Jude #4 - Sodom and Gomorrah — Chuck Missler

Jude 7 and the Judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah

Book of Jude, fun book. Last time we were, that was the Halloween session, nothing to do with the calendar, strictly the subject matter. Tonight we are in verse 7. We don't really plan to go at one verse at a time, but these verses in this particular area give us a good excuse to do a review of Genesis, of various parts of it.

So tonight we are in Jude, verse 7, where Jude continues drawing upon three Old Testament examples of apostasy. Jude is an epistle for our time. He deals with end time apostasy. Apostasy in general, but very specifically we'll discover it's focusing very much on the end time.

And it's very appropriate for it to be a preface or prelude or what have you to the book of Revelation. And so he has drawn three examples of corporate punishment. Israel, in verse 5. The angels that sinned, verse 6.

And 7 is Sodom and Gomorrah. These are three references that Jude makes. He presumes that his readers are quite acquainted with this background. And obviously all of you are well acquainted with this background, but for some of them that might have joined us who's not, we'll review that.

So we'll use this as an excuse to review. Sodom and Gomorrah. Idioms in our language. We speak of Sodom and Gomorrah very glibly. And Jude does too, verse 7. He says, Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Well, that seems straightforward enough. We all know Sodom and Gomorrah, and we all know that they did things they shouldn't. All very comfortable until you stop and ask yourself, to whom was Jude writing?

Was he writing to the people that sponsor cable TV? Was he writing to the world? He was writing to believers. He was writing to the church. Remember? We'll review all that. We covered that earlier, the earlier verses.

Jude, a brother of James, both of them brothers of Jesus Christ, writing an epistle, in this case to the believers, to the church, warning them of the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. That's a little bizarre.

If this was a warning to the unsaved world, a secular hedonistic group, you'd understand that. And we can delve into all the practices of those early days, and what have you, and with a certain aloofness.

But as we move down this path, let's be cautious, because Jude has selected this as a warning to you and I. You and I generally, I don't think, identify with Sodom and Gomorrah. Jude is holding it up as an example to the church, and that should get our attention.

Apostasy, Fleshly Lusts, and the Church's Warning

What can believers learn from the record of these old cities? There were actually five of them, so-called cities of the plain, which God destroyed because of their terrible wickedness. And as we go down this path, I'm going to suggest at least two dimensions.

One is prophetic, that this is prophetic. The whole epistle will be increasingly focusing as a prophecy. So it's prophetic of the apostasy in the church, in Christendom, in the last days. And we're going to discover in this epistle four steps.

We've already seen it back in verse 4, that these apostates, these men who creep into the church, will turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. We went through that when we went through verse 4, if you recall.

We're going to discover in verse 8, that they defile the flesh. We generally think of apostate teaching as doctrinal, heresy, those kinds of things. We don't link it to fleshly lusts. Defile the flesh, verse 8.

In verse 10, we're going to discover that they corrupt themselves with brute beasts. And in verse 16, they walk after their own lusts. That same phrase that Peter uses, also speaking of the end times.

We're going to discover as we go, just to let you know where we're headed, that apostasy begins with intellectual doubts. But, it's certain to end with physical degradation. That's a link that's not obvious, but the Word reveals it to us.

Now what I would like to do tonight, since we glibly use Sodom and Gomorrah as phrases, I think I'd like to use this as an opportunity to go back and review a few chapters, very, very superficially, but still enough to get in perspective, in the book of Genesis.

What is Sodom and Gomorrah all about? Now, a couple of things. The first thing that may shock you is that Sodom and Gomorrah, we all know them as some kind of reference point or yardstick of sin. Fire and brimstone came down, great.

What we may not realize is that they are referenced here in the mode of apostasy. That implies something that you and I normally wouldn't associate with them, and that is that they once knew the truth.

That puts a little different light on it, doesn't it? And that's going to take us before we're through this evening into Romans 1. Now, a couple of other things as we get into a review of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I'd like to stretch your perspective a little bit. Sodom and Gomorrah, the event that we're going to look at when they were destroyed, was only about roughly 450 years after the flood. Shem was still alive and walking the earth, one of the sons of Noah.

