Genesis 074 – Advantages of Friendship

Transcript

Genesis 074 – The Benefits of Friendship

By Dr. Andy Woods – 03/04/2022

Genesis 18:16-21

 

Alright! As the children are being dismissed, let’s take our Bibles this morning and open them to the book of Genesis, chapter 18, and verse 16 (Gen 18:16), trying to make it through verse 21 today, Lord willing. The title of our message this morning is “The Benefits of Friendship” and here we’re talking about friendship with God. What is friendship with God? And why should we care? The Bible has very specific answers to that, both of those questions, as we’ll see this morning. This is part of our ongoing study in the book of Genesis where we have completed chapters 1 through 11, featuring four major events: Creation, fall, flood, national dispersion; but through all of that, a promise is developed of a coming Messiah.

GENESIS STRUCTURE

1. 1. Beginning of the Human race (Gen. 1‒11)
   2. Beginning of the Hebrew race (Gen. 12‒50)

1. 1. Genesis 1-11 (four events)
      1. Creation (1-2)
      2. Fall (3-5)
      3. Flood (6-9)
      4. National dispersion (10-11)

1. 1. Genesis 12-50 (four people)

1. 1. 1. Abraham (12:1–25:11)
      2. Isaac (25:12–26:35)
      3. Jacob (27–36)
      4. Joseph (37–50)

But through which nation will this Messiah be born? The answer to that is the nation of Israel.

Genesis, 12‒19 – Abram’s Early Journeys

1. 1. Unconditional promises (Gen 12:1-3)
   2. From Haran to Canaan (Gen 12:4-5)
   3. In Canaan (Gen 12:6-9)
   4. In Egypt (Gen 12:10-20)
   5. Abram and Lot Separate (Gen 13:1-13)
   6. Reaffirmation of Abram’s promises (Gen 13:14-18)
   7. Abram Rescues Lot (Gen 14:1-24)
   8. Abrahamic Covenant (Gen 15:1-21)
   9. Hagar & Ishmael (Gen 16:1-16)
   10. Circumcision (Gen 17:1-27)
   11. Sodom & Gomorrah (Gen 18-19)

God starts a brand new nation and He begins it with this man named Abraham and so, we have been doing sort of a deep dive, if you will, into the life of Abraham in this series, because of his huge significance in God’s plans and now we’re at a section in the life of Abraham that I don’t know if the politically correct culture will appreciate us teaching on, but it’s the Sodom and Gomorrah story that consumes two major chapters in the book of Genesis, Genesis, 18 and 19. 2:05

Genesis 18‒19 – Sodom & Gomorrah

1. 1. 1. Visitation (18:1-15)
      2. Prediction (18:16-33)
      3. Destruction (19:1-38)

It all begins with a visitation where Abraham receives three guests.

Visitation – Genesis 18:1-15

1. 1. 1. Hosting (Gen 18:1-8)
      2. Promise of Isaac (Gen 18:9-15)

One of those guests is, we think, the pre-incarnate son of God, the other two guests are angels that look just like people and Abraham there extends incredible hospitality to them

Hosting – Genesis 18:1-8

1. 1. The appearance (Gen 18:1)
   2. The invitation (Gen 18:2-5a)
   3. The acceptance (Gen 18:5b)
   4. The hospitality (Gen 18:6-8)

and in the process, as we saw last week, Abraham learns that the promise of a coming son, through his wife Sarah despite their old age, whose name will be Isaac, that promise is given, that promises reiterated, because it’s through Isaac that this great nation will blossom and Abraham will receive many, many descendants, ultimately.

Visitation – Genesis 18:1-15

1. Hosting (Gen 18:1-8)
2. Promise of Isaac (Gen 18:9-15)

One of those descendants will be Jesus Christ Himself and we move away from the visitation and we come this morning to verses 16 through 33 (Gen 18:16-33) which is a prediction

Genesis 18‒19 – Sodom & Gomorrah

1. Visitation (Gen 18:1-15)
2. Prediction (Gen 18:16-33)
3. Destruction (Gen 19:1-38)

and we can take this information about a prediction and divide it into two.

1. Prediction – Genesis 18:16-33
2. 1. 1. Prophecy (Gen 18:16-21)
      2. Intercession (Gen 18:22-33)

This morning we’re going to learn about a prophecy given, concerning the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and then, verses 22 through 33 (Gen 18:22-33), we’re going to learn next week about intercession. If you ever wonder why the Hebrew people are such great negotiators, you’ll see that next week as Abraham sort of starts to negotiate, if you will, with God, not to be too overly stereotypical there. But today we’re looking at a prophecy that’s given and here’s our outline for today:

