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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. You want to be Jesus' friend? Do what he says. Obey him. Find areas in your life where the Bible speaks to that condition of your life and decide, I'm going to put that into practice. And I'm going to put it in practice in all of my life. He's going to be the Lord of my church life, the Lord of my relational life, the Lord of my pleasure and leisure life, the Lord of all of it.
I'm willing for that to happen. That's conformity. And Abraham demonstrated that. Okay, so answer the question that God asks. Answer it in your own life. Is there anything too hard for the Lord?
What's the answer? Of course not. Jeremiah will say later on, Lord, you made everything, the heaven, the earth, everything. There's nothing too hard for you. And again, we're in the book of Genesis. If you can believe the first verse of Genesis 1, first verse of the Bible, God created the heavens and the earth, it sort of makes the rest pretty easy, doesn't it? The Lord created the heavens and the earth, but I don't know if he's going to be able to take care of me.
Lord, it's $3,500, Lord. I know, I know, I know you created the heavens and the earth, but I don't know if you can take care of this debt. So it's always good when you pray to recognize who you're praying to. Acts chapter 4, they were threatened for their faith. They come together, and this is how they began their prayer. Lord, you're God. You're the maker of the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them. Who by the mouth of the prophet said, and they quote Psalm 2, therefore look upon our affliction.
So they, before they got to their need, they recognized to whom they were addressing. And once you recognize you're talking to God who has no limitations, it's very difficult recognizing that, bringing a limitation over onto him. Best to say, you can do anything. So I have this little $3,500 bill. It's nothing to you, Lord. Show me what to do. I have a house going into foreclosure, Lord.
It is difficult for my family. I trust you. I trust your promises. Show me what to do, Lord. And then approach it in faith rather than in unbelief. Abraham's learning that. So the Lord said, no, but you did laugh. Now look at verse 16. Then the men rose from there and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on their way. So Abraham is showing God out, showing God the way as if he needed to know the way. Now beginning in verse 16, we have the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot will be in Sodom in chapter 19, verse 1.
So we're going to get that contrast between Abraham and Lot more so next week. Six times the Old Testament refers to Sodom. Four times the New Testament refers to Sodom.
It has become so famous, it has become so infamous, that the term Sodom has become a byword for sexual perversion, and we'll see just what kind next week. But this begins the whole God moving in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah here. So he says, the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?
Since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. Well now we wonder who is the Lord talking to? Is he talking to himself? Is he talking to those two angels that were with him? Was it inner Trinitarian communication? There's debate and there's a lot of stuff written on that.
It doesn't matter to me. The Lord just said it, and he said it for the benefit of us who are reading it. Look at verse 19, it clears it up. For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him.
Now this to me is, it's insightful, it's revolutionary. Here's Abraham, and God says, here's the guy that's going to bless the whole world. It's a reference to Christ ultimately. Through the seed of Abraham, Christ will be born and he will bless the world with the hope and offer of salvation. But in verse 19, it shows me that God not only sees that Abraham will influence the world, but God will see that Abraham will influence his own family who will influence the world.
Now mark this, mighty man Abraham, verse 19, that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord. If your children go to school, and most children do go to school, 16% of their time is spent at school. That's not very much. 16, now you say, well that's a lot of time at school. 16% if you just go by hours. If your kids go to school and go to Sunday school, add 1%. Sunday school is about 1% of your child's time. 83% of the time, they're at home with you, parents. So you can see the fallacy of a parent saying, I send my kids to Christian school and to Sunday school and I expect them to teach them what they need to know. Well both of those systems only have your kids 17% of the time.
83% of the time, they're in your house. So by pure mathematics, you exert a greater influence on your child than school and Sunday school. Abraham is learning that. God is revealing that. I've called you Abraham, not just to bless the world, which is a pretty big order, but your family. Trickle down righteousness. Trickle down evangelism. Watch how I live son, watch how I live daughter, in the tent, in the household.
The percentage of the time that I have you, watch my life so that in watching my life, you can learn what it is to follow the Lord. So he is to lead his family. He is to influence his family. So I just throw that out there so that as parents, we just sort of come face to face with that once again.
I need to impact and input my child. Now some of you have teenagers. Your child turned 13 or they're 14 and you're dealing with the rebel force. And you recognize there's a relationship, but it's changed now. They're individuating. They're becoming more adult.
They want more of their space, more of their time. And it's difficult for some to work through those years. Mark Twain gave his advice. He said, everything runs smoothly till your kid reaches age 13. That's the time, said Mark Twain, to put him in a barrel, snugly hammer the lid down and feed him through the knothole. Then when he turned 16, close up the knothole. That was his advice in classic Mark Twain way of writing. You can't do that.
I mean, first of all, it would be highly illegal to put your kid in a barrel and hammer it shut. But that aside, we can't afford to disengage. We can't afford to give it to somebody else to influence them. We have those years.
