By All Means Save Some

Genesis 18:16-33
Gary Wassermann | Sunday, July 17, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gary Wassermann

The apostle Paul knew the fear of the Lord, so he used all possible means to save some.  That is my theme for this morning.  There is a Judge of all the earth.  We do not see him now, but he acts now, and the day is coming when he will punish those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  So I urge every Christian to look around him—among his family, among his friends, and among those he encounters out in the world—and see which of them are not yet saved, which of them remains unconverted, and let your energy and your prayers be for them all.

In our text this morning, the Lord reveals to Abraham his plan to destroy Sodom if it was thoroughly wicked.  The Lord had a purpose in revealing this to Abraham, and that was so that Abraham would direct his household in the way of the Lord for their blessing.  The Lord was also giving Abraham the opportunity to intercede for those outside his household, which Abraham did in the same spirit as Paul, who said, “My heart’s desire for them is that they may be saved.”

I am going to organize this message under three headings: First, “God Reveals His Judgments to Us”; second, “Command Your Household”; and, third, “Intercede for Sinners.”

1. God Reveals His Judgments to Us (vv. 17, 20–21)

We live in a moral universe.  That means there is moral cause and effect.  When we do what pleases God, we experience blessing.  When we do what is evil in his sight, he sends curse.

Cause and effect is something we understand very well, and everyone understands very well in other realms, even in ways that directly affect us.  We understand physical cause and effect.  If you spit into the wind, you are going to end up with a mess, because the wind has force.  There is also cause and effect in the relational realm.  If you insult someone, it is no surprise if he gets angry and strikes back.  Proverbs 17:14 says, “Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.”  There is also cause and effect in the sense that decisions and actions have direct consequences.  If you make no real effort to get educated and to prepare for adult life while you are in school, you will reach adulthood without a marketable skill, and you can expect to struggle financially.  Proverbs 20:4 says, “A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.”

All of these things are aspects of God’s moral government of the universe, but they do not fully capture what is meant by a “moral universe.”  Look at Sodom and Gomorrah.  The people of these cities were vicious, arrogant, and grossly immoral, but was there any physical connection between that and the fire from heaven that God sent upon them?  Was there any human relational connection between their actions and their destruction?  Was there any connection in the sense of natural consequences of their past actions that brought about the destruction that came upon them?  No, and yet there was an unbreakable connection. And the connection between their conduct and their destruction is the unseen God.

God is the Judge of all the earth.  His eyes range throughout the earth, both to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him, and to bring trouble and destruction on those who do evil.  Galatians 6:7–8 says, “Do not be deceived:  God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows”—because God has determined that he should.  “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

In Deuteronomy 27:15–26 there is a long list of secret sins that bring a curse.  For example, verse 15 says, “Cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol—a thing detestable to the Lord, the work of the craftsman’s hands—and sets it up in secret.”  “Cursed” does not simply mean subject to punishment under human judges.  That is part of what is implied by the fact that these are secret sins.  It means that God himself is against you, and God knows how to bring you down.

Now, only those who fear God recognize the hand of God.  King Hezekiah was such a man. During his reign, the northern kingdom was conquered and sent into exile by Assyria, and his own kingdom was under serious pressure.  But he made the connection between sin and misery.  In 2 Chronicles 29:6 he said, “Our fathers . . . did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him.”  Then in verse 8 we read, “Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem” (italics added).

Friends, curse is infinitely more serious than any other cause and effect in this life, because curse extends into eternity.  The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is a picture of the fire of eternal hell.  That is where all sinners are born headed, unless they repent and walk in the way of the Lord.  Even the rich man of Luke 16, who did not apparently experience much curse in this life, finally came to inescapable torment.

Now, God is still on the throne today, and same law of cause and effect between sin and misery still exists today.  I have to say that not all misery is the consequence of personal sin.  That was the mistake that Job’s friends made.  But just because not all misery comes from sin does not mean the other way around is a mistake.  “The way of the unfaithful is hard” (Prov. 13:15).

We know this. We know about the law of cause and effect by revelation.  The Lord spoke directly and personally to Abraham to reveal to him what he was about to do.  But the Lord does not have to speak directly and personally to us for us to know the same thing.  He has given us his infallible word, his revelation, the Bible. And there we read about, for example, the story of  Sodom and Gomorrah, and the history of many other such things, where we see God pouring out his judgment on the wicked. We see his decrees. We see his laws. We see his promises. We see his prophecies. All of these reveal to us that God is the Judge who punishes sin.

