When Abraham found out what YHWH had in mind for Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18, he “approached YHWH and said, ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?.…Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of fifty righteous people in it?’” (23-24).
He wasn’t being snippy with YHWH, he was being highly respectful (27, 30, 32), but he also deeply felt the need to put in a word for the good people, and for YHWH to spare the city for their sake. And to his surprise, perhaps, YHWH immediately responded favourably – that if there were just ten good people in Sodom, he would reverse his decision to blast the city to smithereens for its wickedness (32).
But why did YHWH respond so favourably? Well, back in Genesis 15:6, YHWH had credited Abraham with righteousness, so here we have an example of the “prayer of a righteous man being powerful and effective” (James 5:16). And according to James it has the power to save lives too (20), which is exactly what Abraham’s request to YHWH did on behalf of the good people in Sodom – it saved their lives.
There’s another example of the same thing happening in Genesis 20, when YHWH told Abimelech king of Gerar in a dream that he was “as good as dead” if he took Abraham’s wife for his own (2-3). But, verse 7, Abraham “will pray for you and you will live.” And that’s despite Abraham being the one at fault, for calling his wife his sister and making Abimelech think she was available.
But Abimelech was a good man, because on being threatened with destruction by YHWH, he too, just like Abraham on behalf of Sodom, appealed to YHWH, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation?” (4) And that’s when YHWH told him that Abraham “is a prophet and he will pray for you” (7). Which Abraham did in verse 17: “Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his slave girls so they could have children again” – and in so doing it would spare the nation too.
And here we are now, descending into a Sodom-like society too, but there are many good people – also like prophets – exposing the growing evil at risk of their own lives. Without these people hounding the villains, how much further into what is “detestable” to God (Ezekiel 16:50) would we be? And how many lives, and livelihoods, and even whole nations, are these good people saving? I can’t do that, but I can pray for those who can, knowing too that “YHWH sticks to his promises”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 