God revealed to Abraham that He was
going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. God discussed His plans with
Abraham and Abraham was shocked. He didn't want God to destroy the
righteous with the wicked. He started to plead with God to be
merciful to those that are righteous. And God, in His unending
mercy, agreed to not only save the righteous, but also to save the
whole city because of them. Now Abraham started to plea with God
and asked Him to save the city if 50 righteous people were found.
And God agreed. Abraham continued and asked God to save the city if
only 45 were found, and God agreed. And so Abraham continued until
he asked God to please save the city if only 10 were found and God
agreed. I think after Abraham started with his plea to save the
city if 50 righteous people were found, he realised that there
might not be 50. He knew his nephew Lot was there and wanted to
save him at all cost. He ended with 10 righteous people and I think
he ended there, because he must have hoped that Lot would have had
a couple of converts there after all the years that he has lived
there. He must have been confident that there must be at least 10.
As we shall see later, he was wrong. Lot was not an effective
evangelist, in fact Lot himself wasn't the most righteous of all
men.
But for now let us consider this
conversation that Abraham had with God here in Genesis 18:16-33.
First of all I would like us all to notice how gracious God is. He
is the Master of the Universe, the Judge of all and yet He had the
patience to listen to the opinion of a fragile human being. Okay
Abraham was a man of faith, but he was still human, still a sinner
and yet God gave him the opportunity to engage with Him and to
intercede for the city. That just shows me how patient and loving
God is. We can come to Him and talk to Him about everything. We can
intercede for cities, for our nation and we can plead God's mercy
on us and God will listen. Not because He has to, but because He
wants to. We are clothed with the righteous cloak given to us by
Jesus Christ, and we can come boldly to the throne of Grace and
plead with God. We should take this honour seriously and intercede
on behalf of ourselves, our family, our friends and our nation.
Second of all do you notice here
that God wants to be merciful? He doesn't rejoice when He has to
punish nations. He is the Judge over all and has to punish sins,
but He loves to be merciful. He was more than willing to save an
entire city full of the most wicked sinners, just because 10 are
found to be righteous. Isn't it amazing? Now if we look at our
nation today, we can only shudder at the horrific and evil things
that are happening all around. Women and children are regularly
being raped, children are sold into slavery (human trafficking),
people are killed for a cell phone, drunken drivers crash into
innocent victims, people are beaten and hurt for a mere R100 and so
I can go on. I think you all know what I am talking about. The
things going on today is wicked. I sometimes wonder if Sodom and
Gomorrah was much worse than this. But then I rejoice, because I
know without a doubt that there are more than 10 righteous people
in our country, much more than 10. And I know, because there are,
we can plead with God to be merciful to us. We can plead with Him
to take over the government of our country. We can proclaim Him as
Lord over South Africa once more and we can humble ourselves with
fasting and prayer, that He will be merciful and turn our country
around, to a country built upon His principles and His love.
I challenge you today to pray
earnestly to the Lord this week for our beautiful country, South
Africa. Let us humble ourselves before Him. Set aside one day this
week where you will fast and pray. Recently I have found the
amazing power that lies within fasting once more. I am writing a
book about it at the moment, but believe me when I tell you that
fasting releases mighty power in the supernatural and many nations
have been turned around through it. It is a key that God has given
us to use to unleash His mighty power and we should use it. Tell
your friends and neighbours to do it as well this week. The time
has come to set our nation free from the evil powers holding it in
their grip. Enough is enough. Let's stand up as the righteous
people of this country and claim our country back under God's power
and rule!
Father, we stand humbled before You
today. Thank you that You are the same yesterday, today and
tomorrow. You are the same God Who would have saved Sodom and
Gomorrah if 10 righteous people were found. And therefore we ask of
You today: there are more than 10 righteous people in South Africa
today, much more Lord, there are thousands, if not millions. And we
stand in the gap for South Africa today and we plead with You to be
merciful to us. The chaos in our country and the evil running
around rampant are signs that the evil one has taken hold of our
country. And therefore we plead before You today to be merciful to
us. You are Almighty, El Shaddai, the wondrous One, and we pray
with boldness because of what Jesus has done for us, that the
powers of the evil one should leave our country! We pray that they
will have no hold over us anymore. The righteous are standing
before You today, pleading that You will unleash Your mighty power
and that You will deliver us from the evil one. Father, we know You
can and we know that You can't wait to throw the evil one into the
lake of fire, but we also know that Your timetable is not ours. We
know You have plans for this world as a whole and for us to. And
therefore we pray that Your good plans be done, that Your will be
done as it is in heaven. Lord please forgive our sins, and save our
nation, because of all the righteous that are suffering too. We
plead it of You just like Abraham of old. He is our spiritual
father and because he is, You have promised that we will also
receive all the blessings promised to him. We therefore claim those
blessings, we claim a land dedicated to you, a land filled with
Your mighty Spirit. We thank you Lord, You are gracious and true
and we stand in awe of You. May You reign supreme in our lives, our
country and in the world. May You be exalted and You alone. All
power and honour and glory be Yours forever and ever. Amen