This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. So take our Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 18. Genesis chapter 18. We'll start reading in verse 16. This is God's holy and inspired word. Then the men rose up from there and looked down towards Sodom. And Abraham was walking with them to send them off. The Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. For I have chosen him so 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 upon Abraham what he has spoken about him. And the Lord said, the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great and their sin is exceedingly grave. I will go down now and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry which has come to me. And if not, I will know. Then the men turned away from there and went towards Sodom while Abraham was still standing before the Lord. Abraham came near and said, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing. to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike? Far be it from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly?" So the Lord said, if I find in Sodom 50 righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account. And Abraham replied, now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes. Suppose the 50 righteous are lacking five. Will you destroy the whole city because of five? And he said, I will not destroy it if I find 45 there. He spoke to him yet again and said, suppose 40 are found there. And he said, I will not do it on account of the 40. Then he said, oh, may the Lord not be angry and I shall speak. Suppose 30 are found there. And he said, I will not do it if I find 30 there. And he said, Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord. Suppose 20 are found there. And he said, I will not destroy it on account of the 20. Then he said, Oh, may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once. Suppose 10 are found there. And he said, I will not destroy it on account of the 10. As soon as he had finished speaking to Abraham, The Lord departed and Abraham returned to his place. This is the word of the Lord. The Christian is always living in tension. We see in this world sin, and injustice and oppression. We live in a country that wantonly kills their unborn babies and politicians and judges protect it. And there's something inside the Christian's heart that says, I long for God to set things right. We long for God to set things right. But we also know that we ourselves have received mercy. And that if it were not for God's mercy to us, We, just like this world, would in fact still be slated for judgment. And so we not only long to see God set things right, but we also long to see God's mercy. We long to see God's justice prevail in a world of injustice, but we also long to see God's mercy prevail to the wicked in this world. And the reason is, is because we know such were some of us. We realize that if it were not for the matchless mercy of the living God, we would stand condemned, ready to face the judge and punishment that lasts forever. If you don't feel the tension and you don't feel something within your heart that says, God, please be merciful. We know that we deserve judgment. We know that as a nation, we deserve judgment, but God, please show us mercy. If you don't know anything of a cry for mercy to those who justly deserve, the justice of God, that it is because you have never come to grips with the justice that you've deserved and the mercy that you have been shown. It's actually Abraham who models for us in this passage this this sense of understanding who God is and knowing that indeed the judge of all the earth will do right and yet also pleading on behalf of a wicked city for the mercy of God. So in the first part of this chapter, as we saw last week, These heavenly visitors come, and in the first part of the chapter, it's really magnificent, it's even a little humorous, because these visitors bring the message of hope and life to Abraham and to Sarah, and there's Sarah hiding behind the tent, and she laughs, and God, why did you laugh? I didn't laugh! And that message of life and hope that you're gonna have a baby. By the time I come back next year, you will have a baby. The promised seed will be here. And in the midst of that good and glorious news of hope and life, these heavenly visitors also bring a message of judgment against the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And there's Abraham. Taking up the role of the intercessor, the friend of God now becomes the friend of sinners by praying for them. In this text, We see in verses 16 to 21, it really falls into two parts. We see the Lord revealing his plans to Abraham. In verse 16, Abraham, of course, continues to be a good host. And you notice the men rose up from there and they looked down towards Sodom. Abraham was walking with them to send them off. This is actually a little more than him just walking them out to their car. This is him walking them out some way. And as he continues to be a good host, here's Abraham and his three heavenly visitors, and they take a vantage point to where they are looking down upon the Dead Sea region to the plains where the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were. As the text tells us, they were looking down towards Sodom. You can feel some level of tension because all the way back in chapter 13 and verse 13, the writer, Moses has already told us that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were exceedingly wicked cities. All the way back to chapter 13 has already told us that the wickedness of these cities was great. They