Prophecy – Genesis 18:16-21

1. Departure (Gen 18:16)
2. Reasons for disclosure (Gen 18:17-19)
3. Reasons for Coming Destruction (Gen 18:20-21)

A departure and then, there’s reasons, verses 17 through 19 (Gen 18:17-19), why this prophecy is going to be given to Abraham and then, God at the very end, verses 20 and 21 (Gen 18:20-21), gives reasons why He is going to destroy this very, very wicked city called Sodom and Gomorrah. But notice out of the gate here, this departure and notice if you will, verse 16 (Gen 18:16), it says: Then the men rose up from there… Now what men would these be? These would be the pre-incarnate son of God, who had been speaking with Abraham in and near his tent and two angels, except Abraham doesn’t know that they are angels and he probably doesn’t know that the third, who’s doing most of the talking is Jesus Himself, Jesus before the manger. It says: Then the men rose up from there, and looked down toward Sodom… So when you go into the next chapter in Genesis, 19, verse 1 (Gen 19:1) just one chapter later, there’s no doubt that these two men are angels, because it says in Genesis, 19, verse 1 (Gen 19:1): Now the two angels… That’s the two men that have just left… came to Sodom… And you continue on there with verse 16 and it says: Then the men rose up from there, and looked down toward Sodom; and Abraham was walking with them to send them off… You’ll notice that the hospitality of Abraham extended not just to him  nourishing them, feeding them, etc… while they were there with him near and in his tent, there in the land of Canaan, but he actually began to walk with them as they left from there down south, they started to move down south to Sodom and Gomorrah. Most of the commentators will tell you that this was customary hospitality of the day. You know, you didn’t just have guests in but you saw guests out, you actually walked with them as far as you could go as they were going to their next destination. You say, well, should we practice that today? Well, Abraham probably did, not knowing who he was dealing with. He was actually showing hospitality to angels. Hebrews, 13, verse 2 (Heb 13:2) uses this idea and it says: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it… Well, there’s a reason for hospitality, there’s a reason for being nice to people. You could actually be assisting an angel without even being aware of it and I don’t think Abraham was fully aware of who he was talking to. But he was hospitable anyway. It probably was something that was, perhaps initially an annoyance to him, it was out of his routine. But he extended basic courtesy, he extended basic hospitality and in the process he is forever remembered as one who did that for two angels and the angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate son of God and we move from there to a disclosure that Abraham is about to receive concerning the destruction of a wicked city or people group and before we get to that, we have the reasons for the disclosure.

Prophecy – Genesis 18:16-21

1. Departure (Gen 18:16)
2. Reasons for disclosure (Gen 18:17-19)
3. Reasons for Coming Destruction (Gen 18:20-21)

I mean, why is Abraham privy to this information, when most of the other people of the earth, if not all of them, are oblivious to what God is about to do concerning the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. 8:14

Reasons for Disclosure – Genesis 18:17-19

1. 1. 1. Question (Gen 18:17)
      2. Reasons (Gen 18:18-19)
         1. Abrahamic Covenant: Fulfillment (Gen 18:18a)
         2. Channel of blessing (Gen 18:18b)
         3. Intimacy with God (Gen 18:19a)
         4. Transgenerational teaching (Gen 18:19b)
         5. Abrahamic Covenant: reiterated (Gen 18:19c)

So it begins with a question and then the reasons, which are the answers to the question, five of them are given in verses 18 and 19 (Gen 18:18-19) and notice if you will this question, this is God speaking: The LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do… Now you notice this word “hide”. It’s the idea that without God’s disclosure, Abraham would have absolutely no knowledge of what God was about to do concerning Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham would learn what he was about to learn, only because God saw fit to pull back the curtain and to unveil to Abraham the future and of course, this is what a mystery is. A mystery in the Bible is something veiled, now unveiled. The Greek lexicon says

“Mystery” Defined

In the New Testament “mysterion”, translated “mystery” denotes, not the mysterious as with the English word, but that which, being outside the range of unassisted natural apprehension, can be made known only by divine revelation, and is made known at a manner and in a time appointed to God, and those who are illumined by His Spirit.

424. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, and William White, Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Nelson, 1996), 424.

Going forward just for a minute to the book of Daniel, you’ll recall, in Daniel chapter 2,

Nebuchadnezzar had a vision, a dream and he was troubled by it and upon awakening he says to all of his leaders in Babylon, the key religious leaders: Don’t just interpret the dream for me but tell me what the dream was… Talk about a high bar to meet at work. Talk about a demanding boss and they all started to sort of complain, well, you just tell us what the dream was and we’ll interpret it. Nebuchadnezzar says that’s not what I asked you to do. Don’t just give me the interpretation, first tell me what the dream was. Oh! And by the way, if you don’t do this, I’ll kill you and of course, none of them could come up with the interpretation, only Daniel, because Daniel went immediately to prayer. He consulted God, and God disclosed to him, not just the interpretation but the vision itself, the giant statue with the various metals in it. We call this the times of the Gentiles, the various powers that would trample Israel down from that point on until the second advent of Jesus. It’s an amazing and wonderful chapter. But notice when Daniel received this information and began to praise the Lord, he keeps describing it as a mystery. It says so that they might request compassion from God of heaven concerning the mystery, Daniel 2:18. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel verse 19 (Dan 2:19). Verse 27 (Dan 2:27):  Daniel answered before the king and said, As for the mystery about which the king has inquired… Daniel 2:28: However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries… Verse 29 (Dan 2:29): And he who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place… Verse 30 of Daniel 2 (Dan 2:30): But as for me, this mystery has not been revealed to me… Look at this now… for any wisdom residing in me more than in any other living man, but for the purpose of making the interpretation known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind… Daniel fully understood that it wasn’t his own intellect that helped him understand and receive this truth; it was a disclosure from God. Had God chosen not to pull back the curtain, Daniel would have no knowledge of this; and it’s the same with Abraham. Abraham would have absolutely no clue what was about to happen concerning catastrophic judgment on a particular city, four cities actually, the cities in and around Sodom and Gomorrah, had God not chosen to pull back the veil and allow Abraham to receive this information. 13:10

