Intercession on the Fringe of the Covenant of Grace: The Church in the Days of Abraham (7), Genesis 18:16-33

We thought last time about the names that God gave Abraham and Sarah, and the renewed promise that he would bless and multiply Abraham’s family. God had appeared to Abram before with the same promise. But this time, there is something unique. There were three men who also came with God and waited while God confirmed these promises to Abraham. Genesis 18:2 “And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground.” And then we read about God’s words of promise to Abraham and Sarah.

Dual Mission

Now, there is something more specific going on with these three men. Genesis 18:16 “And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.” These men, as we find out, are angels whom God has brought with him, as it were, and whom he is sending on a mission to rescue Lot and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. You might be tempted to say, “Well this is unusual, but it seems as if Abraham’s dwelling just happened to be on the way, so for the sake of efficiency, they do both things at on the same trip.”

Of course we know that that is wrong. God has no need of this sort of efficiency. There is a relation between what God does in blessing Abraham and what he is doing with these angels. There is duality in the mission. One thing is very obvious, namely, that he wants to give Abraham a chance to intercede for Lot, which is what we will be concentrating on this evening. Secondly, and this is something we always need to keep in mind, God’s covenant of grace with the righteous is always complemented by his covenant of justice with the wicked. The blessings pronounced from Mt. Gerizim came with the cursings pronounced from Mt. Ebal. Lazarus sits within sight across the great gulf fixed between himself and the rich man languishing in Hell. Blessing and cursing complement one another in the way they bring glory to God.

This is one of the problems with the “Gentle and Lowly” teaching that we are prone to get in nominally Reformed churches. They want to concentrate on the blessings, they pick and choose and select themes out of the Old Testament that fit the pattern of what they call “Christ-centered,” and they treat passages that exemplify God’s justice and judgment as though these were exceptions to the general rule.

In this chapter we are shown the gracious God who is about to rain fiery judgment down on a wicked city, and he pauses to rescue the family of one of his people from the destruction.

God’s Multigenerational Purpose to Hear Prayer

"And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the Lord," (Genesis 18:17–22).

A dual purpose in God’s covenant relationship with man could conceivably have been accomplished without any attention being paid to the one part of mankind by the other part. God could have blessed Abraham and destroyed the men of Sodom and Gomorrah in two separate and unrelated events. It’s fascinating that he doesn’t do it that way. Another example of this is the way God later uses the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites. He could have just destroyed them with fire and brimstone from heaven, but he wants to use the judgment more directly in the lives of his own people. The faith of the people of Joshua’s generation is exemplified, and the people are blessed, in how well they carry out the mission of destruction.

Here, God uses this act of destruction to bless Abraham. He is bringing a great act of judgment to pass, and he wants Abraham involved. The act of judgment works in Abraham’s heart to do two things: First, it motivates him to teach his children to fear God so that they will not fall into this kind of condemnation—that’s rather implied in what God says about Abraham’s children in this context—and second, God wants Abraham to pray in intercession for Lot’s deliverance.

Lot, you recall, is one of these people whose salvation is frequently in doubt—rightfully so—by the faithful within the covenant community. We might say that Lot is just barely saved. Members of his family are falling away on every side, as we will see. But God has a purpose to save Lot nonetheless. He does it through the intercession of Abraham.

Abraham might have turned around and gone home after the angels headed off to Sodom. But verse 22 says, “But Abraham stood yet before the Lord.” Notice he is called by his new name. It’s one of the reasons God is prepared to listen to him. Look at verses 17 and 18.

And the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?” (Gen 18:17–18).

God is going to listen to Abraham precisely because he “shall surely become a great and mighty nation.” He is one of God’s favored ones. A listening ear in the court of heaven is one of the great privileges that belong to God’s favored people.

How foolish we are to neglect this privilege, which is what we do very often. One of the reasons we do it is that we often don’t like these people that we’re supposed to pray for. It’s a fact that people that need our intercession are, by definition, people that we don’t really want to pray for. “That guy is so faithless and unjust, and lost, and worthless, why should I pray for him?” But God does not see Lot as worthless, and he stirs up Abraham to pray for him. We need to give that some serious thought.

"Earnest intercession will be sure to bring love with it. I do not believe you can hate a man for whom you habitually pray. If you dislike any brother Christian, pray for him doubly, not only for his sake, but for your own, that you may be cured of prejudice and saved from all unkind feeling." — Charles Spurgeon

Pray Earnestly

Abraham’s prayer is found in vv. 23-33, beginning “And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?” For lack of time, we’re not going to read the prayer itself. You are familiar with it.

I just want to point out that there is thought and strategy that go into this prayer. There is a an appeal to God’s law and God’s character. There is an acknowledgement of the just purpose in God to destroy the wicked. There is also a pleading that God will save the righteous.

Think about this as you consider praying for someone you think is probably just barely saved: Abraham says, “Wilt thou destroy the righteous?” That’s how he refers to Lot. Lot is “the righteous.” Abraham may be remembering former conversations he had with Lot, and thinking about the credibility of his faith. It was accompanied with good works, at least to begin with. Even now we know—although Abraham might not have known—that Lot’s heart was vexed with the wicked works of the men around him (2 Pet 2:7). Lot will try to save the angels from abiding in the street because he knows how bad his neighbors are. There is still a distinction between Lot and the men of Sodom.

Those are the kinds of things we need to think about as we consider interceding for certain people who seem like they’re on the fringe of the community of grace. We can tend to be like James and John, wanting to call down fire from heaven on people who are not as faithful as they should be. We need to try and consider that, if they are actually saved, there is a great difference between them and the wicked. They are God’s righteous, beloved people, and he may choose to use us to bring them on their way to glory, even if they stumble and fall from time to time along the way.