In fact, he had about 50 years left in his life. So it's hard to get used to the chronologies back then because we failed to give full countenance to the effect of that extended longevity. A couple of other things you might be interested in, and I'll get the archaeological notes out of the way first so you can get a perspective of this.

We're very much indebted to Dr. Melvin Grove-Kyle, who has done a lot of work in the whole archaeological background of the cities of the plain, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the three others. One of the five cities, which we'll discover a lot pleaded not to destroy, Zohar, wasn't and has been found and excavated.

The rest of them are, we believe, under the southern end, southeastern end of the Dead Sea. So to get this in perspective, the Dead Sea itself, I don't know how many of you had a chance to visit it. It's an interesting place.

It's the lowest point on the earth in terms of altitude. It's 1 ,286 feet below sea level, and it's the terminus of the Jordan River. The Jordan River starts way up north and goes in the Sea of Galilee all the way down north to south.

It ends in the Dead Sea, which has no outlet. All the water from the Jordan flows into the Dead Sea, and it evaporates from the heat, leaving a mineral residue. So it increasingly gets increasing mineral content that causes the water to be so brackish that you float if you get in.

It's very bizarre because you can almost float waist high. It's a strange experience. You don't get the water in your eyes or drink it because it isn't too healthy because it's excessively mineral content.

But it's something you visit, and it's fun to do. But the Dead Sea is roughly about 40 miles long and about 10 miles wide, and it's sort of in two pieces. There's a northern segment, which is very deep, about 1 ,400 feet in some places.

The southern end is very shallow. It's about 10 miles long, and it's 10 or 20 feet deep. And most archaeologists believe that in the time we're talking about, this wasn't that way, and it's partly a result of the catastrophe over Sodom and Gomorrah that they were not only covered but are under, if you will, that portion of the Dead Sea.

So the southern segment covers a good portion of the area that's called the Vale of Siddam, and this shows up in Genesis 14 and other places in the Scripture. At the time of Abraham and Lot and so forth, this was a very fertile area.

In fact, when Lot gets his choice, he chooses it. In contrast to the high ground in Hebron, which Abraham takes over. When they decide to split up, they go their own ways, so to speak. There are five cities involved, Sodom, Gomorrah, Zor, Admah, and Zebulun, and all five were destroyed, but Sodom and Gomorrah are the conspicuous ones.

Something else, before we jump in, you should get a perspective. Don't visualize these as quaint little towns. We have found their tombs, their cemeteries, and from the tombs that they find, there's over one million people buried.

So the population in that region at that time was very substantial. So it's a whole different perspective, perhaps, as we use this occasion to take a look at what's Sodom and Gomorrah all about. Well, they're first mentioned in Genesis 10.

We won't bother chasing that down, but they're mentioned in Genesis 10 on the border of the Canaanites. Now, one of the main things that occurs, and again, in the interest of time, I won't take up the details, but in Genesis 13, Abraham and his brother's son, which whom we would call a nephew, Lot, both had herds that were growing very large.

And it was decided in Genesis 13, Lot, that they would split up to avoid conflicts among their herdsmen and so forth. By the way, you should understand something else. Most scholars who have studied Abraham believe he may have been one of the wealthiest persons on the earth at the time.

We're going to see that Abraham, when there's a war, dispatches 318 trained soldiers that were born under his own tents. And he defeats an alliance of four kings that had just defeated five others. So Abraham is not just some little nomadic herdsman, Bedouin-type little itinerant culture.

Abraham is very powerful. He has many, many resources. The study of Abraham I commend to you, obviously. Anyway, Lot decides, Abraham gives Lot his choice, and Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the vale of Siddam and chose that area.

This is all in Genesis 13. And one of the things you can do, and we do in our study of this chapter, in our Genesis study, is point out there's a very predictable series of events that occur with Lot.

He first of all lifted up his eyes, and so he went by sight rather than by faith. He chose all the plain of Jordan rather than what God might have him do. And he elected to separate himself from Abraham.

Now you can, around each one of those, build some spiritual lessons. And since we've got a lot of ground to cover tonight, I won't repeat all of that. I'll just highlight that to you. And if you're interested in that, I commend to you to get the Genesis tapes on chapter 13 and do a study of Lot's walk, if you will.

