The Judge of All the Earth

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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September 6, 2021

00:00: I'm going to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 18.
00:05: And we're going to be beginning in verse 16.
00:09: Our focus verse today is 25, but we're going to be looking at verses 16 all the way to the end of the chapter.
00:20: The title of today's message is The Judge of All the Earth.
00:31: We live in a world which is terribly confused when it comes to the subject of righteousness.
00:43: In fact, the mantra of my generation when I was younger, the mantra was, you can't judge me.
00:54: I mean, there was even songs, you know, about, you know, you can't judge me.
00:58: And there was shirts, people, you can't judge me.
01:00: That was a big statement that people would make.
01:05: But now that is sort of shifted.
01:11: And the generation below mine seems to have a new attitude.
01:16: Instead of saying, you can't judge me, the new generation seems to be saying, look how righteous I am.
01:24: Now they may not be saying that with the words, but the attitude is there.
01:29: How many of you have ever heard of something called virtue signaling? You know what virtue signaling is? Virtue signaling is when someone or a group of people go to great lengths to put on the display of their own political righteousness or their own political correctness, their own self moral authority.
01:52: In fact, just a few months ago, it was Pride Month.
01:56: You guys remember Pride Month? Every company in America broke their back to make sure that everyone knew that they were on the right side of that issue, according to the moral standards of the world, whether it was painting their buildings with rainbow colors or shining rainbow lights on their buildings or taking their logos and changing their logos out.
02:21: They had to do something to show they were righteous.
02:25: They had to do something to signal their virtue, according to the world's standards.
02:32: Same thing happened a few years ago with the Me Too movement.
02:35: We have to be able to, we have to stand with it.
02:37: So everybody, you know, everybody would sign hashtag Me Too and it was always about virtue signaling.
02:42: It was about, I am on the right side of this.
02:45: I am righteous and I'm standing with the righteous and it's all about me and my own virtue and my own righteousness.
02:52: The world is simply consumed with expressing how good it is.
03:00: People are consumed.
03:01: You know, the book of Proverbs even says that.
03:03: The book of Proverbs says almost every person given the opportunity will express his own goodness.
03:13: Gone are the days when people recognize that they are sinners and they're wretches.
03:17: In fact, I don't know how people get away with singing Amazing Grace anymore because when you get past the first line of Amazing Grace, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a virtuous man like me.
03:29: That's the way people have to sing.
03:31: Because certainly nobody believes that they are wretched anymore.
03:38: Just this week I had a phone call and this is a story that could go long so I won't let it.
03:43: I had a phone call here at the church.
03:47: The church phone forwards to my cell phone so I was sitting in my car getting ready to have lunch and I looked down and I saw that it was a forwarded call.
03:56: So I said, okay, this is somebody calling for the church.
03:59: I pick up the phone.
04:00: It was a young lady and she began to ask me questions about the Bible.
04:05: She said, are you the pastor? Yes, ma'am, I'm the pastor.
04:07: Can I ask you a Bible question? Sure.
04:08: She asked me a Bible question about Jesus.
04:10: We start going back and forth and immediately within the first two minutes of the conversation she said, I want you to know I don't believe in the New Testament.
04:17: I don't believe in Jesus.
04:19: I am not a Christian.
04:24: She called to ask me a Bible question but she wanted me to know she doesn't believe in the New Testament.
04:28: She doesn't believe in Jesus.
04:29: She wanted me to know she's not a Christian.
04:30: So what did I do, church? Well, would you consider yourself to be a good person? Right? Immediately, my brother was with me in the car and by this time I had put it on speaker because I was talking to a lady I didn't know so I figured I wanted to have some form of somebody listening in to the conversation.
04:43: So I did.
04:44: I said, would you consider yourself to be a good person and literally from the other side of the car I hear, because he knew where I was going.
04:50: Because she was saying she believed in the Old Testament, didn't believe in the New Testament.
04:54: She believed in the Torah but didn't believe in the New Testament, didn't believe in Jesus.
04:58: And I said, okay, you believe in the Torah, you believe in the Ten Commandments.
05:00: Have you ever told a lie? Well, of course I've told a lie.
05:02: What do you call people who tell lies? You call them liars.
05:04: So you're a liar.
05:05: No, I'm not a liar.
05:05: Okay, let's start again.
05:08: You have missed it.
05:10: You don't know me.
05:11: I know you're a liar.
05:14: You just admitted it.
05:15: And the Bible says in Revelation 21, all liars will have their place in the lake of fire.
05:20: Are you concerned about that? No, because I'm a good person.
05:23: Let's start again.
05:26: I was on the phone for 27 minutes and all she could do was proclaim her own righteousness.
05:32: You don't know me.
