CHALLENGING GOD


A Sermon On:

GENESIS 18.16-33



PREPARED BY

KEN GEHRELS

PASTOR

CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH

NEPEAN, ONTARIO



INTRODUCTION
Protocol. Here's what you do, and here's how you do it.
Last year we witnessed protocol with royalty coming under serious fire in the wake of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The rather antiseptic approach of the royal family was chastised severely and led to an alteration in their public activity.

Protocol. Very stiff, and very controlled when it comes to royalty.
One doesn't speak to the Queen unless spoken to. One stays AWAY from controversial subjects. One never raises ones voice. And one most CERTAINLY never says anything nasty.
Keep it nice. Keep it neat. Keep it contained.

Protocol.
Any guesses on what protocol might be for the great Cosmic Emperor?
What's the protocol for meeting God?
Is it so that when we approach Him at home and at church that we need to smile, politely. And then speak a few words in accord with the words He has first spoken to us through scripture. And then fall silent again.
Is it so that if we ask a request for this or that it needs to be kept sterile and neat, with all the proper rules followed:
Hands folded, eyes closed, proper posture, decent language.

And IF so, how do we handle so many of the more challenging moments of life? What about when we see a vicious tyrant spreading injustice, when disease or famine ravage a people, when unemployment hits our home, when death takes a loved one before his time.
What about the times when we want to throw all niceties out the window and shake our fist at heaven, or to stand up and question what happens, throwing aside cheap answers and saying, "It's not right. It's not fair. You don't really plan to let things carry on this way, do you God? You don't dare! How could you?"

What can be said to God?
How do we behave? What if we don't feel like smiling, if all we have on our mind are questions, protests, or challenges? What if we want to yell at God instead of quietly speaking "Thee's and Thou's"? What will God tolerate from us?

Open your bibles to Genesis 18 where God and two angels visit Abraham in his camp to give him the news that in a year he and his 90 year old wife will have a son. As they leave a situation arises that finds Abraham testing the limits of propriety in dealing with God. Let's read the story together.

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READ GENESIS 18.16-33

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GOD'S APPROACH REVEALED (Unveils His Plan To Abraham)
It is God who actually makes the first move and sets the ground rules for the exchange that follows.
In a courthouse there is the court itself, which includes a viewing gallery where the public may gather to watch what unfolds. But along the wall there is a door leading to the judge's private chambers. Here no one may enter. It is for him to study, deliberate and plan his next course of action. Only those privileged few invited by him may enter.
Abraham is invited through the doors into the private chambers of the "Judge of all the earth." Once in that chamber all the convention of the courthouse, all formal protocol and stiff formalities are dispensed with and true heart to heart communication occurs.

"Abraham, I'm going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah." And Abraham's gut tightens up. His mind travels to the scenes of cities he has, no doubt, visited. Teeming market places, homes with little children, young people sitting in the shade hand in hand, elderly folks resting weary bodies by the pub. And he tries to imagine all that being squashed by a divine fist like some mosquito. But he can't.

Why is it that Abraham pleads for Sodom? Certainly not because his nephew lived there. All that would have been required would have been a request to spare Lot. His name isn't even mentioned.
Rather, it is the tearing at the heart of this man of faith to see people exterminated like cockroaches. His heart is filled with the love of God. That love, says 1 Corinthians 13, does not rejoice in evil, but rejoices in the good. So it is that Abraham pleads for mercy.

Abraham, it seems, shoots from the hip. He spouts off from the mouth, jaw almost a step ahead of his brain. The idea of seeing this entire community wiped out is gut-wrenching. Abraham's insides are like the waters of Lake Superior in a winter gale, boiling in turmoil and whitecap foam spraying heavenward.

Propriety isn't the main concern of this man of God. Getting the point across is. So he comes with his proposition and thoughts. And he comes again. And again. And again.
How do we pray in Western Civilization? Neat and proper. Hands folded. Eyes closed. Still, motionless. Careful choice of phrases. Sometimes afraid to pray because we don't know to best express our thoughts, so rather than make a mistake we keep quiet. Then once something is said we keep quiet. Best not to bug God by asking too often.
For Abraham there is a direct connection from his heart to the throne of God. His emotions lay naked, exposed before the face of the Judge of all the earth.

Some would call what occurs between God and Abraham "dickering, wheeling and dealing." Instead we should see it as Abraham feeling his way forward in faith and humility. Abraham knows that he is nothing more than dust and ashes (v.27) and yet he is also fully aware that God counts him a friend. So, in that spirit of safe and trusting friendship, Abraham explores the outer limits almost recklessly.

GOD'S RESPONSE
Once, twice, three times, four, five.... six times Abraham spouts off to God, each time more bold than the last. And God quietly waits for his friend to finish.
The two angels have gone on ahead, but the Lord stays behind. He is patient. He doesn't interrupt Abraham and say, "Look, enough, don't push your luck!" or "Abraham, I've got a schedule to watch, appointments to keep. What do you want? Get to the point!"
Instead Abraham speaks, and God quietly listens. Then, when Abraham is done speaking, takes a breath and waits for an answer, only then does God respond to his friend.