But that does not mean that God communicates everything equally to everyone.  When the Lord told Abraham what he intended to do, it appears that besides the Lord and the two angels, Abraham was the only one there to hear it. (GMW)  Shortly before this, the Lord had spoken to Abraham about the promise of a son within the coming year, and Sarah was at least near enough to overhear what the Lord said.  But these three men and Abraham began walking so that no one else was there.

Now, we might have expected that God would have allowed Abraham to gather his household together the way that Cornelius gathered his whole household together to say, “Here we are all here in the presence of the Lord to hear what you have to say to us.” But God did not do that. God spoke specifically and only to Abraham.

Why did God speak to Abraham?  Verse 18 says, “Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.”  He was the head of God’s people and the covenant mediator at the time.

God operates the same way today.  He reveals his ways in a greater measure especially to those who are over others.  Many of you here are in positions of responsibility, whether as parents, in many cases, or by virtue of age and stature.  God has made known his ways to you as he has not to everyone else.  Consider how.

In most cases, you have heard and been taught the word of the Lord much longer than others.  Many of you parents grew up reading the Bible and hearing the word preached.  All those additional years of receiving the word mean that you have a greater understanding of God and his ways than your children do.  On top of that, you have been receiving the word of God with a more mature mind than your children.  Even when children learn to speak and to listen, it is difficult for young children to understand abstract concepts.  During your children’s younger years, you are hearing the same word preached, but your mind is better able to grasp the concepts and follow the reasoning.

You also have history and experiences.  The church is the body of Christ and the household of faith, and we practice that here.  We are unusual among churches in the longevity of commitment and the faithfulness of the members here so that many have been here for twenty years, thirty years, forty years, or more.  If you have been here for any length of time, you have surely known and observed people over many years.  You have probably known people who away to darkness and showed that they were not God’s people by leaving to sin, and you probably saw curse in action, in real time.  You have also hopefully observed some who were humble and had a real piety, and you have seen how things have fared with them as God has blessed them.  Younger people, your children have not seen these things.  They do not have the same visual impressions of God’s government at work as you do.

In addition to what may come generally, God prepares people for the work he wants them to do in part by the specific experiences he brings them through.  By his sovereign providence, God has impressed upon you what he wants you to know so that you will be able to do the work that he wants you to do.

Now this is the parallel between many here and Abraham. But there is also a parallel between many here—perhaps all of us here—and Abraham’s household, meaning we are not the ones to whom God has revealed everything.  We are all under someone, especially in the church, and God equips the man at the head.  Amos 3:7 says, “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.”

Yes, God equips pastors through training in the word and capable minds and sovereignly ordained experiences.  But God is also a living and speaking God.  He gives specific insights and words of knowledge to his ministers that he does not give to everyone else.  This has happened throughout biblical history.  Charles Spurgeon experienced this.  Pastor Mathew has experienced this. God’s ministers today experience this.  God continues to reveal his plans to his servants, whom he holds in his right hand.

It is a great privilege to know God’s ways.  It is the desire and the delight of every one of God’s children.  It is the prayer of Moses:  “Teach me your ways.”  In John 15:15, Jesus said to his disciples, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”  This is a sign of God’s favor.

But it is not just a blessing for you to enjoy yourself. It comes with responsibility toward others. So the second point is, “Command your household.”

2. Command Your Household (v. 19)

Direct those under you in the way of the Lord.  In Genesis 18:19, the Lord says, “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

The Lord entrusted Abraham with the knowledge of what he was about to do to Sodom to equip him and to spur him to direct his household.  If Abraham’s household did what the Sodomites did, the Lord would destroy them as he destroyed the Sodomites.  There is no different standard for Abraham’s household.  But that did not have to happen to them.  Knowing the fear of the Lord, Abraham would persuade men.  Abraham could prevent their destruction by directing their life so they would be blessed.

Friend, recognize how significant it is that in order for Abraham’s household to be blessed, they had to walk in the way of the Lord, and that depended on Abraham directing them.  God had chosen Abraham, and specifically and individually promised children to him.  Just before this, God had promised to give Abraham and Sarah a son miraculously, since it was humanly impossible for them to have a child at this point in their lives.  God had a unique interest in Abraham’s household.  Beyond that, through Abraham’s son would come the Messiah, the source of blessing for all the peoples of the world.

If Abraham had to direct his household for them to be blessed, we do too.  We are not to leave the issue up to our children for them to decide—to set before them the options and make it their job to make the choice. It is foolish for any of  us to assume that, because at some point in the past we made the decision to follow Christ, they will inevitably too. It does not happen that way.

Abraham’s task was to command his household.  The New International Version’s use of the word “direct” is somewhat weak.  The word is “command.”  Fathers, God has made you the head of your household, so you must command.  Mothers, the fifth commandment requires obedience to father and mother.  Under your husband, you also have the authority to command.

