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Country Life SDA Church

Eric Walsh

When God Spared Not

The Bible says, Say unto them, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?" Our sermon this Sabbath is entitled, When God Spared Not.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your Word.

And I just ask, Lord, that you make me a nail on the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

And upon that nail, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

And this holiday season especially, Lord, we want to come and adore you, lift you up and worship you for the great Savior you are.

In the Bible, there is this concept around how God wants to treat his people.

As you all know, earth is in a state of rebellion against God.

God's spirit will not always strive with this planet because of this state of rebellion.

And as our scripture reading says, Ezekiel 33, 11, God says, as I live, saith the Lord God, God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

He says, but that the wicked turn from his evil way and live, turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways.

The story that kind of sums this up is a is 1 in Genesis chapter 18.

We'll be here for a little while in Genesis 18.

The Bible has Abraham sitting and 3 men come to visit him.

We know from the story that these are celestial beings.

2 angels and 1 of them is the pre-incarnate Christ, meaning this is Jesus appearing on earth before Bethlehem, before being born in a manger.

Verse 8, 16 says, and the men rose up from hence and looked towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.

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." Abraham was so close to God that when God was about to do something, he actually contemplated, should I talk with Abraham about this?

That's the closeness God and Abraham had.

I want to submit to you that the study of prophecy in the Bible is God telling us like he told Abraham.

So when I hear churches say, you know, we don't study prophecy anymore, we don't look at beasts anymore, they are disconnecting with God at a point where he wants to be your friend as we'll see verse 19 for I know him that he will command his children in 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.

So he knew Abraham would do well and remember this is before Abraham actually starts to do well.

Chapter 18 and verse 20 says, and the Lord said because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous, God says I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which has come unto me, and if not, I will know." So God says, listen, I've heard about what's going on in Sodom.

Sin there is terrible, But God does not do judgment without first do I mean does not Pour out penalty without first doing a judgment without doing an assessment This is partly why we as adventists believe in what we call a pre-investigative judgment Here is an example in the Bible of such a thing happening.

God the sin had come to heaven but he said no I'm going to go and assess this for myself.

That's what is being done in the most holy place right now for planet Earth.

And the men turned their faces from thence and went towards Sodom.

So the 2 angels leave and the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ, is left alone with Abraham.

And this interesting conversation takes place.

Genesis 18 23 says, And Abraham drew near and said, Will you also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

So Abraham, now remember, Abraham has a vested interest in Sodom.

Remember that when he and Lot separated, Lot chose the fertile land that faced toward the city and maybe there was some urban sprawl or maybe Lot moved into the city but before long Lot was in the city.

I would imagine at some point Abraham visited Lot in Sodom and he knew the condition of the city but he did not want his family to die if something was gonna happen to Sodom and so he says wait a minute will you destroy the righteous with the wicked hoping don't miss this that his own family will be that righteous that saves the city look at verse 24 per adventure there be 50 righteous within the city without also destroy and not spare the place for the 50 righteous that are therein." Abraham says, listen, if there's just 50 good folk of the thousands of people who live in Sodom, will you save the city?

So here's the question, and it's important to how we end the sermon as well, who are the righteous?

If You go back a few chapters to Genesis chapter 15 in verse 5, it says, and he brought forth abroad and said, look not toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them.

And he said unto him, so shall thy seed be.

So the pre-incarnate Christ again takes Abraham out, shows him the stars, and says, if you can look up at the stars, can you number the stars?

Verse 6, he says, and your seed, your offspring, will be like all those countless stars in the sky.

The Bible says, and he believed in the Lord, Abraham did, and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Abraham had done nothing yet to prove righteousness.

In fact, Abraham was still gonna say Sarah was his sister and kind of half lie to get out of trouble.

He was still gonna take Hagar as a wife and have Ishmael when they should have had faith.

Abraham had not yet arrived, he was on what I call a character climb, but God credited him.

For what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

Galatians 3, 6, even as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.

And look at this, and he was called the friend of God.

That word imputed is a word that means you get credit for something in advance.

In other words, you get credit for what someone else has done in a sense.

Abraham believed God and he was given credit.

In other words, it's like he was given a preloaded card with money on it.

He had not yet done the work to deserve the reward, but he was given the reward up front.

Church, this is a key, Important doctrine.

I want to submit to you that some of you worry.

The truth is in your own power, you will never be good enough.

The truth is the devil wants you to focus on what you did, on where you were, what the worst you ever were in your life, that affair you had, that crime you committed.

The God of heaven has already charged your account with righteousness based on how his son performed, but you have to believe and accept it.

Then he says, 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.

I mean, Abraham was getting bold with God, like you're the judge of the earth, you should do the right thing.

Verse 26, and the Lord said, "'If I find in Sodom 50 righteous within the city, "'then I will spare all the place for their sakes.'" God said, I'll spare the city if there are just 50 righteous people.

Now, this is where Abraham gets in trouble.

Abraham probably did Thanksgiving at Lot's house 1 year and he remembers the condition that had said he said I'm not sure there's 50 people in that whole city.

He's not counting his family hoping that they would be righteous and when he as he counts he realized I can't get to 50.

So Abraham answered and said in verse 27, behold now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.

Verse 28, peradventure there shall lack 5 of the 50 righteous.

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When God Spared Not

Transcript

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