As we saw last week, we are at a most unusual story because we have Abraham and Sarah entertaining three strange guests; one, who happens to be the Lord Himself, and two who happen to be angels on their way to Sodom. What makes it more beautiful is that Abraham takes it upon himself to cook a meal. Can you imagine cooking a meal for the Lord or feeding angels? What do you feed angels? Nah, don't say it. (Laughter) Angel food cake, I know. It's difficult to fathom what it would be like walking and talking with God Himself, whether it is Theophany in the Old Testament or Jesus Christ in the New Testament, what it must've been like as these guys realized, "Hey, this is the Lord I'm walking with. Chit-chatting with God." There are many Christians who have problems with their own spiritual walks at this point because while we say we walk with the Lord, and indeed we do, and we talk with the Lord and yes we do, when we read the pages of Scripture, especially a Scripture like this, we see a big difference between the way the patriarchs walked with God and talked with Him and how He revealed Himself to them and how we relate with God. In fact, one author writes in a painfully honest way his own experience by saying:
"At college, I found a small Christian fellowship with no more than two dozen students in the core group. It was never easy to be a Christian on college campus and it certainly was not in the sixties. To our peers, we Christians seemed stuck in an uptight past. But that didn't matter to me. I fell in love with the fellowship I found in the body of Christ there, overwhelmed by the warmth of intelligent people who were not afraid of any subject but who also believed without embarrassment in the Scriptures and prayer. It seemed as though the fog had lifted off heaven just a little. I did not make the connection at the time but now I think it was this very delight in Christian fellowship that made me look at my life with increasing despair. You cannot awaken only a part of yourself. I had awakened to a deep enjoyment of Christian brothers and sisters and I could not help longing for the same awakening with God. I could spend long and happy hours with them, but fifteen minutes with God took an effort. I felt it must be my fault, my flaws, my sins, my loneliness struck me harder because they stood in such stark contrast to the new possibilities that I could imagine. When I looked for help, my eyes turned naturally to God. I needed His power and understanding. I needed Him, but I couldn't find Him. I was supposed to hear His voice, as they said, in a 2,000 year old book. I was supposed to talk with Him in prayer, but when I read the Bible, I heard no voices, and my prayers often seemed more like I was talking to myself. My sense of His presence was never intense enough to form absolute proof of God and other people's experiences, well, they were other peoples."

That is the same kind of double-vision, as the author calls it, that we have experienced. And yet, Hebrews 1 tells us that God spoke in different ways to different people at different times through the prophets, through visions, dreams, directly. But it says, "God, in these last days, has spoken to us once and for all through His own dear Son, Jesus Christ," so that we have the full message of what God wants to get across to us just by the Scriptures and by the relationship we have with Jesus Christ. And yet, for some people, there's that, it’s the, it's kind of like they're in between a rock and a hard place. They want to hear God's voice like they did in the Old Testament. I mean, when the prophets would speak, uh, they didn't say, "I have assessed the situation and it is my opinion that…" They said, "Thus says the Lord," because He spoke audibly to them. As I looked over this story this week, I couldn't help but smile because I remembered in my own Christian walk as a young babe in the Lord, after reading a story like this, and after reading how Moses went up to the mountain to talk with God face-to-face, I thought, "Okay, fine. I'm a literalist. I believe the Bible literally. I'll do what Moses did." And so I took a pad of paper and a pencil and, get this, a staff (light laughter). Nobody saw me. I figured I've got to have the props. And I walked up to a mountain and I sat down and I go, "Okay God, shoot." And I waited there for such a long time waiting for God to say, "This is God." Didn't happen. Yet I have had wonderful times with the Lord; personal times. The best times I've ever enjoyed in my walk with God have been those personal times where indeed God has spoken to my inmost being and got His message across. But God has spoken in these last days through Jesus.

This story that we're about to read is more than just a beautiful story- we gain insight into how God thinks; the mind of God and the methods of God. God Himself said, "My thoughts are above your thoughts. My ways are above your ways. They're so far above you, you can't even find them out." However, every now and then the Holy Spirit reveals a bit of it to us, and we get to see here how God moves. I pray that you will begin to understand God more after we make it through this study this morning. God is so often misunderstood. We have such larro-narrow limitations and perceptions of God, and going through this has helped me.