Commanding is proactive.  There are other things the head must do, like correct and rebuke, but those are reactive.  You correct or rebuke someone who has done the wrong thing.  That alone is not going to produce righteousness and blessing.  You must command those under you in advance before they come to that point.

God has given us the Bible as the textbook to provide us the material to command.  That means you must know the Scriptures and understand the system of truth it teaches.  The Reformed creeds and catechisms, such as the Westminster Shorter Catechism, summarize the major doctrines of the Scripture.  Teach these things.  The stories, the parables, the teachings, the psalms, and all parts of the Bible are useful for instructing your household in the way of the Lord.

Deuteronomy 6:6–7 says, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”  These words are your life.  By impressing these words upon them, you are impressing on and imparting to them life.

Be proactive in commanding those under you according to their specific needs.  You must know your people.  Know their strengths and their weaknesses.  So speak to them what they need to hear before they fall into trouble.  Know what they are doing.  When they are about to start something new, consider what they must know and what they must do and speak it to them.  They may not come and ask for your counsel.  Perhaps they ought to, but that does not change your obligation.  You must interfere.  That is where King David failed.  He could command his soldiers, but he did not command his own household.  First Kings 1:6 says that David “had never interfered” with his son Adonijah.

Command comes with authority.  That is what a command is.  It must be clear to those you are speaking to that you mean it.  Here is where Eli the priest failed.  His sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were sinning greatly.  When Eli spoke to them, he was weak.  He said to them, “Why do you do such things?  I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours.  No, my sons; it is not a good report that I hear spreading among the Lord’s people.”  There is no command there.  There is no authority.  There is no force.

The authority comes through not only in how you speak, but also through reinforcing that word through discipline if it is not heeded.  As we have been taught many times, the church has the keys, the state has the sword, and the family has the rod.  In a family, you must use the rod.  We are speaking about keeping your household from the sort of destruction in wrath that came on Sodom.  Proverbs 23:13–14 speaks about exactly that:  “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.  Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.”

You know the curse that comes on the wicked.  You know it from the Scriptures, and you know it from observation and experience.  As much as God has impressed this on you, so impress the seriousness of walking in the way of the Lord on your households.  This matters for them, and it matters for you.  Proverbs 23:24 says, “The father of a righteous man has great joy,” but Proverbs 17:21 tells us, “There is no joy for the father of a fool.”  The apostle John writes, “I have no greater joy than to hear my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4).  That means they are saved, and they are safe.  From infancy, Timothy was taught the Holy Scriptures, which were able to make him wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

Do not despair in this endeavor.  God is not setting us up for failure, for he is not sending us out to do this on our own.  God begins his statement in Genesis 18:19, “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children . . .”  Literally, it is, “For I have known him.”  “I have known him” means “I have loved him.”  Psalm 1:6 says, “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (italics added).  And God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” (Jer. 1:5).

God is with us, and God is for us in this endeavor.  It is true that some great men like King David failed, but not all did.  Abraham succeeded.  Isaac feared God.  Isaac and Jacob and Jacob’s children after him were believers, and they carried on the covenant and the promises that God had given to Abraham.

Now earlier I drew a parallel between so many of us and Abraham, but there is also the parallel between so many of us and Abraham’s household.  God has given knowledge and wisdom and deep convictions to those who are over us to equip them to command us.  Do you want to be blessed?  Do you want to live?  We were not born any different than the Sodomites, and we have within us the potential to do all that they did.

Praise God that he has not left us as sheep without a shepherd.  He gave us shepherds for our good.  Hebrews 13:17 says, “Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you,” meaning, “Obey them so that their work will be a joy and that will be an advantage to you.”  Listen to what they say and listen without resenting being under them.  Don’t be a person who will obey on your terms alone.  For example, don’t come with a question and expect nothing more than the answer to the question as you have framed it.  The man in charge may challenge the assumptions or give the principles on which you should view the issue.  Listen and learn that you may walk in the way of life and blessing.

3. Intercede for Others, Especially for Those in Danger (vv. 23–33)

The heart desire of the friend of God is by all means to save some.  He does not say, “Save us four and no more.”  Abraham here could command his household, but what could he do for those he could not command?  He could pray.

Do you believe in prayer?  I imagine many here would not be willing to come out and say, “No,” but do you go to prayer with the earnestness, with the passion, and with the faith that show that you really believe in prayer?  Abraham did.  He interceded for these others with the Lord.  All his compassion was aroused, and the first words he spoke after the Lord revealed his plans were words of prayer and intercession.

