When God Says Enough - Genesis 18:16-33

In our passage last week we saw Abraham meeting with three visitors who reaffirmed that he would have a son in his old age, fulfilling God’s promise that he would become the father of many nations. These three men were special visitors. One was likely God incarnate, and the other two were likely angels. After the whole exchange with Abraham and Sarah the narrative shifts gears, as we are told the visitors and Abraham got up and left together. As they walked it says they stopped and looked toward Sodom. Sodom was on the plain, and Abraham was likely looking down at it from a lofty vantage point. It would be a nice place to just sit and talk for a moment, but Abraham didn’t anticipate the conversation he was about to have.

God’s Plans

We get a glimpse into God’s mind as He decides to let Abraham know what is going on.

16Then the men got up from their meal and looked out toward Sodom. As they left, Abraham went with them to send them on their way. 17“Should I hide my plan from Abraham?” the Lord asked. 18“For Abraham will certainly become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. 19I have singled him out so that he will direct his sons and their families to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then I will do for Abraham all that I have promised.” 20So the Lord told Abraham, “I have heard a great outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah, because their sin is so flagrant. 21I am going down to see if their actions are as wicked as I have heard. If not, I want to know.” (Genesis 18:16-21, NLT)

Abraham had been specially chosen to be the father of God’s chosen people—the people through whom all nations ultimately would be blessed. Abraham was supposed to lead his family in the right direction so they would follow the Lord. He was supposed to set the example for right living. So God told Abraham His plans, using this as a teachable moment to help Abraham understand His character.

The Lord explained that He had heard a great outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah because their sin was so flagrant. We’ll talk more about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah next week. But suffice it to say, their sin was not just sexual in nature. There was a complete and utter disregard for the things of God and for the people whom God loved. Sodom had become a truly awful place.

God did not tell Abraham He planned to destroy Sodom. He didn’t have to. Abraham surely knew about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. After all, that’s where Lot had chosen to live. I would guess the reputation of these two cities had become well-known throughout the area. People knew Sodom was not a safe place to go, and it wouldn’t surprise me if many people had horror stories they could tell about something that had happened to them or someone they knew in Sodom.

So when God told Abraham that He was going to investigate the outcry against Sodom, Abraham knew exactly what the Lord would find. He knew the stories were true. And He knew God’s character would not allow this sin to go unpunished. God is just, so He must punish sin.

People often gloss over this aspect of God’s character, or they misunderstand it. We bristle at the notion of God punishing sin. I think it’s because we know we are guilty ourselves, and we don’t like the idea of God punishing us. What we want is for God to simply overlook our sin and give us a pass.

Believe it or not, God’s judgment and His love are intertwined. It is because God loves His people that He cannot and will not put up with sin. The reason He was moved to act in Sodom was because of the outcry of the people. Sin does not occur in a vacuum. Sin always negatively affects the person committing it, but it also has a ripple effect, and can harm many others as well. Sometimes sin can have profoundly painful and long-lasting consequences. So to allow sin to continue unchecked is far from loving.

We understand this intuitively. Why do we correct our children? Why do we inflict punishments that are sometimes painful? Is it because we are mean? Is it because we hate our children? No! The reason we do such things is because we love our children and we know if we allow their sinful behavior to continue unchecked it will get worse, and eventually may cause tremendous problems with permanent consequences. We deal with the sin of our children both for their sakes and for the sakes of the people with whom they will come into contact. It is not loving to anyone for us to allow our children’s sinfulness to continue unchecked.

The same is true with God. It is because He loves us that He must punish sin. He hates what sin does to us, so He cannot simply overlook it. God’s justice demands that action must take place. And sometimes that action must be severe.

The Negotiation

After God explains His plans, Abraham jumps into action. In my mind, Abraham starts talking before he has really thought through who he’s talking to. I imagine Abraham’s opening statement as simply a gut reaction to the thought of God destroying Sodom. What follows is a very interesting exchange between the Lord and Abraham.

