Good morning. Let's be turning to Genesis chapter 18. Genesis 18. Now we were here last week as well. and began what we're going to see more of this week, this morning. And last week we read in verse 16, And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. And this is a blessed thing. This has a lot more weight in it than we typically would think, because here is Abraham walking with the Lord. And that's what stands out, is that in the midst of Jehovah, that's who he's talking to. That's who he's walking with. In the first verse, it's capital L-O-R-D, Jehovah. And he's speaking face to face with Jehovah, our Lord, Jesus Christ. And in the midst of Jehovah coming down to judge Sodom, to judge the wickedness of men, because the cry has gone up and he's there to judge them, yet he holds blessed fellowship with his child, with Abraham. There's a sweet moment here where the Lord is speaking to Abraham as a friend speaks to a friend. And it's a demonstration of our experience, brethren. We know something of this. Believers do. Believers know something of this, that in this fallen world where the rebellion of man is going on and man's works are crying out to be judged by God, There is wickedness and evil going on and men's works are crying out for God to judge them, yet our Lord is seen saving His people and calling His people out of darkness. and giving them light, and speaking to them, and reminding them, putting them in mind of His promises in the covenant of grace and the Lord Jesus Christ, and He's holding fellowship and communion with His people. Right now, in this world, don't think of all the evil going on, but we know it's there. But right now, your Lord has called you out and gathered you together to meet with you this morning and to bless you to comfort your hearts to remind you of His precious promise in Christ. and that he is taking care of you, he's provided for you, he'll deal with them, you just keep your eyes on him. You look to the Lord, you look to him. And so in the midst of all these cycles of kingdoms rising and kingdoms falling and being brought down by the Lord because of their wicked works, your God has saved you and provided for you and will, and will continue to do that for you. And He's given you His Spirit, He's given you life by Christ, and you walk by faith with the Lord. That's just like we're seeing here with Abraham. That's exactly what he calls us to do. You walk with me, he says. And now, the other thing that we see here is that the longer Abraham walked with the Lord, if you go back now and you read these chapters from the Tower of Babel, when the Lord met, he came out there and he called Abraham while he was yet in Ur of the Chaldees. And he calls him out. and the longer Abraham walks with him. He goes to, I forget now the name of the city of his brother, but he goes out to there, Haran, then to Canaan, the land of Canaan, then he's down in Egypt, back from Egypt, up in Canaan, and all along, every time the Lord meets with him, he repeats his covenant of grace. If you read it, he tells him, he reminds him of his promise to him, that he's his child, that he is his God, and that Abraham is his child, and he repeats the promise to him of what he's done for him and shall do for him, and he keeps revealing more and more and more of himself, even as we get to the intercession of Melchizedek, who came between him And Bera, king of Sodom, he interposes there and all these revelations of God more and more as Abraham walks. And that's what the Lord does for us, brethren. He's called you out of darkness. He's called you and caused you to hear effectually in your heart the gracious call of God in Christ And he keeps gathering you together each week to hear his word. And every week, he reminds you of his promise. He reminds you of his covenant of grace. He tells you again and again what he's done for you in the Lord Jesus Christ and through the preaching of the gospel. And he teaches you something about him. He reminds you and he shows you more and more of who he is. how gracious He is, how kind He is, how forgiving He is for Christ's sake, how He provides for you, how He comforts you, cares for you, settles your feet on the rock, taking your eyes from this world more and more and continually putting your eyes back on Christ. so that you're settled and you're not tossed and moved with every wind of doctrine and all the waves going on there that are driving people into the shoals that destroy them and wreck them. He hasn't done that for you. He hasn't let you fall away. He's blessed you. and been very kind and gracious to you, to keep you and give you his word over and over again. And just as we see in, what is it, 2 Peter 3.18, he grows you in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that's what he's doing. He keeps showing you and revealing more of Christ to you and saying, just keep your eyes on me. This world is crying out for judgment, But you keep your eyes on me. You walk by faith, looking to my son, my servant, whom I've sent to save you from your sins. And I'll provide everything that you need, because that's not your lot. That's not your inheritance. Your inheritance is in Christ, the last Adam. Their inheritance