Lot is going to separate, as I indicated. Now in contrast to this, Abraham is seen as choosing the heights of Hebron. The word Hebron means communion. So even in the place names and in the styling of the narrative there, we see the Holy Spirit carrying a message to us as to the contrast between these two.

Now don't look at Lot as an unbeliever. We're going to talk a lot about Lot and all the mistakes he made. But in Peter's epistle in chapter 2, and we will look at this, 2 Peter chapter 2, we'll look at this later, Peter describes Lot as a righteous man.

And in fact, God goes to some length to extricate Lot a second time from the ruin of Sodom and Gomorrah. Good, I got a lot of puzzle things. You didn't know that God went after Lot twice. We'll come to that in a minute.

We find as we get in Genesis 13 that Lot elects to dwell in the cities of the plain. And if you're studying, if you're doing a devotional study of the book of Genesis, you can sense all through the story of Lot that each step of the way, and there's about six major steps, that Lot is making the wrong choices.

We are not admonished to dwell in the earth. We're pilgrims. We're passing through. Where's our citizenship? In heaven, you bet. We're not Republicans or Democrats. We're monarchists. That's an easy position today if you look at the Republicans and Democrats, but I mean.

Now, and we get to the end of chapter 13, we find Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. It gets worse. But this gives rise to our excuse to get into Genesis 14. And I'll just, we can look at it, but I'm not going to try to read it.

We'll get bogged down too much. But in Genesis 14, we have the first war. The first war. You can turn with me. We'll just try to skim it through lightly because that's the first occasion, and it's kind of instructive to see.

It may give you a little different perspective of these events that fill the Torah. We're going to find as Genesis 14 opens up that there's a group of four kings. They make war with five other kings. Now, incidentally, the four are from the sons of Shem and the five of the sons of Ham.

And so you can make a big thing of that if you like. And you can even come to the idea that, gee, these four guys overthrew these bad guys down south. And so you can sort of take sides if you like. But I have a feeling the Holy Spirit's giving us some other instructions, and I personally suggest as we look at this is to focus on Abraham.

Abraham's not involved on either side. He doesn't draw his sword and champion a cause. He stays in communion with God, but he's not a pacifist. When the occasion calls for it, he knowledgably feels trained servants.

In any case, in the early verses, and we won't wade through all these unpronounceable names, but the battle of the four kings and the five kings is the first recorded war in the Scripture. The five kings to the south involve the cities we talked about, Sodom, Gomorrah, and three others.

Now, if you really are a mystic, I want you to be impressed with me tonight because you would not ever believe I could pass up an opportunity like this to get mystical, but I'm going to. But if you want to look behind those names, get a good commentary and dig into it, and you'll have a field day because they're the names of major demon gods, and it's kind of fun.

But I figure after Genesis 6 last time, we really need to get back to something a little more practical, but I'll throw that out as a footnote for those of you that want to spend some library time, and the spooky stuff can chase that down.

But the point is I don't want to mislead you. These were four and five real kings. The battle is much studied. And the five kings to the south lost. We'll pick this up about verse 10. The vale of Sidon was full of slime.

Oh, slime pits. Another thing, the term in the Hebrew that's translated in the King James Slime is bitumen. Think of oil. Now, bear in mind, we're not talking about trolling the economy here, so it's not that useful to them.

Are you with me? But that will give you some insight, and it also leads to some speculations by geologists as to what actually happened geologically when the Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed. But the point is there are hints in the Scripture here already.

It was full of slime pits or visualize the Levitar pits kind of thing, okay? And the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there, and they that remained fled to the mountain. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food supplies and went their way.

So, okay, these five guys to the south lost. The four guys from up north won. Why is this in the Scripture? Because of verse 12. There was one guy that they spoiled along with, obviously, thousands of others.

And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. Now, spiritually, you can make a big thing as what was Lot doing in Sodom in the first place. And we'll shortly discover that Abram, when he hears this, says, enough's enough, and he takes care of it.

We'll get to that in a minute. But it's interesting. One of the morals here is you can take, you know, how does the proverb say that a dog returns to his own vomit? You'd think that Lot would have learned his lesson.