We have that time and we have that influence, that power. Engage them as much as you can, as much as the Lord will give you insight and ask the Lord for insight to do that. Okay, I left off at, oh yeah, verse 20, the Lord said, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done according to the outcry against it that has come to me, and if not, I will know. Then the men turned away from there and went towards Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Here's a question. If God says there's been an outcry against Sodom, I'm going to go check it out.
I guess my question is, who's doing the out crying? Maybe it's Abraham. I'm going to throw in a thought. Maybe it's Lot. You say, oh no, Lot's too far gone. He's the bad guy that you're contrasting Abraham with.
It's true. However, did you know that the New Testament refers to Lot as righteous? In the epistle of Peter, he says, and righteous Lot, his soul was vexed day in and day out by what he heard and what he saw. He's called righteous. Now that doesn't mean he is as righteous as Abraham was and he believed God's promises and was walking with God, but in comparison to Sodom and Gomorrah, in comparison to that standard, he was certainly more righteous, and in that standard, he would be considered righteous. It could be that he was there, he was sucked in by it, but he's complaining against it. He goes, it's horrible here.
Of course, he didn't do anything to mitigate against that. In fact, he's one of the elders in the city, as we'll see tonight, hopefully as we close. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, in his book, Is God Real?, Lee Strobel, author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Case for Christ, provides a rational exploration of the proof of God's existence and the basis of our eternal hope. Writing to skeptics and believers alike, Strobel turns his critical mind and expert interviewing skills to perennial questions like, how do we know which God is real? And if God is real, why does he seem so hidden? Is God Real?, along with two messages preached by Lee Strobel at Calvary Church, are our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your resources when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Here's something else that's interesting about those verses that I just read. God is not reactive. He's heard the outcry, and of course God knows all, but before he judges, he's going to just send out a little party to investigate personally, get firsthand knowledge. That's written for our benefit so that we could never accuse God of being unrighteous when it comes to judgment. He knows fully the situation.
He's not reactive. He's affirming it. It would seem that God has allowed the outcry and watched the sin and allowed more outcry and watched the sin, and the sin got worse and worse and worse and worse until finally it reaches a point where the iniquity of a city or a nation is full, is complete. Do you remember that text back in chapter 15 around verse 16 where God tells Abraham that his descendants are going to be slaves in a foreign land, Egypt, for 400 years and then come back, and then God says because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full or complete? It's an interesting phrase.
I don't know if we covered it or not. I actually forget, but it tells me that God has a limit. The Spirit of God will not always strive with man, Genesis 6-3. So God is patient, God is gracious, God is merciful, but He waits until a nation reaches a level at which point God must act in judgment in order to be just.
And Sodom has reached that point. I'm going to destroy them. I'm going to confirm it first. I'm going to make sure I have all the facts right. Then I'm going to move ahead and I'm going to destroy them. You don't have to turn to it, but I'm going to read you a little insightful passage I found in Ezekiel that will give you some insight.
Now listen to this. God is speaking to Jerusalem and He says, you know, I'm about to come against you, Jerusalem, and He says this. As I live, says the Lord God, neither your sister Sodom nor her daughters have done as you have and your daughters have done. Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, abundance of food, and abundance of idleness. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy, and they were haughty and committed abomination before me. Therefore I took them away as I saw fit.
They lived in abundance. They didn't care about others in the world who were poor. They just sort of became very narrow-minded, very self-focused, very prideful, and that led, it says, to the abomination that they committed. God finally had enough and God judged them.
Well, there could be more that could be said, but for time we better move on. Verse 23, and Abraham came near and said, would you also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were 50 righteous within the city, would you also destroy the place and not spare it for the 50 that were in it? Now, as we make our way through this and we'll just read through it, it might sound to you like God and Abraham are having an argument and Abraham backs God into a corner. First of all, God never needs to be reminded that he's righteous. It's like a man going, no, God, have you forgotten that you're God? And have you forgotten that you're supposed to be just and righteous? Ah, no, get a clue, Abraham.
I've known that before you got a clue. So what is happening here? Well, let's work our way through it and then we'll make a couple of comments. Verse 25, far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous should be as the wicked. Far be it from you shall not the judge of the earth do right? So the Lord said, if I find in Sodom 50 righteous within the city, then I will spare the place for their sakes.
Abraham answered and said, indeed now I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose there were five less than 50 righteous. Would you destroy all the city for the lack of five? So he said, if I find 45, I will not destroy it. Then he spoke to him yet again and said, suppose there should be found 40 there. So he said, I will not do it for the sake of 40. And then he said, let not the Lord be angry.
I will speak. Suppose 30 should be found there. He said, I won't do it if I find 30 there. He said, indeed now I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord.
