Rev. David Holwick G Abraham #7
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
February 27, 2005
Genesis 18:16-33
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I. Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do?
A. Justice this side of heaven.
TV show "Cops" episode this week: police conduct sting
operation on male prostitutes in Los Angeles.
The police sergeant sits in the back of a big stretch limo
and poses as a rich customer.
Within minutes of pulling over to the curb, a young man
approaches.
He gets inside, they quickly negotiate, and he's arrested.
Everything is caught on a secret video-camera.
Then they drive up and catch another.
As the final suspect is handcuffed, he admits that he was
released from jail an hour previously.
He had just spent six months in jail for prostitution.
He has had 14 previous arrests for the same crime.
He has cocaine and drug paraphernalia in his pockets.
The police tell him he is looking at a year behind bars,
minimum.
Unlike most episodes, this one concludes with scenes from
the trial.
The policemen calmly testify.
The verdict? The suspect gets off due to a technicality.
He doesn't see a single day behind bars.
Is this just?
Would our system be better if there were no technicalities?
On the other hand, what would you think of a justice system
that jailed all the bad guys, AND a few thousand
innocent?
-And you were one of those innocent?
Would that be a good system to you? [1]
B. Justice is the key.
1) I have preached this passage before with an emphasis on
intercessory prayer, which fits nicely.
2) However, the real theme here is justice, God's justice.
a) Will God do what is right?
b) Is that a good system for us?
II. An auspicious visit by a holy trio.
A. It is soon revealed that they are God and two angels.
1) Unlikely to be the Trinity.
2) Abraham shows extravagant hospitality.
B. Two-fold purpose.
1) Announce the birth of Isaac within a year.
2) Reveal God's impending judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.
a) They have come to inspect the situation.
1> A literary convention, not doubt of omniscience!
b) If the cities are guilty as charged, judgment is
assumed.
c) Since Abraham's nephew Lot is in the city he has a
natural concern about this plan.
1> Abraham also has a wider concern.
III. Abraham's challenge to God.
A. Will righteous be killed along with the wicked? 18:23
1) Principle: Judgment must be deserved.
2) Distinction must be maintained between guilty and innocent.
B. Shouldn't 50 righteous people exempt the city? 18:24
1) Principle: Mercy has greater weight than justice.
a) Innocent should carry more weight than the guilty.
b) Abraham shows concern for sinners as well as saints.
1> Those who DESERVE punishment will be spared if
there are enough innocent.
C. God, the Ultimate Judge, must do right. 18:25
1) Principle: God cannot contradict his morality.
2) Note that it is presented as a question, not a statement.
IV. Is God's will negotiable?
A. Some argue "covenant" requires equal obligations.
1) Famous lawyer Alan Dershowitz:
a) Abraham is on an equal footing with God here.
2) As partners in the covenant, both can learn and adapt.
B. Much of modern ideas about God hinge on this possibility.
1) The Bible is clear that we are not mere robots.
a) We can, and should, interact with God.
b) God cares about our needs and our pleas.
2) But are we "equal" with God?
a) Some argue we can be more than equal.
V. The moral dilemma of a fudging God.
A. Is Abraham MORE moral than God?
1) Dershowitz argues God is reneging on his vow to Noah
not to destroy the Earth again. Gen 9:8
2) God can only justify destroying Sodom by relying on
lawyerly "technicalities."
3) Abraham sets God back on the right path.
B. Two approaches to God's justice.
1) Fundamentalist approach.
a) Whatever God does, no matter how unjust it seems to us,
is by definition just.
1> God must be obeyed without question or challenge.
b) Example of Job.
1> Job is truly innocent, but suffers greatly.
A> Indistinguishable from punishment.
B> Job appeals for a chance to confront God, hear
what God has against him.
2> God's answer: I am God, you are not. So shut up!
A> Job submits to this, and is blessed again.
c) Modern society hates this view!
2) Liberal approach.
a) Humans must evaluate God's justice in human terms.
b) Genesis 18 shows that God submits himself to human
judgment.
1> It is almost as if justice is greater than God.
c) Ver 25 has been taken as support for natural moral law.
