[AI translation] The story of Abraham is so instructive because it deals with almost all the problems of the believer's life. We have already talked about the obedience of the believer, his disobedience, his covenant with God, his walk of faith, his family life, and in the passage we are reading we are talking about the prayer of the believer. And though it is a very specific prayer uttered in a very specific situation, from the lips of Abraham, in connection with the divine judgment that threatened Sodom, there is an eternally valid, general truth to be drawn from it as a lesson for the prayer life of every believer. Let us now try to gather these eternal truths, almost to put them into points, into propositions - with the hope and the desire that the Holy Spirit of God may lead us through them to greater depths of the true prayer life!1) The prayer of a believer is first of all an immersion in communion with God. We see this in the words which begin the passage read as the basic hymn: "And the men turned from thence, and went to Sodom: and Abraham stood before the Lord. (Gen 18:22-23) And this is significant because even before this Abraham had been with the Lord, and they had been talking and discussing in intimate fellowship. True, it was not so much Abraham who spoke to the Lord, but the Lord who spoke to Abraham. The Lord appeared to him, honoured him with His visit, told him what He was going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah, promised him again concerning the birth of Isaac, and when He made these great revelations known to him, we read, "And Abraham stood before the Lord..." So: when the Lord had about finished speaking to Abraham, Abraham did not let the Lord go, he remained before him. In fact, he "walked to Him", that is, he drew even closer to Him. Now it was his turn, now his real prayer began, now he answered what he had heard, now he really knew what he had to bring before the Lord in his supplication. So now, just now, he cannot go to his work, now this is his most important thing; now there is nothing else to do, nothing else to do, nothing else to do but look after animals, to talk to his wife about what he has heard from the Lord: now he must continue.
So, the believer does not rush his meeting with God. Do we not enter into the depths of prayer because we interrupt it too quickly, because we stop it, because we do it in a hurry, quickly, nervously, hastily, as we do everything else? Even in the feverish rush of modern life, we can no longer relax in prayer, we can no longer contemplate, which is an essential condition for true prayer. We cannot remain still, standing before the Lord, as Abraham did, trying to say "amen" quickly, so that we can rush on to more important things. Observe yourself in this respect when you pray! Isn't it because you can't pray because the real praying would only begin after you have long since stopped? But God would still be willing to listen to us, to talk to us, He would not stop, but we have no time, we have other things to do. And there is nothing more important than to give God the time He is willing to give us, to give Him the time He is willing to give us! Much, much more than we think depends on being able to leave everything there when God wills it. There is no prayer in prayer: true prayer is always an immersion in communion with God.
2) The prayer of the believer: social responsibility. Abraham, when he prays here, is not pleading his own cause before God, but is pleading for others. Yet he himself has a great cause, the matter of the blessing of children. Then he must have had many other things to do, many other problems, which he would have liked to have discussed in intimate communion with God. But he is not pleading for his own petty troubles, for this or that problem in his material or spiritual life, but for Sodom and Gomorrah! Not even for his nephew, relative or acquaintance in Sodom, but for a people he does not even know! He intercedes with God for people whom he only knows are evil, judgment is coming upon them.
What did Abraham have to do with the people of Sodom anyway? Nothing, in fact! He didn't even live among them, he didn't even know their language, they had a different culture, a different world view, a different morality, they really had no fellowship with each other, and yet Abraham stood up for them and pleaded for mercy for them. But why? For he could have rejoiced - as many would and do - that a wicked people should now be punished for their wickedness. And behold, a true believer goes before God in the name of an unknown, wicked people and begs for mercy for them. Why? Because he knows - because the believer already knows, he knows from his own experience - that there is grace, because he has already received that grace. It is because he knows that man - all men, he and the people of Sodom - can live only by grace, can live by grace. Because he sees in the Sodomites not the evil man, but the man like himself, in need of grace. For he sees man from the point of view of God, from the point of view of the God who made the greatest sacrifice for man's salvation, for his uplifting, and also of the man, the most wicked, whom this God has called to life, eternal life! Therefore can he thus plead, "Hast thou also lost the righteous with the wicked? Is it that there are fifty righteous in that city, or wilt thou perish, and not please the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? Far be it from thee that thou shouldest do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should walk as the wicked: far be it from thee. Shall not the judge of all the earth do justice?" (Genesis 18:23-25)
Yes: so seriously does the believer take the fate of others, the misfortunes of others, the lives of peoples and nations, the tragedies of strangers, the calamities of other men! Not only does he take them seriously, but he takes them upon himself, suffering, struggling, fighting, pleading with God for them and on their behalf! For mercy! For life! For preservation! He is hurt not only by what the other hurts, but even by what the other does not hurt, perhaps because of his wickedness and unbelieving blindness! To pray is not only to beg for a little prosperity, peace, joy and health for myself and mine, but also to take upon myself the destiny of others before God, and to bear the destiny of others. But not only the fate of the members of my family, not only the fate of my church, not only the fate of my people, but the fate of other people - even strangers, even nations - yes, even the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. The fate of the whole world, because God so loved the whole world that He gave His only begotten Son for it, that it should not perish but have everlasting life!
