Beyond The Basics

Transcript:

Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Beyond the Basics, where we are exploring the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.

Alright, so this episode we are getting into Genesis chapter 18. This takes place shortly after the previous chapter, Genesis 17, when God appeared to Abraham and made three pronouncements regarding the covenant that God had made with him.

And so now in Genesis chapter 18, again this is shortly after God appears to Abraham, now as Abraham is at his tent where he lives, three men appear to Abraham, come up to him and one is the Lord. And Abraham sees them and invites them to his tent. He feeds them. And while they’re there, the Lord promises that Sarah will have a child within a year.

So if you remember in chapter 17, God had promised Abraham that he would have a child in one year. Now the Lord is promising Sarah that she will have a child within a year. This is, like I said, shortly after the previous chapter. And when Sarah hears that, she laughs in disbelief.

Now if you remember, God told Abraham that his son’s name would be Isaac. Isaac means laughter, and in the previous chapter Abraham had laughed when God had told him that, and now Sarah laughed because she did not believe it. So the Lord rebuked her for her disbelief.

Then the three men leave, they go towards the city of Sodom, and the Lord debates with himself. He has this conversation with himself, almost, whether he should tell Abraham what he’s about to do to Sodom or not. So the two men that are with him go on to Sodom, and the Lord stays behind to speak with Abraham.

And then we get to the section that’s well known where Abraham intercedes for Sodom. Of course, if you remember, in previous chapters, we learned that Lot lived in Sodom or near Sodom. We’ll find out in the future chapters that Lot had actually moved into the city of Sodom.

So Abraham asked the Lord to spare the city. And he asked if the Lord could find 50 righteous men if he would spare the city. And the Lord said, “Yes, I would spare the city for fifty righteous men.”

Then he asked, “What about forty five?”

The Lord said “Yes.”

And then he asked, “What about forty?” And then thirty and then twenty all the way down to ten.

The Lord said he would spare the city if he found only ten righteous men. And then after this conversation, the Lord continued on to Sodom and Abraham returned to his tent. So let’s get deeper into this chapter.

In verse one, it says the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.

So as I mentioned before, this is shortly after the events in chapter 17. It could not be more than three months later because Sarah was still not pregnant and the Lord is going to tell her later that she will have a child within a year or within the year.

So in verse two, it says: When he saw them, when Abraham saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.”

And then he goes on to show hospitality to the Lord and to the two men that are with him. He brings them water to wash their feet. He brings them bread. He makes cakes. He brings a calf and prepares the calf with milk. He gave the men his best. He gave them the best that he could offer, which was he gave them rest, he gave them shade, gave them cakes, he gave them a calf, and he gave them milk from the calf.

And it’s not clear if at this point Abraham knows that this is God and two angels with him. We don’t even, the reader doesn’t even find out until the next chapter that these are two angels with the Lord. So it’s certainly not clear if Abraham knew, but Hebrews chapter 13 verse 2 addresses this. Interestingly, it says: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

And that could be what is happening to Abraham by showing hospitality to these strangers. He is entertaining angels without even knowing. And the writer of Hebrews tells us this could happen to us too. There’s angels that sometimes walk around and if we show hospitality to strangers, we may be showing hospitality to angels. I believe that this is true. I believe that the Bible is telling the truth when it says that this could happen.

In verse two, it also says that he bowed himself to the earth, which means that he recognized the men as his superiors. And in fact, he called one of them Lord, which is the Hebrew word Adonai. Adonai is often used in place of the covenant name for God, Yahweh. So Adonai is often another name for God, which means Lord or Master. And that’s what he called one of them when they approached his tent. So Abraham at least knew that these men were his superiors.

So Abraham has all this food made, he has them rest.

In verse seven it says Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, which is interesting because Abraham was rich enough that he had plenty of servants to do all these tasks for him. But instead Abraham and Sarah prepared everything themselves.

I think we can learn something from that. I think that not only when we are showing hospitality to others, but when we’re hosting the presence of the Lord, which I mean, the Holy Spirit is always with us. We’re always hosting the presence of the Lord. So the question is, are we giving God and are we giving others our best?