1> Concept that morality is evident in the universe,
apart from any divine revelation of rules.
2> In this view, God is hemmed in by morality even
when he wishes to do otherwise.
VI. Does God need to be straightened out?
A. Injustice has vexed many religious people.
Dershowitz tells the true story of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, an
eighteenth-century Hasidic master.
The rabbi gained fame for accusing God of injustice because
of the suffering of the Jewish people.
On one Yom Kippur, a simple tailor sought forgiveness from
the great rabbi for having talked disrespectfully to God.
The rabbi asked him what he had said, and the tailor told him:
I declared to God: You wish me to repent of my sins,
but I have committed only minor offenses.
I may have kept leftover cloth, or I may have eaten in a
non-Jewish home, where I worked, without washing my hands.
But you, O Lord, have committed grievous sins:
You have taken away babies from their mothers, and
mothers from their babies.
Let us call it quits: May You forgive me, and I will
forgive You.
The great rabbi's response?
He looked at the tailor and said: "Why did you let God off so
easily?"
#29187
1) In our day and age, God always seems to be on trial.
2) But by placing ourselves in judgment on God, we make
ourselves into God.
3) This is the true liberal conceit.
B. God remains God.
1) His judgment is just and inevitable,
a) Abraham and God negotiate down to ten righteous people.
1> Unfortunately, Sodom doesn't even have ten.
2> God destroys the city. (Genesis 19)
3> This reinforces the principle that sin leads
ultimately to death - eternal death.
b) We will always reap what we sow.
1> Sodom is an example for our world.
A> The world remains corrupt and will be judged.
2> We won't be able to talk our way out of it.
A> There will be no technicalities.
B> You yourself deserve this punishment.
2) His mercy triumphs over his judgment.
a) Judgment is not God's final word.
1> His ultimate goal is to save us.
b) The righteous are spared in Sodom.
1> Lot was rescued even as the destruction descended.
2> God will spare us too - if we repent.
c) Surrender to God's mercy now.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] "Cops - In Los Angeles," TV program, channel 9.
#29187 "The Genesis of Justice," Alan Dershowitz, Warner Books: 2000,
page 73.
These and 25,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
=========================================================================
Alan Dershowitz, "The Genesis of Justice"
Chapter: Abraham Defends the Guilty - And Loses
I. God's judgment on Sodom reneges promise made to Noah.
A. Details differ but principle does not.
B. Abraham challenges God on it.
II. Abraham's right to challenge God.
A. Covenantal relationship binds both parties to conditions.
1) God is not an absolute but a conditional monarch.
B. Abraham has to remind God of his obligations. Gen 18:25
1) (Jacob goes further, making his acceptance of God
conditional on God's doing his part of the bargain
first.)
2) God must be seen as a contractual partner.
III. Can God's justice be judged by human beings?
A. Fundamentalist approach.
1) Whatever God does, no matter how unjust it seems to us,
is by definition just.
2) God must be obeyed without question or challenge.
B. Liberal approach.
1) Humans must evaluate justice in human terms.
2) Genesis 18 shows that God submits himself to human
judgment.
IV. The confrontation.
A. Abraham challenges God to be just.
1) God does not silence him, but negotiates.
B. Story of Job shows fundamentalist approach.
1) God cannot be challenged.
2) Divine justice cannot be judged by human standards.
3) Job caves in, even though he has been punished for
being innocent.
4) God wins, not because he is right, but because he is God.
V. Reconciling Job and Abraham.
A. Abraham had a covenant and Job did not.
B. God did not answer Job because there is no answer.
1) No divine justice could ever explain the Holocaust.
C. Job represents bad religion.
1) Silence in the face of injustice - even God's
injustice - is a sin.
VI. The legal argument.
A. The conundrum:
1) Wiping out evil city with some good people in it is bad.
2) Sparing the evil ones for the sake of a few good is also
bad.
B. God accepts Abraham's moral argument.
1) The whole purpose of the story is to instruct Abraham
in human justice.
2) We need a legal system or process to distinguish the
guilty and the innocent.
C. Just regimes should favor the innocent over the guilty.
1) A popular ratio is 1 to 10, the number the story stops at.
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