Expositions of Holy Scripture

A >> Alexander Maclaren >> Expositions of Holy Scripture

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50

'And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward
Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the
way. And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that
thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become
a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the
earth shall be blessed in him! For I know him, that he
will command his children and his household after him,
and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice
and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that
which He hath spoken of him. And the Lord said, Because
the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because
their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see
whether they have done altogether according to the cry
of it, which is come unto Me; and if not, I will know.
And the men turned their faces from thence, and went
toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the Lord.
And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt Thou also destroy
the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be
fifty righteous within the city: wilt Thou also destroy
and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that
are therein? That be far from Thee to do after this
manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that
the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from
Thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous
within the city, then I will spare all the place for
their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold now,
I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am
but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five
of the fifty righteous: wilt Thou destroy all the city
for lack of five? And He said, If I find there forty
and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto Him
yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty
found there. And He said, I will not do it for forty's
sake. And he said unto Him, Oh let not the Lord be angry,
and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be
found there. And He said, I will not do it, if I find
thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon
me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be
twenty found there. And He said, I will not destroy it
for twenty's sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be
angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure
ten shall be found there. And He said, I will not destroy
it for ten's sake. And the Lord went His way, as soon as
He had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned
unto his place.'--GENESIS xviii. 16-33.

I

The first verse of this chapter says that 'the Lord appeared' unto
Abraham, and then proceeds to tell that 'three men stood over
against him,' thus indicating that these were, collectively, the
manifestation of Jehovah. Two of the three subsequently 'went toward
Sodom,' and are called 'angels' in chapter xix. 1. One remained with
Abraham, and is addressed by him as 'Lord,' but the three are
similarly addressed in verse 3. The inference is that Jehovah
appeared, not only in the one 'man' who spake with Abraham, but also
in the two who went to Sodom.

In this incident we have, first, God's communication of His purpose
to Abraham. He was called the friend of God, and friends confide in
each other. 'The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him,' and
it is ever true that they who live in amity and communion with God
thereby acquire insight into His purposes. Even in regard to public
or so-called 'political' events, a man who believes in God and His
moral government will often be endowed with a 'terrible sagacity,'
which forecasts consequences more surely than do godless
politicians. In regard to one's own history, it is still more
evidently true that the one way to apprehend God's purposes in it is
to keep in close friendship with Him. Then we shall see the meaning
of the else bewildering whirl of events, and be able to say, 'He
that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God.' But the reason
assigned for intrusting Abraham with the knowledge of God's purpose
is to be noted. It was because of his place as the medium of
blessing to the nations, and as the lawgiver to his descendants. God
had 'known him,'--that is, had lovingly brought him into close
relations with Himself, not for his own sake only, but, much more,
that he might be a channel of grace to Israel and the world. His
'commandment' to his descendants was to lead to their worship of
Jehovah and their upright living, and these again to their
possession of the blessings promised to Abraham. That purpose would
be aided by the knowledge of the judgment on Sodom, its source, and
its cause, and therefore Abraham was admitted into the council-
chamber of Jehovah. The insight given to God's friends is given that
they may more fully benefit men by leading them into paths of
righteousness, on which alone they can be met by God's blessings.

The strongly figurative representation in verses 20, 21, according
to which Jehovah goes down to ascertain whether the facts of Sodom's
sin correspond to the report of it, belongs to the early stage of
revelation, and need not surprise us, but should impress on us the
gradual character of the divine Revelation, which would have been
useless unless it had been accommodated to the mental and spiritual
stature of its recipients. Nor should it hide from us the lofty
conception of God's long-suffering justice, which is presented in so
childlike a form. He does 'not judge after ... the hearing of His
ears,' nor smite without full knowledge of the sin. A later stage of
revelation puts the same thought in language less strange to us,
when it teaches that 'the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him
actions are weighed,' and in His balances many a false estimate,
both of virtuous and vicious acts, is corrected, and retribution is
always exactly adjusted to the deed.

