We now turn to Genesis chapter 18. We're going to read verses 16 through 33. I'll provide just a bit of context. You'll remember from last week that Abraham has met the Lord face to face, as it were, as God has condescended, and with two angels alongside him, he has come, and set down to eat with Abraham, and to establish a friendship with Abraham in that face-to-face food fellowship. Now what happens next is what we hear in chapter 18, verse 16. Let's stand out of respect for the reading of God's word. Then the men set out from there, and they looked down towards Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. Then the Lord said, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.' So the men turned from there and went towards Sodom. But Abraham still stood before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near and said, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the 50 righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked. Far be it from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? And the Lord said, If I find at Sodom 50 righteous in their city, I will spare the whole place for their sake. Abraham answered and said, Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the 50 righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five? And he said, I will not destroy it if I find 45 there. Again, he spoke to him and said, suppose 40 are found there. He answered, for the sake of 40, I will not do it. Then he said, oh, let not the Lord be angry and I will speak. Suppose 30 are found there. He answered, I will not do it if I find 30 there. He said, behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose 20 are found there. He answered, for the sake of 20, I will not destroy it. Then he said, oh, let not the Lord be angry and I will speak again. But this one, suppose 10 are found there. He answered, for the sake of ten, I will not destroy it. And the Lord went his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord abides forever. Amen, you may be seated. We have learned how to have faith like Abraham. Now it is time to learn to pray like Abraham. See, in our text this morning, come to a passage where he speaks face to face with God, and there's a conversation that unfolds. There's talking, there's requests that come out. And I confess there are things here that you will not experience in your day-to-day prayer life. This face-to-face fellowship is one we long for and which were promised in the new heavens and the new earth when Christ returns, but till then we speak and we do not see God with our visible eyes. And Abraham did, and Abraham had the joys of walking side-by-side the Lord when he talked with him on some occasions. But still, we have here a prayer. As strange as this conversation is, it is a prayer. It is Abraham talking with God and God talking to him. This is what prayer is. Prayer is a holy conversation with God, a conversation in which we bring our requests before him, in which we bring our struggles before him, in which we wrestle with God and we lay a hold of the promises in his word. And that is what we have here. I believe that what we need to do as we read this passage and seek to apply it to our own lives is to look for what example we have here in Father Abraham's prayer life and then to consider how it might apply to us. And I confess this past week I found an abundance to bring to us. Abraham is an example in prayer. What he teaches us here, and what we really need to grapple with this morning, is that we ought to pray like we believe prayer matters. We ought to pray like prayer makes a difference. We ought to talk to God in our daily lives, regularly, continually, as if our lives depend upon it, and as if people are really and truly affected by our prayers. That's what Abraham shows us here. That's what God teaches us in this text. And I want you to see three facets of prayer. We're going to look at Abraham's prayer life. We're going to look at our own. And along the way, we're going to see three things. First of all, we need to consider that Abraham shows us here intercessory prayer. He shows us bold, persistent prayer, and he shows us theological prayer. And I'm going to explain what each of those mean. First of all, you'll notice that Abraham's prayer is an intercessory prayer. He prays for other people. He intercedes for them. He steps in between them and God, and he boldly brings requests. for their good. And this is a big part of what our prayer life ought to include. If you look at your own prayer life and all you see is prayer for yourself, well, that's a start. But what God desires is that you be so full of compassion and care for others that you spill out in prayer for them and intercede for them. And we see this with Abraham. He prays for this city of Sodom. and the city of Gomorrah. Now at first, it appears that Abraham is only concerned with the righteous in the city. And indeed, that's a big part of it, right? You know who lives there. It's his nephew, Lot. And Lot ended up in that city through much foolishness of his own, but he is a friend and he is family to Abraham. So the first thing that Abraham, of course, thinks about when the Lord says, I'm going to tell you something, I'm going to tell you something intimate, I'm going to go take a look at Sodom. And you know, what's looming over this is, of course, the threat of destruction and judgment upon that city. Is this what God's going to do? And Abraham thinks of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he thinks of his family living there. He thinks of the lots in his life who