05:34: How dare you tell me that I'm not righteous? You don't know me.
05:39: I said, I don't have to know you.
05:40: The Bible says there's none righteous, no, not one.
05:42: There's none who understands.
05:43: There's none who seeks after God.
05:44: All I need to know is that you're a human being born in the image of your father Adam, therefore you are a sinner.
05:50: I don't have to know you to know that you're a sinner.
05:53: But you see, that's where the world is today.
05:55: The world is convinced in their own righteousness.
05:58: They're convinced in signaling their own virtue.
06:01: And we have lost the idea that we're going to face a judge one day who is more righteous than us.
06:06: In fact, I will say this, one of the most pervasive problems in the modern world is that people believe they're righteous and God isn't.
06:14: Because this is what they say, I'm a good person and I know I'm not perfect, but when I see God, He's going to overlook my imperfections.
06:21: Guess what? That's not what's going to happen.
06:24: The Bible says every one of our sins is going to be called into an account.
06:28: And I don't want to jump to the end of the sermon too quick because we haven't even read the scripture yet, but here's the ending and it's very good.
06:32: All of your sins will be called into account and you will either pay for your sins or you will have your sins paid for by someone else.
06:38: The only person who can do it is Jesus Christ because He's the only one who never sinned.
06:45: You are not righteous, but there is one who is.
06:49: There is one righteous, there is one righteous and He is God and He will judge the universe in righteousness and that should either comfort you in faith or that should scare the hell out of you in unbelief because that's the truth.
07:10: Now let's stand and let's read.
07:21: Genesis chapter 18 verse 16, God has just finished His meal with Abraham.
07:31: Then the men set out from there and they looked down towards Sodom.
07:35: And Abraham went with them to set them on their way.
07:38: And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.
07:48: For I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised.
08:02: Then the Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me.
08:14: And if not, I will know.
08:15: So the men turned from there and went towards Sodom.
08:21: But Abraham stood before the Lord.
08:23: And Abraham drew near and said, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city, will you then sweep away the place and spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked.
08:43: Far be that from you.
08:45: Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is righteous or just? And the Lord said, If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.
08:58: Abraham answered and said, Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.
09:04: Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking, will you destroy the whole city for the lack of five? And he said, I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.
09:13: Again, he spoke to him and said, Suppose forty are found there.
09:15: He answered, For the sake of forty, I will not do it.
09:17: Then he said, Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak.
09:21: Suppose thirty are found there.
09:23: He answered, I will not do it if I find thirty there.
09:25: He said, Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, suppose twenty are there.
09:30: He answered, For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.
09:33: Then he answered, Oh, let not the Lord be angry.
09:36: And I will speak again but this once.
09:39: Suppose ten are found there.
09:43: He answered, For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.
09:48: And the Lord went his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham and Abraham returned to his place.
09:55: So ends the chapter.
09:56: Let's pray.
09:57: Father, I praise you and thank you for this word and I praise you that you are a righteous God.
10:04: Your righteousness is truly unfathomable because it is an uncorruptible righteousness.
10:15: And we who are sinners, we who are unrighteous, Lord, we have a hard time understanding that.
10:20: And yet that is what your word teaches us.
10:24: So I pray today that we would be consumed with your righteousness and also exposed in our unrighteousness so that we would never hold to our own goodness, but that we would cling to the goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from whom there is none righteous, no, not one.
10:41: We pray this in Jesus name.
10:44: Amen.
11:06: What do you think of when you hear the word character? Most of us might think about the personality of someone.
11:18: Some of you may, if I say character, you may think like a character in a movie or fictional character, but generally when I say character.
11:25: People begin to think about.
11:28: The way someone is like if I said that man has a good character or that man has a bad character, that man has a wicked character.
11:37: Character is what makes a person who they are.
11:40: We call them characteristics, persons defined by his characteristics, and so to really in a sense is God.
11:51: God defines himself to us by his characteristics or what in theological term we call his attributes.
11:58: We define God by his attributes.
12:01: What does the Bible tell us about God's attributes or his character? The Bible tells us God is patient.
12:07: He's loving.
12:09: He's merciful.
12:10: He's gracious.
12:12: It also tells us that he's holy, that he is just.
12:17: That even though he is slow to anger, he is a God of wrath and the Bible clearly proclaims the characteristics of God in many passages and one of the ones that we see God's characteristics most clearly displayed is in this passage because what we see today is Abraham has just experienced one of the most intimate moments with God in the Bible, not just in his life but in the whole Bible.
12:50: Abraham is sitting at his tent in the cool of the day.
12:53: Here comes God in the form of a man with two angels with him and Abraham sees them.
13:01: He runs.
13:02: He bows his face down to them and he says, please come and eat with me.