The fact of the matter is, beloved, we wouldn’t understand anything. We wouldn’t understand where we came from. We wouldn’t understand where we’re going. We wouldn’t understand the blueprint of God in the present, if it were not for the disclosure of God in these sixty-six books. You can apply your philosophical mind all you want to all kinds of problems in life but you will never receive a right or correct or proper understanding of things outside the disclosure of God. That’s why we’re commanded in the Bible, 2nd Timothy, 2, verse 15 (2 Tim 2:15): To study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, but accurately handles the word of truth… Every time we are in a session like this together whether it be Wednesday night, Sunday school, the main service, we will be teaching from God’s book, the Bible, because in it and in it alone do you have a disclosure from God, can you learn truths about reality that we would be completely oblivious to, if it weren’t for God’s decision to make the disclosure and here God has made this ultimate disclosure to us in these sixty six books, which are capable of equipping us for every good work and very sadly we’re just too busy to actually study the Bible when God has gone to the work of the disclosure. It would be like God telling Abraham exactly what He’s going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah but Abraham is just sort of caught up too much in daily life and doesn’t pay attention to the disclosure. A shut Bible in a church, a shut Bible in the life of a Christian is tragic. It’s tragic, because the disclosure that God wants to give simply cannot take place without the Bible and so God says to Abraham, He asks this rhetorical question, shall I hide from Abraham what I’m about to do? It’s a rhetorical question, meaning the answer is already pre-programmed. The answer is no. I’m not going to hide it from him. I’m going to disclose to him the future. In fact, I’m going to disclose to him something that’s going to take place in his lifetime in the immediate future, even involving one of his relatives, Lot himself. You know, people, they look at the book of Revelation and I even hear pastors and preachers say this, you know, the book of Revelation is so symbolic no one can understand it. When the very title of the book, Revelation, comes from the Greek noun apocalypsis. Apocalypses translated Revelation and the very word means a disclosure. I mean, if you want to understand the future, you consult the naked disclosure of God in the book of Revelation. If you want to understand the past, you study the section of the scripture that we’ve been working through in our series early Genesis. If you want to understand the present, you study the Pauline epistles. If you want to understand what the savior did two thousand years ago for the sin problem of the world, you study the gospels, etc… The Old Testament is the preparation, the gospels is the manifestation, the epistles are the explanation and the book of Revelation is the consummation. It’s all there. It’s just a matter of applying oneself to taking note of what God has said. We have enough today, opinions. We have enough opinion sections of the newspaper. What we need is the word of God. We need Christians who are interested in the word of God, we need churches who will stand on the word of God and as we’ll see in a minute, we need families who will teach the word of God to their own children. The Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible. That’s a pretty good philosophy to operate under and so Abraham now, is about to receive this awesome disclosure and it’s a very limited disclosure compared to what you have and what I have. He wasn’t given all sixty six books, yet we have that. 18:03

So God says: Should I hide from him what I’m about to do? A rhetorical question, no. No I’m not going to hide from him what I’m about to do and here are five reasons why it will not hide from him, what I am about to do and those reasons are given in verses 18 and 19.

Reasons for Disclosure – Genesis 18:17-19

1. Question (Gen 18:17)
2. Reasons (Gen 18:18-19)
3. Abrahamic Covenant: Fulfillment (Gen 18:18a)
4. Channel of blessing (Gen 18:18b)
5. Intimacy with God (Gen 18:19a)
6. Transgenerational teaching (Gen 18:19b)
7. Abrahamic Covenant: reiterated (Gen 18:19c)

Reason number one has to do with the fact of the Abrahamic Covenant and its fulfillment. Look at the beginning of verse 18 (Gen 18:18): Surely Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation… Now, why will Abraham become a great and mighty nation? Because that’s what God said would happen in a covenant that He made with Abraham and his descendants going back to Genesis, 15.

From this man Abraham is going to come a nation that will bless the entire world. So given his position, why would I hide from him what I am about to do concerning Sodom and Gomorrah? Abraham had a position with God because of the Abrahamic Covenant and I would ask you a very simple question: What about your position with God? Look at what you have. Look at all of the things that God has said about you, the moment you placed your faith in Christ for salvation. You are a child of God, you have the Holy Spirit within you. You are a blood bought saint and so, if that is true, why wouldn’t God also disclose all things to you? Ephesians, 1, and verse 3 (Eph 1:3) says: We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places… The account is maxed out. There’s no greater blessing He can give to you, because of your position in Christ and since that’s your position, He wants to bring you into the inner circle and He wants to show you all things. Just like Abraham is about to see something here, because of his standing via the Abrahamic Covenant.

