Abraham Prays for Lot

Genesis 18:1-19:38

Key Verse: 19:29

[Read Genesis 11:26-17:27 for a background]

So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Today we would like to learn what it is to pray for others, just as Abraham did for Lot, for Abraham’s prayer bears a great resemblance to that of our Lord Jesus who prayed for all sinners on the cross so that they would know God’s love, repent, believe the good news, and thus be saved. 

I. As the Lord trained Abraham, Abraham lived by faith in the Lord (18:1-21). 

First, Abraham kept his faith (18:1-2).

Let us read Genesis 18:1-2. “The LORD appeared to Abraham [right after Abraham’s circumcision] near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.” Here we see Abraham living in his tent near the great trees of Mamre. Mamre is the name of the Amorite who perhaps owned the land where Abraham was living. Although someone else owned the land, Abraham trusted that the Lord God would one day give him and his offspring the land (Gen 13:14-18). However, about two decades had passed since Abraham first received the promise about the land. It is said that “in ten years, even mountains and rivers change.” But Abraham's faith in the Lord did not change. He was still pitching his tent in the land of promise, waiting for God to fulfill his promise. 

Second, the Lord God richly blessed Abraham's inner person (2-8).

Genesis 18:2-8 is one of my favorite Bible passages. Why? Because it describes a beautiful lunch fellowship underneath a tree. This passage is well worth reading, so let us read the passage altogether. In this ministry we have a lot of artists. Shepherdess Priscilla is an artist. And Shepherd William Larsen is also an artist. I think I also have some artistic talent. Children are also great artists. A few weeks ago, on the 4^th of July, on Independence Day, we had a children's Bible conference. At the conference, we had eating fellowships outside underneath several trees. It was very beautiful. I would suggest that we study Genesis 18 and 19 at next year's children's Bible conference, and as a special project, hold a drawing contest in which children draw illustrations based on Genesis 18:2-8. Continuing, at this time, Abraham was 99 years old, and Sarah 89 years old. But this passage makes us wonder whether or not Abraham was really 99 years old or Sarah 89, for Abraham ran like a 19 year old kid, and Sarah laughed like a teenage girl, making a noise like “Ha, ha, ha!”

Something that’s really impressive about this lunch fellowship is not the richness of the meal – perhaps consisting of a tender juicy New York steak cooked to perfection on a grill at the kitchen of Abraham's Ranch House – but what the guests said to Abraham’s invitation: "Very well." Their response to Abraham’s invitation was very different from their response to Lot's invitation. In Lot’s case, they said, "Nah." But to Abraham, they said, "Very well." What was the difference? I don’t think it was because of the menu or food, but because of the inner condition of the person extending the invitation. Unlike many of us, the Lord is not interested in "eating" with us. He is interested in “fellowship” with us. And when he has fellowship with us, he does so from his heart. And he is never superficial in coming to us. He opens himself up, and he expects us to open ourselves up to him, for he believes in "heart-to-heart" fellowship. "Very well" indicates that Abraham's inner condition was beautiful, filled with a welcoming spirit; it was full of loving grace. One word that stands out about Abraham is "great" – he was great in generosity, love, and hospitality. His inner condition was very rich and hospitable. It was full of love, and ready and willing to serve. 

How did he get this beautiful inner kindness? We already know the answer: because he lived by faith in the Lord. On the outside, a life of faith in the Lord was not easy for him. But on the inside, Abraham had the Lord in his mind, so the Lord made Abraham rich in his inner life. In Philippians 4:12 the Apostle Paul said, "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." Like Paul, Abraham also must have learned the secret of being content. In Psalm 23:1, David said, "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want." Likewise, because Abraham trusted in the Lord as his personal shepherd, he too found the Lord as his source of deep satisfaction, whatever the circumstances. Through Abraham's steadfast life of faith in the Lord, he truly knew what Philippians 4:19 meant when it said, "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." 

Third, Abraham's faith was important, but Sarah's faith was even more important (9-15).

During the beautiful lunch fellowship, the men suddenly asked Abraham, "Where is your wife Sarah?" "There, in the tent," he said. Then the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son." Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?" Then the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really have a child, now that I am old?' Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son." 

How did Sarah respond? Look at v. 15. “Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, ‘I did not laugh.’ But he said, ‘Yes, you did laugh.’” Perhaps both of them were right, in that Sarah did not laugh audibly, so what she said must have been true, but in the Lord's judgment, Sarah did laugh because she laughed to herself – in her own thoughts! Thus to the Lord, every little thought that arises in your heart and mind counts!

