Pleading for Sodom
In the early hours of June 21st 1957, a stream of FBI agents burst into Rudolph Abel’s apartment and arrested him on charges of spying for the Soviet Union. At that time the Cold War was nearing its boiling point. Overseas, Americans had been killed fighting the gangrenous spread of communism. At home, the Red Scare had induced a nationwide paranoia. Now, the fear and fury of a country found a focal point, Rudolph Abel, who was so despised that no lawyer would represent him in court, save one, James Donovan, who believed that even the guilty deserved intercession. Despite a rigorous defense, Abel was convicted of the capital crime of espionage. But before the death sentence was issued, Donovan stood between the judge and the guilty, pleading for mercy. The judge heard his cries and spared Abel’s life.
A similar scene unfolds in Genesis 18 as Abraham stands between the Just Judge of the Universe and his neighbors in Sodom, pleading for mercy. For 21st cent American Christians, a more timely and convicting passage of Scripture would be difficult to find. Like Abraham, the land of our sojourning is awash in sexual depravity, from “not-so-secret-gay-agendas” in children’s cartoons to society-upending supreme court rulings. June has become, “pride month,” a federally recognized celebration of abomination. This ethical erosion elicits varied responses from professing Christians. Some retreat in fear. Others lash out in anger. Many downplay the decline in ignorance or embrace it wholesale. But how should believers feel toward our sexually lost neighbors? What is our duty to them? Abraham shows us that we ought to beg God to spare and save them for two reasons.
First, we ought to beg God to spare and save our lost neighbors because he hears the cry of their sin. “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...” (Genesis 18:20-21). Like the spilled blood of Abel, the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah cried out to the Lord. But why would the all-knowing, all-seeing God need to come down from heaven to investigate? Did he need to verify his intel? Certainly not. He was demonstrating to Abraham and to us, the honor of His justice by further establishing the guilt of Sodom through angelic eyewitness.
Behind every sin we commit is a lie we’ve believed. One of those lies is often the illusion of anonymity. “The wicked says in his heart-God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it” (Psalm 10:11). We think we can sin in secret. But we forget that what happened in Sodom, didn’t stay in Sodom. Sin’s cry pierces the heavens like a train whistle ringing in the ears of God who is bound by his own holiness to punish evil. Are you nursing a secret sin because you think God can’t see? He sees. He sees deleted internet histories and text messages. He sees through locked doors. He sees the secret thoughts lurking in the shadows of our hearts. Moses said, “be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). So, we must look to Christ and his cross and beg God to pardon us of our sins, but not ours only. We must beg him to spare and save our lost neighbors whose sins will surely find them out.
Second, we ought to beg God to spare and save the lost because God hears our intercession. Growing up in Jacksonville, we did a lot of deep-sea fishing. There’s an art to catching rock fish like snapper and grouper. Using live bait, we’d drop our lines to the ocean floor and wait; carefully pinching the line to feel the bait dance in the depths. When the minnow panicked and the line trembled, you knew a big fish was approaching when suddenly, the rod bent to the point of breaking and the fight was on. That’s what God is doing here. He’s fishing for Abraham; drawing him out and stirring him up to the work of intercession. And Abraham inhales the bait.
See Abraham’s posture: “So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD. Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked” (Genesis 18:22–23)? Abraham could have just turned around and kept on living his life but instead he “stood still” and “drew near.” There is something courageous in his body language. We can see him squaring off, bending his knees, gripping the dirt beneath his feet, ready to wrestle with God.
Hear his plea: “Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty 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… (Genesis 18:24-25)! Why did Abraham get into a bidding war over Sodom, haggling God all the way down to 10?
Before piloting his space-aged submersible to the bottom of the Mariana’s Trench in 2012, the famous director/explorer, James Cameron, conducted a series of test dives, each deeper than the next. The first was just beneath the surface of the water; then down to 1000m; then 4000m; then 7000m; then 8000m; then finally to the deepest point on the earth’s surface, Challenger Deep, 11,000m. Why all the test dives? Cameron needed to determine the sub’s limits. Abraham conducted a similar experiment, probing the depths of God’s mercy… “Suppose there are 50? 45? 40? 30? 20? 10?”
For what, exactly, was Abraham bargaining? He’s pleading for the Lord to spare the righteous dwelling in Sodom. No doubt he had his nephew, Lot, and his family in mind. But couldn’t Abraham have simply asked the Lord to save the righteous and slay the wicked? What would you have asked? If God stopped by your house and told you he was on his way to destroy a notoriously wicked community in your town, would you try and stop him? Or would you say, “Well, it’s about time!”? But not Abraham. Abraham pleaded with the Lord to spare the wicked for the sake of the righteous. He used the righteous as a fulcrum to leverage God’s mercy towards the unrighteous. Why would Abraham make such a plea? Because he knew firsthand that God delighted in showing mercy to wretches, even an idolater dwelling in the land of Ur. Because Abraham felt genuine compassion for his lost neighbors.
What do you feel for the lost? Years ago, I was sitting at the window of my favorite restaurant enjoying my favorite meal with my favorite people when someone outside caught my eye. It was a woman sitting on the curb smoking a cigarette. Judging by dress and demeanor, I supposed she was a prostitute. But upon closer inspection I realized the sadder truth. You see, makeup can’t hide an Adam’s apple and whiskers. Fake nails can’t conceal a man’s hands. High heels can’t hide men’s feet. And a blouse can’t cover a man’s broad shoulders. I was instantly disgusted. I lost my appetite (at my favorite restaurant!) and pushed my plate away. I thought to myself, “Why did this freak have to pick my window? My wife and kids are here! Why can’t he just go away!”
But when I looked again, I saw scars… thick, white, self-inflicted scars running up the poor man’s arm. And my heart broke for him. What anguish must someone feel to do such things? How desperate must one be to submit themselves to such indignity? Then the only disgust I felt was for myself: the Christian who forgot that in the light of Jesus holiness he was a harlot too; the Christian who forgot that the moral chasm between him and his Savior was infinitely greater than the one between him and this poor man in the window; the Christian who forgot “I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see;” the Christian who forgot that Jesus came to seek and save the lost; the Christian who forgot that his war is not against flesh and blood or members of the LGBTQIA+ community but, “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12); the Christian who forgot that His Savior, who bled and died for him, pleads for him still from his priestly throne in heaven. So, should he not also pray for his lost neighbors? Should he not also beg the Lord to show this man the same mercy he himself had received?
Many Christians are grieved and angered by the moral degeneration of our culture. But let us be grieved and angry at the right things: sin and Satan have ruined our world and ravaged countless lives. Many fear for the future. But let us fear the right thing: the judgement of God against our unbelieving neighbors whose only hope is forgiveness through Jesus’ blood. You have wicked and sexually lost neighbors. Abraham did too. But he didn’t hate them, he loved them enough to pray for them. If we claim to know Abraham’s God, then we ought to follow his lead, pleading with the Lord to spare our lost neighbors because God hears the cry of their sins, but he also hears the cry of our intercession. God give us hearts filled with pity and mouths filled with pleading for the lost.
Jim McCarthy is the Senior Pastor of Trinity PCA in Statesboro, GA.