Look at who he prayed for.  His nephew Lot was there.  Abraham knew the sort of people that lived in Sodom, and no doubt his heart ached as he saw Lot going closer and closer to Sodom.  When Sodom was conquered, Abraham used all his resources and expended great effort at great risk to rescue Lot.  And then what happened?  Lot went right back to Sodom!  After all this, Abraham did not bear a grudge, but still had compassion for Lot and took this time before the Lord to intercede for him.

But Abraham never prayed for Lot or for Lot’s household alone.  His prayer was for the whole population of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Recall that the king of Sodom had come to Abraham after his conquest when the spoils were being divided, and Abraham said, “I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’” (Gen. 14:22–23).  Abraham knew the wickedness of these people and he wanted no part in it himself. He wanted no connection to it, yet he would not turn his back on them when judgment was coming.

Now, how can we intercede for sinners upon whom the judgment of God is coming in a way that is powerful and prevailing and effective, in a way that we can have confidence before God?  Well, I will start with what it is not. First, it does not require prying into God’s secret decrees. Abraham did not do that. He did not inquire into God’s eternal counsels of election to try to discover whether God had chosen some there for eternal salvation.  Don’t limit your prayers based on whether God has elected.  That is hyper-Calvinism.  Earnest and effective prayer does not need to know the mystery of God’s election.

Abraham also did not plead on his own behalf, saying, “God, for my sake, please spare them.”  Paul could write to Philemon and say, “If Onesimus owes you anything, charge it to my account,” because he was appealing to a man on a human level.  But no one has the standing to pray that way to God.  Jesus Christ alone can plead based on his own righteousness and his own standing.  That does not mean that our hearts and our conduct are meaningless.  If you cherish sin in your heart, you cannot pray a prayer that is heard.  But we do not have a treasury of merit to bring before God as currency to use to get him to do what we ask.

Abraham also did not object to God’s justice in punishing sinners for their sin.  He never implied that God was being too harsh or too inflexible in his determination to punish these people.  He understood the offense and the sinfulness of sin.  He had enough understanding of the glory and holiness of God to know that sinners deserve eternal damnation.  It is a foolish thing to challenge God or even to think in any way disparagingly of him for outpouring his wrath.

So what was the foundation of Abraham’s prayer?  First, he listened to what God said.  This was an intelligent prayer.  The Lord said that if Sodom and Gomorrah were indeed thoroughly wicked, he would destroy them.  Earlier, God had said to Abraham that he was not going to destroy the Amorites yet, because their sin had not yet reached its full measure (Gen. 15:16).  That gave Abraham something to grasp on to.  “Lord, what if there are some there who are not yet thoroughly wicked?”  I am sure he had in mind Lot’s household, and he expected that Lot’s household still had some restraint in them.  He did not know how big that household was, but that gave him a start.  Listen to God before you ask God to listen to you.  When you hear him, you may yet find the foothold for an effective plea.

Second, Abraham prayed for God’s glory.  “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”  He was concerned about the honor of God’s name.  In this way, his prayer was like Moses’ prayer.  When the Israelites rebelled, and God said he would kill them all, Moses prayed in Numbers 14, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! . . . If you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert’” (Num. 14:13, 15–16).  Here Abraham is concerned that God would be misunderstood or falsely criticized.  His prayer is, in effect, that whatever God does, he would get honor for himself.  “Glorify your name” is always a good and effective ground in prayer.

But third, and primarily, he sought the salvation of the wicked.  Give me a moment to explain, but his prayer was based on God’s own concern for the salvation of the wicked.  Suppose a small number of righteous people, even fifty, were in Sodom, but no one knew about them, so that God’s name would not be impugned in their destruction.  It would still be worthwhile to intercede for them.  We can understand that Abraham would pray that the God who is just, the Judge of all the earth, would not punish those who do not deserve the punishment, but he would deliver those who are righteous. And when God finally destroyed Jerusalem because of its persistent rebellion, righteous men like Jeremiah and Baruch suffered too.  When God expresses his wrath through war, famine, plague, fire, and storm, these things bring grief and pain not only on the wicked, but also on the faithful children of God who live among them.  So we can understand that this alone would be enough for Abraham to pray on behalf of the righteous.

But no matter what things the righteous may experience in this life, no matter how they may suffer, they will be safe in the end. For them, these are temporal things.  If Abraham had been concerned only about the righteous or only about God’s justice being known to all through the deliverance of the righteous, he could have prayed for something other than for God to graciously withhold his destruction on the whole land.  He could have prayed that the righteous would be brought out before the destruction, which was what happened, but that thought never occurs to him.  It never occurs to him even when in the progress of his prayer he assumes a more and more desperate case of fewer and fewer righteous people.  Even at the end of the prayer, he does not propose it as a last alternative.  To the end, he is intent on preventing the judgment altogether—even sparing thousands of guilty people in this age for the sake of ten who were righteous.