13:06: He goes and he tells his servants slaughter the calf and make a good meal.
13:10: He tells his wife, take six gallons of flour and make bread and get the curds and the milk and everything and have this wonderful feast for God.
13:19: So we see Abraham's hospitality and Abraham sits down with God and he has this wonderful moment.
13:24: Then we remember Sarah's at the door.
13:26: She's listening.
13:27: Remember last week she's listening to the tent door.
13:29: God says this time next year Sarah will have a son and she laughs because she's 90 years old.
13:35: Can't believe a 90 year old woman is going to have a baby.
13:37: She laughs and God says, why did she laugh? And then she goes, oh I didn't laugh.
13:43: And God says, yes you did.
13:45: Because I'm God and I know everything.
13:49: Not exactly how he said it.
13:50: That's Keith's standard version.
13:51: But this is what happened.
13:53: God says, yes you did.
13:55: You laughed.
13:57: Well that's where we ended last week.
14:00: We ended with Sarah's incredulity.
14:02: Sarah's difficulty believing what God had to say.
14:06: And Sarah did have difficulty believing what God had to say.
14:11: As that part of the narrative comes to an end, we find out that this interlude with Abraham, this meal with Abraham, was actually a stop on the way to somewhere else.
14:26: God and his two angels were actually on the way to begin an investigation.
14:38: There was a city where the cries of some had met the ears of God in regard to the wickedness of the city.
14:55: And so God chooses to go and investigate what's going on.
15:00: Now some people may find issue with that.
15:03: Some people may say, wait a minute, wait a minute.
15:06: Why does God have to investigate anything? He's God.
15:09: I go up to heaven, you're there.
15:11: I go down to Sheol, you're there.
15:12: I go left and right, before and after, you know, Psalm 139.
15:15: Everywhere I go, you are there.
15:17: Why does God have to investigate? Well, a couple things to consider.
15:23: Number one, God is just.
15:28: And God is going to send two angels into that city to act as witnesses against that city.
15:34: Because what did the Old Testament law demand that guilt required? The testimony of two or more witnesses.
15:43: In fact, I'll give you a little story about myself.
15:46: Years ago, I was called for jury duty.
15:49: Downtown Jacksonville, they called me to jury duty.
15:51: And I got all the way to like the third level.
15:53: The first level, you know, they cut you and you hope you're in the first one.
15:55: Everybody's excited, wanting to get out of there.
15:57: All right, so you hope to get out on the first try.
15:58: I didn't.
15:59: I made it to the second level.
16:00: Made it to the third level.
16:01: And I'm sitting in the actual like room with the judge and the two prosecutors.
16:06: I'm there.
16:07: And they start asking questions to each of us.
16:09: What do you do for a living? You know, these questions.
16:12: And they get to me.
16:14: And they said, Mr.
16:14: Foskey, I have a question.
16:16: Could you prosecute? Could you find someone guilty on the basis of one witness? I was like, I'm out of here.
16:28: Because I know what they want to hear, right? They want to hear, sure.
16:32: And I stood up and I said, based on the scriptural demand of two or more witnesses, if all you have is one witness and no corroborating evidence, no fingerprints or anything else that could bear a second witness, no, I cannot simply take the word of one individual to make another person be found guilty.
16:50: No, I can't take one witness.
16:51: You're dismissed.
16:52: So if you want to know how to beat jury duty, that's how to do it.
16:56: Because it's the truth, right? The Bible demands two witnesses.
16:58: So God comes.
16:59: He's got his two angels.
17:01: And they're going towards Sodom.
17:03: And they make this sidestep off to have this meal with Abraham.
17:07: They tell Abraham, this time next year, when I come by here next year, you're going to have a child.
17:12: And then they get up to go.
17:14: And God says to himself, this is what's interesting in the narrative, because the narrative doesn't say that God says this out loud.
17:21: In fact, as I was reading it and as I was studying it, I got to thinking, are we getting the internal monologue of God? Look at the text.
17:29: See what I'm talking about.
17:30: Notice what it says.
17:32: Verse 22, it says, So the men turned from there and went towards Sodom.
17:35: That's the two men, because it says, But Abraham stood still before the Lord.
17:40: And there's actually, there's some translational argument here as to whether or not that should say the Lord stood before Abraham or Abraham stood before the Lord.
17:50: And some people say, well, if the Lord's standing before Abraham, it makes Abraham the judge.
17:52: And that's kind of an odd thing.
17:54: But I think the translation is fine, where it says that Abraham stood before the Lord.
17:58: It says, Then Abraham drew near and said, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? I'm way ahead of myself.
18:04: Excuse me.
18:04: I should be back at verse 16.
18:06: I was ahead of myself.
