Note: I am especially indebted to Man of Faith, a commentary by the late Dr. Ray Stedman, for a portion of the flow of this sermon.

      As a young lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln was asked to write the gravestone inscription for a Kikapoo Indian named Johnny Kongapod.  Lincoln wrote:

“Here lies poor Johnny Kongapod;

Have mercy on him, gracious God.

As he would do if he were God

And you were Johnny Kongapod.”

        We see here an expression of Lincoln’s well known capacity for mercy.  Lincoln here reminds us of another Abraham, who also comes to God to pray for others.  Listen to God’s word from Genesis 18:16-33:

Genesis 18:16-33

      The first half of Chapter 18 that we looked at on June 26 tells of three heavenly visitors to Abraham, and the Lord’s conversation with him about the future birth of his son.  We learned some great lessons from the text but the event itself is pretty remote to our experience.  I mean, when was the last time God Himself sat down in physical form and ate lunch with you?

       But then we come to the second half of the chapter, and immediately the situation is as relevant as this morning’s newspaper.  It concerns a wicked city, a pending judgment, the character of God, and the role of the godly in interceding for those who are about to be destroyed.

       Abraham walks with his visitors to the range of hills overlooking the cities of the Dead Sea.  One identified as “the Lord” talks with Abraham.

       The Lord speaks aloud His thoughts so Abraham can listen in.  “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?  No.  He’s going to be my person to teach righteousness and justice to his heirs and, through them, to the whole world.  If he is going to do that, he needs to know what I am really like.  He needs to know what I am doing and why I am doing it. Abraham, you need to know that the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.”

      What is the “exceedingly grave” sin of the people of these cities?  In Chapter 19, we will see that one key expression of it was uncontrolled homosexual lust.  But there are other, equally grave sins of these cities named by the prophets.  Isaiah identifies a lack of justice.  Jeremiah points to adultery, lying, supporting the work of evil people, and failing to call into question gross forms of immorality.  Ezekiel records God’s view of these cities:  “Sodom and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.  They were haughty and committed abominations before me.  Therefore I removed them when I saw it.”

       Time-lapse photography compresses a series of events into one picture.  A photo appeared in a “National Geographic” that captured a brilliant lightning display that took place during a violent storm.  The time-lapse technique created a dazzling picture, a web of light, out of the individual bolts.

       This is the way sin presents itself to the eyes of God.  Where we see only isolated acts, God sees the overall web.  What may seem insignificant and sporadic to us creates a much more dramatic display from God’s panoramic viewpoint.

       God is not ignorant of wickedness.  He is not indifferent to the cry of the oppressed.  When Cain killed Abel, God told him, “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”  In the same way, God says that the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has come up before Him.

       The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is there.  “But,” God tells Abraham, “No judgment will be pronounced until I know that the reports are accurate.  You need to know that I don’t judge on hearsay.  I look for evidence that human insight has left out.  I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”  Abraham learns that God sifts the total evidence and knows the situation for Himself before He pronounces His verdict.

       But of course the background of God’s search for truth is a readiness to punish if the charges are proved.  A righteous God must bring judgment against sin.  For His standards of morality and life are the only ones that are right.  That is what it means to be God.

       Now nothing is as offensive to the natural, unrenewed human mind as the whole idea of judgment for sin.  People don’t like this.  The chief reason for this is because the people involved are sinners and they don’t want accountability.  They don’t like the idea of judgment so they try to remove concepts such as judgment, wrath, and punishment from the biblical witness.

       Many people want to see God as a sweetly smiling cosmic guru sitting in a bed of delicate flowers, freely dispensing daisies in a stupor, totally oblivious to sin and its result.  But this is not the God who stands before Abraham.  Abraham knows that God simply does not tolerate sin.  And God tells him that if the reports He’s heard about Sodom and Gomorrah check out, they’re going down.

       How does Abraham deal with this insight into God’s character?  Well he doesn’t just turn his back and walk away, “If that is what God is like, I don’t want anything to do with Him.”  He doesn’t ignore it either like many self-proclaimed “enlightened” thinkers who simply discard ideas about God that don’t “fit” their modern concepts about what a “good God” should be like.

