Getting Serious With God

Genesis 18: 16-33 

Ok, let me be totally honest. I have never found it easy to pray for any length of time and not least in public. Of course, having led a church and many a group in prayer, I know ‘how’ to pray but to really pray… well that isn’t necessarily the same thing… Prayer for me, (taking it seriously) is always a battle. I suspect that is true (and indeed possibly should always be true) for many Christians. It is only in pressing in and on in prayer that victory comes.

Abraham has a big promise hanging over his life. However, he and Sarah are well past the natural child-bearing and rearing age! He has just received a strange yet wonderful visit confirming that promise and now putting a timeframe on it! (18:10)

His visitors get up to leave (18:16) and Abraham walks with them. Abraham and his guests were standing on high ground above the plain surrounding the Dead Sea. Specifically, they are overlooking Sodom.

Now this is a bit strange and wonderful. We have Abraham literally in the presence of God and we hear the Lord having a conversation, it seems, with Himself. It is not explained how that happened, but it did. The Lord is considering whether He should hide from Abraham what he was about to do in bringing judgement on Sodom. Yet Abraham was literally and spiritually walking with God and it seems, letting him in on His plans was indicative of the relationship that Abraham enjoyed with Him. So Abraham gets to hear what is about to happen before the event (18:20-21).

Scripture bears frequent witness to God’s patience and mercy. He is full of compassion and love, yet as a holy and perfectly just God, He must judge sin, and judgement must fall eventually in His perfect timing. It appears that perfect timing had come for Sodom and Gomorrah – a terrible fate awaited them. Interestingly though, it is as if God is holding and back and seeing if things were as bad as the outcry that had reached Him suggested (18:21). Surely God knew what was going on, didn’t He? There is mystery here. It is a mystery of God (or was it Jesus?) walking in human form with Abraham and in some way physically standing with him and considering the situation.

Abraham and the Lord are now alone (18:22). The conversation that follows is a prayer of intercession. It speaks to us of the beautiful and privileged situation we all enjoy before God as His chosen children. We can literally come before our heavenly Father and speak to him about anything. The key is the attitude in which we come. We can stand in the gap for others and should do so as we are prompted to.

Abraham pleads for Sodom. He has good reason to do so. He has in mind his nephew Lot and his family who have foolishly settled amongst such a sinful people. What is Abraham’s concern exactly? He is troubled by the fact (as he sees it) that God would sweep away the righteous along with the wicked. ‘Will not the judge of all the earth do right?’ is his cry to God (18:25).

It appears on the surface that Abraham is pushing back at God and there is some sort of bargaining situation. However, who is really in charge here? God allows Abraham to explore his relationship with God by interceding on behalf of the righteous of Sodom. At no point is Abraham criticised for questioning God because his attitude towards God is right. He is praying for God to be true to what He knows His character to be – just and holy, yet also merciful. The conversation ends when God decides it will end, not Abraham.

What a wonderful example of how we can enter into intercession before God. To do so as Abraham did, we must come with right motives and a reverent and correct view of God. It seems to me that God encouraged Abraham to battle in prayer. In the next chapter we see the answer to his prayers: his nephew was spared, even though he had to virtually be dragged away from the city by angels!

I can’t think of anywhere in Scripture where it says prayer is easy. I can think of many places – it is a huge theme of the bible – where we are encouraged to explore our relationship with God through prayer. So why don’t we?

Prayer meetings are poorly attended. Yet what could be more important? I would like to think we all have an active personal prayer life but what about corporately? Why do we fail to see the importance of meeting together to seek God?

Surely we hand the initiative to the enemy when we fail to pray. Nothing is achieved in God’s Kingdom without prayer – think about how even Jesus knew he had to pray to His Father. He did so regularly and at length and often alone at inconvenient times after a busy day! We also see in the early Church in Acts, a vibrant and powerful corporate prayer life. Nothing happened in Acts without prayer. So why do we think we can ‘skip it’ as Christians today?

Isn’t it time we got serious with God as Abraham did? As He leads us, let us pray on all occasions and in all circumstances, personally and together. Much encouragement comes from spending time together in prayer… The world is changed by prayer.