Look at verse 16, "When the men rose from there and looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way." See, Abraham is still being hospitable. He's showing God out, as if He needed it. But, perhaps this is why Abraham is so often called the "friend of God". Perhaps, by now he really knows it's the Lord, and he's showing God out as these four men journey outside the tent, probably to a little ridge overlooking the Dead Sea, overlooking the Jordan valley and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are there in this afternoon sun. They have a conversation. And verse 17, "Then the LORD said," now He's saying this to Himself. That's the obvious context. “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” As they're walking along and as God is one His way to Sodom for a showdown, He's about to judge a city, He cannot wait any longer, He is compelled to act, as He's walking along, He thinks to Himself, and it's recorded in the Scripture. He says, "How much information should I give my servant Abraham? Now, I know that he's a part of my eternal plan, 'cause I picked him to train up his children, I've got a plan to really influence the world through him, but how much should I let him in on? How much does Abraham need to know?" There's a real important principle there and there's insight into how God thinks and how God moves just by that verse. And that is, you and I have partial knowledge of what God is doing; we are finite. God is infinite. God knows everything and God doesn't reveal everything to us, He reveals parts of it. And God is considering here, for our benefit, just how much is really important for this guy to know. You and I are on a need-to-know basis with God. God does not owe an explanation for everything that He does. You and I have partial knowledge. We don't understand everything that's going on. Uh, listen to the words of the Lord in Deuteronomy 29, I'll read it, "The secret or hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may follow the words of the Law." God gives you just enough so that you will be obedient to Him.

Have you ever found yourself asking the question, "why?" when something happens that you don't understand. Well, we do it all the time. Something happens that we can't figure out and we go, "Now, why would God let this happen? What is God trying to say? What's going on?" We start questioning the Lord. Now, God hasn't revealed everything to us. God knows it all, but He's only given us a smidgen of what we need to know. We walk through like and there are things that just catch us totally off-guard; we're not expecting them. And we starting asking, "Why?" perhaps when we're leaving the boss's office and he hands us the layoff notice and you're saying, "Why Lord? What are you trying to tell me? I've got a family to feed. Why did this happen? Why did you allow this to happen?" Perhaps you've asked that at a hospital bed of a loved one. "Why? Why this, why now?" Or perhaps at a grave of a loved one or relative. "God, I don't understand." During those times, we are tempted to question the ability of God to make good choices. In fact, as we said a few weeks ago, we are tempted to counsel the Lord and what is often worse, as we saw a few weeks ago, we are tempted at those times to take it into our own hands and not trust. But you know what? God does not owe us an explanation for what He does. He says, "Now how much information should I give Sally?" But God doesn't give us full information and there some people who believe that God owes them an explanation for everything that He does. And so I will often have people come up and say, "Now, why does God-" and I go, "Wait a minute. Stop right there. I don't know the why's of God, so I'm not the one to answer your question." And I'm not called to understand all of the things God does. I'm on a need-to-know basis. I don't know what God does. I don't know why He does things. There's revelation in the Scripture and sometimes God will reveal to me certain things He does but, hey, I don't know. God doesn't owe us an explanation.

Case-in-point, beautiful example- Job. All of the things that the Lord allowed to happen to Job and the reasons why God allowed those things to happen, Job had no idea. All of a sudden we find Job blameless, serving God, and the next time lightning strikes, his family dies, his possessions are wiped out, he has a disease on his body and he's over there scratching himself saying, "Blessed be the name of the Lord. I came into the world naked and I'll leave naked." And his wife turns to him and says, "Curse God and die." Now there was a conversation in between the beginning of Job's life, or that story and the point where he is afflicted. And there was a conversation going on between Satan and God. It's a conversation that Job was not privy to. Satan says, "You have a man who is following you because you have blessed him so much but let me get at him. Withdraw that hedge of blessing and he'll curse you." Now Job didn't know it was that kind of test. He wasn't in on the information of the conversation. And God thought that it was wise to withhold the information from Job as a test. God did not owe Job an explanation.