say, well, this person may not be perfect, but they do seek to follow the Lord. But then, It appears that Abraham looks beyond that and he prays not just for the lots, but for the lost. You'll notice that he doesn't just pray that the righteous be removed and pulled out of the city. He prays that God would spare the city. And think about that for a moment. We're talking about Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham would pray for that city. He would pray that for the sake of a preserved remnant in that city, that the whole city would be spared. Think about the attitude that that involves, that Abraham would take towards such a wicked place. This is the city that is a poster example of sexual immorality, of social injustice. This is the city that we turn to in the Bible for an example of a place that has become utterly wicked to its core. Abraham is asking God to spare that hell hole? Yes. Father Abraham is a friend of sinners. He's not compromised with them. He doesn't do the wicked things they do. He keeps his distance, as that is proper, but instead, he desperately intercedes for them. And as you think about this, you notice that Abraham in this text is kind of like the exact opposite of Jonah. Remember what Jonah says when he has that group of sinners that he's looking upon in Nineveh? What does he say? Lord, burn the city already. Come on, bring the judgment, bring the fire, I'm waiting here. And Jonah knows these are people that if he handed themselves over to them, they'd probably kill him. Well, Abraham's in the same situation. You think Abraham looking on all these pagans in this city in which he's been called to be, which is called a promised land, you think they would treat him well? These are people who would take Abraham's own life if he were to give himself up to it. And yet still he prays. He does the exact opposite of Jonah. He says, not fire, but mercy. Lord, not what they deserve, spare them. Abraham finds no delight in the death of the wicked. And I have to say, there is such a difference here in this attitude of Abraham from what we often see and often participate in, even in social media. I look on Facebook, I look on X, and what I see is people who are eager to see the fire of judgment heated up. They are ready, they are desperate for it. But Abraham knows that he is dust and ashes. He knows that he stands before God, a sinner, and so he pleads. He pleads. What does he plead? He pleads that God would establish there a group of righteous people that could somehow preserve it, that could somehow be salt and light. Isn't that amazing? When you think about how even a small group, God says even 10 people in Sodom and Gomorrah, even 10 righteous that are salt and light there could preserve it from destruction. It makes you think, doesn't it make you pray for a city like Dayton? in which we live, realizing that we could have such an influence, that we could preserve a city from destruction, that we could keep at bay for a time the destruction coming that is justly deserved so that the elect might be saved, that God's chosen people might be brought in in that time? Brothers and sisters, do you pray for the wicked? Do you pray that God would spare the Sodom and Gomorrahs of our own day? Or are you growing impatient, waiting for the fires to descend? Do you pray that we might have such an influence here in Dayton that we might spare time so that more sinners might come to a knowledge of the truth? Is that the heartbeat of your prayer? Or are your prayers more like Jonah? Charles Spurgeon has a really good quote on this topic. He says, if sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped around their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let no one go unwarned and unprayed for. There's something there. That is the very attitude of Abraham. When he seeks to enter, he says, Lord, spare this city, and may any righteous there be some sort of preservation that would keep this fire from coming soon. Intercessory prayer. Look at your own prayer life. Is there any place for that there? Is it there? Abraham's prayer is also bold and persistent. And that's the main thing that stands out, isn't it? Prayer that persists before God. Abraham just doesn't talk with God, he wrestles with God, he pleads with God. He's like Jacob who wrestles with him and says, Lord, can I get a commitment out of you? Now, notice the prayer is humble and reverent. How many times does Abraham say, you know, I who am but dust and ashes, I come before the Lord, and oh Lord, please do not be angry with this request. He's humble, he's reverent. This isn't a free for all, come charging before the Lord as if you're his king. No, this is a humble request before a king, but it is a bold one. Far be it for you, Lord, to do this thing you have planned. Abraham is wrestling with God. And then in this incredible boldness, he appeals to God to spare Sodom if there be found 50 righteous there. And then notice he says, OK, you've committed to 50, 45. How about 40, 30, 20, 10? And you'll notice how his boldness picks up steam as he goes. It drops from figures of fives to tens. And Abraham's just rolling. He goes, I've got a commitment from God. I'm not going to stop here. I'm going to keep moving. God, would you spare ten? Would you spare the city if there be found ten righteous there? God says, yes. Abraham's prayer is shockingly persistent. It's like the guy at a yard sale who tries to haggle a 50 cent item down to 15 cents. You ever met someone like that? I had to have a grandfather like that see something that's worth 50 cents and he goes, Tyler, I