18:07: I was at verse 22.
18:08: Go back up to verse 16.
18:09: Then the men set out from there, and they looked down towards Sodom and Abraham with them, and he sent them out on their way.
18:14: And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? That's what I was saying.
18:17: I don't know if that's God saying that out loud, or if that's an inner monologue.
18:21: Is God saying out loud, Should I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? Or is God saying this to Himself? Because who's writing this? Moses.
18:29: He's writing this hundreds of years later, and he's giving us insight into the mind of God in this moment.
18:35: So is God saying this out loud, or are we hearing an inner monologue? We don't know.
18:39: It doesn't say for certain.
18:40: But this is what he does say.
18:42: It says, The Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.
18:51: For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him, to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.
19:04: Here's the point.
19:06: God is saying, I need to explain this to Abraham, because Abraham is the head fountain of an entire people, what will be an entire nation, that I will call to righteousness.
19:22: So it would not be good if I hide this from him.
19:26: In fact, it would be better if I tell him what I'm doing, so that he knows what righteousness looks like.
19:34: Again, why did God send the two witnesses? So that Abraham would know what righteousness looks like.
19:42: Why is God doing an investigation, when he could just sit in heaven and know what's going on, so he can display to Abraham what righteousness looks like.
19:51: Abraham is the head fountain of a nation, that is going to be called to righteousness, and God says, I'm not going to hide this from him, but I'm going to tell him about this, so that he will tell his children what righteousness looks like.
20:02: You understand that among the people of God, among the Hebrew people, Sodom would stand as a warning forever against what? Unrighteousness.
20:12: And it will stand as a warning for what? It stands as a warning for what God will do to the wicked, and that he will do it justly.
20:25: So he says to himself, should I tell Abraham? Of course I should tell Abraham.
20:30: Of course Abraham needs to know.
20:31: He's going to be the father of a nation, that I'm going to call to righteousness, and I'm going to show him what righteousness looks like.
20:38: I'm going to show him what it looks like, for God to investigate, and to find a people guilty.
20:49: Think for a moment about the end of the book of Revelation.
20:55: The end of the book of Revelation says this, it says all men will be gathered before the throne, and books will be opened.
21:04: You ever wonder what those books are? There's one that's the book of life, but it says other books were opened.
21:12: I am fully convinced that that is the book, the books of our lives.
21:16: So that when God looks at us at judgment, if we are guilty, he has all of our guilt right there.
21:27: No one can stand before him and say God, like Sarah who said I didn't laugh, we can't say that.
21:34: When I face God, he's going to know every word that ever came out of my mouth.
21:38: He's going to know every thought that ever came into my mind.
21:40: He's going to know every time I lusted, every time I was unrighteously angry, every time I took my attitude and my anger out of my wife and my children.
21:49: He's going to know it all.
21:51: I will have no righteousness to stand on my own.
21:54: I will only have my sin standing before my Lord.
21:58: And if I don't have Jesus Christ, I'm lost.
22:01: If all I have is Christ, or if I don't have Christ, I have nothing.
22:05: And if I have Christ, I have everything.
22:08: That's the point of the gospel.
22:10: Right? God is just.
22:17: And again, I tell you, that should frighten you, as well as comfort you.
22:25: Because if you're in Christ, the Bible says Christ's righteousness becomes yours, and you are veiled under his righteousness, you're covered in his blood, covered in his righteousness, and you are seen by the Father as righteous.
22:41: But if you are not in Christ, you are found outside of Christ.
22:48: You are like those people outside the ark, where the water came crashing down, and there was nothing to protect them from the wrath of God.
22:56: That's it.
23:00: God is righteous.
23:01: He says to Abraham, I'm going to show you what righteousness looks like.
23:05: I'm going to judge this city.
23:07: I'm going to send my witnesses down.
23:09: They're going to act as my agents of investigation.
23:12: They're going to go down.
23:13: They're going to see what's going on.
23:15: And next week, we're going to see what happened.
23:16: And it is a horrible thing.
23:19: I must say, it's one of the chapters that I have not looked forward to preaching, because there's so much in there that's just ugly to the soul.
23:27: And I don't like to think ugly things or talk about ugly things, but it's an ugly chapter.
23:32: What those men want to do to those angels is a desperate and wicked thing.
23:40: God knows what's going to happen.
23:41: And again, God knows judgment.
23:43: Why does He pull out the books? To show us that He's righteous.
23:47: Why does He send the witnesses? To show that He's righteous.
23:50: To show that He's going to investigate this claim against Sodom and find that it's absolutely true.
24:04: But then, we see something that we might not expect.
24:10: God tells Abraham that He's going to judge.
24:15: Verse 20 says, Then the Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me.