Couple months ago, maybe it wasn't even that long, got a phone call early in the morning, 'cause our mission school was burning down to the ground up in the mountains. Drove out there and we're all looking at it trying to figure this out. Now, why did this happen? What is God trying to say to us? What's the message? And then we began thinking back over the events, how just a few weeks before that we were wondering, "how come there's no students that are applying for this school of missions." And we figured the second would really start gaining momentum and that more people would want to start coming. We only had a few applications and we figure that we should have a cutoff line, that until we get so many students we won't open the school. So, we waited. And then as the fire was blazing, we thought, "You know Lord, if these people would've been accepted and more people would've come, they would've quit their job, left their home, perhaps left another state, and come here and they would've come to nothing; a burnt down shack." Shortly after the school burned down, within the next few weeks, application started pouring in. God in His wisdom, all the time, all the time in control, knew what was happening but didn't really reveal everything to us. "Well, God, how come there's no students coming? I thought this was a work of Yours?" He doesn't owe us an explanation. And what's beautiful is, is He knows what's going on.

There's a little kid walking with his grandpa. They were taking a walk; just a little tike. And the grandfather started testing this little grandson and said, "How far are we from home?" Kid said, "I don't know grandpa." "Well, where are we?" "Well, I don't know Grandpa." And grandpa kind of smiled and said, "Well I would say, then, that you're lost." And he turned to him and he said, "Oh no, grandpa. I'm not lost cause I'm with you." We're not lost because of the presence of God, even though He does not explain everything to you and He doesn't owe you that explanation. Look at verse 18 now, "Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him," or literally, as one translation says, "I have picked him out." "So that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." These are the thoughts of God running through His own mind as He considers Abraham. "I've picked Abraham. For thirty-nine years I've told Abraham that I have a plan for him and I'm not going to let up. I have got a master plan. I have the best, the highest in mind for my servant Abraham." As I read these verses, the question I have for all of us is what does this tell us about God and His view and His thoughts toward us? You see, we are often tainted by misperceptions of God. He's this big guy who wants the worst for us. He's trying to confine us. He's trying to restrict us. No, this tells me that God seeks the highest. God wants the best for His children. The trouble is, He knows what the best is, we don't always. We think we do. But God in His mind, His thoughts toward us are thoughts of peace. God spoke to the children of Israel in the book of Jeremiah, and He says, "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, or the plans that I have for you. They're plans to make you prosper, plans of peace, not to harm you. I have plans and thoughts of a good future for you." God seeks to bring us to the highest possible level that we will allow Him to bring us. And He will do the best for us at the level. Often here's the level and we choose second best, or third best or we disobey and we're way down here. God will always do the best for us at that level that we allow Him. But He always seeks to bring us up to the highest level. God wanted the best. Notice something else. Notice, as you look at that verse, that it's a twofold kind of a plan. God has a plan for Him publicly, "He's going to be a source of blessing for all the nations." And God had a plan for Him privately, "He's going to train up his kids the right way so that I can bless Him publicly." There's a real key there, folks. God had a plan for Abraham to influence the whole world, but God said, "I've also chosen him to direct his children," how, "by doing what is right and just so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." The responsibility of the parents to pass on to the next generation's spiritual truth.

You know the old adage, "Like father like son"? It's really true. We often inherit the propensities of our parents; sometimes even the temperaments of our parents. And parents, what we model today for our kids becomes the cast by which those children are molded in the next generation. What we tolerate at home, whether it's language or filthy movies, don't be surprised if they start tolerating the same things. Uh, the modeling is done by the example, the display of the parents by doing what is right and doing what is just. Like father, like son.

We’ve looked at the mind of God, let's look at the methods of God and it really starts in verse 20 because here God now speaks out loud because Abraham is gonna enter into a conversation with Him. "Then the LORD said, 'The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.'" I was absolutely arrested by those two verses this week. God was really showing me some precious things. Look again at those verses, real carefully. Look at how he phrases it. "The outcry," or as one translation says, "The outrage of sin against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin is so grievous." In other words, "these people's sins are so outrageously against My nature and I hate the sin that I've heard is going on in Sodom." But He says notice, "That I will go down and I will see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know." That's beautiful. On one hand, God says, "I hate sin." On the other hand He says, "Now I've heard reports that Sodom is really having problems with their sin, the cries have reached Me." He had full knowledge of what was going on and yet God says, "I will make a thorough investigation and evaluation before I pass judgment." That's mercy, folks. Because we would look at that and if we indeed knew, huh, knew all of the history of Sodom and Gomorrah, we'd say, "Hey God, why don't you do something? You got a wicked bunch of people hanging out in this town. Judge them. Why didn't you judge them long ago? And, if the outcry and the outrage is as great as You say it is, then why don't You just cut them off?" Because God was giving them space to repent. God is longsuffering, the Scripture says. It's an important for us and how we deal with people.