had a notorious reputation. You can imagine. There's Abraham and he's now got a pretty good sense of who these visitors are. And as they look down and stand there, perhaps silently for some time, looking upon those cities, you might imagine Abraham starting to feel a little uncomfortable. These are heavenly visitors. One of them is none other than the Lord God himself. Not much needs to be said because the reputation of Sodom and Gomorrah was so widespread. And then God speaks. And he says in verse 17, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? I assume that he probably directs the questions to the two other men that we are going to find out are angels, but it really is a rhetorical question for Abraham's sake. You see, Abraham has well established himself now as the friend of God and as a prophet of God, and that, by the way, in that status as prophet will be underscored again by chapter 20, and God now is going to, as it were, take Abraham into his heavenly council. Centuries later, the prophet Amos would say, surely the Lord God does nothing unless he reveals his secret counsel to his servants, the prophets. What happens here as they're looking down into the valley would anticipate the kind of face-to-face relationship that Moses himself would have with God. Now, the rhetorical question is, in a sense, already answered. Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do since, okay, verse 18, so since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. God actually gives two very distinct reasons as to why he in fact will not hide from Abraham what he is about to do, but will indeed reveal to Abraham what he is about to do. And the first reason is this, I made a promise to Abraham all the way back in chapter 12, verses one through three, I made a promise to Abraham that I would make him a great and mighty nation. And in Abraham, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Why would I hide what I'm about to do from Abraham since I have made him such a promise? Now, I would just remind you that Abraham has already been a blessing to Sodom and Gomorrah. In chapter 14, you'll remember the war of the five kings. Abraham actually rallies an army, not only of his own 318 men, but also of some of his friends who dwelt near him at the Oaks of Mamre. And they actually went on a rescue mission because the king of Sodom and the inhabitants of Sodom which would have included nephew, blockhead, lot. And Abraham went and rescued them. And so, well, in a sense, what God is saying to Abraham is, I'm gonna reveal something to you because I've appointed you to bless the nations and I'm gonna give you another opportunity to bless this nation. I'm gonna give you an opportunity to bless again. And it will be as the father of a nation that you can learn from what I'm about to do so that you can then in turn teach your own descendants, which is the second reason seen in verse 19. For I have chosen him so that he may command his children in his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice so the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him. Now this afternoon, we're gonna look at this text in detail and see how it's a call to men to lead their families. But notice this, the second reason God is going to reveal his purposes to Abraham is because literally I have known him. And of course, in the Bible, to know someone is not just to have some sort of cognitive awareness of him. It is to have a personal, intimate relationship with him. I would remind you that it is Genesis chapter four and verse one where Abraham or Adam knew his wife and she gave birth to a son. The idea to know is even within the context of marital intimacy, but later in biblical revelation, Jeremiah chapter one and verse five, before I formed you in the womb, God said to Jeremiah, I knew you. It would be in Amos chapter three in verse two. Oh, Israel. Have I not known you alone among all the families of the earth? The idea ends up becoming not just no in terms of I know you, I like you, let's hang out. The idea ends up being of divine election. Which is why the new American standard and The ESV and virtually all other English translations take the word no and translate it chose. So this election is of course according to grace plain and simple. But notice very clearly election in God's purpose has an ethical reason and ethical purpose and ethical goal behind it. I chose Abraham in order that he might turn around and instruct his children and children's children, his descendants, so that I can turn around and do for Abraham what I told him I would do for him. This is divine logic. I've shown Abraham unmerited grace and favor in order that he might turn around and teach his children so that his children, they turn into that mighty nation, can learn my ways, not go the way of Sodom and Gomorrah, but go the ways of the Lord. And in so doing, I'm able to fulfill the very thing that I promised Abraham, which is to make him a great and mighty nation. In other words, in order for Israel to be a blessing to the nations, she must learn justice and righteousness. Do you know I think that that's a principle that transcends ages and cultures and geographical boundaries? You cannot be a blessed nation if you forsake justice and righteousness. Now, this is the revelation that he's gonna make. So am I gonna reveal? Of course I'm gonna reveal. I've made a promise to Abraham, make him into a great nation and I've chosen him so that he can instruct his children and his children's children so that they can do righteousness and justice and then be the great nation that I've promised