But the main importance of the incident is in the wonderful picture
of Abraham's intercession, which, in like manner, veils, under a
strangely sensuous representation, lofty truths for all ages. It is
to be noted that the divine purpose expressed in 'I will go down
now, and see,' is fulfilled in the going of the two (men or angels)
towards Sodom; therefore Jehovah was in them. But He was also in the
One before whom Abraham stood. The first great truth enshrined in
this part of the story is that the friend of God is compassionate
even of the sinful and degraded. Abraham did not intercede for Lot,
but for the sinners in Sodom. He had perilled his life in warfare
for them; he now pleads with God for them. Where had he learned this
brave pity? Where but from the God with whom he lived by faith? How
much more surely will real communion with Jesus lead _us_ to
look on all men, and especially on the vicious and outcast, with His
eyes who saw the multitudes as sheep without a shepherd, torn,
panting, scattered, and lying exhausted and defenceless!
Indifference to the miseries and impending dangers of Christless men
is impossible for any whom He calls 'not servants, but friends.'

Again, we are taught the boldness of pleading which is permitted to
the friend of God, and is compatible with deepest reverence. Abraham
is keenly conscious of his audacity, and yet, though he knows
himself to be but dust and ashes, that does not stifle his
petitions. His was the holy 'importunity' which Jesus sent forth for
our imitation. The word so rendered in Luke xi. 8, which is found in
the New Testament there only, literally means 'shamelessness,' and
is exactly the disposition which Abraham showed here. Not only was
he persistent, but he increased his expectations with each partial
granting of his prayer. The more God gives, the more does the true
suppliant expect and crave; and rightly so, for the gift to be given
is infinite, and each degree of possession enlarges capacity so as
to fit to receive more, and widens desire. What contented us to-day
should not content us to-morrow.

Again, Abraham is bold in appealing to a law to which God is bound
to conform. 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' is
often quoted with an application foreign to its true meaning.
Abraham was not preaching to men trust that the most perplexing acts
of God would be capable of full vindication if we knew all, but he
was pleading with God that His acts should be plainly accordant with
the idea of justice planted by Him in us. The phrase is often used
to strengthen the struggling faith that

'All is right which seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will.'

But it means not 'Such and such a thing must be right because God
has done it,' but 'Such and such a thing is right, therefore God
must do it.' Of course, our conceptions of right are not the
absolute measure of the divine acts, and the very fact which Abraham
thought contrary to justice is continually exemplified in
Providence, that 'the righteous should be as the wicked' in regard
to earthly calamities affecting communities. So far Abraham was
wrong, but the spirit of his remonstrance was wholly right.

Again, we learn the precious lesson that prayer for others is a real
power, and does bring down blessings and avert evils. Abraham did
not here pray for Lot, but yet 'God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot
out of the midst of the overthrow'(chap. xix. 29), so that there had
been unrecorded intercession for him too. The unselfish desires for
others, that exhale from human hearts under the influence of the
love which Christ plants in us, do come down in blessings on others,
as the moisture drawn up by the sun may descend in fructifying rain
on far-off pastures of the wilderness. We help one another when we
pray for one another.

The last lesson taught is that 'righteous' men are indeed the 'salt
of the earth' not only preserving cities and nations from further
corruption, but procuring for them further existence and probation.
God holds back His judgments so long as hope of amendment survives,
and 'will not destroy for the ten's sake.'

THE INTERCOURSE OF GOD AND HIS FRIEND

II

We have seen that the fruit of Abraham's faith was God's entrance
into close covenant relations with him; or, as James puts it, 'It
was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the
friend of God.' This incident shows us the intercourse of the divine
and human friends in its familiarity, mutual confidence, and power.
It is a forecast of Christ's own profound teachings in His parting
words in the upper chamber, concerning the sweet and wondrous
intercourse between the believing soul and the indwelling God.

