Genesis 18:20-33 – Would You Buy a Car from This Guy?

Even if you don’t know your Bible very well, you’ve probably heard of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. That’s pretty remarkable, considering the fact that they disappeared thousands of years ago, long before practically all of the significant events of the Bible. But long after they were gone, the Bible continued to talk about them, all the way up to the last book of the Bible, Revelation. These cities had two claims to fame: their great sin, and the way that God destroyed them because of their sin.

For all the attention that the Bible pays to Sodom and Gomorrah’s great sin, it’s surprising that it doesn’t actually describe what it was that was so bad about them. The conduct of its residents of the eve of its destruction (Genesis 19:4-5) has led people to assume that God punished them for sexual sin. After all, this is were “sodomy” gets its name from. The only problem with this assumption is that God had decided to destroy Sodom before this happened. Maybe the crowd’s conduct that night represented the kinds of things that they always did, but we don’t know. Actually, there’s one place in the Bible that tells us what was so wicked about Sodom, and it had nothing to do with sex. According to Ezekiel 16:49-50, the sin of Sodom was that its citizens did not help the poor and needy, but were “arrogant and overfed.” If we want to be sure to avoid the sin of Sodom, maybe we need to take a closer look at ourselves.

Whatever the specific sins were, Sodom and Gomorrah were so wicked that God decided that they needed to be wiped from the face of the earth. There was just one complication: Abraham’s nephew Lot lived in Sodom. Abraham was man God had chosen to become the forefather of his chosen nation, and Lot was his closest living relative. So God sent three angelic messengers to Abraham to tell him about his plans to investigate Sodom and deal with it accordingly. The Bible doesn’t tell us, but apparently God did this so that Abraham could warn his nephew and help him escape.

So God’s angelic agents deliver their message. But after they leave, Abraham confronts God directly. You have to give him credit for going straight to the source and not hiding behind the go-betweens. On the other hand, you have wonder about the way that Abraham approached God. He displays none of the respect or humility that we ought to have in prayer. Remember: this was a culture in which people could be executed simply for appearing before the king without being summoned (Esther 4:10-11). And Abraham didn’t just enter God’s presence: he stood up in front of him. You’re supposed to bow or prostrate yourself before a king. How rude and presumptuous!

But that was only the beginning of it. Abraham’s conversation with God sounds more like he’s haggling for the price of a new car than he’s in the presence of the Eternal Lord. He starts to bargain with God for the city of Sodom! He starts off by appealing to God’s nature. “Lord, would you destroy the whole city if there are fifty righteous people in it? That’s not like you to kill innocent people along with the wicked. You’re the judge of the earth: why would you do something like that?” So God agrees: if he finds fifty good people, he’ll spare the city.

Apparently at this point Abraham thought to himself, “Great! God will spare Sodom if there are enough good people in it.” His next step was to try to negotiate the price. He must not have thought that is was a done deal that the city had fifty good people in it. So, like someone trying to by a used Chevy, he dickers with God to get the price down. To me, it sure sounds like what happens in the markets of Ghana! And Abraham does a pretty job of haggling: he ends up working the price all the way down from fifty to ten. If, when God investigates Sodom, he finds ten good people, he won’t destroy the city. Incidentally, even that was too high of a number. It turns out that there were only four people: Lot, his wife, and his two daughters, who qualified.

I wonder how low God would have been willing to go and still spare Sodom. Would he have settled for four?

What if Abraham would have started right with ten people: would God have agreed to save the city for that few people? Or did Abraham have to convince God by working him down to an acceptable number?

I wonder why Abraham was so concerned about saving Sodom. If the city was really so depraved, he must surely have had his share of problems with them. Life would have been a lot easier for Abraham if Sodom was destroyed. But he asked God to spare them anyway. It’s important to remember that Abraham wasn’t asking God to take care of his friends. This was a prayer for God to be good to his enemies. When’s the last time you asked God to take care of Osama bin Laden? Or that annoying person in your neighborhood, class, or workplace?

Maybe Abraham comes off being really inappropriate in this story: boldly confronting God, bargaining with him, etc. This may not be a perfect example of the proper attitude for prayer. And yet, God still listens and accepts him. That’s really good news for us: you don’t have to do it “right” in order to have God receive your prayer.

The only reason Abraham could act like this in front of God is because he was comfortable around him. Being in the presence of the Lord was something that he was apparently very comfortable with. He didn’t need to hide behind heavenly messengers or elaborate rituals and formula prayers. He could come to God exactly as he was, and he knew that it would be alright. The better you know God, the more comfortable you are to be with him.

The deal that Abraham worked out with God prefigures the atoning work of Christ. For the sake of one righteous person, a globe full of wicked people have been spared.