want you to go up and ask them if they'll take 25 cents for this. And if they commit to 25, I want you to go down to 15. Wow. And everyone's like, wow, you're really going to do this? That's kind of what Abraham is like. He's so persistent. He pushes. He says, God, I believe I have a just cause here. Would you pursue it? He explores the extent of God's grace. It's amazing. What gives Abraham the audacity to come before the Lord like this? Abraham prays like this with this boldness because he believes that prayer works, because he believes that God is listening, because he believes that his prayers make a difference. And indeed they do. If you look in chapter 19, you'll notice that God doesn't do exactly what Abraham asked him, but he remembers Abraham's request and he does remove Lot and his family from Sodom and Gomorrah before he destroys that city. Brothers and sisters, do you pray with persistence? Do you pray like you believe that your prayers matter? Do you pray like you believe that God has ordained the ends in His sovereignty, but He's also ordained the means to those ends? And so our prayers actually make a difference, and they're woven into the fabric of God's grand design. And when we don't pray, that kind of unfaithfulness actually makes a sorrowful difference in the way that God's kingdom plays out in the world around us. And when we do pray, and we're faithful to pray, we see the fruit of that. Yes, we who believe in God's sovereignty believe in the difference of prayer. It's not a just do it if it makes you feel good. It's a necessity. Prayer is urgent. Prayer is desperate because God has woven the command to pray and the necessity of prayer into his very plans. Prayer matters. Do you believe that someone's life can be utterly changed because you prayed for them? Let me ask this. Do you believe that anyone's life has been changed because you prayed for them? Do you believe that Dayton, Ohio is preserved by the prayers of people like yourself? So often, our prayer life is marked not by persistence, but by what? If I get around to it, when I feel like it. And then when we do pray, our requests are often so weak. Why is this? It's because of unbelief. It's because it feels like our prayers are just hitting the ceiling. It feels like no one's really listening. It feels like they don't get anything done. We live in this technological society where we punch things into keyboards and then the computer responds. And when we think of prayer that way, and we send in prayer, we send in requests, and we don't see the response, we think, well, I guess it doesn't work. Because prayer isn't like punching data into a keyboard. It's because prayer is a relationship. Prayer is talking with a person. Prayer is talking with God. But the almighty God who responds and engages our prayers and weaves them into his sovereign plan. How would your prayer life be different if you actually believe that God listens to your prayers and that he acts upon them? What would your prayers sound like in ways that they don't sound like right now? James 5.16 says this, the prayers of a righteous man has great power as it is working. Do you believe that? Here you have Abraham before the Lord, and he's talking to him. He's pouring out his request. And as he is talking, do you see it? That the prayer has great power as it is working? I mean, he gets God from 50 people down to 10, a commitment, and then he ultimately spares Lot and Lot's daughters from sure destruction. The prayers of a righteous man has great power and is working. If you really believe that, you who are righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ, who have been saved by him, who have been called as God's people, you would pray more persistently and more fervently and more boldly. Like Abraham. So we see intercessory prayer here. We also see a persistent, a bold prayer. But I also want you to note that Abraham's prayer is a theological prayer. And what I mean by that is that it is a prayer that rests in the unchanging character of God. This is what ultimately Abraham does. Ultimately, Abraham places his hope in God's character. He knows who God is. He knows that God is righteous and just. And so he says, shall the judge of all the earth do what is right? And this is where he ultimately rests his plea. You see, this is very important because prayer isn't just sending up flares here and there saying, God, I'm in trouble, help. That's part of prayer, isn't it? But a huge part of prayer is actually knowing who God is and appealing to who God is, praying with the grain of God's character. And scripture tells us who God is. We can pray with confidence because we know what God is like and we know what God has promised to do And we know his attributes. There are two convictions about God that act like anchors in Abraham's prayer life that give him incredible certainty. And the first is this, that God is just. The judge of all the earth will do what is right. Now think about that. Abraham doesn't ask God to set aside his holy standards and to just throw away his wrath. He knows there is no hope for the world if God is just a God who will allow injustice to go unpunished. Abraham cares that God be a just God. Abraham cares that God have righteous standards, and he appeals to those righteous standards. He says, God, do what is right here. God, do what is just. God, don't turn a blind eye to the wicked. But along with this solid anchor, there is another, that God is both just and he is also a sparing God. He is a merciful God. And Abraham, see his theological wheels are turning. He says, could