Turn back a page or two to Chapter 15. There's a principle here that we skipped over in going through this, and I don't want to skip over it today. Verse 12: "As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. And the Lord said to him, 'Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and they will be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years. But I will punish the nation that they serve as slave and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age in the fourth generation of his descendants. Your descendants will come back here for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.'" What on earth does that mean? This is what it means. The people who were the inhabitants of the land of Canaan were called Amorites. Archaeology reveals excessive sinfulness. They were involved in witchcraft. They were involved in religious prostitution. They sacrificed their babies live to the demon gods. And yet, God gave them 400 years while they were doing that to repent. That's a long time to wait. That's patience. He took His children, the children of Israel down to Egypt, they populated down there and just the right time, He brought them back and gave them the land of Canaan, not only giving them the land, but using the children of Israel to judge the Amorites by wiping off the face of the planet. But God just didn't do it like that; He gave them over 400 years to repent. There are some Christians who find fault as if they're looking for buried treasure. They never think the highest of a person's motivations. They don't get all of the facts, they get a limited amount of the facts and they're ready to say, "Cut it off!" and God says, "I'll give them space to repent." And God says, "I will make a thorough evaluation before I judge." That's God's methods. We don't know all the facts. We presume. We see a person driving a brand new car and we think, "Look at that car that he's driving. That's too good for him. Where'd he get the money?" Well how do you know that perhaps his car is being worked on and that’s a loaner or maybe somebody gave him the car or he's borrowing it from his dad? Don’t jump to a conclusion. "Well that guy gets up at ten o'clock every day. Lazy bum." Maybe he's a night person. Maybe he gets a lot of work done late at night. Don't jump to a conclusion. That kind of stuff is not concern. "I'm concerned." It's called sin. Solomon tells us in Proverbs, "He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is a folly and a shame to him." I've heard these cries, I'm going to investigate it thoroughly and if it's true, I will know." Let's go on. Verse 22, "The men turned away and went towards Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. And then Abraham approached him and said," now this is interesting because ordinarily Abraham would just have turned away, gone back to his tent. But he's standing, hanging out before the Lord and he says, "'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 it 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 you or will not the Judge of all the earth do right?' And the LORD said:" and this is a beautiful, beautiful example of God's control of prayer, "'If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.' Then Abraham spoke up again: '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?' 'If I find forty-five there,' he said, 'I will not destroy it.' Once again he spoke to him, 'What if only forty are found there?' He said, 'For the sake of forty, I will not do it.' Then he said, 'May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?' He answered, 'I will not do it if I find thirty there.' And Abraham said, 'Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?'" It sounds like he's just lowering the ante each time (light laughter). "He said, 'For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.' Then he said, 'May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?' He answered, 'For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.' When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home." It sounds as if Abraham is manipulating God, backing Him into a corner, lowering the ante each time and reminding God, "Okay, remember, You're righteous and if You're righteous, would You do that?" Well first of all, folks, God does not need to be reminded that He needs to do right. It's part of His nature. And Abraham is really not manipulating God in prayer so much as agreeing with the Lord in prayer. And we see evidence here that God initiated this whole conversation of prayer and led Abraham along until God was completely finished Abraham, not Abraham with God. And I'll show you why. Look at verse, um, 33, "When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left." Isn't that interesting? It didn't say, "Now when Abraham was done lowering it to ten, when Abraham felt that that was enough, then he let God go." That's the impression we get until we read that verse. It was the Lord who was finished with Abraham speaking. Uh, question, by the way. Why ten? Why didn't he go down to five? It's interesting if you would read the next chapter carefully and counted Lot, his family and the people that they were about to marry is exactly ten people. Abraham was standing in the gap. He was saying, "If I could only get God to spare the city for ten people, Lot, my relatives, will be saved." But verse 33, "When the Lord had finished speaking," this suggests that God initiated the whole event, the whole conversation and when Abraham responded the right way, got down to a certain point, God was finished with Abraham. The work was done, the work of intercession. You see, it was God's will that He show mercy to Sodom, a certain portion of mercy to some people in the city. It was God's will to have compassion. He was only involving Abraham in it. Because God says to Himself, "Now how much should Abraham know?" And so He says, "You know, Abraham, I'm on my way down to Sodom to judge the city 'cause I've heard some bad reports." And so he steps on, and God knew he would step in, and God leads him all the way through this prayer until God was finished speaking with Abraham.