Where does he end up three chapters later? Sodom. And he's an alderman. I mean, he's sitting at the city gate. He's part of the city council. So it's pathetic. But in any case, Lot, Abram's brother. Now, Abram, here's Abram.

This is before his name gets changed. But if I say Abraham, pardon me, I'm using the name by which we know him better. Abram and Sarai had their names changed. Abram and Sarai and Ishmael. Now, Ishmael was the son of Hagar, who was an Egyptian from Ham, which had a curse.

So if Abram read a scriptural homework, he knew that Ishmael couldn't be of the promise. God was going to handle it His way. But if you take Abram, Sarai, and Ishmael, they add up to 961. You might want to write that down.

It's very important. 961, that's the square of 31. Aren't you excited about that? Well, let me help you a little further. There's only one square, 13 and 31, which if you switch the numbers, switch the square.

13 squared is 169. 31 squared is 961. And the Kabbalah, the Kabbalistic rabbis, believe they've rediscovered the law of the square. Not only do all Hebrew letters have numerical values, the words thus have numerical value, and all kinds of interesting discoveries.

961 is called by the Kabbalists the signature of God. The opening stanzas of the creation hymn in Genesis and the closing stanzas of the hymn in Genesis add up to 961. And so they look for that, and they see that as one of God's appointed seals.

31 is the number of El, the name for God. 31 squared is 961. They discovered all kinds of interesting places. Example, why did I bring all this up? Because Abram and Sarai and Ishmael add up to 961. When Abraham's name is changed, Sarai's name is Sara.

Abraham, Sara, and Ishmael don't add up to 961, but Abraham, Sara, and Isaac do. Isn't that interesting? That's my excuse. That's one reason I'm really a mystic. And it's also interesting that the way God changed Abraham's name was to put in a Hebrew letter that's basically a breath, Abraham.

And that breath is the ruach, the spirit. And so it's interesting to see what God is doing. But this event takes place prior to the name change, so I apologize if I read it wrong because I... It's, anyway, Abraham, the one we all know and love.

Verse 13, And there came one that had escaped and told Abram the Hebrew. Now, this is the first place the word Hebrew appears in the scripture. It means the one who crossed over from the river. That's what most commentators believe.

It's also derived from Eber, which was an ancestor. But in any case, it's generally viewed... The term Hebrew is first used here. Abraham was known as the Hebrew. He was one who crossed over. He had his, I assume, somewhat nomadic empire there.

And somebody that escaped from this devastating battle came and told Abraham, who dwelt by the Oaks of Mamre. And we're going to come back to the Oaks of Mamre. Mamre the Amorite, the brother of Eshgal, the brother of Abner.

And they were confederate with Abraham, so they had an alliance here. Now, verse 14 is interesting. And when Abraham heard that his brother was taken captive, what did he do? He armed his trained servants, born in his own house, 318 of them, and pursued them unto Dan, that is, way to the north.

Now, this word, the Hebrew word here for trained servants, occurs nowhere else in the Bible. But it does occur in some early Egyptian documents, and it's there used of trained mercenary soldiers. So the term doesn't mean just trained like they read some manuals.

They practiced, were expert at what? The art of war. Interesting, provocative insight. Abraham is not a docile pacifist. He is a steward of resources and has anticipated, apparently, the need to bear arms.

I think that's very fascinating. And we have here recorded, without much comment, the fact that he dispatches these trained servants, and this is born under his own house, and his house is big. I mean, that's an expansive term, I'm sure.

But 318 of these pros. And what they're going to do is defeat a confederation of four kings. And these four kings are no pushovers, because they've just defeated the five-king alliance in the south, which included Sodom, which included Lot, and that's how Lot was taken prisoner.

He was spoiled. So verse 50, we also find that Abraham was quite a general. God has many, many gifts. And apparently, one of the spiritual gifts given to Abraham at this time was generalship, because he does pretty shrewdly here.

He divided his men against them. He and his servants, by night, smote them, pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot and his goods, and the women also, and the people.

Interesting guy. Now incidentally, if you go up to Laish, up to the north, in the area of Dan, they have just recently discovered a mud gate. Mud gates, by the description of the art form, don't last.

We've read about them, heard about them, never found one. Up in Laish, there is one that apparently was made and buried. Something happened to bury this in such a way that it didn't get destroyed over these thousands of years.