I think Abraham here wanted to make sure everything was done just right and didn’t want to leave it to somebody else to do who didn’t recognize who was there to visit them. So I think that’s important when we’re in our homes and our churches. Do we recognize who we’re hosting? Do we recognize who we’re being hospitable to?

So in verse 9: They said to him, :Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.

As if we didn’t know already, the author reminds us that now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. Meaning she was no longer of childbearing age.

And verse 12 it says Sarah laughed to herself, meaning she quietly laughed. She did it inaudibly. She did it to herself so no one could hear. But the Lord still heard. Because the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?”

She was hiding. She was listening and she was hiding. And she laughed to herself. The Lord should not have heard this. He did because the Lord can always hear what’s in our heart.

And so the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child now that I’m old?’”

And then the Lord says, “Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”

So God dealt with her unbelief rather than revoking the promise that he had made. I think that’s really important for us to remember. Because we all deal with unbelief at times, don’t we? We all have unbelief in our hearts from time to time. And if unbelief was enough to cause God to remove his promises or revoke his promises, well, we’d be sunk. We’d be out of luck.

But instead God is gracious enough to deal with unbelief rather than revoking his promises. And that’s what God did here. He reiterated his promise and said, “I know you laughed. You can deny it all you want, but I know you laughed because you don’t believe. But is anything too hard for God? Can you really doubt God? So don’t worry. At this time next year, you’re going to have a son.”

So then the men left Abraham’s tent and set out to go towards Sodom.

And in verse 17, the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”

Why did God ask himself this question? A different way of putting it is, why did God decide that he should tell Abraham about what he was about to do to Sodom? In Psalm 25:14 it says: The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He makes known to them His covenant.

Think about your friendships and all the things that you tell each other. The hopes and plans and dreams for the future that you tell your friends or your spouses. This is what we do when we’re friends with each other. Friends tell each other things that they want to do in the future.

I believe that the Lord looks for those who he can call his friends. And those that he calls his friends, he’s going to tell his plans to them.

And the second reason, Amos 3 verse 7 says: For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.

The Lord doesn’t judge cities or nations without telling his prophets first. This is a very, very important concept to remember. Especially as we go through, I mean as we go through the whole Bible, God will never do anything, he will never send judgment without telling people in order to give people a chance to repent. He is always going to tell his prophets. And Abraham was a prophet.

And so to give Abraham a chance to intercede for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, to give people a chance to repent, to give mercy a chance. God has no desire to destroy. That’s not what he’s all about. God delights in mercy. He wants to give mercy every chance he possibly can.

So that’s those two reasons I believe is why God decides to tell Abraham what he’s going to do. And specifically here, there’s three more reasons why he decides to tell Abraham.

First, in verse 18, he says that, backing up to verse 17 he says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I’m about to do?” Then in verse 18, “Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation.”

So that’s the first reason.

Second reason, “All the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.”

Third reason in verse 19, “For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household to keep the way of the Lord.”

Okay, so to reiterate those three reasons: He will become a great and mighty nation; all the nations of the earth will be blessed because of him or in him or through him; and third, he has chosen to command his children and household to keep the way of the Lord.

So God tells him this because his purpose is to prepare Abraham for what God has for him. In other words, God has chosen Abraham to bless the nations and influence all the nations of the earth. This is why God tells this to Abraham because he’s giving Abraham and his descendants a blueprint to follow to judge the nations. God is bringing Abraham in to his plans for the nations by starting small with a couple cities.

He’s saying, “Abraham, I want to bring you in to partner with me to determine the fate of these cities. Because one day all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed through you. Your descendants are going to become a great nation and they’re going to bless all the nations of the earth. And your household needs to be able to keep the way of the Lord. Your household needs to be able to do righteousness. Your household needs to be able to do justice and they need to know how to do it. So I’m going to show you how to do it so that your descendants can follow.”

So this is what God’s doing here. He’s laying out a blueprint for Abraham’s offspring to intercede for the nations, to avert God from judgment and to show mercy on the nations so that all the nations will be blessed.

This is the role that Israel was supposed to play when they failed over and over and over again. And this is the role that the church is supposed to play now. And we’ve failed over and over and over again. But one day, Jesus is going to return and he’s going to rule from Jerusalem. And Israel is going to finally fulfill their purpose of blessing the earth and blessing all the nations and they’re going to intercede and Jesus is gonna, even now Jesus is interceding for the nations. So I believe this is why God does this.