24:25: And if not, I will know.
24:27: Again, the investigation.
24:28: So the men turned, this is the two men, turned from there and went towards Sodom.
24:33: But Abraham stood before the Lord and then Abraham drew near and said, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? You know what Abraham's doing right there? What's that? He's pleading.
24:47: He's interceding.
24:48: But pleading is good.
24:50: Abraham, right now, I believe he's talking to Jesus.
24:55: I made that case last week, right? So this incarnation, or not incarnation, but a manifestation of God in the flesh is Jesus.
25:05: Incarnation doesn't happen until Bethlehem, but this is a manifestation of Christ in the flesh.
25:10: And so Christ is the ultimate intercessor, right? In fact, the Bible says there's only one intercessor between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
25:18: But Abraham gets to be an intercessor with him on behalf of Sodom.
25:26: And maybe you might think to yourself, why in the world would anyone intercede for a city as wicked as Sodom? Let me ask you a question.
25:35: You ever prayed for your country? Do you think we're less wicked than Sodom? If you do, just stay after for 20 minutes and we'll talk a little bit about that.
25:46: Do you think we are less wicked than Sodom? I heard a pastor one time, and I don't agree with this, but I understand the thought.
25:56: He said if God doesn't bring fire and brimstone upon America, He's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.
26:02: Now I don't agree with that because God doesn't have to apologize to anybody, but you get the idea.
26:06: The heart behind that is saying that we are no more righteous, no more virtuous than the wicked Sodom.
26:16: But you still pray for your country, don't you? You still pray for your leaders.
26:21: You still call on God to bring repentance to your people.
26:26: Right? We do that.
26:29: And Abraham has skin in the game because his nephew is there.
26:37: He knows there's at least one righteous man.
26:40: And I know some of you guys are thinking, I know Lot.
26:43: Lot is not very righteous.
26:46: Take it up with Peter because if you go to the New Testament and read the books of Peter, he says Lot was a righteous man.
26:52: He calls him righteous.
26:55: So take it up with Peter if you don't think Lot's righteous.
26:57: There's at least one man righteous in all of Sodom, and it's Abraham's nephew.
27:02: Now he wasn't the smartest guy in the world because he was living there, but hey, again, you can be righteous and make mistakes.
27:11: What does righteousness mean? It means a man of faith, right? By faith we're counted righteous.
27:15: The Bible says it's just.
27:16: The righteous shall live by faith, right? So Lot is a man of faith.
27:21: Abraham knows there's one.
27:23: But notice that he doesn't say to God in this narrative, he doesn't say, God, won't you spare Sodom for the sake of Lot? He doesn't say that.
27:37: But rather, he begins with God with what we would consider to be a round figure of people.
27:44: He said, God, let me ask you this.
27:49: I know the city is wicked.
27:51: I'm sure that he had seen some of the wickedness.
27:53: Maybe he has even been introduced to people who've come out of Sodom and been victims of the wickedness.
28:02: You know, Abraham certainly knows what goes on down there.
28:04: He knows the wickedness of Sodom.
28:06: But he says to God, Supposed there were 50 righteous.
28:14: Notice what God says in response.
28:18: He says, I will not destroy the city if there are 50 righteous.
28:23: Read it with me.
28:23: This is important because he doesn't say, I'll save the 50.
28:26: He says, I won't destroy the city.
28:29: That's important.
28:30: Look here.
28:30: He says, Verse 24, Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city.
28:34: Would you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the righteous 50 who are in it? Verse 25, Far be it from you to do such a thing to put the righteous to death with the wicked so that the righteous may be as fair as the wicked.
28:46: Far be it from you.
28:47: Shall not the judge of the earth do what is just? And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom 50 righteous, I will spare the whole place for their sake.
28:57: So here's what Abraham has done.
28:59: Abraham has begun to plead or intercede for the city on behalf of a few righteous.
29:09: You say, 50 people.
29:10: That's a lot.
29:11: Probably not in comparison to how many people are there.
29:14: We're probably looking at a city of thousands of people.
29:19: But let's say it wasn't.
29:20: Let's say it was a city of only 2,000 people.
29:22: Let's say it wasn't 10,000 or 15,000.
29:25: Could have been.
29:25: But let's say it was only 2,000 people.
29:27: Even then, 50 is not very much.
29:30: Right? That's like comparing our church to North Jacksonville Baptist, right? We got about 50, 60, 70 people.
29:36: North Jacksonville Baptist got about 1,500, 2,000 people.
29:38: It's not even really, it's very different size wise.
29:41: But he's saying if there's 50 righteous, and what does God say? I won't destroy the city if there are 50 righteous.
29:52: What does that tell us about the heart of God in regard to His judgment? The righteous do stay the hand of God's judgment on a people.