God had promised that the world would be blessed through Abraham (12.3). We are reminded of that promise again here in 18.18 as God deliberates with himself. Then, as the chapter unfolds we see a picture of that in action. Abraham exerts himself on behalf of a troubled world.
In fact, in 19.29, as the smoke rises over the valley of cities now totally destroyed, and as Lot rests in the cave, safe with his daughters, the Bible tells us that Lot's safety is due to the Lord's remembering Abraham - taking into account what had been said in their dialogue.

Even though 10 righteous people were not found, EVEN THEN Lot, greedy Lot -- who had chosen to live in the plush area of Sodom and Gomorrah
because it promised greater financial return and material prosperity --
Lot is saved. He and his daughters were spared according to Abraham's plea "will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" In fact, even the sons-in-law are given the opportunity to escape, but they turn the offer down. The hand of Grace is extended as far as them, but they shun it.

It is often assumed that the way things function in society is that bad people, evil ones, can take good ones down with them when they crash in misery but that good people can, at best, only save themselves. Here that assumption is thrown out the window. The influence of good people can, indeed, go far beyond themselves. The startling truth of Genesis 18 is that they can even influence how God acts.
"God has granted a power to the prayer of faith, to which He consents to yield..... He allows them to work upon Him by means of their faith." [Keil Genesis 232]

OUR PLACE IN THE PROCESS
All of this climaxes, of course, centuries after Abraham when the Son of the Judge of all the earth stripped off his royal robes and entered the human race as one of us, saying "spare them and kill me instead."
And God did!
For the sake of that one truly righteous man, Jesus the Christ, God has extended the hand of grace to the many unrighteous.
In the words of Romans 5: "through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous... where sin increased, grace increased all the more."
So it is that we, who have no more claim to fame or goodness or righteousness than the people of Sodom, we have forgiveness and righteousness offered to us through Jesus Christ. To us who stand behind the protecting forgiveness of Jesus comes the words of Jesus, the Son of the Judge of all the earth,
"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" (Jn 15.15).
As Ephesians 2.14 says, Jesus breaks down the barrier of hostility, the Berlin Wall of sin that exists between a rebellious humanity and a perfectly holy God and paves the way for reunification.

So it is that we are now, through the awesome and mysteriously great grace of God propelled to the same standing as Abraham. We now, too, are friends of God and are given access into the inner chambers of the Judge. By the words of Scripture we are made privy to the deliberations of God in his dealings with and plans for the entire Creation. And through the very close presence of the Holy Spirit we are given immediate direction in our emotions and minds as we seek to deliberate and carry on our day to day activities.
And we, too, are given the privilege of spilling our guts, to use a rather basic phrase, of letting loose the torrent of emotions and questions and concerns that well up in our mind from time to time. We can dump on God knowing that he will patiently stay behind when all others have gone ahead to do their own thing.
He waits, quietly.
He listens.
He responds.
Perhaps not exactly in the manner we had hoped. He didn't do that for Abraham either. But he will respond in the perfectly gracious and just manner that befits the Judge of all the earth.

This startling reality is what led Martin Luther to remark once, "If I have a Christian who prays to God for me, I will be of good courage, and be afraid of nothing. If I have one who prays against me, I would rather have the whole Muslim world for my enemy." [quoted in Maclaren on Genesis 189]
That's the great privilege that awaits us. Let's never forget, however, that along with that great privilege comes an equally great responsibility. I quoted the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount a little earlier. "You are the salt of the earth." You are salt. You are to salt society, to preserve and protect it as salt protects meat.

It is so easy to be overwhelmed by all the wrong and evil and misguided brokenness which seems to spring up like hated weeds in every corner of what once was God's perfect paradise garden called earth.
It would be so easy to throw up our hands in despair and throw in the towel and dash into a safe cocoon of our own little life with our own little family and our own little church community where we know the boundaries and can keep a careful handle on things and control the environment and feel at least some measure of security.
It would be so easy to see all the darkness in this world and develop a darkness of our own, a darkness of cynicism that says "Nothing matters. There is no use evangelizing or working for social reform or assisting those in material or psychological or spiritual need because it won't do any good anyway. Evil is too overwhelming."
It would be so easy.... and so wrong.

For as was the case with Abraham, we that know the will and plan of God for the future of this world cannot go into hiding. We are called into this world as a PART of this world. We have to live with and reckon with this world.
In addition that, we have always to remember that evil is not the ultimate judge of the course of events. God is. And God does not act on his own in some harsh, preconceived, inflexible manner. He values the input of his people. If we had time we could move through passage after passage where that is made clear. Genesis 18 is but one example.

God values the obedient working of his friends as they interact with a desperate world seeking to bring good where evil reigns.
God values the prayers of his friends. James 5.16 says "the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." Because of Christ's sacrifice we are counted as righteous in the eyes of God.
With Abraham we are friends of God.
Our prayers can be powerful and effective.
Let's use that power.