Where Is God – Part 1
Good day to each of you reading this article on where is God to be found?
One could answer that question with the question of who came first, the chicken or the egg?
Let’s use the following example—Genesis 18:23-25 (NIV) 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare[a] the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
Here is Sodom & Gomorrah, the worst of the worst, in terms of cities to be destroyed, and, yet Abraham is pleading with God not to destroy either city if he can find 10 righteous people.
As Genesis 18 unfolds, the Lord meets Abraham near the trees of Mamre to break bread. The Lord asks where his wife Sarah is and Abraham replies in the tent.
The Lord says that he will return to Abraham about this time next year and Sarah will have a son. Sarah’s reply as she stood at the entrance to the tent, she laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
Pay special attention to Genesis 18:13-15 (NIV) 13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”
But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
Here is the perfect example of Where is God—The Lord appeared to Abraham, heard Sarah’s thoughts, asked the question “is anything too hard for the Lord?”, and said when that he would return at the appointed time next year, give Sarah a son.
In return, Sarah, laughed at the Lord, complained that she was worn out, Abraham was too old, being sarcastic of having a son, and then lying to the Lord by saying that she did not laugh.
God was always with Abraham and Sarah, yet Sarah lied directly to the Lord.
Are we any different in today’s society where fear is the most common motive for lying. When our inner thoughts and emotions are exposed or wrongdoings discovered, we lie, plain and simple, instead of telling the truth. Even though the Lord never left us, the lie we told was compounded until one doesn’t remember the first from the 10th lie, thus bringing more problems.
Here in America, we may call it sensationalism, bending the truth, “white lies”, fiction from fact, distorting the truth, disinformation or just plain and simple telling a lie or multiple lies, but lies are lies.
We look no further than in politics, news journalism, television shows, radio, the internet and people. This may include gossip, slandering, and calling the other party offensive names.
Are we all not guilty and do we not think God does not know our inner thoughts and emotions?
Let’s move forward in Genesis 18-20-23 (NIV) 20 Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”
22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord.[a] 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
I turned to the Wycliffe Bible Commentary for further information on Sodom & Gomorrah where we find the two leading cities at the south end of the Dead Sea. These two cities were to be destroyed due to conflagration that was to purge the cesspools of iniquity. The Scriptures clearly indicates that a divine visitation was to bring terrible judgment and doom upon the sinful inhabitants. The cities were about 18 miles from Abraham’s home in Hebron.
According to Google, the word Grievous is used to describe horrible things like tragedies or crimes. If you have a grievous wound, a band aid simply won’t do. Grievous is derived from the noun grief, which means “sadness.” When something is grievous, therefore, it’s not just bad, but so bad that it causes unusually intense shock or sadness.
Where is the Lord? He is standing & speaking directly to Abraham while his two angels are sent to Sodom in the evening. Abraham, approached the Lord and asked the Lord if he would destroy the righteous in Sodom & Gomorrah?
How does the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah relate to America and in today’s society? If we look at America, we are a cesspool of iniquity. We have removed the Ten Commandments from practically everywhere, we have eliminated prayer from public schools, we have all so many women who relish in abortion under the banner of “my body, my right”, people murder, steal, rape and create heinous crimes and are released that night, we have crooked politicians, we have crooked ministers, we have false religions throughout our country under the freedom of religion for all, we have drugs coming across the border killing our youth and adults, we fight wars to create more economic opportunities for the sake of the warmongers in our country, we have a 50% failed marriage rate, high adultery rate and crooked lawyers and judges who throw out God’s law for man’s law and we have airwaves spewing and making us accepting of LGBTQ practices along with the acceptance of transgenderism as a right to the child.
Yet we ask, where is God in all this mess? It is so easy to so many to blame it on God, because He was not here to bail us out, thus how we can trust God with our innermost thoughts and fears?
Points to ponder here in America, but back to Abraham and the Lord—As you read the above passage, do you think Abraham changed God’s mind concerning God’s mercy and the punishment of sin?
Let’s turn this around by saying that God changed Abraham’s mind by showing that he does punish sin and yet he shows his mercy by saving Lot and his family along with allowing Abraham to intercede with finding ten righteous people in the city before its destruction.
Where again is the Lord? Look no further than verse 21 where the Lord was going down to see what the people had done and would give them one last chance to repent. Turn to 2 Peter 3:9 for God’s patience and an opportunity to turn to him.
God has never left America but too many Americans have left God, turned to their idols, false gods, and never opened their Bibles. God is merciful and God is just and his patience must be running very thin with America.
Here is the question in Genesis 18:32 (NIV) 32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”
He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”
Where is God? He never left us nor forsake us as he has given America every break to turn from its wicked ways. In return, America has given God the cold shoulder and has put God up on a shelf to be used in time of trouble.
The Bible gives us the answer as to what will happen to America—we will discuss this in the next article as we compare Sodom to America in Isaiah 1.
Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
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