30:08: Praise the Lord.
30:09: The righteous do stay the hand of God's judgment on a people.
30:15: But follow Abraham's argument.
30:19: He says, if there's 50 righteous, God says, if there's 50, I won't destroy the city.
30:24: And he says, well, what if there's 5 less than 50? And God, who can do math, obviously, because He invented it, He said, okay, if there's 45, I won't.
30:40: And now Abraham, alright, we're going to start, we're going to get, now we're talking.
30:46: And he begins to go down, okay, how about 40? God says, if there's 40 people, I won't judge.
30:53: I won't wipe them away for 40 people.
30:56: Abraham says, okay, how about 30? God says, okay, 30.
31:01: And some people might think, oh my goodness, how can somebody talk like this to God? Have you read this and been like, wow, who has a conversation like this with God? Well, James tells us that he's the friend of God, so that helps.
31:16: Abraham was called the friend of God.
31:20: But it also tells us that when it comes to our interactions with God, that God actually encourages us to be persistent.
31:29: Did you know that? Did you know the Bible encourages persistence? Not, we think of it as pestering.
31:35: Because if my kid came up to me and said, Daddy, 50, and I say, well, how about 45? You know, it would be like staying up at night.
31:43: Daddy, can I stay up for five minutes? Sure.
31:45: How about 10? Maybe.
31:47: How about 15? By 20 minutes, we're done talking.
31:50: Because he's done, he's worn out his welcome.
31:54: But Abraham has not worn out his welcome with the Lord.
31:56: 40, 30, 20.
31:59: But he stops at 10.
32:02: And there's a lot of debate among the commentaries as to why he stops at 10.
32:05: The text doesn't tell us so at any, the best we can do is conjecture.
32:10: Some people say 10 was the smallest social group that was considered to be an actual group in that time period.
32:16: So therefore, that was the least he felt like he could go would be 10 people to save a whole people.
32:21: The text doesn't tell us that.
32:22: Again, that's conjecture.
32:23: Here's the thing though, he didn't go down to one.
32:27: Because had he went down to one, there was one righteous.
32:29: There was a lot.
32:31: There was one person.
32:33: But he stops at 10.
32:35: And here's what I think maybe it was.
32:37: I think maybe, maybe Abraham thought, maybe, just maybe, Lot has been an evangelist.
32:46: And maybe he has a wife and his daughters who are also of faith.
32:51: And maybe those daughters have husbands and maybe they have faith.
32:54: And maybe, just maybe, they have been able to influence their community.
32:58: And maybe there's a community of faith.
33:00: And maybe, just maybe, there's 10 people who have faith.
33:06: We're going to find out next week.
33:07: It's not what happened.
33:09: Because God said this.
33:10: He said, if I find 10 people with faith, if I find 10 righteous people, I won't destroy the whole city.
33:17: But guess what happens? The Bible is going to tell us in chapter 19 that God is going to rain fire and brimstone upon this city and is going to bury it in the heart of the Dead Sea.
33:28: This entire city is going to be plunged into absolute ruin in a way that we have never seen before or since.
33:37: So He's not going to find 10 righteous.
33:42: He'll find one and He'll take His daughters and His wife and they will run.
33:48: And we'll see this next week.
33:49: When they run, the wife will look back.
33:55: And you know what? Jesus, one of the shortest sermons in the Bible, remember Lot's wife? Jesus said, remember Lot's wife? She looked back.
34:05: She loved Sodom.
34:09: How many of us? Jesus said you put your hand to the plow and do what? You keep going.
34:14: You don't look back.
34:15: That was the example.
34:17: Remember Lot's wife? Again, I'm getting ahead of myself.
34:20: I'm in the next week's sermon.
34:21: I still got stuff to say today.
34:24: Because I want to begin to draw us to a close by looking specifically at verse 25 and what we learn about God in verse 25.
34:35: Because I think this is so important for us to understand.
34:38: Remember I talked earlier about characteristics and attributes.
34:42: Last week we saw that God is omniscient.
34:47: What does omniscient mean? All knowing.
34:50: Remember? He knew Sarah had laughed.
34:52: And he knew why she was laughing.
34:53: He could see into her heart.
34:56: We also saw that God was omnipotent.
35:02: Because he says to her, is there anything too hard for me? When she says I'm 90 years old, I can't have a baby.
35:07: He says anything too hard for me? Is there anything too wonderful for the Lord? Is there anything Yahweh can't do? No.
35:14: So we see God's omnipresence.
35:16: We see God's omnipotence.
35:18: But now in verse 25, we see another attribute of God.
35:21: In fact, it's an attribute I bet you probably have never heard of.