They've recently excavated it, and it's one of the sites, if you're archaeologically oriented, if you're in Israel, you can go up to the north, to the area of Dan, and see the gate at Laish. That gate might have been a gate that Abraham went through at this time in Genesis 14.

Which is kind of exciting. When we visited Israel last year, it's strange that that particular event, that particular exposition, somehow captured the imagination of the whole group. We saw many interesting things, but the mud gate at Laish somehow was a real link to the deep past.

It was fascinating to see a gate that Abraham himself may have gone through. And indeed, it's possible, perhaps, that the attack and the destruction gave rise to an event that caused this gate to be buried before the elements destroyed it.

Because these are not of a material composition that endures, like stone kinds of things do. And so it's considered a major archaeological find. In any case, now, Abraham is obviously the man of the hour.

He comes back, and we won't finish 14, but there is an event I want you to be aware of. When he comes back, he stiff arms the king of Sodom, who wants to reward him, and he won't take that because he doesn't want...

He regards the king of Sodom as aloof, a distant... He didn't do it for him, he did it for Lot. But he does do obeisance to another king. Abraham sees himself senior to the king of Sodom and all these other characters, but he sees himself junior, if you will, to the king of Salem.

And we encounter here in the text a strange character, which, if there were no other comment in the scripture, we'd probably pass into semi-oblivion, except in Psalms, in the Psalms and in the book of Hebrews.

Much is made of this strange person because he is a king and a priest and one to whom Abraham gives tithes. Now, in the scripture, he is presented as having no beginning and any end. Many people believe that this interesting character by the name of Melchizedek, although it's really a title, not a name, was an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ.

You can actually linguistically knock that down, I think, because Christ, he's a priest after the order of, in the similitude of, Melchizedek. Secondly, he is not some kind of angel. He is a man, the book of Hebrews tells us.

And it doesn't mean he didn't have father and mother, but he's presented in the text. The text is presenting himself in such a way, for the purposes of design, Melchizedek is presented with no genealogy.

Some people believe he is Shem, because Shem is still alive at this time, except Shem's genealogy we do know, and the writer of Hebrews points out this one we don't. So, he's a mystery in some sorts, but he's primarily there for our instruction.

And he is a king and a priest, and there are very few of those in the scripture. Very clearly, when God ordains the Levitical priesthood, that's much later, he makes it very clear that a priest is not to be a king, and a king is not to intrude on the office of the priest.

Kings and priests are separate. There's only one person in the scripture clearly identified, next to Melchizedek, as a king and a priest, and who is that? Jesus Christ. Also, as we study the book of Revelation, we make much of the fact that there's only one other group of people that are kings and priests, and some of them are present in this room.

The believers who have trusted Jesus Christ for their salvation have a destiny to be kings and priests. The 144 ,000 don't. So, if somebody rings your doorbell and claims to be one of the 144 ,000, it's fascinating why so many of these weird groups want to identify with 144 ,000, because their state, their status, is not nearly where yours and ours are, or where ours are, yours and mine are, which is a side issue.

But, anyway, I want you to be aware that the Melchizedek thing happens here, but we're going to skip ahead at this point a little bit, and now that we've got that background. Abraham was dwelling by the Oaks of Mamre, and that gives me an excuse to skip over to Genesis 18, because an event occurs there that is instructive and colorful, and I can't pass this by, not the least of which it has prophetic impact for you and I.

Abraham's Intercession for Sodom

In Genesis 18, it says, The Lord appeared unto him, that is, to Abraham. There's no doubt as to the identity of these three guys. At least one of them is very clearly identified. Three guys show up by the Oaks of Mamre.

It says, The Lord appeared unto them by the Oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day, and he lifted up his eyes, he being Abraham, lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him.

And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant.

Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And he goes on, and he says, And I'll fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts. After that ye shall pass on, and therefore are ye come to your servant.

And he said, So do, as thou hast said. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah. He greets them first. He goes to the tent to Sarah and says, Make ready, quickly, three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.

This introduces in both the Jewish and Arab cultures the issue of three measures of meal as a fellowship offering. The meal is unleavened. And you'll find in the Bedouin traditions, as well as the Judaistic traditions, root back to this event right here.