1. The friend of God catches a gleam of divine pity and tenderness.
Abraham has no relations with the men of Sodom. Their evil ways
would repel him; and he would be a stranger among them still more
than among the Canaanites, whose iniquity was 'not yet full.' But
though he has no special bonds with them, he cannot but melt with
tender compassion when he hears their doom. Communion with the very
Source of all gentle love has softened his heart, and he yearns over
the wicked and fated city. Where else than from his heavenly Friend
could he have learned this sympathy? It wells up in this chapter
like some sudden spring among solemn solitudes--the first instance
of that divine charity which is the best sign that we have been with
God, and have learned of Him. All that the New Testament teaches of
love to God, as necessarily issuing in love to man, and of the true
love to man as overleaping all narrow bounds of kindred, country,
race, and ignoring all questions of character, and gushing forth in
fullest energy towards the sinners in danger of just punishment, is
here in germ. The friend of God must be the friend of men; and if
they be wicked, and he sees the frightful doom which they do not
see, these make his pity the deeper. Abraham does not contest the
justice of the doom. He lives too near his friend not to know that
sin must mean death. The effect of friendship with God is not to
make men wish that there were no judgments for evil-doers, but to
touch their hearts with pity, and to stir them to intercession and
to effort for their deliverance.

2. The friend of God has absolute trust in the rectitude of His
acts. Abraham's remonstrance, if we may call it so, embodies some
thoughts about the government of God in the world which should be
pondered.

His first abrupt question, flung out without any reverential
preface, assumes that the character of God requires that the fate of
the righteous should be distinguished from that of the wicked. The
very brusqueness of the question shows that he supposed himself to
be appealing to an elementary and indubitable law of God's dealings.
The teachings of the Fall and of the Flood had graven deep on his
conscience the truth that the same loving Friend must needs deal out
rewards to the good and chastisement to the bad. That was the simple
faith of an early time, when problems like those which tortured the
writers of the seventy-third Psalm, or of Job and Ecclesiastes, had
not yet disturbed the childlike trust of the friend of God, because
no facts in his experience had forced them on him. But the belief
which was axiomatic to him, and true for his supernaturally shaped
life with its special miracles and visible divine guard, is not the
ultimate and irrefragable principle which he thought it. In
widespread calamities the righteous are blended with the wicked in
one bloody ruin; and it is the very misery of such judgments that
often the sufferers are not the wrongdoers, but that the fathers eat
the sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. The
whirlwind of temporal judgments makes no distinctions between the
dwellings of the righteous and the wicked, but levels them both. No
doubt, the fact that the impending destruction was to be a direct
Divine interposition of a punitive kind made it more necessary that
it should be confined to the actual culprits. No doubt, too,
Abraham's zeal for the honour of God's government was right. But his
first plea belongs to the stage of revelation at which he stood, not
to that of the New Testament, which teaches that the eighteen on
whom the tower in Siloam fell were not sinners above all men in
Jerusalem. Abraham's confidence in God's justice, not Abraham's
conceptions of what that justice required, is to be imitated. A
friend of God will hold fast by the faith that 'His way is perfect,'
and will cherish it even in the presence of facts more perplexing
than any which met Abraham's eyes.

Another assumption in his prayer is that the righteous are sources
of blessing and shields for the wicked. Has he there laid hold of a
true principle? Certainly, it is indeed the law that 'every man
shall bear his own burden,' but that law is modified by the
operation of this other, of which God's providence is full. Many a
drop of blessing trickles from the wet fleece to the dry ground.
Many a stroke of judgment is carried off harmlessly by the lightning
conductor. Where God's friends are inextricably mixed up with evil-
doers, it is not rare to see diffused blessings which are destined
indeed primarily for the former, but find their way to the latter.
Christians are the 'salt of the earth' in this sense too, that they
save corrupt communities from swift destruction, and for their sakes
the angels delay their blow. In the final resort, each soul must
reap its own harvest from its own deeds; but the individualism of
Christianity is not isolation. We are bound together in mysterious
community, and a good man is a fountain of far-flowing good. The
truest 'saviours of society' are the servants of God.