Second reason, God made this disclosure to Abraham is because of the reality that Abraham will become a channel of blessing to the world. You see that there, in verse 18, 2nd part of the verse, it says: in him… That’s Abraham… all the nations of the earth will be blessed?…  This is why God brought Israel into existence, to bless Israel not just for the sake of Israel but to use Israel as His instrument to bless all of the world. This promise goes back to Genesis, 12, verse 3 (Gen 12:3) where God said to Abraham, back then in that chapter: In you… That’s Abraham… all the families of the earth will be blessed… Look at all the blessings God gave to Abraham.

1. 8 New Promises – Genesis 12:1-3

1. 1. 1. Land (Gen. 12:1b)
      2. Great nation (Gen. 12:2a)
      3. Personal blessing (Gen. 12:2b)
      4. Great name (Gen. 12:2c)
      5. Blessing to others (Gen. 12:2d)
      6. Blessing to blessers (Gen. 12:3a)
      7. Cursing to cursers (Gen. 12:3b)
      8. Blessing to the world (Gen. 12:3c)

Land, great nation, personal blessing, great name, blessing to others, blessing the blessers, cursing the cursors and one of the things thrown into the mix here at the very end is, oh, by the way Abraham, you will bless all of planet Earth. 21:39

You’ll notice this pattern with God, that God blesses people not for the sake of the people being blessed. But He seeks to use people as His instrument to bless others. God blesses for the purpose of allowing you, allowing us to be a blessing to other people and in our sort of self-centered, narcissistic age, we have a tendency to think that any blessings that I might have in my life are for me, because after all, my holy Trinity, many times, consists of me myself and I, right? I mean, you might have some kind of skill to do something or some kind of ability to do something and you may think it’s all about me. But the truth of the matter is that’s not how God thinks. When God gave you a skill, when God gave you an ability and think of just in this room, all of the different talents and skills and abilities that people have. Why did God give those things? He did not give those things just for you. He gave those things because He wanted to bless other people through you and you know, there are many times where I just don’t quite frankly feel like getting up and using the spiritual gift God gave me. But I have to remind myself, it’s not about me. It’s not about my feelings, it’s not about my emotions, it’s about what God wants to do through me to be a blessing to someone else and I believe this, that true fulfillment in life only comes when you start to walk in that pattern. The most miserable people on the planet are people that are completely and totally inwardly focused. But once you start to see other people being blessed through your life, wow! That’s a life worth living and so why wouldn’t God make this disclosure to Abraham? Because God designed Abraham to be a blessing to the nations and oh! by the way, there’s a nation consisting of four cities that’s about to be eradicated. So there will be a nation consisting of four cities that will not fit into the channel of blessing as God is working through Abraham, and so if that’s true, why wouldn’t God reveal what He was about to do concerning the wicked city of Sodom and Gomorrah?

There’s a third reason why God is about to make this disclosure to Abraham; it’s right there in verse 19 and it has to do with His intimacy with God. Notice, if you will, verse 19 (Gen 18:19), it says: For I.. Now, I’m reading from the New American Standard Bible 95 update… For I have chosen him… Boy! There’s a lot of debate on “chosen”, what this is talking about is I’ve chosen him nationally. I’ve chosen him to serve me in a particular way. It’s reiterated in Deuteronomy, 7, verse 7 (Deut 7:7) which says concerning Israel: The Lord did not make you his beloved nor choose you because you are greater in number than any of the other peoples, since you were the fewest in number… In other words, I chose Israel nationally to be an instrument of blessing to others and even beyond that, the word “chosen” here, verse 19, probably is not the best translation. Arnold Fruchtenbaum explains a verse this way:

Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum – The Book of Genesis, 315

“For I have known him. The Hebrew word for known is ‘to know by experience,’ ‘intimate knowing.’ It was because of His intimate relationship with Abraham that Abraham became known as the friend of God.”

Other sections of the Bible like the book of James chapter 2, verse 23 (James 2:23), says Abraham was God’s friend. It says there: and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness and he was called the friend of God… How does somebody become the friend of God? And once they become the friend of God, what’s the benefit of friendship with God? Jesus talked about this in the upper room and He said to his disciples there, gathered in the upper room: You are my friends if you do what I command. What is that? It doesn’t say, you’re my friends if you trust in me for salvation. We’re not dealing here with salvation, we’re dealing with friendship, which is different than salvation. You are my friends if, it’s conditioned, if you do what I command. Now, this group here, these eleven, Judas having left the room, had emulated this, they were not just believers but they were obedient in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ says of them, verse 15 (John 15:15): No longer do I call you slaves… watch this now… for the slave does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all the things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you… How do you become God’s friend as a Christian? Because apparently not all Christians are God’s friend. You move away from carnality under God’s power, is how you become his friend. You start to obey God more consistently under the resources that He provides. You’re not sinless but you’re sinning less and as you move in that trajectory, you move away from being a believer to friendship with God. Well, why would I want to become God’s friend anyway? Because He says a slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends for all the things that I’ve heard from my Father I have made known to you. In other words, friendship has advantages. God starts to give to you greater insight into things that you didn’t have a year ago. Why? because you’re smarter? No, because you’re more obedient. You’ve graduated from being a believer to being a friend and being a friend of God entitles one to greater insight, greater disclosure, greater understanding into the things of God. Now, if that’s not part of your theology, I guarantee you, you’re going to misunderstand what Jesus says in John, 2, 23 through 25 (John 2:23-25) and 99% of the commentators out there misunderstand this verse. He says in the beginning of his ministry: Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man… What would that mean? That people believed in Christ, but Jesus did not entrust Himself to them. Your average commentator looks at that and says, they weren’t saved. They’re not going to heaven. I’m here to tell you they are going to heaven, because the construction believed in “pisteuo eis” is used there and that is the Greek construction that’s necessary for someone to be saved, it’s at the end of John’s gospel. Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe… There’s “pisteuo eis”, that’s the same construction in John 2:23… That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life… They’re all kinds of people that are going to be in heaven. In fact, I think heaven is going to be shocking in a certain sense cause you’re going to get there and you’re going to be shocked at who is there. What are they doing here? And then to get a little more serious, you might be shocked at who’s not there, where’s all the religious people? They’re not here. What are all these tax gathers and prostitutes doing in heaven? Because God has designed the message of salvation as simple by grace. You are saved because you believed or trusted in the right Christ as exemplified by His signs and wonders and you’re kept by the grace of God. It’s called grace. Grace means unmerited favor. 31:58

