...Let’s be the 10 righteous in our generation.
Sodom was a wicked city (Genesis 19: 5). When God told Abraham he would destroy the city, Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy it if a few righteous people could be found in it. How many would it take?
Gen 18:26 The LORD said, "If I find 50 righteous people within Sodom, I'll forgive the whole place for their sake." (ISV)
Abraham started counting at 50 righteous people and the discussion ended at 10. God then removed the last four righteous people and destroyed the city by raining brimstone and fire on the cities of the plain.
Ron Wyatt (Wyatt Archeological Museum) has a documentary claiming he found these remains near the Dead Sea. In an on-site video he chips out a pea-sized piece of sulfur (brimstone) from an ancient ruin riddled with similar pieces. It burned vigorously. The location and bits of sulfur found support the claim that these are remnants of “the cities of the plain.”
The Bible records show some ancient cities were built of mud bricks with oil tar (bitumen) used for mortar (Genesis 11:3). When these structures caught fire they burned hot and long, sometimes melting the sand in the mud-brick into glass. Sulfur and bitumen could easily burn with vigor enough to fit the description “as the smoke of a furnace” (Genesis 19:28).
A dark theory in some churches focuses on America as ripe for judgment for “all her sins.” Such sins include expropriation of natural resources from Third World countries, endemic racism, legalized abortion and military bullying of smaller countries. Surely these are sins, but these are the sins of every powerful culture.
The dark theory suggests there is judgment looming without hope of redemption.
Sin is quite a stench in the nostrils of God. He will “in no way ignore the wickedness of the wicked.” Nevertheless, do not forget that God sets the times and seasons by his own will. If God judged us immediately for personal sins none of us would live long enough to repent.
Peter wrote that God is “long-suffering, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” He waited 120 years before the great flood allowing Noah to preach (Genesis 6:3). God sent Jonah to Nineveh because of their wickedness, but Nineveh was not destroyed for another hundred years.
If God would have saved Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of 10 righteous residents, then let’s be the 10 in our generation.
Judgment doesn’t arrive on our schedule. And if it doesn’t, what do we do in the meantime? I propose that we can live very productively without simply pronouncing judgment and giving up hope.
God offers healing to a sinful land that repents.
2Ch 7:14: When my people humble themselves—the ones who are called by my name—and pray, seek me, and turn away from their evil practices, I myself will listen from heaven, I will pardon their sins, and I will restore their land (ISV).
In this Scripture God tells us to use the judgments of drought and pestilence as motivators to repent. Hopelessness is the opposite of “love that hopes all things.”
So let’s be the “10 righteous” Christians in our country who stand in the gap. How will we do this?
First, we can pray. We can intercede in prayer for God to forgive us and correct us, even as Moses prayed for Israel’ s reformation instead of destruction. Pray for the kingdom of God to come and for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (6:10).
Secondly, we can be righteous by doing what Jesus taught, Matthew chapters 5-7.
Be salt.
Be the small mustard seed with a big future.
Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Be an intercessor (James 5:16).
Be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you (I Peter 3:15).
With a little looking, you will see that there is a whole swarm of “Be”s out there.
Comments