Suppose 20 should be found there. He said, I won't destroy it for the sake of 20. And then he said, let not the Lord be angry. And I will speak but once more.
Suppose 10 should be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for the sake of 10. So the Lord went his way as soon as he had finished speaking with Abraham and Abraham returned to his place.
It sounds like they're arguing. It sounds like Abraham is backing God into a corner until you get to verse 33. And in verse 33, it doesn't say and when Abraham was finished and had done what he wanted, it says when God was finished, when the Lord had finished.
So what we understand here is that God all the while had in his perfect will to be merciful by separating the righteous, that would be Lot, and family away from them and then destroying the wicked. It was God's plan all along. But God wanted Abraham to be a part of the process. So God initiates the conversation, leads him through it. And when God is done with Abraham asking what God wanted him to ask, it was done.
It was finished. The Lord is the one leading it. The Lord is the one who wanted to show mercy all along but wanted Abraham to be involved in prayer as part of the process. Therein lies the beauty of prayer. Prayer isn't getting my will done in heaven but God's will done on earth.
And God has his perfect plan. And so in prayer, God invites me to tap into his program to become at one with him and to pray for things. And then when you see things happen according to the will of God, many of which have been included in your prayers and in my prayers, there's a great satisfaction of laboring together with the Lord. So I agree with Warren Wiersbe that Abraham here becomes one of the select group of people known as intercessors, people who pray for people, people who labor in prayer for people.
And now I don't know if you're called to that ministry of intercessory prayer, but I believe all Christians are called at some point to intercede for others. In fact, one of the things that I have loved for years, and I just got my copy again this year, YWAM has a beautiful prayer journal. And one of the reasons I've always loved YWAM's prayer journal is it gives me people groups every day of the year to pray for. And there's a write-up of their needs, like the slave trade is sort of the focus this month in different parts of the world and praying for specific governments. Then the days of the week are broken up to pray for family and for media and for government and for business, etc. And I love having that little time in the morning, it's a regiment time where I can intercede for other people and be a part of God's great plan. I encourage you to get some kind of plan of persevering for others in prayer.
It doesn't have to be that one, it could be any, you could write one on your own if you'd want to. But just to be involved, it was Paul who wrote to Timothy and said, I would, that you first of all would intercede, pray for kings and those in authority, and intercede for them, that we might live a peaceful life before God. And so Abraham is part of that. By the way, if you want to be like Jesus Christ, be an intercessor.
That's what his work is right now. He's at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you and for me, praying for us, according to the will of God. So the Lord went his way as soon as he had finished speaking. Question, why did Abraham stop at ten? Well, he didn't want to push it, he's thinking of Lot. And Lot had a wife and Lot had children and maybe husbands or wives or those promised and some commentators believe that if you were to count up Lot and his wife and children and add a partner, a wife or husband, you'd have exactly ten. So he brought God all the way up to this ten, which is what God wanted, and when the Lord was finished, it was done. And he went on from that. So a beautiful balance in Abraham's life. Let's close with verse one of chapter 19. Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face toward the ground.
Oh, good outward show. But what is he doing? He's sitting at the gate. That means he was a leader.
He was an elder in the city. So remember what it says in Psalm 1, blessed is the man who does not walk in the way of the ungodly, stand in the way of the sinner, or sit in the seat of the scornful. Lot started by walking the way of the ungodly and pitching his tent toward Sodom, and now he's sitting as an elder in the gate of Sodom. That's where he is before God judges that place.
I want to close with this thought. The three that came to Abraham on that day and gave that promise, and one was the Lord. They came to the tent, they stood outside, and the Lord waited until Abraham invited the Lord in. The Lord didn't come and say, I am Yahweh, I'm coming in.
Open that tent flap, I'm coming in. He waited for Abraham to show hospitality, and Abraham invited him in. That's how God works. The Lord works by invitation.
He'll never force himself on you. He waits for you to invite him in. To the church of Laodicea, Jesus said, Behold, I stand at the door and I knock. If any man will hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and I will sup with him, have fellowship with him, dine with him, and he with me.
Do you want the Lord in your life? You have to invite him. If the Lord isn't in your life, why not invite him? Oh, I don't know, my life's pretty messed up. Better invite him in. Is anything too hard for the Lord?
Oh, my life is so messed up. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Oh, you don't know what I've done. Is anything too hard for the Lord?
Let's see. He forgave Abraham. He forgave Moses. Moses was a murderer. He forgave David.
David was an adulterer. He's in the kingdom. God's in the business of taking impossible cases and transforming them. So why not tonight, if you haven't yet, invite Christ to come in and live inside you, your house, your temple, your tent, and take over. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been encouraged in your walk with Christ by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you confidently respond to questions and challenges to God's existence.
It's Lee Strobel's book, Is God Real?, and two messages he preached on the topic at Calvary Church. Request your resources when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox?
Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast your burdens on His word. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