Why then did the Lord bring this out into the open? The answer is obvious. The Lord God was giving Sarah "faith" training. As I mentioned earlier, man is dust refined and woman is man refined, for although man was made out of dust, woman was made out of man, specifically, man’s rib. And the rib protects man's heart. After all, it was when Sarah lost faith in the Lord that Ishmael came to be. Had Sarah kept her faith to the end, we might not even have seen the mess we see today in the Middle East. Likewise, had Eve not lost her faith, we might not even have to study this Bible passage. 

This already answers another question that comes to mind: why did the Lord withhold a son from Abraham and Sarah for 25 years? The answer: to help both Abraham and Sarah develop absolute faith in the Lord – faith that believes that the Lord begins to work when we conclusively conclude that all of our hopes have run out. 

This leads us to a bigger point. The Lord desires to give his children what is best: absolute faith in God from whom every good and perfect gift comes (James 1:17). Giving us this faith is as good as teaching a man how to fish as opposed to giving him a couple of fish. 

Fourth, faith pleases God (16-21). 

After the eating fellowship, but before heading down to Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord revealed two things to Abraham in vs. 16-21. These two revelations are followed with the expression “The Lord said.” Let us read this passage responsively. Here, the first revelation involved Abraham and his descendants and the second one concerned Sodom and Gomorrah. 

How are these two revelations “different” from one another? The key difference is the Lord's opinion, that is, how the Lord felt about two classes of people: those who live righteously and those who live in sin. The Lord was very pleased with the former but "grieved" by the latter. 

What made the difference? Faith in the Lord made the difference. Because Abraham trusted in the Lord, the good-looking things of this world could not get a grip on Abraham. By the same token, the people living in Sodom and Gomorrah did not have faith in the Lord. So they were stuck with the things of this world. The Bible says that this unbelief is the cause of sin. Romans 14:23 says, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin." For the same reason, Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Thus, we go by what 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, "We live by faith, not by sight." 

II. Abraham prayed for Lot (18:22-19:38).

On hearing news of the impending judgment to come upon Sodom and Gomorah, Abraham became concerned about Lot and Lot’s family. So what did Abraham do? Look at vs. 22-26. "The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham approached him and said: ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing--to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ The LORD said, ‘If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’" 

Here, what Abraham said was remarkable, particularly the expression, “for the sake of ... the righteous.” First, Abraham asked the Lord, “Will you not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous?” What he prayed for required a bold faith. Suppose 10,000 people were living in the area. This means that Abraham was asking for 50 righteous people out of 10,000; this is less than one percent, for one percent of 10,000 is 100, so 50 is half a percent (0.5%). Abraham challenged the Lord to spare the place for the sake of a righteous half a percent. Emboldened by the Lord's positive answer, he spoke to the Lord again, saying, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?" This prayer was very shrewd, for he could have said, "What if the number of the righteous is 45?" Instead Abraham said, "What if the number of the righteous is five less than 50?" And then he said (note the subtle difference), "Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?" 

After the 2002 European Summer Bible Conference in Germany, we had a missionary seminar. One of the programs was a panel discussion on the subject entitled: "How to Fish." Many of us here in the United States think that it is not easy to fish a Bible student and secure an affirmative response to an invitation to Bible study or to a Bible conference. Many missionaries on the European continent felt the same. So we had several heated discussions on this subject, but no one could come up with a clear answer. But one thing which struck many was what Missionary Moses Yoon, the director of London UBF, said. At that time Moses Yoon was one of the panel members sitting on the table, and on the floor about 300 missionaries were present. A missionary stood up and, directing her question to Moses Yoon, asked, "Each time I go out on campus and invite students to study the Bible, they always say no. What should I do?" Moses Yoon pondered this for a while and said, "I know what you mean, but we must ask in such a way as to secure only a ‘yes’ answer rather than a ‘no’ answer.” Then he took an example from the way Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman in John 4. Jesus started his conversation by asking her, "Will you give me a drink?" Then Jesus said to her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." I think Abraham used the same wisdom. He came up with an offer that the Lord could not refuse! And he knew what would work on the Lord and what would not. In this way, he reduced the number little by little, until he went from 50 to 10! 

Why then did he stop at 10? Actually, this was what one person asked during a group Bible study. I don’t know. But according to Jewish tradition, Lot had four daughters, so assuming that all of them got married or at least engaged, Abraham determined the number of believers living in Sodom to be 10 (four daughters plus their four husbands-to-be, plus Lot and his wife equals 10). So that’s why he stopped there. (This tradition may or may not be true.) Anyway, if this was not the case, perhaps Abraham might have assumed that under Lot's leadership at least ten or more people were attending the worship services at Lot's house church. After all, Lot had a significant number of herdsmen (Gen 13:7).  So they might also be added to the number. 