22The other men turned and headed toward Sodom, but the Lord remained with Abraham. 23Abraham approached him and said, “Will you sweep away both the righteous and the wicked? 24Suppose you find fifty righteous people living there in the city—will you still sweep it away and not spare it for their sakes? 25Surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, destroying the righteous along with the wicked. Why, you would be treating the righteous and the wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn’t do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” 26And the Lord replied, “If I find fifty righteous people in Sodom, I will spare the entire city for their sake.” (Genesis 18:22-26, NLT)

It seems to me that Abraham simply blurts out what he’s thinking: surely the Lord wouldn’t destroy both the righteous and unrighteous alike! Surely if there were even 50 people in Sodom, the Lord would relent of the destruction He was planning. He asks a rhetorical question of the Lord: “Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”

Abraham seems to have a pretty good handle on things. He knows God’s character enough to know that He would not punish people who did not deserve it. He rightly surmises that if the city had righteous people in it, then God would spare it for their sake. We see this principle throughout scripture. God delays destruction as long as He can, until finally He says, “enough.”

God didn’t allow the Israelites to conquer the promised land until the sin of the Amorites had reached its full measure.

He repeatedly gave the nation of Israel opportunities to repent and to turn back to Him before sending destruction on them. And even when He did send His judgment, He continued to keep a remnant of people who were faithful to Him. He preserved the righteous people through it all.

Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the tares, in which He said the tares would be allowed to grow up alongside the wheat until the harvest, because uprooting the tares might also harm the wheat.

Abraham is on the right path here, but he flirts with danger when he asks, “Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” Clearly the answer is yes. But the danger is in how a person defines what is right. If we accuse God of doing wrong just because it disagrees with our definition of what’s right, then we are in dangerous waters. If God does something that appears to be wrong to us, then God is not wrong, our perception is. God’s is perfectly just. He always does what is right. If it seems wrong to us, the problem is with us, not the Lord.

I don’t think this was what Abraham was doing. This wasn’t an accusation of God, but rather an attempt to understand God’s plans. And God is gracious in answering him, simply stating that for the sake of 50 righteous people He would not destroy the city.

After this first exchange, Abraham pushes a little further, though admittedly he recognizes he is on dangerous ground. He strikes a much humbler tone as he continues. He recognizes he has no right to question God or demand answers from Him, but he still humbly asks. I think God continues to answer Abraham because He is instructing Him. He sees Abraham’s heart and desire to understand, so He indulges Abraham’s line of questioning.

Abraham essentially repeats the question with fewer and fewer people. He asks if the Lord would destroy the city if there were 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, then finally if there were only 10 righteous people found in the city. In each case, the Lord answers that He would spare the city for that many righteous people.

Many ask why Abraham stopped at only 10 people. Why not go all the way down to one person, or at least to 4 (since Abraham knew that Lot, his wife, and his two daughters lived there). There are lots of potential explanations to this question, but I think it is simply that God had made his point to Abraham. He would not destroy the righteous along with the unrighteous. Abraham need to keep asking questions, because he already knew the answer.

At the end of the exchange, we are simply told that the Lord went on His way and Abraham returned to his tent. We have to wait to find out what actually happens in Sodom until the next chapter.

Applications

So what are we to learn from this passage? It’s fascinating to read the exchange between God and Abraham, but we must recognize that there are several things we can learn from this account.

First, God hears our cries of injustice. It is tempting to believe that no one cares or sees the pain or injustice you are facing. But this passage reminds us that God hears the cries of the oppressed. He hears:

The cries of the person being abused;

The cries of the child who is going hungry;

The cries of the children whose lives are ended before they were born;

The cries of the person who can’t get ahead due to circumstances outside their control;

The cries of the person being slandered unfairly;

The cries of the person who is marginalized and ignored.

God heard the outcry from Sodom, and He hears from you as well. If you feel oppressed by the world, know that God hears you. He does not ignore those cries. But he also does not always act right away.

Second, sometimes God allows sin to go unpunished for a time. It’s often frustrating as we look around and see people who seem to be getting away with sin. They seem to be living in complete opposition to God with no consequences. Even though they are living lives of disobedience, they still seem to be getting ahead, having an easy time of life, and laughing along the way.

This passage reminds us that God does not allow people to get away with sin, though He may not always punish it right away. Sin will ultimately be punished. We needn’t take matters into our own hands or throw up our hands in unbelief and begin to live the same way as the world. We must trust that God has just not punished their sin yet.

The flip side of this is a little scarier. When it seems like we are getting away with sin, we must remember we aren’t either. God loves us too much to allow us to persist down a path of unchecked sin. There may be some sin you have been secretly harboring, something you know is wrong but continue to do. For whatever reason you think it’s not a big deal because nothing bad has happened. Please, turn from your sin before it is too late. Just because there are no immediate consequences does not mean there aren’t consequences. Sin will always catch up to us, so we must deal with it now, before drastic action is necessary.