to make them. In verse 20, the Lord said, the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great and their sin is exceedingly grave. The word outcry, by the way, is used in the Old Testament multiple times, and it is a word that depicts a cry for help by those who are oppressed. The children of Israel, when they are in bondage in the land of Egypt in the book of Exodus, cry out to the Lord. There's an outcry to God. In the prophets, especially the minor prophets, widows and orphans and the poor and the oppressed cry out to God. And God says that there is, there's an outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah. Ken Matthew says the cries were either the result of the victim's pain or their pleas for vengeance. And so God says there's this outcry and so what is he going to do? Verse 21, I know or I will go down now and see. Do you mean to tell me that God actually didn't know from heaven? Did he actually have to, did he get a report? One of the angels comes in and says, Google News alert, there's a great outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah. And the Lord says, what do you know? I had no idea. And the angel says, yeah, I mean, it looks like it's from a reliable source. It comes from the internet. And God says, well, you know what? The internet's not all that reliable. So maybe I should just go down and check it out myself. Do you really think that God goes down to sea because he doesn't know? Of course not. This is the language, by the way, of divine accommodation. The same language, by the way, has already been used in chapter 11, verses five and seven, when God goes down to see what's happening in Babel. God's teaching his people. When God accommodates himself in divine revelation, he's teaching his people something. And what he's teaching his people is that justice is based on accurate information. And God's judgment is being underscored as judgment which is always according to truth. That's the thing about God's judgment, is that it's never based on faulty information. It's never based on a good liar's excuse. This is one of the problems that we have as human beings who we're called to exercise justice. And the reality is that we just don't always know the full story. We don't have the accurate information that we need in order to make a sound judgment. And even the best of earthly judges still have to operate on the basis of limitations and limited knowledge, but there is one who judges according to truth and the entirety of truth. Even as fathers, you try to do your best in administering law and grace to your children, but sometimes you just flat out get it wrong. Years and years ago, we were at the old building on Industrial Way. And I'm walking down the hall and I see in giant green letters, Alex scrawled on the wall. So I grab Alex, I said, why did you write your name there? And he goes, I didn't. And I go, your name is Alex. Someone set you up? No, but I didn't do it. And so I whipped him. Okay, whip is a strong word. I whooped him. I used that whacker. Mr. Whacker, that's a smiley face, Proverbs 22, 15. And I spanked him for writing his name on the wall and I spanked him for lying. A couple months later, I'm walking along with little Anna Hammond and she says, did you see what my brother did? Of course, her brother was named Alex too. Sometimes we just flat out get it wrong. But there is one who never gets it wrong. who actually judges according to truth. And what he is doing here by saying that we're gonna go down and we're going to investigate is that the Lord is acting justly in his determination of their guilt, just as he expects his people to do later on. God demands that his people be a just people. Verse 22. Then the men, we find out that's two of the angels, turned away from there and went towards Sodom while Abraham was still standing before the Lord. And so, in a sense, I think that what's happening is you end up having almost sort of a courtroom scene. So you have two of the angels and they're going down, and what are they doing? They're actually going down to witness. Why? Because later God would establish that every word, every testimony should be confirmed on the basis of two or three witnesses. He's sending those two angels down as a model, as it were, and there he is yet standing with Abraham. Now, what's really interesting, and I don't know what exactly to make of it, but there is an ancient reading in the Hebrew text, and it says that the Lord stood before Abraham. Some commentators who take that variant reading as the right reading say that what God is doing is He is, in a sense, putting Abraham in the place to judge. He's putting Abraham in the place of preeminence. Abraham, what are you gonna do about this? Those that argue that the reading as it stands, that Abraham stood before the Lord, say that he stands there is the one who is about to intercede, is the one who is about to be a mediator. Something happens in verse 23. Abraham draws near, and you don't know the proximity, but Abraham draws near to the Lord at this point, and he begins what we could call bartering. He begins bartering with God. I wanna make four observations in general about what happens in these verses 22 to 33 before we look at them in a little more detail. And the first observation is this. Yes, it's true that Abraham begins to barter. Abraham begins to petition and to petition relentlessly and it is bold. There is a boldness in Abraham's intercession, but there is also a strong sense of deference and humility. Abraham never forgets the one with whom he is speaking. John Currid remarks that this is one