is in Adam, the first. Yours is in Christ, the last. The last Adam, which is eternal life. Eternal life. And so that's what he's doing for us now. And in that process, he's drawing you closer to him, closer to him, a real true living faith. Now, returning to this chapter, we see this shown in verses 17 and 18, where he brings Abraham, Abraham's walking and he brings him closer to him. And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? And here, watch this, he's repeating the covenant again. seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. He's always repeating to Abraham the covenant, always repeating to Abraham his covenant of grace, just like he does for you every week, every time we're gathered here to hear him. He's repeating his covenant of grace in Christ. Made with you, for you, in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. Made with him for your benefit and your blessing, brethren. And so he does this and he's being taught of his God in these things. And Abraham's being drawn now by the Lord. And what we'll see is Abraham not only is learning more and more of who the Lord is and what he does and what he's going to do, but he's drawn closer to the Lord so that we're gonna see him now interceding, interceding for the righteous, and it's a benefit. This world only exists for your benefit, for the people of God. This only continues for the benefit of God's people who are being called out of darkness, And so he learns to intercede. for the Lord's people. And it's a truth that Peter speaks of, actually, 2 Peter 3, that whole chapter. Peter is showing us that, hey, there's mockers out there in the world. They're mocking and saying, if God is God, where is the promise of his coming? Why hasn't he come yet? And then we today hear other people who, when you tell them of the Lord, they say, well, if there was a God, there wouldn't be all the sin in the world. God would crush it, and he'd destroy it. Well, Peter addresses that. Peter talks about that. And Peter tells us that the Lord's not slack concerning his promises. Some men count slackness. He's not negligent of this. He's not forgetful of what's going on. He's not indifferent to what's going on. He knows exactly what's going on. But he's long-suffering to us-ward, writing to the church. He's long-suffering to us-ward. And you have to carry that us throughout that whole verse, not willing that any of us should perish, but that all of us should come to repentance. that all of his people chosen in Christ are going to be drawn out of darkness. And that's why this world continues. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, into which the heavens shall pass away with great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up." So that's what's going on. But Abraham, this child, is learning of the Lord. He's being drawn nearer to the Lord, just like you are week after week, being drawn to the Lord in fellowship with him. So we come now to this gracious purpose of our Lord in drawing Abraham closer in communion with Him. And He reveals that covenant blessing to Abraham. And Abraham here learns that he may intercede with holy God. He learns that he may intercede and pray for those in need. And what we see here is by the word of God, God spoke friendly to Abraham as a friend speaks to a friend. And he encourages Abraham with his covenant word of blessing to him. It's an encouragement to us. God is saying to you, his people, I've provided everything for you. I've blessed you in the promise seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. You're my people. You're my people. Walk with me. I've given you my spirit. I've given you life. I've given you light. Walk with me. Continue to walk in that light that I've given you. And I'll keep teaching you more and more. me and showing you what I've done you're not getting saved you are saved you've been saved by the grace of God and it's it pleases God to teach you more of that and show you what he's done for you and comfort your hearts in Christ and here's what happens next and this is exactly what God is showing us and teaching us verse 23 now Genesis 18 23 and Abraham drew near and He drew near. Well, Abraham already was near. He was walking with the Lord. Well, now he's even nearer. He's being drawn nearer to our Lord, closer to him and said, will thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? He's asking this question. Now, just understand something here. This is the first form of prayer recorded in the scriptures. Believe it or not, this is the first time where the Lord is showing us something of what prayer looks like here. Back in Genesis 4.26, it says, after Seth was born and then Enos, his son, then men began to call upon the name of the Lord. And the margin says, men began to call themselves after the name of the Lord. But even if it is saying that they were calling out upon the Lord, we don't know what that looks like. until we come to here. Now we're beginning to see what calling on the Lord and knowing the Lord looks like. We're given a form of prayer and that first form of prayer that we are given is a prayer of intercession. It's a prayer where one of God's people are interceding for the