“Genesis 18:16-21”

Sunday, December 08, 2019

“Then the men rose up from there, and looked down toward Sodom; and Abraham was walking with them to send them off. The Lord said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? 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.' And the Lord said, 'The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. 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.'”

---End of Scripture verses---

“God now makes Abraham privy to one of his historic decisions. Ten generations earlier He had disclosed His secret purposes to Noah (6:12f.), but only to save the man's life. Here foreknowledge permits Abraham to plead disinterestedly for other people's lives. One is reminded of the word of Amos in 3:7, 'Indeed, My Lord God does nothing / Without having revealed His purpose / To His servants the prophets.'... In the case of the prophets, the divine foretelling is an expression of God's love for humanity, meant to warn of impending calamity in the hope of bringing about repentance and the enhancement of the human condition. Such was the case, for instance, in the book of Jonah. In this prior revelation to Abraham of God's intentions toward Sodom, both the patriarch's humanity and God's morality are put to the test.” (Nahum Sarna)

“Then the men rose up from there, and looked down toward Sodom...” (verse 16) “This indicated the direction that they intended to go... If they could see Sodom from the road, then they must have walked about three miles east of the terebinths of Mamre at Hebron, where the hills of Hebron overlook the Dead Sea and the adjoining region.” (James Burton Coffman) It is obvious that the Lord sent His angelic messengers to accomplish more than one task and deliver more than one message. The good news was that Abraham and Sarah were finally going to have a son! The bad news was that their nephew Lot was in for a world of hurting because of the intolerable wickedness and impending doom of Sodom.

“The Lord said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?’” (verse 18) Abraham was so critical a character in the temporal and eternal destinies of his Jewish descendants specifically, and of “all the nations of the earth” who would be blessed by his Seed, the coming Savior and King, that He would not keep His plans for Sodom a secret from him. “The rationale behind God's action in revealing before it happened the fate of the doomed cities is here visible. It was important that the human race should understand the ultimate penalty and punishment to be executed upon vile and presumptuous wickedness. The terrible destruction that came to Sodom and Gomorrah would, in time, be deserved by the Chosen Nation, of which Abraham was the patriarch; and it was extremely important that the Jews should understand the basic connection between rebellious wickedness and divine punishment, a lesson which, sadly, they never heeded; but the recurrence of just such a judgment occurred again, and again, in their history.” (James Burton Coffman) God teaches us about His justice and righteousness from His appropriate judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham demonstrates proper human discernment and righteousness with his compassionate and hopeful pleas on behalf this pitiable community of men.

“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...” (verse 19) In a world overrun by idolatry and hedonism, Abraham’s charge of instilling the Lord’s will to his future generations was of supreme importance, and the Lord knew that he was up to the task. This charge was not only necessary and obligatory, it was also mandatory for Abraham’s seed to inherit the Land of Promise. “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) This charge is paramount for all of Abraham’s spiritual seed through Christ Jesus as well. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4)

“The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.” (verse 20) “The sin and cataclysmic punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah have converted the names of those two cities into a permanent metaphor of human wickedness and divine retribution… The narrative…speaks of ‘outrage’ and ‘outcry’… They connote the anguished cry of the oppressed, the agonized plea of the victim for help in the face of some great soul-stirring passion. God heeded the ‘outcry’…of His people against the harsh slavery of Egypt in Exodus 3:7; His ‘anger blazes forth’ when He hears the ‘outcry’ of the ill-treated widow and orphan in Exodus 22:21-23; and to the prophet Isaiah, in 5:7, an ‘outcry’ is the absolute negation of justice and righteousness… The sin of Sodom, then is heinous moral and social corruption, an arrogant disregard of basic human rights, a cynical insensitivity to the sufferings of others. The prophet Jeremiah identified Sodom with adultery, false dealing, and the encouragement of evildoers—all without any feelings of contrition (23:14)—while Ezekiel sums up the situation as follows in 16:49: ‘Only this was a sin of your sister Sodom: arrogance! She and her daughters had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquility; yet she did not support the poor and the needy. In their haughtiness, they committed abomination before Me; and so I removed them…’ The indictment of Sodom lies entirely in the moral realm; there is no hint of cultic offense, no whisper of idolatry. As with the Flood story, the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative assumes the existence of a universal moral law that God expects all humankind to follow.” (Nahum Sarna)

And let’s make no mistake about another fact as well. One of the most blatant, heinous sins that the Sodomites committed was homosexuality, and that sin still bears the name of these reprobates thousands of years later, even to this very day. “Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter; and they called to Lot and said to him, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.’” (Genesis 19:45) While these degenerates were more than willing to use force, consensual homosexual relations are emphatically condemned in both the New and Old Testaments. Consider Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9.

“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.” (verse 21) “The amazing anthropomorphism here represents God as having heard a very damaging report of the wickedness of the doomed cities, and as making a personal trip down to them in order to have the facts first hand. The justice and fairness of any authority making such an investigation before the execution of drastic penalties is indicated here, reflecting a revelation concerning the justice and fairness of God Himself. Of course, God's omniscience enables Him to know all things instantly; but this language accommodates itself to the behavior and customs of men.” (James Burton Coffman)

Please read Genesis 18:22-33 for tomorrow.

- Louie Taylor

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