of the most remarkable examples of intercession in the whole Bible. The second observation, who's Abraham actually interceding for? Is he interceding for simply the righteous of the city? or is he interceding for the wicked of the city, or is he somehow interceding for both? I bring up the question because it's not that easy to tell. Alan Ross, for instance, says Abraham had personally rescued these people, Genesis 14, and now he pleaded for their deliverance with boldness and perseverance. Ken Matthews, here the intercession is on behalf of the wicked foreigners, and yet on the other side, John Currid says this is not a request. that the reprobate be saved or that justice should be prevented. Rather, it's intercession on behalf of the elect, that God would spare believers in the city. So who's he actually praying for? I think that as we go through the text, we're going to notice two things. And first is this, Abraham's concern is that the righteous not be judged along with the wicked. That's his concern. That's his first and foremost concern. God does not, or Abraham does not believe it is fundamentally just to treat the righteous in the same way that you would treat the wicked. That's his first concern. His second concern, however, is that the wicked would be spared on account of the righteous. Abraham is not denying divine justice. He's not trying to prevent divine justice. In fact, he affirms it and he affirms it vigorously, but in his compassion, he desires to see the righteous preserved and the wicked spared as an act of mercy. The third observation is this, it's obvious now, the bartering prayer reflects both Abraham's compassion and concern, but it also reflects the Lord's unbelievable patience with his servant. The fourth observation, the petitions go in a descending order from 50 to 10, reduced by either five or 10 at a time, to where it ends up ending at 10. And I would just say that every time, whether Abraham drops down five or drops down 10, Abraham is not being presumptuous with the Lord, but he most definitely is being persistent with the Lord. And I would remind all of us that God invites persistence at the throne of grace. When my kids were little, there were certain cardinal sins in my mind that I would not tolerate, and one of them was nagging me. I hated nagging. You ask me once, let me contemplate, let me deliberate. I'll get back to you. Do not ask me six, seven, eight, nine times. Any parents wanna echo an amen? I couldn't stand it. I was, kid, I'm not hard of hearing. God says, nag me. Nag me. I love it. I love it because when you nag me, you're showing that I'm your only hope. You have nowhere else to go. You see, if one of those kids would have had somewhere else to go, and maybe I was the last stop. Maybe they nagged mom and mom had just had about had enough on it, went a little Dominican on him and okay, well, let's go try dad. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, well, dad's our last hope, nag, nag, nag. Okay, you're done, kid. God says, nag me. Be persistent. Keep on knocking, keep on asking, keep on seeking. Let me just tell you, you cannot wear God out. Here's Abraham's petition, verse 23. Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Sweep away, by the way, that's just a vivid imagery of divine judgment and divine destruction. God just coming in and just wiping the slate clean. And then notice the righteous with the wicked. Who does Abraham have in mind here for the righteous? Well, he's thinking of Lot. Notice he said righteous, not smart. Perhaps there were others that he had met on that rescue where he realized maybe they knew the Lord. Because the righteous from Abraham's worldview would be those who knew the true God and who were forgiven of their sins and who were actually walking in God's ways. The wicked, however, are those who are consciously perverting God's ways and violating God's standards. And Abraham knew well the wickedness of those cities. And then Abraham says, will you not spare the place for the sake of 50 righteous? You understand what he's doing. Lord, let's just assume for a moment that there's actually 50 righteous people in that city. 50 people who know you, whose sins are forgiven, who are walking in your way. Let's say there's 50 of them. Are you gonna actually wipe out the entire city with those 50 righteous people? Abraham has a fundamental assumption here, and it's something that is a good reminder for us today, and that is this, a righteous remnant can prevent the wrath of God coming upon a place. I would remind you that that righteous boy, King Josiah, was used by God to delay the judgment of God coming upon Judah. because of his repentance and his righteousness. Do not sell short the importance of upholding the foundations of righteousness for a nation. Do not sell short the importance of being among those whom God may just decide to spare a city because he has a remnant there. And God, of course, responds and he says, sure, spare it for 50. Understand, what Abraham is going to do is, verse 25 is such an important verse in this whole thing, far be it from you to do such a thing. To slay the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike? Far be it from you. Twice, far be it from you. This is not who you are, this is not what you do. I know enough about you to know your character. You have this sense that Abraham is so impassioned. Twice he says, far be it from you. And then he asks this question where the implied answer is obvious. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Of course the judge of all the earth is gonna do right. The psalmist tells us in one of the psalms we sang this morning, he says, the Lord abides forever. He's established his throne for judgment, and he will judge the world in righteousness. He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity. The Lord will also be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Lord, far be it from you to just sweep away 50 righteous with the wicked. The Lord says, okay, if I find 50, I'll spare them. I'll spare, I will spare a city whose outcry to me has been great because of its exceeding wickedness. If there are 50, I will spare the whole place on the account of the 50. 27, Abraham replied, now behold, I have ventured, I've undertaken to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes. You see here in verse 27, Abraham's deep humility, but you also see, I mean this, I'm dust and ashes, I'm nothing, but you also see this relentlessness. He is absolutely relentless. He's not going to give up. He's not going to give up. And he says, I mean, let's say that 50 that you won't destroy the city. Let's say there's five lacking. Are you actually gonna destroy these cities because of a lack of five? And God says, I'm not gonna destroy it for 45. If there's 45, I'll spare them. Verse 29. Spoke to him yet again. Now I imagine that each time Abraham is about to speak, that he swallows hard and takes a deep breath. I just got 50, just got 45, Let's try this again. Lord, you know, I've already talked more than I should have probably, but let's say 40 are there. God says, I'll spare it for 40. And then Abraham swallows really hard, plucks up courage and says, now, Lord, please don't be angry. Please don't be angry with your servant because I want to ask again. Let's just say that there's 30 and God says, won't do it for 30. Starting to sound like a GCA auction. In verse 31, behold, I've ventured to speak to the Lord. Now, what's funny is this is exactly the same thing that he just said last time. I ventured to speak, I'm gonna, as it were, venture to speak again. And he says, suppose, theoretically, of course, Lord, that there's 20. If there's 20 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, God says, I'll spare the whole place. Then he says, verse 32, and this is getting really good now, isn't it? Then he said, oh, may the Lord be not angry. I know what it's like to have Ishmael nagging the tar out of me, and I just wanna whoop him, and I'm sure by now, Lord, you wanna just whoop me, but I'm just gonna ask just one more time. Let's say 10 are there. Abraham has successfully negotiated from 50 down to 10. And God says, if there's 10, I won't destroy it. Now here's the question. This is where the bartering ends. Commentators ask, why stop at 10? I mean, maybe he could have got five. Maybe he could have whittled it down to, you know, a sanctified small domesticated house dog. Why stop at 10? Some commentators point out that, of course, 10 was the smallest social entity in the ancient Near East. If you went beneath 10, you were no longer a legitimate any social anything. Maybe, Abraham is calculating. I've got Lot, I've got Mrs. Lot. I've got that niece, that niece, their husband, their husband. Hope they're all righteous. And maybe there's merely four more. Or, or perhaps in the end, and this is my hunch that by the time Abraham gets to 10, he's come to the conclusion and he's fully convinced that in fact the judge of all the earth will indeed do right. He doesn't need to keep going because God is just. Now, here's the tragedy. only four will escape. And one of those will be temporary. Verse 33, as soon as he had finished speaking, he probably knew, I'm done, I'm done. The Lord departed. and Abraham returned to his place. The intercessor had done his job. The mediator had done his job, and I wanna point out two things today, and that is there are two major chords in this text that we need to strike, and the first major chord in this text is, in fact, the justice and righteousness of God. You cannot read this text and miss the reality that God is a just and a righteous God. Just as in Genesis chapter six and just as in Genesis chapter 11, God has brought justice to a sinful, wicked world and so again, the judge of all the earth is about to do right. He is about to act again, one more time. Here's what we need to understand is that God's righteousness and his justice, those are both for God being and action. If you don't understand this, you won't understand the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God is both being and action. Because God is righteous in his character, in his nature, in his essence, he is light. In him there is no darkness whatsoever. He is perfectly righteous, perfectly just, and therefore because of what he is, he always does righteousness. The righteous one does righteousness. The just one does justice. Later Moses would declare in Deuteronomy 32, for the rock, his work is perfect for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness and without injustice. Righteous and upright is He. Here's one of the most important things you need to understand, every single one of you, is that God is either just or He is merciful. He is never unjust. He is never unrighteous. And so when you are praying for God to act, do not pray, God, I just want you to be fair with me. God be merciful to me. The other major chord in this text is that Abraham is actually a mediator making intercession on behalf of the righteous and then by extension on behalf of the wicked. I would remind us this morning that in Ezekiel, God actually complains. He says, I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one. But