancient Near Eastern cultures. Then Abraham standing before the Lord interceding for Sodom is one of the clearest Old Testament types of intercessory ministry that ultimately points to Jesus. In Romans chapter 8, verse 34, the apostle Paul says, Jesus is he who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Christ intercedes for us. That's what Paul says. The one who is at the right hand of God, standing before the Father, is making intercession for his people. Abraham stood before the Lord and interceded before the righteous of Sodom. Jesus stands at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for the righteous in the world. Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25 says, Therefore he is able also to save forever those who draw near, according to him, since he is all since he always lives to make intercession for them. Abraham's intercession. Ended when God departed. Jesus' intercession for you never ends. He always lives to stand before the Father for you. The difference between Abraham's intercession and Christ's intercession is the ground. Abraham interceded on the basis of the righteous, uh righteousness of hypothetical people in Sodom. Christ, however, intercedes on the basis of his own righteousness, the only ground that always holds. Now, just a few more things before we that I want to point out before we close for the day. Abraham's question, where he asks, Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly, is ultimately answered at two points in redemptive history. First, at the cross, where the judge of all the earth dealt justly with sin. He didn't ignore it. But he dealt with it by absorbing its full weight in the body of the Son. This is what Romans chapter 3, verse 25 through 26 says. The just and the justifier. The judge of all the earth dealt justly, and the mechanism was the cross. Secondly, at the final judgment. Revelation chapter 20, verse 12 says, And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds. Hold on to those words, according to their deeds. This means that the judgment was dealt with precisely, individually, without sweeping the righteous away, along with the wicked. The question of Genesis chapter 18, verse 25, Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly, is answered at the cross, and it's confirmed at the throne. The judge of all the earth deals justly. Abraham was right to believe it, and the whole of Scripture is proof. Now, let me bring chapter 18 to a close. It opens, chapter 18 opens with the Lord appearing at the oaks of memory. There's a meal, a question, a laugh, and a correction. Is anything too difficult for the Lord? And it moves into a divine deliberation. Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? The friend of God is then told what the master is doing. And it ends with a man standing before the Lord, pressing his case with dust and ashes and humility, and shall not the judge of all the earth. Um, he comes at him with boldness until God has answered every question, and then the Lord departs. Genesis chapter 18 is a chapter where Abraham is most fully the man God has called him to be. He is the man who received an impossible promise. He's a friend who was told what God is about to do. And there we see that he is an intercessor who stood in the gap for a city who did not deserve God's mercy. Next we're going to move to Genesis chapter 19, and there we're going to read about two visitors arriving in Sodom. We're going to read about uh Lot and how he sees them and urges them to stay in his house. And then the people of Sodom, they answer the question of Genesis chapter 18, verse 21 by simply saying, Yes. They have done entirely according to the outcry. Now, again, please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or comments or just need somebody to pray with you. Until next time, I hope that you have a blessed day.