So when people just write these folks off and say they’re not in heaven, they don’t understand “pisteuo eis”. These people met the criteria of salvation. Okay, then what does it mean there when it says but Jesus did not entrust Himself to them? That’s answered in the passage we just looked at. John 15:14-15 says, you graduate into friendship with God not because you believe, but because you obey and as you obey, He does not treat you anymore like a mere servant or a slave who doesn’t know what his master’s doing. He starts to give you insight into things. You’re dealing here in John, 2, with a bunch of people that just got saved but what would they know about discipleship? Next to nothing. What would they know about the power of the Spirit and the resources for the new life? Next to nothing. They were just baby Christians. We would assume that many of them went right back to the flesh, although they were saved and because they were in that disobedient state, they weren’t qualified for friendship and because they weren’t qualified for friendship, they weren’t qualified for further insight and Jesus although they’re saved, didn’t entrust Himself to them. But how different it is with the people in the upper room? Who had believed, they had been with Christ for three years, they had moved into obedience and now they’ve graduated into friendship. Maybe this chart here will help us see the difference between salvation and friendship.

The condition of salvation is faith, the condition of friendship is obedience. The scripture used to speak of salvation, would be John, 3, verse 16 (John 3:16). The scripture used to speak of friendship, would be John, 15, verse 14 (John 15:14). Salvation deals with justification, not going to hell. Friendship, though, doesn’t deal with justification. It deals with sanctification. Friendship is not a birth truth, it’s a growth truth. Salvation on the other hand is a birth truth. What an important distinction to make and yet most churches never talk about these distinctions. What’s the benefit of salvation? Being freed from sin’s penalty. That’s a pretty important benefit. But that doesn’t qualify you for insight. What’s the benefit of friendship? It’s greater understanding, greater insight. You see, all friends of Christ are believers but not all believers are friends of Christ.

Becoming a friend of Christ is something more intimate and you qualify for that inner ring through a lifestyle of obedience, taking our own will daily and laying it down. Taking one’s own will daily and laying it at the feet of Christ, does not make you a Christian or that would be a message of salvation by works. This is the confusion of the so-called Lordship salvation teaching. They don’t make these distinctions. Faith and faith alone saves, end of story. But if you just stay in infancy and you stay in carnality and you never move into discipleship and obedience under God’s resources, you never qualify for friendship and if you never qualify for friendship you don’t qualify for additional insight. I mean, this only makes sense when you think about it from the standpoint of the natural world. If you own a business and someone is working for you, who do you disclose the company secrets to? Not the casual, uncommitted employee but someone who has been with you for a while that has demonstrated loyalty. That’s the person you entrust with greater things. God is the same way. You see, there are people who have not received from the Holy Spirit any fresh insight from God for 10 years. I mean, they are still at the same level they were 10 years ago. How do you explain that? You explain it in terms of the fact that in their life, there must be some sort of recurring sin pattern that they haven’t yielded to God. So God looks at them and says, okay, you’re a believer but not a friend. So you’ll stay at your same level of understanding. You’ll stay at the same level of growth. It has nothing to do with intelligence, it has nothing to do with how many books you’ve read. It has nothing to do with how many people you’ve talked to, how many websites on the internet you surf. It has nothing to do with any of it. It has to do with a heart that’s obedient in the Christian versus a heart that’s disobedient. 37:33

Why should Abraham have this disclosure? He wasn’t just a believer Genesis, 15, verse 6 (Gen 15:6), tells us he was a believer but he was now a friend of God, as James 2, verse 23 (James 2:23) says. An intimacy with God qualifies someone for greater understanding and insight. Amos, 3, verse 7 (Amos 3:7) says: Certainly the Lord GOD does nothing Unless He reveals His secret plan To His servants the prophets… You want to receive the secret plan from God? Then be His servant, be His friend and wow! Watch your understanding of things just go right off the charts from the moment you make that decision onward.