righteous, interceding for the Lord's people. And so It's a picture, right? It's a picture of Christ that, just as we heard with Peter, this whole world only continues for the elect's sake until they're born and he calls them out of darkness to reveal to them what Christ has done. He doesn't have to do it that way, but that's exactly how he shows us he does it. He always calls his people out of darkness. He causes them to hear that grace, that word of grace in Christ, and to believe it. And then the end will come. When that last one is called, then the end will come. That's as best as we understand it and believe. This is what our Lord is doing. So here, in the wisdom of God, he's skillfully and wonderfully drawing Abraham to himself. And that's exactly what he does for you. You don't feel like it, necessarily. You may not recognize it, but the Lord, through every trial, through every tribulation, through every affliction, through every blessing, through every comfort and care, the Lord is drawing you out of darkness to himself. because He's gracious and that's how He does it, in Christ, always in Christ, never outside of Christ, but all these things. that we see and experience and taste and feel and handle in grace, it's all meant to draw us to Christ, to know Him, and to know that we're known of Him, and that He is our God, and that He did all these things for us, mercifully, graciously, in spite of me, because He would be gracious to whom He would be gracious in Christ. And that's why He has drawn you here this morning to hear this word. to bless you, to comfort you in Christ. That's what he does. And to teach you more of his covenant blessings and who he is. Who he is. That he's the God who hears our prayers. He's the God who will be sought by you, his people. And so when you're burdened to pray, pray, because that's what He teaches you. That's what He gives you that burden for, because He will be sought by you. He will hear your cries, and He will hear your requests. He delights in it. It delights Him to hold fellowship with us in Christ. And so as we read his word, we find throughout his word, we are being taught. We saw not too long ago in Colossians 4, verse 2, where Paul said, continue in prayer, watch in the same with thanksgiving. Continue in these things. But that's not the only thing we see about prayer. We see his disciples asking the Lord, Lord, teach us to pray. As John taught his disciples, we don't know how to pray, Lord. And that's why I'm saying, hey, look, here's intercession right here. Here's a form of intercession right here before us. Paul told Timothy, he said, pray for all men. The Lord would have us pray for all men. And what he's saying is, all kinds of men. Don't count anyone out, because you don't know who the Lord's people are. You don't know who they are. And he said, in another place, he said, I do all things for the sake of the elect. And this is an example here. Abraham's praying for the elect. He's saying, I don't know anybody down there except for Lot and his wife and my nieces. But that doesn't mean that the Lord doesn't have more of his elect there, as we'll see in his prayer when he prays for the righteous. And so do all things for the sake of the elect, because you don't know who they are. And you don't know how the Lord's going to call them out of darkness. And he may use you in some form or fashion. through some difficulty or through some blessing where you open your mouth and you declare the glory of God and they hear it. So you don't know. So there's examples here and this is one of those examples. And he's even praying for the wicked. It says in Matthew 5.44, Matthew 544, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. He maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. And so you do those things. There may be elect there, there may not be. That's not our concern. Just do what is right. What the Lord has shown you is right. And so he teaches Abraham about intercessory prayer here. And Abraham begins saying in verses 24 through 26, let's read it. Peradventure, he's going to destroy Sodom. And he says, peradventure there be 50 righteous within the city. Wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the 50 righteous that are therein? "'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?' "'And the Lord said, "'If I find in Sodom 50 righteous within the city, "'then I will spare all the place for their sakes.'" So Abraham knows something of the Lord, and he brings it to the Lord, and says, Lord, this is what I know about you. And the Lord does show us that many times in scripture. We repeat back the things that the Lord has told us. And even Hezekiah spread the things that the wicked were saying. They're boastful things. And he spread them before the Lord and he prayed, Lord, this is what the wicked are saying. Are you going to allow this to happen to your people? You say that you care for us and provide for us, Lord. Remember us. And that's why you hear things of evil. It's not just to scare you and frighten you. It's to take them to the Lord and then see what the Lord will do with it. He'll destroy the wicked and not destroy you. But something else precious here is the Lord doesn't rebuke