      Abraham takes a completely different tack.  Abraham dares to pursue the unsettling side of God.  He has to.  Before him now stands a God Abraham no longer fully understands.  Abraham has walked with God as God’s friend.  He has experienced tremendous mercy and grace from God’s hand.  That relationship has defined Abraham’s life.  But now, with this new information, that relationship, and therefore Abraham’s identity are being shaken.  So Abraham must question God!

       Abraham doesn’t deny the wickedness of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  But he thinks of his nephew Lot who lives there.  There must be others like him, good people caught up in a bad system.  They deserve more than “collective responsibility.”

       After I graduated from college, before I entered seminary, I worked as a substitute teacher.  I quickly called on all of the discipline techniques I learned from watching old World War II movies.  “Every time I have to tell anyone in the class to be quiet, the whole class stays a minute into lunch.  I have my vays of dealing mit seventh graders.”  That’s collective responsibility.  It’s designed to control individual behavior through group punishment.

       Is God into collective responsibility?  That’s what Abraham needs to know.  Does God punish the good along with the wicked?  Will God destroy all the people because most are gravely sinful, in spite of the goodness of the minority; or would God spare the guilty majority because of the innocence of a relative few?

       These are important question.  They are questions about the character of God.

       Abraham is fully aware of what he dares to do.  He is God’s friend.  But God is still God.  Four times he says “Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes.  Who am I to question the Almighty?”  Abraham says, here I am, a mere person, questioning the Lord of the universe, the judge of all the earth.  This is crazy.  But I have to do it.  It’s too important not to.”  He dares, therefore, to question the integrity of God!

       “Suppose there are fifty righteous in the city; will you indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty?”  God answers: “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous, then I will spare the whole place on their account.”

       Whew!  Abraham takes a deep breath.

        “Suppose the fifty are lacking five, will you destroy the whole city because of five?”

        God answers:  “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”

       Abraham licks his lips, takes another breath, and says, “Suppose forty are found there?”

       God’s answer?  “I will not do it on account of the forty.”

       Abraham wipes the sweat off his forehead.  “Oh may the Lord not be angry; suppose thirty are found there?”

       God repeats his other answers:  “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

       Okay, let’s keep going.

       “Suppose twenty are found there?”

       God replies “I will not destroy it on account of the twenty.”

       Then Abraham dares to push one more time.

       “Suppose ten are found there?”

       And to Abraham’s relief and delight God says “I will not destroy it on account of the ten.”

       What a remarkable conversation this is!  What a remarkable example of a prayer of intercession, the first in the entire Bible!  It is remarkable on Abraham’s part.  It shows the degree to which Abraham has progressed in his friendship and fellowship with God.

       But it is also remarkable on God’s part that he allows Abraham to push Him in this way -- that God submits to this kind of character probe.  But remember that this is the same God who has come to visit Abraham, who has invited Abraham to talk with Him as friend to friend, and who has shared with Abraham what He is about to do.  In this context we see that the Lord not only tolerates Abraham’s questions, but by revealing His intentions, He positively calls for them.  Remember back in verse 19 God says:  “I have plans for Abraham.  He is going to be my person to teach righteousness and justice to his heirs and through them to the whole world.  If he is going to do that, he needs to know what I am really like.  He needs to know what I am doing and why I am doing it.

       This conversation is part of Abraham’s education and Abraham makes a powerful discovery.  He learns that God’s judgment is indeed very just!  And Abraham discovers that God’s justice does not drown out his mercy.  Indeed, God’s mercy is greater than Abraham had hoped.  God is willing to forgive thousands for the sake of a few.

       And Abraham also learns that God welcomes the responses we make.  He learns that God wants to hear about our fears, misgivings and even our objections to what He seems to be doing.  In this encounter we see an exciting new thing.  We see what it means to enjoy a personal relationship with God.

       Now I want to ask the key question.  “How does Abraham’s way of dealing with new input from God speak to you and me today?