Why else should Abraham receive this disclosure from God? Number 4, because he would be involved in transgenerational teaching. It’s in the middle there verse 19 (Gen 18:19): For I have chosen him… Watch this now… so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice… Of course I want to disclose this truth to Abraham, because Abraham is going to teach his own family. That’s what it says, doesn’t it? Teach his own household. It doesn’t say, Hey! Get him enrolled in Sunday school and get him taught that way. We’re pro Sunday school here by the way. Get them enrolled in BBS, they’ll get taught that way. We’re very pro BBS here, we’ve already got the advertisement right there on our website. Those are all wonderful things, those are things the church should be involved in. But here’s the deal folks, they can only reinforce what’s happening in the house. I’ll just be very, very honest with you, if community softball is more important to you than church attendance, then don’t be surprised when your own lineage, when your own progeny, when your own children when they reach the age where they start to make their own decisions and make up their own mind about things, don’t be surprised when the mall or entertainment or community softball on Sunday is more important than church attendance, because you’re going outside the pattern that God established. The primary spiritual impetus is to come from the father to the children and teaching is a lot more than lecturing. It has to do with role modeling. I saw this very, very clearly in my very first pastorate in southern California. The pastor that had retired said, you need to pay attention to the parents in this church that treat this church like a babysitting service. Drop off their kids, leave, come back, pick up their kids. He says, I want you to watch what happens to those kids when they start to make up their own minds on things age, I don’t know 14, 15, 16, 17, etc… They will drop the church like a bad habit, cause that’s what they saw mom and dad do. Reading the newspaper, apparently, as kids are growing up is more important than gathering with the people of God. You can’t, you can’t outsource this. We want to outsource it, we want to give it to a Christian School, Christian college, by the way, we’re very pro Christian schools and Christian colleges. We want to outsource it but you can’t, because God gave the job to you as a parent. This shouldn’t come as front page news, it comes right out of the Hebrew Shema which means listen. Where God says, hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one, these words which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your sons and daughters. Talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. In other words, they’re learning by watching the behavior of the parents. 42:31

Have you read Joshua 4:19-24 lately? It says: Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth of the first month and camped at Gilgal, on the eastern edge of Jericho. As for those twelve stones which they had taken from the Jordan, Joshua set them up at Gilgal. And he said to the sons of Israel, “When… Not if… When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you shall inform your children, saying… It doesn’t say go talk to the pastor, it’s saying, you’re the pastor, you are the high priest of your home… you shall inform your children, saying ‘Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the LORD your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed… In other words, here’s your chance when you see these stones near the Jordan or in the Jordan, your kids are going to ask, what are these stones doing here? Now is the teaching moment, tell them about what I did concerning the drying up of the Jordan, that we read about in the book of Joshua and by the way, don’t just stop there, tell him what I did with the Red Sea a generation earlier. It doesn’t say, create a Facebook page, start a movie. It says, parents do this and then it says in verse 24, Joshua 4 (Josh 4:24): So that all the peoples of the earth… That’s a pretty big expansion of understanding… may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, so that you may fear the LORD your God forever… So what happened with the nation of Israel in the book of Judges is there arose a generation that didn’t know any of the past. Who do you blame? You blame the prophets? Do you blame the preachers? Do you blame the teachers? Do you blame the priests? Is the problem the low quality of sermons? It’s the parents. The parents dropped the ball. The parents were told specifically to do something here and they didn’t do it and you have now a three hundred year period of moral insanity called the book of Judges, where everyone did what was right in their own eyes. 45:20

The truth of the matter folks is it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see this but the United States of America is falling apart at the seams and everybody is trying to figure out what has gone wrong and is trying to blame somebody. Blame this politician, blame that party, blame the insurrection of the Marxists, blame this, blame that, when the fact of the matter is why aren’t we looking at ourselves? We have a whole generation of young people that don’t even understand the genders. It’s like we’re living in the days of Nineveh at the end of the book of Joshua, where God says there’s a hundred and twenty thousand people that don’t know their left hand from the right or the right hand from their left, moral insanity and instead of blaming whoever the villain of the day, it’s time to look in the mirror. Have we violated the pattern of God in parenting and of course, Proverbs, 22, verse 6 (Prov 22:6) says: Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he grows older he will not abandon it… Ephesians, 6, verse 4 (Eph 6:4) says: Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger… Don’t come on them like a load of bricks made of lead and make their lives so miserable that they don’t want anything to do with your Christianity. So don’t provoke them to anger but at the same time bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. How did we miss all of these verses? It’s right there in the Bible. It’s what God says. So why should God not make this disclosure to Abraham, when Abraham is in this position over his household and he is supposed to teach his household two things, what’s he supposed to teach them? It’s right there in the verse: Righteousness and justice. Righteousness is internal. It’s what Abraham received from God when he believed, Genesis, 15, verse 6 (Gen 15:6), the righteousness of God was transferred to him at that point and justice is external; it’s what you do. Micah chapter 6, verse 8 (Micah 6:8), it says: He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?… Gee, Lord, my whole family life is falling apart, my career is falling apart, my business is falling apart, America is falling apart and God says well, have you walked out justice in your life? Are you kind? Because it says here, to love kindness and are you humble before your God? Gee, maybe we ought to focus on justice, kindness and humility and maybe some of our lives would turn around. Can I get an amen on that? 48:52

So Sodom and Gomorrah is about to be destroyed because it’s not practicing either. There is no righteousness in Sodom and Gomorrah nor is there justice and so since Abraham is supposed to teach righteousness and justice to his own household, which is the beginning of a whole nation, the nation of Israel, God says why would I hide from him what I’m about to do?