Abraham. He doesn't say, how dare you speak to me? How dare you tell me what I will and will not do? No, the Lord answers him. The Lord answers him saying, if I find 50 like you've prayed, I won't destroy them. I won't. And then so what does this do? Well, it encourages Abraham to come again. And Abraham says, well, I'm going to go back. And I'm going to ask him another question. And Abraham answered and said, behold, now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord which am but dust and ashes. He's saying, Lord, I am ignorant. Maybe I should know better, Lord, and shouldn't dare come to you, but perhaps you'll receive me. I am but dust and ashes. And he says, peradventure there shall lack five of the 50 righteous. Wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And what did the Lord say? If I find there 40 and five, I will not destroy it. And so God is showing us how gracious he is that he allows Abraham to come back again. And then we see again and again and again. He doesn't rebuke him. He never turns him away. He doesn't even say no to him. He doesn't turn him away. And so verse 29, he spake unto him yet again, this is Abraham, and said, peradventure there shall be 40 found there. And he said, I will not do it for 40's sake. And so Abraham, he never came as one entitled. He didn't come as one saying, you owe me this. Pay me that thou owest. I demand it and you're gonna give it to me. No, the sinner comes humbly. Because we are but dust and ashes. We are sinners in this flesh. We don't deserve His grace and mercy, and yet, for Christ's sake. He draws us to himself in grace. And so verse 30, and he said unto him, oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak peradventure. There shall 30 be found there. And he said, I will not do it if I find 30 there. And he said, behold, now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord. Peradventure, there shall be 20 found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for 20's sake. And he said, oh, let not the Lord be angry. And I will speak yet but this once per adventure. Ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. And so God never rebuked Abraham for coming to him. He never rebuked him and never said no. And then it says that the Lord went his way as soon as he had left communing with Abraham and Abraham returned unto his place. And so what we see here is that the only time that the Lord left is when Abraham stopped interceding. When Abraham stopped praying and asking for things, then the Lord left him at that time, not in a bad way, but God never told him to stop. God never said, my patience is wearing thin with you. Cut it out. Never did. Never told him to stop. Never showed any sign of impatience or frustration with Abraham, and Abraham interceding for the righteous, and asking that Sodom not be destroyed for the righteous sake. never stopped him in any way. Some say that maybe the Lord did just overrule him, you know, without really his knowledge. He did tell Jeremiah, he said, don't pray for these people because I'm not going to hear you. I mean, that's what he said to Jeremiah at that time, but he never said that here to to Abraham and didn't give him any sense of that. But there weren't even five, so he could have, as far as we know, he could have gone down lower, but I think the Lord is showing us something else in this. So first, before we forget, look how gracious the Lord is. Don't miss how gracious, how kind, how open the Lord is to all who come to him. If you say, well, I'm not worthy, you're right. None of us is worthy. Abraham's not worthy. But for Christ's sake, for the promise of his covenant, he says, come, all you that are hungering, all you that are thirsty, all you that have need. though you're poor and bankrupt and have no righteousness and nothing to your name to say, look, Lord, will you receive me now? He's not like that. The Lord isn't looking for you to come with something in your hand like he's an earthly king. You got to come with a chicken or something like that. No, that's not who the king of kings is. He says, come to me. I've saved you. You're my precious child. I've made a place for you here in my courts. You're among princes. As we saw last midweek, you're among princes, meaning you have a voice with me. You have influence with the king. And I mean that in the most godly sense. For Christ's sake, you have a voice. And I will hear you, and you'll hear me. I'll speak to you, and you'll speak to me. And I have a place for you in my courts because of my son, Jesus Christ. That's how precious his blood is, how effectual his salvation is, how complete and almighty the salvation of Christ is for you, his people, who are but dust and ashes in ourselves. Christ has made us fit to stand in the presence of holy God and speak to him as here, in intercession, as Abraham, the friend of God, spoke to God. And so don't miss how gracious the Lord is. And then we see here a pattern, a pattern of communion between God and his people. What's the pattern? Well, we saw here how the Lord spoke to Abraham, who spoke his covenant, reminded Abraham of his covenant. As you're reminded of the covenant God has established with Christ for your