July 17, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: 2 Kings 11-15

Weekly Memory Verse: 1 John 1:9

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Genesis 18:1-15 (NASB95)
¹ Now the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. ² When he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth, ³ and said, “My lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant by. ⁴ “Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; ⁵ and I will bring a piece of bread, that you may refresh yourselves; after that you may go on, since you have visited your servant.” And they said, “So do, as you have said.” ⁶ So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Quickly, prepare three measures of fine flour, knead it and make bread cakes.” ⁷ Abraham also ran to the herd, and took a tender and choice calf and gave it to the servant, and he hurried to prepare it. ⁸ He took curds and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and placed it before them; and he was standing by them under the tree as they ate. ⁹ Then they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” ¹⁰ He said, “I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him. ¹¹ Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; Sarah was past childbearing. ¹² Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” ¹³ And the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, when I am so old?’ ¹⁴ “Is anything too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” ¹⁵ Sarah denied it however, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. And He said, “No, but you did laugh.” ^[1]

Abraham recognized the Lord when He appeared at his tent because he knew Him and spoke with Him previously face to face.  In this case, God had two angels with Him who were journeying to Sodom and Gomorrah.  He offered hospitality to them as travelers, and worshipped God by bowing down. 

Abraham makes an understatement when he asked that they stay for a bit of food.  The meal was a feast, with a bull slaughtered, and six gallons of flour used to make bread, along with the other ingredients.  It sounds like he fed his whole tribe with that meal.

The thing that strikes me most about this passage is the energy that Abraham displays at 99 years old or older.  He is running around excited and putting things in gear to show hospitality to the visitors.  Perhaps one of the reasons might be that God wanted to demonstrate to the angels the actions of the righteous before sending them on to Sodom.  Another thought on this is that God may have made the visit to Abraham explicitly to demonstrate the power of intercessory prayer. 

Many are hard on Sarah for laughing at the Lord, and that is unfair.  Abraham in the last chapter was rolling on the ground laughing.  The difference is pointed out that Abraham did not doubt the Lord's word although he found it hilarious while Sarah seriously doubted the word of the Lord.  This is found in verse 11, Sarah was "past childbearing", NASB footnotes indicate that she was "past the manner of women", which means that she had been through menopause.  Place yourself in her shoes, if you were a woman and your cycle stopped 30 or so years earlier, would you have believed God? 

Many of us are at that point, we serve a God who works and overcomes impossible odds as well as working in the realm of the improbable and let our doubts cloud the picture.  God indicated that nothing is impossible for Him, He could even bring to life a womb that had been long dead and produce life through it.  To validate His promise, He gave a timeline promising to return the next year. 

Sarah laughed at God, and when confronted denied it.  We are just like her, many of us claim to believe in God and live the lives as religious Christians, but fail to actually believe that He can and will work in our lives.  When God directs us to pray for someone, for example who is terminally ill, do we laugh in the face of God and pray for their comfort as they go through their treatments, or do we pray for healing?  I wonder if God is not working in our lives today because we have stopped believing in His miraculous power to do the impossible.  We certainly have good company; Sarah did not believe God either. 

The difference between Sarah and Abraham was that Sarah was a follower of Abraham; her faith was tied up in him.  Abraham was a follower of God and he made a habit of believing what God told him.  We have discussed faith in the past few studies as being something which is built upon, not something which magically happens.  It is like a muscle, it has to be used in order to be strengthened.  The way to build faith in our lives is not only by reading the word of God, it is by acting upon what we read in the word of God.  It is actively praying to God over needs that we see and moving forward with action when He shows us something to do. 

Genesis 18:16-33 (NASB95)
¹⁶ Then the men rose up from there, and looked down toward Sodom; and Abraham was walking with them to send them off. ¹⁷ The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, ¹⁸ since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? ¹⁹ “For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” ²⁰ And the Lord said, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. ²¹ “I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know.” ²² Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the Lord. ²³ Abraham came near and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ “Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? ²⁵ “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” ²⁶ So the Lord said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account.” ²⁷ And Abraham replied, “Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes. ²⁸ “Suppose the fifty righteous are lacking five, will You destroy the whole city because of five?” And He said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” ²⁹ He spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose forty are found there?” And He said, “I will not do it on account of the forty.” ³⁰ Then he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak; suppose thirty are found there?” And He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” ³¹ And he said, “Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord; suppose twenty are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the twenty.” ³² Then he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the ten.” ³³ As soon as He had finished speaking to Abraham the Lord departed, and Abraham returned to his place.^[2]

God was preparing to cast judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sin.  It is interesting that God shared His thoughts with Abraham.  He had just established that He was a God of the impossible, yet He seems to be allowing human opinion to be considered.  This is where intercessory prayer comes in to play.  God wants to hear from Christians about everything.  Yes, He already knows the answer and the solution to all troubles.  But still, He wants us to pray to Him about all of our situations.  God shared information with Abraham regarding a foreign nation, indicating that prayer for others is important.  Abraham also had a selfish motive here, his nephew Lot lived in Sodom, and sometimes it is the fact that we have loved ones or acquaintances in foreign lands that prompt us to pray for them. 

Today we have missionaries and servicemen on foreign soil under less than desirable conditions.  It is time that we as Christians make it a priority to pray for the wellbeing of our men and women, and also for a revival in the countries that they are in.  (Commercial break, back to the study.)

Look at the progression of the prayer and the intercession that Abraham does for Sodom and Gomorrah.  He starts with pleading for fifty righteous, slowly pleading it down to just ten people.  Have you considered the importance that God places upon intercession by these verses?  God was patient with Abraham, remember, he had fought a few years earlier to deliver Sodom and the surrounding land from captivity.  He had taken good men, fought with them and shed blood in order to bring the citizens of Sodom and his nephew Lot back to their land. 

One of the things that is missed in the English translation of this discourse is the gradual changes in the tone of the Lord speaking with Abraham.  We have clear indication that Abraham is feeling that the Lord is becoming irritated by his constant disclaimers, and pleads for mercy.  Yet in the end, in verse 32, God indicated that He would not be pushed further, the conversation ends at ten. 

Another thought on this passage, it ties in with the rapture in a weird sort of way.  God will rain judgment upon the earth at the end times, just before He returns at the second Coming.  Upon returning to earth to ride His horse into battle, He will gather His believers up from the four corners of the earth.  We have had many debates as to whether the rapture will hit before the tribulation, during or after.  What is important is that when God gets ready to cast His final judgment, He will take His people out beforehand.  Jesus won't come twice, it will be just like Sodom and Gomorrah, He will take out the believers, then rain judgment upon the land.  I personally believe that this will happen just before He returns, in other words at the end of the Tribulation, but I could be wrong.

I winged it a lot today; I hope that the wanderings of the study did not draw you from the truth of it.  If you see something that I missed, or something that you wish to comment upon, please write me.

Questions for thought:

1. How did Abraham recognize God so quickly?

2. Why did Sarah laugh?

3. What have I learned from intercessory prayer during this study? 

Father, as we consider Your word today, open our minds and hearts to Your word.  Impress on each one of us the need to pray, and the need to believe in You, a God of the impossible.

In Him,

Joe Turner.