Third, God deals with each of us fairly. This means no one will get away with sin, but it also means you will not be punished for someone else’s sin. But this raises some questions for us doesn’t it? Sometimes it seems like innocent people get punished. People who did nothing wrong sometimes bear consequences the sins of others.

We need to make an important clarification: not every bad thing that happens is God acting in judgment. Sometimes bad things are just side effects of sin. Sometimes one person’s sin naturally affects other people. A murderer’s sin doesn’t just hurt them, it hurts people around them, even though those people may have done nothing to deserve it. A person who is hit by a drunk driver is part of the unfortunate ripple-effect of that person’s sin, not necessarily part of God’s judgment. The victim of a con-artist suffers because of the sin of the criminal, not because of God. Sin often has a ripple effect, which is precisely why God punishes it—He hates what it does to those He loves.

Even so-called “acts of God” are not always God acting in judgment. A terrible earthquake, hurricane, tornado, or tsunami is not necessarily God bringing judgment on those affected by it; natural disasters are part of living in a world tainted by sin. God does not punish the righteous. God also doesn’t stop every bad thing from happening (because He hasn’t destroyed sin yet), but that is not the same thing as Him causing those things as an act of judgment.

The other important part of this for us to remember is that God’s definition of what is fair and just is not always the same as ours. We have a tendency to demand much greater punishment for the sins of others, while desiring God to simply overlook our own sin. That’s not how it works. God will deal with each of us fairly—if you think God’s being unfair, then you are not seeing things clearly.

Finally, God doesn’t mind honest questions. This is one of the things I love about this passage. God doesn’t chastise Abraham for his questions. Instead God seems to almost be egging Abraham on by continuing to answer his questions until he gets the point. The reason God allowed Abraham to persist in his questioning was because He was seeking to understand God’s purposes rather than to dictate his will to the Lord.

God wants us to be honest with Him. So many people believe they have to sanitize their prayers, like they can’t talk about their real struggles, their honest desires, their true motives, or the questions to which they want answers. This belief keeps us from greater fellowship with God. The only way we can truly be close to the Lord, and the only way we can receive His help with these things is if we bring them to Him! But too often, we believe the lie that God would hate us if He knew what we were really like or what we were truly struggling with.

Abraham grew from this experience because he was honest with God. This is a lesson for us. The difference between Abraham and some other people in the Bible (like Job and his friends) is that Abraham wasn’t trying to demand answers from God or trying to force God to do his will. Rather, he was coming humbly before the Lord and seeking to understand.

I don’t think God minds this kind of discourse. In fact, I think He welcomes it. God may not always answer your questions or fix your problems right away, but I believe when we are honest with the Lord, we will truly grow, learn, and find strength to carry on. So, like Abraham, we should come humbly before the Lord with whatever is on our hearts, knowing that He will not turn us away.

Conclusion

This is an uncomfortable passage because we bristle at the idea of God’s justice. We don’t like to think about the fact that there is a point where God says, “enough” and punishes sin. But we must understand that God’s justice and His love are inextricably tied together. True love doesn’t overlook something that harms the object of that love. Sin always harms the person directly involved, but it often hurts others as well. So God must punish sin. When we’re honest with ourselves, we recognize we are part of the problem. We are not one of the righteous ones—we deserve to be punished as well. The good news is that God has made it possible for us to be made righteous once more. He sent Jesus to the earth to pay the penalty we owe. If we follow Him then we are forgiven and will be spared the judgment we deserve.

As we look at this story we should be reminded we each have an important decision to make. Will you trust and follow Jesus or not? You, me, and everyone else in this room stands guilty, because we are sinful. Just because you’ve gotten away with it so far doesn’t mean you will forever. You won’t. There is coming a day for each of us when God will say “enough”, and judgment will come. Your only hope is to trust in Jesus Christ, to believe that He has paid once and for all the penalty for your sin, and then to follow Him as the Lord of your life.

God will not delay His judgment forever. He will do what is right. The sinful will be punished and the righteous will be spared. Left to our own strength and devices, we deserve punishment. But if you are in Christ, you have been made righteous. There is coming a day when God will say, “enough”. Are you ready?