And there’s a fifth reason God will not hide this from Abraham: it’s a reiteration of the Abrahamic Covenant, end of verse 19 (Gen 18:19), it says: so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him… so the Lord it may bring upon Abraham what he is spoken about him. What has God spoken about Abraham? The Abrahamic Covenant.

Reasons for Disclosure – Genesis 18:17-19

1. Question (Gen 18:17)
2. Reasons (Gen 18:18-19)
3. Abrahamic Covenant: Fulfillment (Gen 18:18a)
4. Channel of blessing (Gen 18:18b)
5. Intimacy with God (Gen 18:19a)
6. Transgenerational teaching (Gen 18:19b)
7. Abrahamic Covenant: reiterated (Gen 18:19c)

You’ll notice that these five reasons begin with the Abrahamic Covenant, verse 18 and they end with Abrahamic Covenant verse 19, because of Abraham’s position before God has given to him by grace in the Abrahamic Covenant, God says why would I hide from him what I’m about to do? Because of your position that’s been given to you by God, by way of grace in the church age, God wants to reveal His secrets to you as well, and when I mean secrets, what I’m talking about is greater insight into this book. You start walking in friendship with God and you’ll start to see things like it’s always been here. It was always there, I just didn’t see it. But now you can see it, because God is giving you insight through illumination because you have progressed from infancy into friendship. 50:52

Prophecy – Genesis 18:16-21

1. Departure (Gen 18:16)
2. Reasons for disclosure (Gen 18:17-19)
3. Reasons for Coming Destruction (Gen 18:20-21)

We end here with verses 20 and 21 where God gives the reasons why He’s going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Why is He going to do that? Why is He going to wipe out a whole nation characterized by four cities? I mean, we know why He wants to tell Abraham about it, but why is God going to do it?

Reasons for Coming Destruction – Genesis 18:20-21

1. 1. 1. Sodom’s Sin (Gen 18:20)
      2. God’s Investigation (Gen 18:21)

Two reasons: Sodom’s sin. Look, if you will, at verse 20 (Gen 18:20): And the LORD said, The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave… This is where knowing a little bit about Hebrew helps, because in the Hebrew language there are things called wordplays. Arnold Fruchtenbaum says:

Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum – The Book of Genesis, 315

“In Genesis 18:20–21 is the actual revelation, with verse 20 focusing on the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah: Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great. The word cry is zaakah, which makes a word play with the Hebrew word for ‘righteousness,’ tzedakah. In place of tzedakah, righteousness, it is zaakah, a cry, because their sin is very grievous”

Righteousness is a word play from outcry or cry. Their unrighteousness is crying out to me, as those two words are related to each other. God looks at the city of Sodom and Gomorrah and He uses expressions like “their sin is exceedingly great”. What we’re living in a day at a time where perversion is being mainstreamed, when sexual orientation, as it is called, is being confused with the immutable characteristic of one’s race. Where the civil rights movement which started on the proper basis of no discrimination against people because of something in themselves, like skin color that they can’t control, which is what Martin Luther King was all about with the civil rights movement in its purest form led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that has been exchanged for perversion. Lifestyle choices are being elevated to the level of Civil Rights minority status. Now, I taught at the college of biblical studies for seven years, we had a 60 % black population in the school. The best advice I ever got was from my mentor Dr. Steve Sullivan. He says look, I know you’re a conservative Republican but don’t mention Republican because they’re conditioned to believe that the Republican Party is racist and it’s the Democratic Party that’s helped them. That’s what they think and if you mention Republican, you don’t have enough time to undo the damage. He says, stick with the Bible, which I did and when we were in passages like Romans chapter 1, I explained very clearly that the perversion of homosexuality is being analogized today to civil rights standing. In other words, your skin is being analogized to someone’s sin. Now, that language they understood and you might remember the Mayor of Houston pushing all of that bathroom stuff, transgender bathrooms, all that kind of stuff. You know who defeated that? The black church rose up and defeated that, because the name Republican or Democrat was not on the ballot, it was a Bible issue. That’s how you embrace this world of politics; you don’t come at it from a partisan angle. You come at it from a Bible angle and I’m telling you from personal experience that the black church is a sleeping giant. It is a sleeping giant waiting to be awakened and they are all very strong believers in this book the Bible, they are not believers in the Republican Party. That’s fine with me. God didn’t call me to be a Republican at the end of the day, he called me to be a biblicist. Teach the Bible. The Bible, the whole Bible, nothing but the Bible. Show people that sin is being analogized to skin. That a moral perversion, whether it be homosexuality, pedophilia, L. G. B. T. Q, right on down the list or some of the letters in that alphabet I lose track of it all, show them this is not a red state, blue state issue, show this is a Bible issue. This is something God thinks about and what to change in people as they embrace the word of God and don’t feel like you’re always pressuring them to join a political party. You’ll notice here, the expressions great, exceedingly grave, what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah was the taking of a perversion and mainstreaming it, making it normal. I look at our own country and I see this going the exact same way and I often think to myself, how far are we away from the judgment of God in the United States? I’ve been studying Bible prophecy for a long time, can’t find the United States in Bible prophecy. Where’d it go? What happened to it? Is there some sort of precursor? Prevenient judgment before the end times? I don’t know. It’s a possibility. Is it that the rapture of the church is going to negatively affect the nation? As all of God’s people suddenly disappear? That’s a wonderful possibility, I like that one, or is it the fact that the United States has gone so far in taking the things that God says is our perversions and mainstreaming them, and since righteousness exalts a nation, that the United States just keeps going down and down and down as a political power to the point where when the end times scenario takes place, the United States of America is not mentioned cause it has no real force in the world. Maybe that’s a possibility. 58:41