sakes, for your benefit, to bless you, to make you his people. And so he speaks to us, and then we speak to him through our prayers. We speak to Him through what He's shown us and revealed to us. And you think about it, when the Lord speaks to us in His Word, and He causes you to hear it in your heart, where you read it and you say, Whoa, I've never seen that like that before. Or you hear it preached in the word, and you say, Lord, I see it now. It's like someone's just shining a light on it, and I see Christ, and I see what you're saying here. What a blessing it is, Lord. And when he speaks to us like that, what do we do? We thank the Lord. We say, thank you, Lord. I'm thankful for being here this morning. And sometimes we're convicted. Sometimes we're shown our sin. Sometimes we're shown our need. Sometimes we're shown our blessings in Christ, and it causes us to cry out in our hearts, Lord, thank you. Thank you for your grace. I don't even deserve this. I know it. I was coming here and upset with people getting in my way, and thank you, Lord. Thank you for your grace to yet bless me in your son. because you will be gracious, Lord. And sometimes it just causes us to bow our head and just say, Lord, forgive me. Forgive me, I wasn't thinking, I wasn't listening or whatever it is, but he talks to us and we then talk to him. We cry out to him in prayer and in faith. And so it's not to discourage us, it's to encourage us. It's to encourage us that, to show us he's our God. He really is. The sovereign of all the universe is your God, you that believe Christ. That's why you believe Christ, because he has effectually called you out of darkness and been gracious to you in his darling son, Jesus Christ. And so seek him, cry out to him. And then there's another thing here that we see is that in the five cities of the plain, because it's not just limited to Sodom, but in the five cities of the plain, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the other three there, there wasn't even 10 righteous persons. Not even 10 righteous persons. And the fact is, if we were to do the same thing in our city, or in our county, or in our state, or in our country, or the whole world, there wouldn't be found any righteous according to our works, according to our fleshly works. There's none righteous. No, not one. There's none that doeth good. There's none that seeketh God. There's none that look for him. And Paul said in Romans three, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's what the Lord has shown us. There's none righteous in our works. There's none righteous but God, Christ said, and he is good because he is God. He's the God-man mediator. And so I believe our Lord intends for us to see from this is that, whoa, we're utterly ruined. in ourselves, in our works. If God requires my works to save me, I'm done. I shall be cast from his presence forever. I am but dust and ashes. I will fall apart in his presence like that and be blown away in the hill and forever out of his presence. That's what he's showing. There's an unrighteous there, an unrighteous. And so we need the grace of God. And that's why he's showing us a better way Don't come to the Lord in your works. Don't try to make yourself something so that you can come to him. He's saying, you come to me as you are, a sinner in need of my grace, because that's how all my people come, as sinners in need of his grace. And that doesn't encourage us to sin. It encourages us, Lord, help me. I'm a sinner. And I can't come to you on my own goodness. I can't come to you except in Christ. And that's what he's bringing us to see, is to show us Christ, Christ. In fact, it says, In Psalm 89 verse 19, then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one and said, I have laid help upon one that is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out of the people. That's what your God has done. I've found your help, your ransom, your deliverance in Christ. I've laid it all on him. I've put all your sins on him to deliver you. out of this destruction and wrath which is coming on the wicked just like in Sodom, I've delivered you for Christ's sake. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You shall be saved. That's what he's done. And so, why? Because he bore the wrath of God. He bore the sins of his people as our sacrifice and so bore the wrath of God in our place as our substitute to put away that wrath from us, to put away our sins, to obtain forgiveness for them and rose for our justification and gives us light and life and liberty, not to sin, but liberty from that sin and liberty from Just gladly partaking of that. No, Lord, you've shown us that we are dust and ashes. We don't want to do that. Save us, Lord. Have mercy upon us and keep our hearts. Keep us looking to Christ, believing you and trusting you because I'm flesh, I'm flesh and I'm weak like that. But that's why he sent Christ to do this for us. And he does, he did and he does save his people. And so I pray the Lord encourages your hearts and what you see here in Abraham, how gracious, how merciful, how absolutely kind and receiving he is to all who come to him, not in their own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Amen.