In verse 19, as I mentioned, it says: That he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.

Those two words there, righteousness and justice. Righteousness referring to mercy, love, blessing, always doing good. And then justice refers to judgment, not overlooking sin and not allowing injustice.

Abraham is being called to both of these things, both righteousness and justice, but there’s a tension between those two. How do you show mercy and also bring judgment? How do you bring blessing but not allow injustice? Both of these things are characteristics of God and Abraham has to learn both the tension and the consistency between these two characteristics. They are both consistent with who God is, but there’s a tension. When does God show justice? When does God show mercy? God is the righteous judge. So Abraham has to learn how God overcomes the tension between these two and how God is going to implement both of these things on the earth and how Abraham is going to partner with God in that.

In verse 21 it says, “I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me.”

He’s going to go down just like he did with the Tower of Babel. This is so important to know about God. He doesn’t judge without telling his prophets and God doesn’t judge without having intimate knowledge of the situation.

Yes, he’s God and we think, well, God should know everything, but God is the righteous judge. Even though he knows everything, he still shows himself taking part intimately in the situation that must be judged. God is not a passive, distant God. He’s near to us and even when he judges, he doesn’t do so until he has visited and come down close. reveals such character and such integrity.

Moving on, in verse 22, the men turned and went towards Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord, almost as if to block him from going any further.

This is an important position. This is the position of an intercessor. An intercessor comes between humanity and God. An intercessor places him or herself between humanity and God and cries out for justice, cries out for mercy for the situation.

And it’s important to note that Abraham surely knew that Lot lived at least, at the very least, he knew that he lived near the city of Sodom, but he didn’t just ask for the life of his nephew. He had compassion on the entire city.

You see, intercession requires compassion and it teaches us compassion. When we pray for others, we have to have compassion to even pray for others in the first place. But as we pray, we gain more compassion. It requires compassion and it teaches compassion.

So in verse 23, Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?”

Now, Sodom was already judged by an unrighteous king. If you remember back in chapter 14, the unrighteous Babylonian king or Chaldean king, Chedorleomer, already judged the city of Sodom and destroyed it and defeated Sodom’s military. And Abraham saved Lot through military means in that chapter.

But now Sodom is about to be judged by the righteous king. And the only way for Lot to be saved is by Abraham appealing directly to the Lord in intercession. So he asks this question, “Are you going to sweep away the righteous with the wicked?”

Abraham knows that God is the righteous king. So he appeals to God and to his righteousness. “Would you really do this?”

Verse 24 he says, “Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city.”

Again, something that we can learn about intercession. He prayed for something specific here. He didn’t just say, “God save this city.”

He said, “Lord, what if there are 50 righteous people?”

We should have the same specificity in our prayers. We should learn from this, that we can pray for specific things. We should pray for specific things. We should ask God for specific, measurable, metrics that will allow him to show mercy.

And then verse 25 he says, “Far be it from you to do such a thing.”

Again, Abraham appeals to God’s nature. He appeals to his righteousness. It sounds bold, but this is a proper foundation of intercession. This is necessary to understand that we need to understand who God is so that we can appeal to his nature. We can’t appeal to his nature if we don’t know who God is.

So first we have to know who God is and we have to know the things that he will do and that he won’t do. And we have to understand that we can be bold. We have a position on this planet. God put us here so that we can appeal to his nature and say, “God, I know you, I know you wouldn’t do this. So Lord have mercy.”

So the Lord says, he responds to Abraham, he says, “If I find fifty righteous people, I’ll spare the whole city.”

Then we see Abraham go through, he starts lowering the number first by five, then by 10. And in verse 27, he says, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I whom but dust and ashes.”

And then in verse 30, he said, “Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak.”

So he’s speaking with boldness, he’s continuing to ask. But he’s doing it with humility. He’s recognizing, “I’m dust. I’m nothing. I’m worthless. But I’m going to ask because I know who you are.”

And he says, “Oh, let not the Lord be angry. I’m not doing this to contend against you. I’m not doing this to show my power against your will.”

This isn’t a match of wills here. Abraham’s saying, “I know who you are. And I fear you and I have utmost understanding of what we’re dealing with here. But I’m going to ask you because I know who you are.”