[Another Jewish tradition says that, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, there were five cities in the then fertile valley of the Dead Sea area, of which Sodom and Gomorrah were the two main ones (Zoar was another one, and there were two more).  In order to make a quorum to establish a prayer group (Hebrew: minyan), 10 people are needed.  That may explain why Abraham started with 50, asking for 10 people per city in order to establish a prayer group to pray for their own respective city. Yet at the other extreme, the absolute minimum number of righteous people needed to positively influence a city was two, as we see Jesus sending out the disciples two by two in the Gospel.  In other words, if there are two righteous people in a city, then there is a minimum amount of hope for that city to be influenced by them and to repent; if there is only one person, however, the reverse effect will take place and he will be influenced by the city – “bad company corrupts good morals.”  In short, according to this theory, Abraham started with 50 because 10 people for each one of the five cities could establish a prayer group to pray for the city, while Abraham ended with 10 because two people for each one of the five cities was the absolute minimum needed to positively influence a city to repent.]

When we think about Abraham praying for Lot, we have a lot to learn, especially in approaching God as a shepherd praying for God's flock. A quick review of Genesis indicates that Lot had done much harm to Abraham, but that Abraham did not think much of it.  Rather, in love, Abraham continued to pray for Lot. His prayer shows that Abraham did not hold any grudges against Lot. He truly loved Lot, in the true sense of the word “love.” The reason for this love was that he came to know the Lord whose name is love - not a self-seeking love but the love that seeks the best interest of one's neighbor. 

One of the real fruits the Lord bore in the life of Abraham was the fruit of singular love for an individual soul. And in Abraham's prayer, we see a powerful demonstration of the selfless love found in the Lord who prayed even for those sinners that drove the nails through his body! It is with this love that we should pray for our sheep.

How was Lot doing? Look at Genesis 19:1. "The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground." Here, we see that Lot sitting in the gateway of the city is contrasted with Abraham sitting at the entrance to his tent (Gen 18:1). How did Lot end up living in the city? Genesis 13:1-13, 14:12, and 19:1 show us that it did not happen overnight but gradually, over several years. Genesis 13:10 says, "Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)" Then 13:11 says, "So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company." Then 13:12-13 says, "Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD." Then in Chapter 14:12 we see Lot actually living in Sodom, for it reads, "They also carried off Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions, since he was living in Sodom." The expression "carried off" talks about the war among the ten kings of the land. This war caused Lot to lose everything, but Abraham recovered Lot’s losses for him. This was God's warning; it was a wake-up call for Lot. But Lot did not repent. Rather, his roots went deeper into Sodom than ever before. Thus in Genesis 19:1, by the time the two angels arrived at Sodom, Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city, indicating that he was one of the city’s elders, that is, the members of the city's governing body! 

When we skim through 19:3-38, we find the following events that tell us something about Lot: his worldliness. 

Lot invited the angels to his house, but they said, "No, we will spend the night in the square" (2b), showing that his inner condition was not right. And it is really despicable to even think about Lot offering his two daughters to the molesters, even with the pretense of protecting his guests (8). Furthermore, when Lot warned his two sons-in-laws about the impending judgment, they thought he was joking (14), indicating that his words did not carry weight with his children. Then v. 16 says that when the angels urged him to hurry in leaving the city together with the remainder of his family members, "he hesitated" (16). Then as the moment of judgment was mere seconds away, one of the angels asked them not to “walk” but to “flee” from the impending disaster, and Lot said, "No, my lords, please ... [let me slow down] ... I can't flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I'll die." V. 26 says, "But Lot's wife looked back…” and we know what happened to her. And finally, of course, vs. 30-38 talk about the shameful fruit he bore out of incest. 

All these things show us that Lot's inner condition was full of evil. Outwardly he looked righteous, but inside he was filled with the world (i.e., darkness). Why did he become like this? The answer is obvious. He did not have God's promises in his heart, so he naturally looked at the good looking things of this world, and he was soon overtaken by love for this world. Lot was therefore a typical example of a worldly-minded Christian who is like an apple that looks good on the surface but is rotten to the core underneath.

Now, the really amazing thing is that Abraham continued to pray for Lot. More amazing than this, however, is that the Lord honored Abraham's prayer. Look at Genesis 19:29. "So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived." 

This thus shows us that Abraham had Jesus mind. In his mercy, Jesus prayed for us even while we were sinners and then died on the cross for our sins!!! This is what we must also do for the people of this world!

One word: God remembered Abraham. 

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