35:24: Because I think I invented it.
35:29: Omnijustice.
35:30: And that's spelled J-U-S-T-U-S.
35:34: Because that is the word for righteousness.
35:37: Because look at verse 25.
35:41: Far be it from you.
35:43: This is Abraham speaking.
35:44: Far be it from you to do such a thing.
35:46: To do what? To kill the righteous with the wicked.
35:50: Here's one thing that you have to know.
35:55: God does not bring His wrath upon His elect.
36:02: And that's what Abraham is saying.
36:04: That's what Abraham is saying.
36:05: Far be it from you to wipe away the righteous, which are the elect, with the wicked.
36:14: You won't do that.
36:15: Why won't you do that? He says this.
36:20: Far be it from you.
36:21: Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right.
36:29: I want to say this is one of my favorite passages in the Bible.
36:33: In fact, it may be my favorite.
36:36: It may be the one outside of maybe a few gospel passages that I have used more than any other in conversations with people about God's nature.
36:47: Because this is what I like to point out to people.
36:50: And it's something we dare not miss.
36:53: God is the judge of all the earth.
36:58: And He is a righteous judge.
37:05: And people will ask all the time, well, Pastor Keith, what do you think about the person who's never heard the gospel? He lives out in the middle of the jungle and he's just living his life and he's never heard about Jesus.
37:22: And I say, well, if he's never heard the gospel, then he has no way to be saved.
37:26: Oh, that makes God unfair.
37:29: Here's my answer.
37:30: The judge of the universe will do what is right.
37:37: And I'm telling you, I use that passage.
37:39: People ask me, well, what about people who have mental deficiencies? The God of the universe will do what is right.
37:46: What about people who commit murder and treason and never ever get caught? The judge of the universe will do what is right.
37:59: You see, this passage is a passage about God's final and total and perfect justice.
38:07: He will do what is right always.
38:10: And in the end, no one will be able to say, God dealt with me unjustly.
38:18: Nobody.
38:19: Nobody.
38:21: In fact, let me tell you this.
38:23: I wish I had my board.
38:24: I don't have my board in here.
38:25: I meant to bring it in.
38:25: I forgot.
38:26: So in your mind, I want you to do this.
38:29: I want you to think two words.
38:35: Justice and mercy.
38:38: Two words.
38:39: Justice and mercy.
38:43: Now, with that in your mind, understand, one of those things will be what you get from the judge of all the earth.
38:56: You will either get justice, meaning your sins will be paid for by you in a place called hell for all of eternity.
39:07: And that will be just because the God of all the universe will do what is right.
39:14: You will either get justice or you will get mercy.
39:19: What is mercy? Mercy is when justice is withheld and the only reason God withholds your justice is because someone else has paid the penalty in your place, has taken your justice on himself.
39:33: That's what Jesus did.
39:34: The Bible says God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us.
39:39: And you are the beneficiary of Christ taking the punishment you deserve if you believe in him and you receive mercy.
39:47: But here's the third category that nobody receives.
39:51: Nobody receives injustice.
39:53: You either get justice for your sin or you get mercy because Christ has taken your sin.
39:59: But nobody can stand before God and say, God, you are unjust.
40:06: In fact, open your Bibles to Romans 1.
40:08: This is huge.
40:09: This is so important.
40:10: Open your Bibles to Romans 1.
40:12: We're going to be back here next week anyway.
40:14: But let me just show you what Romans 1 says about people who would say God is unjust.
40:25: In Romans 1, verse 18, it says this, For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
40:49: For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
40:53: For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in all the things that have been made.
41:03: So they are without excuse.
41:05: That is the most important phrase in the Bible.
41:08: It says this.
41:09: It says, God's righteousness is being revealed from heaven against man's wickedness and no man will face God with an excuse.
41:21: You will have no excuse when you face the Lord.
41:27: Okay, maybe you didn't hear me.
41:30: Some of you don't seem like you're getting it.
41:33: When you face the Lord, there is not going to be, like that lady on the phone with me, I'm a good person.
41:41: No.
41:43: You will either have Christ or you will have condemnation.
41:48: And that's it.
41:51: Because our sin deserves punishment and either we will receive it or Christ has received it.
41:57: But the judge of all the universe will do what is right.
42:00: Say, I don't agree that it's right.
42:01: He didn't ask you.
42:04: He didn't come and take a poll and say, Malika, what do you think is righteous? Mike, what do you think is righteous? Mike, what do you think is righteous? Mike, what do you think is righteous? Just keep going.
42:14: We've got a lot of Mikes in here.
42:17: God didn't ask us for the standard of righteousness.
42:21: In fact, you know, there's not a standard of righteousness that He has to meet.
42:25: God Himself is the standard.
