January 07, 2020: SOAP #3687:  Genesis 18-19; Psalm 3; Luke 7

Scripture:  Genesis (NIV) 18:26 The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”…
32  Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

Observation:  What an amazing portrait is here presented of God. His Holiness is so dominant that He personally comes to inspect what he has heard about the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Yet, just as strong is His love.  Mercy radiates from this passage.  Not once did God hesitate in responding favorably to Abraham’s request to spare Sodom.  The only hesitation we see is on Abraham’s part in asking.

In reading further we soon see that the only two girls escaping Sodom were Lot’s daughters, who then got their father drunk and became impregnated from him.  The Moabites and Ammonites descended from these two incestuous relationships and were the greatest hinderances to Israel.  The question that comes to my mind is, what if every (or most) daughter(s) in Sodom would have had such offspring?

Yet God, in His great love for the righteous, would have spared the whole city if just 10 righteous had been found!

Application:  God cannot escape His holiness, yet He longs to be merciful.  He cannot ignore the destructiveness of sin.   Holiness demands retribution even from God’s favorite creation.  Yet He longs to be merciful, even to the point of sending His own Son to pay the price for man’s restoration!!!   God’s love sends His Son; God’s holiness demands His death!  The cross perfectly displays God’s love and God’s holiness!

Prayer:   Heavenly Father, your holiness set the boundary.  Your love reached beyond that boundary and with great wisdom found a way to justify those you love and draw them back within that boundary to yourself!  It is AMAZING! Amen

Pastor Leon
Making friends for time and eternity!