A third principle is embodied in the solemn question, 'Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right?' This is not meant in its bearing
here, as we so often hear it quoted, to silence man's questionings
as to mysterious divine acts, or to warn us from applying our
measures of right and wrong to these. The very opposite thought is
conveyed; namely, the confidence that what God does must approve
itself as just to men. He is Judge of all the earth, and therefore
bound by His very nature, as by His relations to men, to do nothing
that cannot be pointed to as inflexibly right. If Abraham had meant,
'What God does, must needs be right, therefore crush down all
questions of how it accords with thy sense of justice,' he would
have been condemning his own prayer as presumptuous, and the thought
would have been entirely out of place. But the appeal to God to
vindicate His own character by doing what shall be in manifest
accord with His name, is bold language indeed, but not too bold,
because it is prompted by absolute confidence in Him. God's
punishments must be obviously righteous to have moral effect, or to
be worthy of Him.

But true as the principle is, it needs to be guarded. Abraham
himself is an instance that men's conceptions of right do not
completely correspond to the reality. His notion of 'right' was, in
some particulars, as his life shows, imperfect, rudimentary, and far
beneath New Testament ideas. Conscience needs education. The best
men's conceptions of what befits divine justice are relative,
progressive; and a shifting standard is no standard. It becomes us
to be very cautious before we say to God, 'This is the way. Walk
Thou in it,' or dismiss any doctrine as untrue on the ground of its
contradicting our instincts of justice.

3. The friend of God has power with God. 'Shall I hide from Abraham
that thing which I do?' The divine Friend recognises the obligation
of confidence. True friendship is frank, and cannot bear to hide its
purposes. That one sentence in its bold attribution of a like
feeling to God leads us deep into the Divine heart, and the sweet
reality of his amity. Insight into His will ever belongs to those
who live near Him. It is the beginning of the long series of
disclosures of 'the secret of the Lord' to 'them that fear Him,'
which is crowned by 'henceforth I call you not servants; but ...
friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made
known unto you.' So much for the divine side of the communion.

On the human side, we are here taught the great truth, that God's
friends are intercessors, whose voice has a mysterious but most real
power with God. If it be true, that, in general terms, the righteous
are shields and sources of blessing to the unholy, it is still more
distinctly true that they have access to God's secret place with
petitions for others as well as for themselves. The desires which go
up to God, like the vapours exhaled to heaven, fall in refreshing
rain on spots far away from that whence they rose. In these days we
need to keep fast hold of our belief in the efficacy of prayer for
others and for ourselves. God knows Himself and the laws of His
government a great deal better than any one besides does; and He has
abundantly shown us in His Word, and by many experiences, that
breath spent in intercession is not wasted. In these old times, when
worship was mainly sacrificial, this wonderful instance of pure
intercession meets us, an anticipation of later times. And from
thence onwards there has never failed proof to those who will look
for it, that God's friends are true priests, and help their brethren
by their prayers. Our voices should 'rise like a fountain night and
day' for men. But there is a secret distrust of the power, and a
flagrantly plain neglect of the duty, of intercession nowadays,
which need sorely the lesson that God 'remembered Abraham' and
delivered Lot. Luther, in his rough, strong way, says: 'If I have a
Christian who prays to God for me, I will be of good courage, and be
afraid of nothing. If I have one who prays against me, I had rather
have the Grand Turk for my enemy.'