42:28: He is the standard of righteousness.
42:29: There's not a line above Him that He has to reach or some cliff that He has to try to reach His hand up and grab.
42:35: He is the standard of righteousness.
42:38: The reason why the judge of the universe will do what is right is because the judge of the universe is righteousness Himself.
42:44: He is omni-just.
42:46: He is omni-righteous.
42:47: He is completely and totally righteous.
42:51: And the judge of the universe, the judge of the earth who will do right will not allow sin to go unpunished.
43:01: By the way, this is the issue I take with Islam.
43:04: More than anything else, more than their doctrine of jihad, more than their doctrines of 72 virgins and all these different oddities that Islam teaches, the dangerous thing about Islam is that they teach that Allah judges your sin against your righteousness.
43:23: And at the end of the age when you are judged, the hope is that your righteousness will outweigh your guilt.
43:31: That's why so many people are willing to strap bombs themselves and blow them up because they believe that increases their righteousness to the point they go right in.
43:40: Here's the problem with that.
43:42: That's not the way justice works.
43:45: Justice does not weigh your goodness against your badness.
43:49: If you killed somebody, you stood before a judge and the judge looked at you and said, well, let's start looking at how good you are.
43:56: Mike, you got a good job.
43:56: You had 10 kids.
43:57: That's a big one.
43:58: We're going to put that down.
43:59: All the good stuff you've done, Mike.
44:02: Not one of those good things is going to take away the fact that you were a murderer.
44:06: Right? We don't weigh righteousness and wickedness on a scale.
44:16: The Bible says all our sins, all of our sins deserve God's punishment.
44:24: And the judge of the universe will do what's right.
44:29: Therefore, therefore, we desperately need a Savior.
44:33: We cannot save ourselves.
44:35: We cannot think or even begin to hope that our good will outweigh our bad because that's not how justice works.
44:43: Justice demands payment for the crime.
44:47: And every one of us is a criminal in God's courtroom.
44:50: And unless we have someone...
44:51: It's like we saw a child's play area that says speed limit 15 miles an hour.
44:58: And we blew through at 65 miles an hour.
45:00: Cop car picks us up, handcuffs us, takes us in.
45:03: We have a million dollar fine because we put all these small children in jeopardy.
45:09: Your fine is a million dollars.
45:10: You say, I can't pay a million dollars.
45:12: I can't pay $10,000.
45:15: I'm not going to go as far as I can because I can go really low.
45:18: I couldn't pay a whole lot.
45:21: But somebody stands up in the courtroom and says, I have a million dollars.
45:27: And I love you.
45:29: And I'll pay your fine.
45:31: And I'll take your punishment.
45:34: And you will be free.
45:37: One, you would want to know who that person was.
45:40: You want to know why they love you so much.
45:43: Well, that's what Jesus did.
45:45: In fact, He was the judge.
45:47: And as Brother Mike has so wonderfully told us in many sermons that he teaches, it's like Jesus stands up, takes off the robe, and He walks down and He becomes our defense attorney.
45:57: And He pays the fine for us.
46:00: And that way, as the Apostle Paul wrote in the book of Romans, God remains just because the penalty is paid.
46:08: But He becomes the justifier for all those who have faith in Christ.
46:14: You serve a just God.
46:19: And as I said at the beginning, that should either comfort you or scare you.
46:25: If you're a believer, understand.
46:28: He has satisfied His own righteousness on your behalf through Jesus Christ.
46:32: That's comfort.
46:34: But if you're an unbeliever, understand this.
46:36: One day you will face God.
46:38: And if you face Him without Jesus Christ, you will face Him having to bear the weight of your sin alone.
46:44: And that scares my heart for you.
46:47: So right now, I want to pray.
46:48: I want to pray for everybody here.
46:49: If you're a believer, I want to pray that God would comfort you in His love.
46:53: And if you're an unbeliever, I want to pray that He would scare you in His righteousness.
46:59: Father, we come to You in Jesus' name.
47:03: And Lord, we ask that even now that You would remind us in our hearts that the judge of all the earth will do right.
47:13: That no one will pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
47:18: No one will make their way into the eternal kingdom by their own goodness.
47:22: But that everyone's sins will be laid bare at judgment day.
47:26: And either they will be paid for in the blood of the Lamb, or they will be paid for in the eternal punishment of hell.
47:34: Lord, let it be that this message be clear as crystal.
47:40: That the believers be comforted.
47:43: That the unbelievers be frightened.
47:46: But Lord, let them not stay in fright.
47:49: But let them move towards Christ who is the comfort.
47:54: He says to all of us, come, you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.
48:06: Lord, may we all go to the Savior to find rest for our souls.
48:11: In Jesus' name, amen.