So he asked the Lord all the way down in verse 32. He says, “Suppose ten are found there.”

And the Lord said, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”

Abraham felt the weight of the judgment that God was about to bring upon this city. He bore that burden. We as intercessors have to bear that burden of the thing that we’re praying for. If you’re interceding for your city, you’re interceding for your family, if you’re interceding for your nation, you have to bear that burden. That’s part of being an intercessor.

Abraham bore this burden all the way down to ten people. He took responsibility for it. And we need to take responsibility for the things that we’re interceding for. Because that’s what intercession is. It’s taking responsibility. It’s going before God and saying, “I may not be part of the wickedness that is going on in this place, but I’m taking responsibility for it. And I’m crying out to you for mercy.”

So how does all this point to Jesus? It’s a question that we ask every episode. It’s the most important question that we can ask. How does this point to Jesus?

The theme of righteousness and justice is all through this chapter, especially the second half when Abraham intercedes for Sodom and Gomorrah. This points to Jesus, the second half of the chapter, it points to Jesus in two different ways.

First, Jesus satisfied God’s righteousness and justice. Many times we think of Jesus satisfying God’s justice by taking our punishment, taking what we deserve on the cross, but he also satisfied God’s righteousness because God desires mercy. God desires to show mercy to humans and to humanity. And by Jesus satisfying God’s justice, he also satisfied God’s righteousness because it allowed God to visit his judgment on Jesus and show mercy to those who would recognize and submit to Jesus’ work on the cross.

So if you’re listening and you believe that God is a distant God, if you believe that God is an angry God, if you believe that God sent Jesus to die on the cross reluctantly, remember, Jesus satisfied not only God’s justice but also his righteousness.

God desires to show mercy. If you remember the Shema, I’m not going to look up the verse right now, but if you remember the Shema, it says that God visits iniquity on the third and fourth generation, but he shows mercy to a thousand generations. God’s default is mercy. He only brings justice because he has to, because people do stupid things, but he prefers to show mercy. And he visited judgment on Jesus so that he could show mercy to you and I.

The second way this second half of the chapter points to Jesus is that Jesus is the great intercessor. Hebrews 7:25 says Jesus, even now, is making intercession for us. He’s interceding for those who do not know him, so that they would draw near to God through him. Abraham learned how to intercede for a nation, and he provided a model that Jesus would one day fulfill as the great intercessor, and that we can learn from.

So here’s some questions for reflection.

And I encourage you, if you would like to get these study guides, there’s space for you to answer these questions on your own on the study guide. There’s also going to be additional questions, further study questions on that study guide. And that’s available on the website. You’ll need to go to the subscribe page and sign up. It is $6 a month. But if you do that, you can have access not only to this study guide, but every study guide for each episode that I’ve already put out, as well as every episode going forward. So you have access to all the study guides and Genesis and all the books of the Bible going forward, go ahead to the website http://www.beyondthebasics.blog to the subscribe page.

Questions for reflection.

First, how would we respond if God came walking up to our home? Would we respond with hospitality? How would we respond if we didn’t know that it was God?

Do we show hospitality to others the way we would show hospitality to God? Go ahead and check out Ephesians 6 verses 5 through 8 while you’re answering that question.

How does God reveal his righteousness and his justice?

How can we reconcile the tension between God’s righteousness and justice?

Why did the Lord reveal his plans to Abraham? What was his purpose for Abraham? I give you some thoughts on that question already. Meditate on that a little bit more. See if you can come up with anything else. See if you notice anything else.

Why does the Lord invite us to participate in his plans through intercession?

And last question, why did Abraham continue to reduce the number of righteous that he was asking for in Sodom? And what can we learn about intercession from this?

Well that’s our episode on Genesis 18. Thanks again for listening. Thank you for all your support.

If you want to do more to support the show, I mentioned the study guides, the monthly subscription already, but you can also click subscribe on YouTube. You can follow the show on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to. You can rate the show, give the show five star rating. That will really, really help increase the number of people that I’m able to reach with this. It’s very important to me that more people can have access to this study and be poignant to Jesus themselves. It’s always my goal to point people towards Jesus. So, go ahead and support the show in those ways and join me again next episode while we go through Genesis 19. Thanks for listening.