there be a way for God to look upon the righteous in the city and on their account to save the rest of the city? to spare the rest of the city and for God to uphold his righteous standards because he looks upon those righteous and he counts the rest of the city as righteous because he's looking upon them. Could it be that God could look upon the righteous and he spares the wicked because of the righteous? Could that be possible? He knows that God is merciful. He knows that God can credit because of a small group to a whole. And so his theological wheels are turning. Is there a way for God to spare the destruction upon these sinners? Would God impute the righteousness of 40 people to the whole corrupt city? Would he look upon 20 righteous people in that city and for their sake withhold the judgment that the others deserve? Would he do that for even 10 people? See, Abraham humbly places before God this conviction of who he knows God to be, both just and merciful. And ultimately, he rests the case as God, God, do what is right here. But notice something strange, that Abraham stops at 10 people. He comes down, he comes from 50 all the way down to 10. And at this point, you're probably thinking, Abraham, you forgot the next step, you forgot the next question. Lord, would you spare the whole city for just one righteous person? Would you hold back the fires against Sodom and Gomorrah if there'd be even one righteous man there? But Abraham never asked that. He stops at 10. Now there are not 10 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah. Says something to you about the human condition, doesn't it? In that huge city, there are not even 10 righteous people. But perhaps the reason why Abraham stops at 10 and doesn't go to one, It's because he knows there's not even one righteous person in Sodom. There's not even one sinner that deserves saving. There's not even one who could hold back the fires of God's judgment. But Jesus Christ is the righteous man, the one and only righteous, truly, who came into our world, which has become a cesspool of wickedness, worse than Sodom and Gomorrah even in its expressions of sin. Jesus Christ came into a world where there were not even 10 righteous, none beside himself, but he was that one righteous man who did what Abraham did not do, who asked God, will you save sinners for the sake of one, for the sake of me, myself? He was that one righteous man who was able to save the whole world from the fires of God's holy wrath. Christians, this is good news for us. Because Christ is the better Abraham who asked of his father that bold question. In John chapter 17, we hear him, don't we? Interceding, pleading for those whom the Father has given him. Not because there's something righteous in them, but because of his own righteousness, for his own account. Say, for my sake, for the sake of your glory, Father, would you save a great host of ungodly sinners? And the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The prayers of our Savior intercede for us. He is our great intercessor. We see this, of course, in Romans chapter 8, verse 34, that he is the one who indeed is still interceding for us. This is what Jesus still does. He takes up this high priestly ministry that we see in Abraham. And what does he do? He intercedes. He steps in and says, God, would you withhold judgment against these sinners? And he actually has a reason, a theological reason for it. He says, because I bled and died for them. because I took the punishment of the pains of hell upon myself on the cross. Five bleeding wounds I bear, received on Calvary. They plead for my own. Abraham's greater example. and Christ's greater accomplishment give weight to our prayers today. We can pray with humility because we know we are dust and ashes. We can pray with persistent boldness because we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ and the prayers of a righteous man availeth much. We can pray with incredible confidence because we know the character of God all the more fully in Christ Jesus. And we know how God is both just and merciful. And so we can lay a hold of these theological convictions and we can pray them back to God, say, be who you are, oh Lord, and boldly request that sinners be saved. And yet we can rest ultimately in God and say, God, I've prayed, I've asked, but I know that you'll do what is right. Now we must pray for this lost world. Time ran out for Sodom, but it has not run out yet for our wicked world, so now is the time. Sent out and sent forth to be a great blessing to the nations, to intercede for sinners, to intercede for them, to be salt and light here where we're planted, to live amongst the people and to pray for lost sinners and say, Lord, would you save them? and to be persistent and bold and humble in our prayer, just like Abraham, as we do. Let's pray now. Heavenly Father, we pray boldly that you would preserve this place in which we are planted and that we would somehow be, by your grace, a righteous influence that would withhold your judgment so that there would be more sinners saved We ask that you would save more out of Dayton, that you would build your church, that you would turn this world around. And we plead that you would be both just and merciful as you do this. Lord, punish sin. Lord, hold the wicked to account. Also, Lord, spare, spare many, spare sinners from destruction. Call them unto Christ. Bring them into our fellowship. Make the church more and more salt and life, salt and light, so that we might see your work in this world and glorify you. We pray all this in Christ's name, amen.