This is not because Abraham was seeking the health and the wealth and the temporal comfort of the wicked.  Rather, he learned the lesson that the parable of the weeds was intended to teach.  In that parable, the owner’s servants asked him, “Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds that the enemy has sown?”  The owner said, “No, because while you are pulling up the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest” (Matt. 13:29–30).  As long as God may have a single stalk of wheat in the field, which might be lost and destroyed among the weeds in their premature destruction, as long as he may have a single little one not yet gathered to himself from among the crowd of the ungodly, as long as the mass is not so hopelessly corrupt but that one holy man’s zeal and love may keep some few from decay, so long will God hold back his destruction from even the most sinful city.

On this ground, Abraham pleads with the one who wants all men everywhere to be saved.  Spare Sodom for fifty.  Spare it for forty-five.  Spare it for forty.  Spare it for thirty.  Spare it for twenty.  Spare it for ten.  Why should even Sodom, with all its viciousness and immorality, be given over to destruction while ten righteous men are still in it?  Are there still ten who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it?  Let the light still shine, that some may see it and live.  Let the salt, if it has not lost its saltiness, still provide flavor and preservation and life to the whole.

Abraham prayed all of this with a spirit of complete submission to God’s sovereignty.  He prayed perseveringly and importunately.  But all throughout, he is very concerned to renounce every thought of interfering with God’s will and wisdom.  He abhors any idea of challenging God to do what may seem good in his sight.  So finally, he commits all to God.  He leaves the matter at the feet of the Lord without an absolute answer as to what God will do.  There is a time when the people may have become so thoroughly sinful as to end the hope that God’s patience would lead them to repentance.  That was the case with the city that the Lord described in Ezekiel 14:14:  “Even if these three men—Noah, Daniel and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves.”  If that should be the case here, the Lord’s will be done.

We know that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, but that does not mean that Abraham’s prayers were in vain.  God was glorified in Abraham’s praying, and if that were all, that would still make it worthwhile.  God’s justice was glorified in that prayer.  His patience was glorified—he waited while Abraham prayed to him again and again and again.  God’s grace was glorified, as he said “Yes” to the prayer for mercy as Abraham prayed it again and again and again.  If we pray, and what we pray for and what we hope for does not happen, God is still glorified.  If we show our trust and confidence in him and his power, that prayer has brought glory to God.

But beyond that, Genesis 19:29 says, “So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.”  Abraham had established the principle of God’s justice in prayer, and God had endorsed it.  So because of that prayer, he would not destroy Lot with the rest of the people.  God often answers the prayer offered in faith, but in a way different than we envision.  Yet it is a better way.

The application here is clear.  In view of God’s coming wrath, pray for all sorts of people.  Pray for your family.  Pray for the household of faith.  And pray beyond these bounds.  Pray for your neighbors, pray for your friends, pray for your classmates and your co-workers, and pray for the wicked of this world.  Pray for your city and pray for other cities.  Abraham did not live in Sodom, but he interceded for it.  Pray for the state and the nation, even though, or perhaps even because, they are very wicked, and the Judge is standing at the door.

Pray as Abraham prayed.  Pray persistently.  Abraham remained standing before the Lord, and then he positioned himself before Lord.  His prayer developed and extended over time.  He was not rushing to get done and move on.  He could not leave Sodom alone, and he could not leave God alone.

Now, it is true that quantity is not everything.  Short prayers can be powerful, focused, and directed.  The prayer of Psalm 12:1, “Help, Lord!” is a prayer I have used many times.  But if all our prayers are short, something is very wrong.  It means that we have little real desire to gain what we pray for, and we have no real knowledge of communion with God.  True communion takes time.

Pray humbly.  Abraham never forgot his position as a mortal man standing before the living and holy God.  We are not here to command God.  We are not here to scold him. And you cannot have the godly fear that Abraham did and come before God with a shopping list mentality.  Abraham was always conscious of who he was and what he was doing as a man who was nothing but dust and ashes, praying before the eternal God.

But also pray boldly.  Twice Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold.”  That means you pray freely.  Lay open your inner being.  Pray for greater and greater things as your confidence and your knowledge of God grows.

God has given us these means to rescue some who are heading for judgment:  Command those under you in the way of the Lord.  Speak and exhort.  Shine the light.  Share the gospel.  And intercede for all people, especially those you cannot reach.  Let us do all within our power so that by all means we might save some, for their eternal blessing and for God’s greater glory.