Today, when the radio, the aeroplane, the press have brought the continents of the world so close together that we know each other's affairs and destinies almost simultaneously, people scattered on different continents, it is even more justified that we should draw closer together spiritually and extend our responsibility towards all people. May our prayer embrace peoples with faith, hope and love! He is not a man of faith who can contemplate the fate of distant and foreign peoples with dispassionate indifference, without knowing that he himself is responsible before God! It is because of this irresponsibility that the world is suffering today. Do you know what the most effective weapon against indifferent irresponsibility is? Is to start praying, begging for them! Such prayer, praying for others, is the surest door and way to other people, to the human being that truly brings us into communion across distances, even over 5-10 thousand kilometres! So yes: the prayer of a believer is the deepest social responsibility!
3) And that is why the prayer of a believer is a very serious service for the good of the world! Abraham prayed for the reversal of the divine judgment that was coming upon Sodom. His intercession with God for Sodom is almost a graphic example of what God says through the prophet Ezekiel: "And I sought for one of them that would build a wall, and stand before me in the breach for the kingdom, that I might not destroy it; and there was none found." (Ezek 22:30) God's judgment comes upon Sodom, the world, like a flood, or like a devastating enemy force upon a fenced city. But the walls can no longer withstand the onslaught, they are cracked and broken. And now Abraham, with his prayer, stands in one of these cracks and tries to hold back the impending disaster. The prayer of God's faithful people is such a seal on the cracks and cracks in the world's defensive wall, helping to hold back the disaster that threatens humanity. May God allow His people to enter into the crack, into His for countries, peoples, continents, so that He may not destroy it with His holiness and justice! That is why we read elsewhere in the Bible that "the fervent supplication of the righteous is very profitable." (James 5:16) That is why the Apostle Paul exhorts: "I exhort you therefore before all things, that supplications, prayers, supplications, thanksgivings, be made for every man, for kings, and for all that are in dignity, that we may lead a quiet and quiet life, in full fear of God and in righteousness. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of our God who saves, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:1-4) The believer who already knows that he himself has been helped - and eternally helped - by God's mercy on him for Jesus Christ, the only true one, knows that this is what really helps the world!
Jesus came for the salvation of the world, he became man, and as man he walked the way from the cross to the resurrection, so that he might become the recipient of God's saving grace in the place of others and for the benefit of others. Thus He became our mediator. His church, as His body, the community of those chosen in Him, also participates in this intercession, so that, together with Jesus, in Jesus, for the sake of others who cannot yet pray, it becomes, through its own prayer and supplication, the recipient of God's saving grace. The Apostle Paul says: "For we know that the whole created world groans and groans together until now." (Rom 8:22) Now, the petition of the church gives voice and expression to the groaning and groaning of the created world. As our greatest living theologian, Károly Barth, says: "If the congregation pleads, the world, in all its godlessness, is not only no longer godless, but God has already found in it a partner, and it is moving on between itself and the world towards the ultimate goal of history, not only as a history of judgment, but also as a history of salvation and grace." Let us pray, then, in the knowledge that behind us in our prayers are all men and creatures - not praying with us, but groaning and groaning with us. Thus the prayer of the believer becomes a service for the good of the world.
4) And finally: the prayer of the believer is a participation in God's lordship of the world. God gives his own a share in the government of his own, and that through the possibility of intercessory prayer. God does not want to govern the course of the world and keep it so that the world, man, cannot turn to Him, talk to Him, listen to Him, and allow Himself to be influenced by the creature. God wants to be in touch with His creatures. God's sovereignty is so great that it even includes the possibility that in His government the creature is free to be with Him and to act with Him.
The friends of God have a freedom which God has not only allowed them, but has created for them, and has chosen to let Himself be determined by them, by their requests, without yielding the wheel of government to them for a moment. In Christ, the believer is lifted up to the right hand of the Father, to the place where all events are decided. It is not the believer in himself, but the believer in Christ who is at God's side, working together with his own supplication where decisions are made.
And it is precisely this privilege that makes the believer not presumptuous, but the most humble. The more Abraham asks, the less he himself shrinks: 'Please do not be angry with my Lord when I speak: If thirty men be found there..... And he said, I have now ventured to speak to my lord: "Shall twenty be found there? And he said, I pray thee, my lord, be not angry, if I say once more, If ten be found there. (Genesis 18:30a; 31a; 32a)
This is how to pray. This is the way to pray. This is the prayer of a believer. Immersion, social responsibility, service to the world and participation in God's work of world government.
Amen
Date: 19 October 1952.
Lesson
1Móz 18,1-21