The tone of Abraham's intercession may teach us how familiar the
intercourse with the Heavenly Friend may be. The boldest words from
a loving heart, jealous of God's honour, are not irreverent in His
eyes. This prayer is abrupt, almost rough. It sounds like
remonstrance quite as much as prayer. Abraham appeals to God to take
care of His name and honour, as if he had said, If Thou doest this,
what will the world say of Thee, but that Thou art unmerciful? But
the grand confidence in God's character, the eager desire that it
should be vindicated before the world, the dread that the least film
should veil the silvery whiteness or the golden lustre of His name,
the sensitiveness for His honour--these are the effects of communion
with Him; and for these God accepts the bold prayer as truer
reverence than is found in many more guarded and lowly sounding
words. Many conventional proprieties of worship may be broken just
because the worship is real. 'The frequent sputter shows that the
soul's depths boil in earnest.' We may learn, too, that the most
loving familiarity never forgets the fathomless gulf between God and
it. Abraham remembers that he is 'dust and ashes'; he knows that he
is venturing much in speaking to God. His pertinacious prayers have
a recurring burden of lowly recognition of his place. Twice he
heralds them with 'I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord';
twice with 'Oh let not the Lord be angry.' Perfect love casts out
fear and deepens reverence. We may come with free hearts, from which
every weight of trembling and every cloud of doubt has been lifted.
But the less the dread, the lower we shall bow before the Loftiness
which we love. We do not pray aright until we tell God everything.
The 'boldness' which we as Christians ought to have, means literally
a frank speaking out of all that is in our hearts. Such 'boldness
and access with confidence' will often make short work of so-called
seemly reverence, but it will never transgress by so much as a
hair's-breadth the limits of lowly, trustful love.

Abraham's persistency may teach us a lesson. If one might so say, he
hangs on God's skirt like a burr. Each petition granted only
encourages him to another. Six times he pleads, and God waits till
he has done before He goes away; He cannot leave His friend till
that friend has said all his say. What a contrast the fiery fervour
and unwearying pertinacity of Abraham's prayers make to the stiff
formalism of the intercessions one is familiar with! The former are
like the successive pulses of a volcano driving a hot lava stream
before it; the latter, like the slow flow of a glacier, cold and
sluggish. Is any part of our public or private worship more
hopelessly formal than our prayers for others? This picture from the
old world may well shame our languid petitions, and stir us up to a
holy boldness and persistence in prayer. Our Saviour Himself teaches
that 'men ought always to pray, and not to faint,' and Himself
recommends to us a holy importunity, which He teaches us to believe
is, in mysterious fashion, a power with God. He gives room for such
patient continuance in prayer by sometimes delaying the apparent
answer, not because He needs to be won over to bless, but because it
is good for us to draw near, and to keep near, the Lord. He is ever
at the door, ready to open, and if sometimes, like Rhoda to Peter,
He does not open immediately, and we have to keep knocking, it is
that our desires may increase by delay, and so He may be able to
give a blessing, which will be the greater and sweeter for the
tarrying.

So the friendship is manifested on both sides: on God's, by
disclosure of His purpose and compliance with His friend's request;
on Abraham's, by speech which is saved from irreverence by love, and
by prayer which is acceptable to God by its very importunity. Jesus
Christ has promised us the highest form of such friendship, when He
has said, 'I have called you friends: for all things that I have
heard of My Father I have made known unto you'; and again, 'If ye
abide in Me, ... ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done
unto you.'

THE SWIFT DESTROYER

'And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened
Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters,
which are here; lest them be consumed in the iniquity of
the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon
his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the
hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto
him: and they brought him forth, and set him without
the city. And it came to pass, when they had brought
them forth abroad, that He said, Escape for thy life;
look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain;
escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. And Lot
said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord: Behold now, Thy
servant hath found grace in Thy sight, and Thou hast
magnified Thy mercy, which Thou hast shewed unto me in
saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest
some evil take me, and I die: Behold now, this city is
near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me
escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul
shall live. And He said unto him, See, I have accepted
thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow
this city, for the which thou hast spoken. Haste thee,
escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be
come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called
Zoar. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered
into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and
all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew
upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind
him, and she became a pillar of salt.'--GENESIS xix. 15-26.