       I believe that it speaks to us in two ways.

       First, Abraham’s experience encourages us to “hang in there” when we encounter the disturbing side of God.  When you are confronted by a dimension of God’s character that doesn’t “fit” your present view, keep going!  Don’t back away, don’t turn aside, and don’t ignore it.  We need to know God, the true God.  We can’t just live with a God we have fashioned for our own comfort, because such a self-generated God never helps in the real crises of life.  We need to honestly face all of the information God gives us about himself.  For we will not worship in truth until we stop worshipping what we suppose God to be and start worshipping what God knows himself to be.

       And the wonderful flip side of our need to know God is that God really wants us to know Him.  Abraham learns the truth of James 4:8, “draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”   Note that it is God, not Abraham, who initiates this whole conversation.  He wants Abraham, His friend, to understand who He is, just as God wants us to understand who He is, to the extent that, in the birth and life of Jesus Christ He puts Himself in language we can understand.

       Abraham’s experience also speaks to us in a second, powerful way.  Abraham discovers that the judge of all the earth indeed acts justly, in fact, mercifully, but Abraham still only scratches the surface.

      Abraham ends his questions at the number ten.  Some say that this was the number of people he knew in Sodom.  But I’m going to suggest another reason for stopping.

       Abraham thinks about Lot and his family.  As he stretches Gods’ gracious mercy he begins to honestly reflect on those people.  And it dawns on him that they aren’t really all that righteous.  It is true that Peter, in Second Peter 2:7, calls Lot “righteous.”  But when you look at Lot more closely you realize Peter could only mean this in relative terms – that Lot was simply more righteous than the people of Sodom which wasn’t hard.

       I think Abraham stops with the number ten because he doesn’t want to press his luck about Lot.  Abraham now knows what he needs to know about God’ character and that’s enough.

      But let’s not stop.  Let’s press our luck.  Let’s go beyond ten.

       “Lord, if you found nine righteous would you spare the multitudes on account of the nine?”

       Scripture gives us the assurance that God would answer “yes”.

       “Lord, if you found seven righteous people, would you spare the many?”  Again, He would answer “yes.”

       Should we go further?

       “Lord, if you found five?”  Lord, what if you found only two?”

       Dare we push Him one step further?

       “Lord, if there was only one righteous, would you spare the millions?”

       We are just about to break through to the heart of the gospel.  God’s answer to the question “if only one” is “yes, yes, I would spare the world for the sake of one.”

       But where is that one who is not only relatively righteous – like Lot compared to the people of Sodom – but who indeed is perfectly innocent?  No human being is.  So where does that leave us?

      Get this!

      In God’s desire to spare the world His just wrath, in His love for people who justly deserve His condemnation, God decided to become that one righteous person!  John writes that Jesus Christ, God the Son, is the one righteous person and on account of Him God spares countless others, including us.

       How big is God’s mercy and love?  God has gone to the extent of dying on a cross to bring forgiveness.  He did for us what we could not do.  He died in our place so that we wouldn’t have to face His judgment.

       In the letter to the Romans, Chapter 3, verse 19, Paul uses a phrase that is very telling.  He writes that one day every mouth will be stopped as people stand in judgment before God.

      I picture the scene this way.  The peoples of the world, including those of Sodom and Gomorrah, come and stand before the judgment seat of God.  Immediately the self-serving victim questions begin to fly: “Who are you to judge us?  You’ve never been through what we’ve been through.  When did you ever walk that mile in our shoes?  When did you ever experience the pressures we’ve experienced, sitting up here isolated in heaven on your white throne?”

       And suddenly, as Paul writes, every mouth will be stopped, not by power but by truth.  The loud clamoring of victimization will end, as God himself in Jesus Christ steps forward and says, “Here are my hands, here is my side.  Here’s what I experienced.  Here’s the road I walked with you.  Here’s what I was willing to do to save you.”  And scripture says, there won’t be any questions.  For all will know, like Abraham now knows, that God judges rightly.  And much more than that, that God judges in love.