that is not true in this case. Because there was Abraham standing in the gap. There was Abraham interceding. There was Abraham as a mediator. And as Ian Duggan says, knowing that judgment was about to fall upon Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham interceded with the Lord humbly, but nonetheless, effectively, he interceded not simply for his own needs and those of his house, but for the wicked city. The friend of God was also the friend of sinners. He was not a friend of sinners in the way that Lot was. so hopelessly compromised with him that there was little that was distinctive about him, but his friendship with sinners led him to intercede on their behalf. Oh, think about that. Abraham, the friend of sinners who intercedes for their good, and Lot, the friend of sinners whose tolerance and compromise leads to a washing away of any credibility and any distinction. There are obviously two very clear points of application, I think, for us this morning, and the first is for those of you who are believers in the Lord Jesus, and that is this. How, how do you pray for our country? How do you pray for the nations of this earth? There is something in this text that tells us when we pray, and when we pray big sweeping prayers that deal with nations and peoples and cities, that there is supposed to be a compassion woven into those big sweeping prayers. We're praying for sinners. We're praying for people who, whether, listen, whether they work on Wall Street or belong to ISIS, if they die without Christ, they will perish forever in hell. And you shouldn't be glad about either. There should be a compassion that infuses our prayers as we pray for abortionists. There should be a compassion that's infused in our prayers as we pray for those who are living in blatant open rebellion sin, remembering those simple words of 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 9, and such were some of you. but you've been washed, you've been sanctified, you've been justified in the name of our God and in the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, we should intercede and we should intercede as the friend of sinners. When we get to the next chapter though, we're going to see something and that is that God's justice would not be stopped. Even Abraham's prayers would not divert nor delay the justice of God. And in fact, in Ezekiel chapter 14, God says to the prophet Ezekiel, Ezekiel, you have to understand, even if Noah and Daniel and Job were in this city, their righteousness would not be enough to prevent my justice. God's justice would roll on as we will see, but I would remind all of us this morning with joy that the seed of Abraham, the Lord Jesus Christ has come into this world and has been the one who has satisfied divine justice upon Calvary's tree. And as the Lord Jesus Christ is the seed of Abraham, is offering himself up as an offering on the cross, you have to understand that the judge of all the earth was doing right. He was pouring out his wrath upon the Lord Jesus in our place. The Lord Jesus was draining the very last drops of God's justice upon Calvary. The one greater than Abraham not only has satisfied the justice that we deserve, that's the only reason you're sitting here today. If you do not understand that you're sitting here today simply because of the mercy and grace that has come to you through the Lord Jesus Christ, need to be saved. Not only does the Lord Jesus spend, exhaust the righteousness of God upon Calvary, God pours out His white-hot justice that we deserve, taking our place so that now there is only peace and blessing for us, but he's not only done that for us, but he also now, just like Abraham, but so much more effectively intercedes for us. The prophet Isaiah, 700 years before our Lord entered into this world, says, because he poured himself out to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors. The apostle Paul would say, who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies who is the one who condemns Christ Jesus is he who died yes who rather was raised who was at the right hand of God who also intercedes for us we sing this and I hope these words mean something to you Five bleeding wounds he bears. Received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. Forgive him, oh, forgive, they cry. Don't let that ransomed sinner die. In light of the justice of God and the intercession of Abraham, we have a wonderful arrow that's pointing us to the Lord Jesus. So that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And he ever lives to make intercession for you. The only way, the only way to escape the justice of God is to turn to the one who not only is the friend of God and the friend of sinners, but who is himself the son of God. Let's pray. Our blessed God and Father, we come to you Father, we, we do not rejoice in the judgment of the wicked. We do rejoice in your justice because that's who you are. You're worthy of praise. But father, we also know that you have shown us grace in the place of grace. You, through your son, have hushed the law's loud thunder. You have quenched Mount Sinai's flame. And now, there's nothing but love and mercy and grace for us because of Jesus. God, may we rejoice in that, and Father, I pray, this morning for those who are here who are without that love and mercy and peace. Father, I pray that they would run from their sins just as surely as they would have run from Sodom and Gomorrah. And may they make a beeline to the cross of Jesus. We ask this in the name of the one who has died for us. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.