And this gives rise to our insights in Matthew 13 when we talk about that the kingdom of heaven is like a woman who hid leaven in three measures of meal. Remember? The three measures of meal is a tip-off, but that's a fellowship offering.

What is the leaven doing in the fellowship offering? Leaven is always a measure of sin. A little leaven of the whole lump is quoted three times in the Gospels and three times in Paul's epistles in all cases in derogatory fashion.

Leaven is a symbol of sin because it corrupts by puffing up and is a model of sin. That's why in the Passover there's not only an ordination, but even a household ritual of getting the leaven out of the house.

There's a whole thing there. Leaven is bad. So the whole idea of the woman hiding leaven in three measures of meal is the Lord's prophecy of heresies being introduced in the church. You've all heard sermons probably preached just the opposite, but the real import.

Remember, here you have a rabbi talking to Jewish disciples, and when he says the kingdom of heaven is like a woman who hid leaven in three measures of meal, you should gasp in shock, not pleasure. It's an adverse prophecy on the church.

As many of the seven kingdom parables of Matthew 13 are. Anyway, that all emerges from this passage, and what happens here is Abraham receives these three men. They look like men, they feel like men, they talk like men, and they eat with him.

Who are they? The Lord Jesus Christ and two angels. Now, this is a pre-incarnate presentation of none other than our Lord. Now, two of these three have an appointment over the hill at a place called Sodom and Gomorrah, and we're going to explore that in Genesis 19.

But an event occurs that's not only amusing, instructive, but rather provocative because, oh, there's first an episode here, and I'm skipping over that in the interest of time, where they, in effect, prophesy that Sarah is going to have a supernatural birth, a child.

Sarah chuckles in disbelief, and they call her on that point, and there's a whole episode that occurs in the middle of chapter 18. But for our purposes, I'm going to skip ahead. Let's pick it up about verse 16.

The men rose up from there, and they looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. In other words, on the road. Two of them are going to move on. The Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham the thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.

All the nations of the earth. This is universal, not just Jewish. Here in the Torah. Moving on. For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord, and do righteous and justice to the Lord, may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

The Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which has come unto me.

And if not, I will know. That's a little confusing. Does he have to go down there to find out what's going on? No. He's just making clear that he gathers the facts, and he will judge accordingly. That's really what it's saying.

And all three men turned their faces from there and went toward Sodom. But Abraham stood yet before the Lord. And we have from verse 23 to 33, ten fun verses. I really wish I was good at dialects, because I'd love to put this on with a good New York Jewish dialect for Abraham.

But even in the King James, you can hear it come through. Abraham drew near and said to the Lord, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Now, I've underlined that in my Bible. That's the issue that Abraham presents.

He presents it in an amusing way. I want you to hear through all this what the Lord's answer to that is. Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Abraham continues, Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city.

Wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are in it? This is Abraham talking to the Creator of the universe. That's what we call chutzpah. That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee.

Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Abraham knows who he's talking to. There's no guessing here. He knows who he's talking to. Now, some of this is a learning curve for Abraham. But notice how the Lord responds to this.

Verse 36, the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. Oh, really? Here's a place with maybe over a million inhabitants, and if there's fifty good guys there, I'll spare it.

Interesting idea. Now, by the way, we keep talking about Sodom, but remember there's five cities involved. We're just using Sodom as the generic. There's Sodom, Gomorrah, Zohar, and two others. Verse 27, now Abraham's not through.

If you've got chutzpah, you know, a whole lot's a lot better, you know. Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak to the Lord, whom I am but dust and ashes. Suppose there shall lack five of the fifty.

In other words, suppose I'm 10 off, guy. You know, there wasn't quite 50, but would you believe 45? See, that's what he's saying. And the Lord said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.

Now, this is where you really recognize that Abraham is Jewish in his heart. And he spoke unto him yet again and said, Suppose there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will do it for forty's sake.

And he said unto him, Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose there be thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it if I find thirty there. He said, Behold now, I have taken upon to speak unto the Lord.

Suppose there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty. He's just haggling. This is first class. This is world class camel trading going on here. Now, if you're more Jewish, you can say this is the Arab.