The church of Jesus Christ needs to start calling a spade a spade. Not from a partisan angle but from a Bible angle. There are certain things that God says are perversions, they are not civil rights, the way civil rights is properly understood, they are behavioral perversions, which is the very thing that brought the global flood and it’s the very thing that brought the destruction of the Canaanites and it’s the very thing that’s about to wipe out the entire cities, four cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Boy! This is a hellfire and damnation sermon, isn’t it? But there’s a happier side to this and I’ll end with this, it’s an investigation. It’s there in verse 21 (Gen 18:21), God says: 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… So now God is, and we think that this is an anthropomorphism, it’s not that God doesn’t know what’s going on, it’s describing the investigation that God is doing in a way that man can understand. By the way, God went down, remember? At the tower of Babel. It says in Genesis, 11, verse 5 (Gen 11:5): Now the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the men had built… Genesis, 11, verse 7 (Gen 11:7): Come let us go down there and confuse their language… So this idea of going down, this anthropomorphism of God going down to investigate, is common, particularly in the book of Genesis and Arnold Fruchtenbaum explains that it’s trying to describe in a way that we can understand as human beings that God doesn’t bring judgment until He carefully understands and analyzes and weighs a situation. There is no such thing as a rush to judgment with God…

Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum – The Book of Genesis, 315

Verse 21 is God’s investigation… It’s trying to describe in a way that we can understand as human beings that God doesn’t bring judgment until He carefully understands and analyzes and weighs a situation. There is no such thing as a rush to judgment with God…  “Verse 21 is God’s investigation: I will go down now, and see, for the purpose of destruction as in Genesis 11:5 and Genesis 11:7, whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which has come unto me; and if not, I will know. It was not an admission that God did not already know these things, but the point is to show that God had carefully scrutinized every detail. Therefore, when God performs a massive judgment, it does not come out of any ignorance. This will show that the punishment came after a very full investigation and a very full account.”

God brings judgment but it is not a rush job, because after all, next week we’re going to be getting to verse 25, I hope which says: Shall not the judge of the earth deal justly? Does God bring judgment? Yes, He does. Does He do it rationally? No, He doesn’t. Does He do it haphazardly? No, He doesn’t. Does He do it with only part of the information? No, He doesn’t. Does He do it without grace or mercy? No, He doesn’t. Our problem though is we confuse the grace and the patience of God with the fact that judgment will never come. Believe me it comes. But it comes after careful deliberation. God is going to bring judgment over the whole world. But before He does, He’s giving people an opportunity to respond to His grace and guess what folks? Today’s your opportunity. Jesus, as we celebrated at the Lord’s table earlier, stepped out of eternity into time to bridge a gap between sin and holiness, which only the God man can do and so His judgment will not have to be poured out upon us, He asks us or He commands us to trust in His son on whom the judgment fell and when that terrible day of judgment comes, it just passes right over you, because God sees in you, positionally the blood of His Son and how do you receive positionally the blood of His Son? It’s as simple as one word: To believe, which means to trust, you trust in what Jesus did by itself. That’s the only thing that will spare you from the judgment that is to come and we encourage people, we invite people, anyone within the sound of my voice, as the Spirit puts them under conviction to trust in that provision. So that when the judgment comes, you’re exempted from it, you can trust in that provision now even as I’m speaking. It’s not a matter of walking an aisle, joining a church, giving money, joining a denomination. It’s a matter of privacy between you and the Lord where the Spirit convicts you of your need to do this and you respond in your heart by way of volition or free will to trust in the Savior. If it’s something that you need more information on, I’m available after the service to talk. 1:04

But we’ve looked at today: the prediction and part one of the prediction is the prophecy of Sodom’s destruction, verses 16 through 21, and next week we’ll see Abraham doing intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah.

B. Prediction – Genesis 18:16-33

1. Prophecy (Gen 18:16-21)
2. Intercession (Gen 18:22-33)

How deep is the grace of God in this? We’ll get a glimpse of it next time. Shall we pray? Father, we’re grateful for the book of Genesis, even these accounts that are sort of fearful to us like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Help us to learn of your true nature and character through our study. We ask that you’ll do this great work. We ask these things in Jesus’ name, and God’s people said, Amen