God had mercy already, He was willing to show mercy, but He wanted to involve Abraham. And here's the beautiful principle. One of the primary reasons that God has prayer or uses prayer is for partnership. You think about it. God doesn't need our prayers to get a job done. He's chosen to work that way, but He doesn't need them. God could do anything He wants to do. And yet He often limits His activity to our praying about it. And one of the primary reasons, I believe, is for partnership. We get involved. You dads know what it's like when you're about to build something outside or paint some part of the house and your little toddler comes along and he says, "I'm going to help daddy build," and you're thinking, "Great." (Light laughter). However, don't you just love to see your son or your daughter involved when you do those things? Now you know that you probably get the job done quicker and easier without them. But you want their partnership, you involve them alongside and they hold the nails and they grab the hammer and start, you know, beating the thing up. And God comes along and lets us hold the nails, grab our hammer, and when we slam our thumb, He's there to comfort us. But when it's all over, we have enjoyed the partnership of getting the job done with the Lord. God knew exactly what He was doing; He initiated the prayer, which shows me how God works in prayer, that it's God's desire to have us in tune with His heart and His desires so that when we pray according to His will, it's almost as if God is praying through us. We enjoy the partnership. The one lesson overall that I see in the last part of this chapter is control. God is in total control. Even though Abraham might not know that completely, God was in control. He was in control of Abraham's own life, He was in control of bringing the promises of Abraham to fruition, God was in control of Sodom and Gomorrah, the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, the people that He would spare in Sodom and Gomorrah and God was even in control of the prayer that Abraham prayed, until God was finally finished with it; control. He has it all in control. Abraham's experience is much like this fellow's experience as he writes about his relationship with God. He said, "At first I saw God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there sort of like the president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I really didn't know Him. But later on, when I recognized this higher power, it seemed as though life was rather like a bicycle ride. But it was tandem bike, and I noticed that God was in the back, helping me. I don't know just when it was that He suggested we change places, but life has not been the same since. Life with God makes life exciting. And when He took the lead, it was all I could do to hang on. He knew delightful paths, up mountains and through rocky places at break-neck speeds. Even though it looked like madness, He just said, 'Pedal.' I was worried and anxious and said, 'Where are you taking me? What are you doing?' He laughed and didn't answer. And I started to learn to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into an adventure. When I'd say, 'I'm scared,' He'd lean back and touch my hand. He took me to people with gifts that I needed: gifts of healing, acceptance and joy, and they gave me their gifts to take on my journey, our journey, God's and mine. And we were off again. And He said, 'Give the gifts away. They're extra baggage, too much weight.' And so I did to the people we met and I found that in giving I received and our burden became light. At first I did not trust Him in control of my life. I thought, 'He'd wreck it.' But He knows bike secrets. He knows how to make it lean, to take sharp corners, dodge large rocks, and speed through scary passages. And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places. I am beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful, constant companion and when I'm sure I can't do any more, He just smiles and says, 'Pedal.'"

Heavenly Father, as Your children, we are reminded this morning of Your total, sovereign control Take control, Lord, of our lives. May we be merciful in our judgment. Slow to wrath, longsuffering to evaluate. And Lord, show us the concerns of Your heart in such a way that we would stand in the gap, it would become a concern for us in prayer because we confess, even as Your word says, that we do not know how to pray as we ought. So send Your Spirit to make intercession through us. In Jesus name, Amen.