Wilt Thou Slay Also A Righteous Nation?

“But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is another man’s wife. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?”

Genesis 20:3

Abimelech thought that God was bluffing. God was the first person to use the phrase, “You’re a dead man!” and it has stuck in our language to this day. Though we say it casually, God was in no joking mood when he confronted King Abimelech in his bedroom.

And Abimelech was afraid, yet he was undaunted. He was afraid, because the embers from Sodom and Gomorrah still glowed, and the earth still heaved in dry convulsions after the annihilation of those perverse places. Divine wrath was a fresh reality. Yet, he doesn’t think twice to argue God’s morality. As though it were a valid argument, he contends:

“Wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?”

(Notice, Abimelech said ‘also a righteous nation’. He thought God was too hard on Sodom. He used ‘also’ to put Gerar on the same plain as Gomorrah.)

Abimelech was ignorant of the fact that the man whose wife he stole was also the ONLY man to ever negotiate with JEHOVAH. He bid the Lord down from a quorum of 50 righteous to a meager 10. Yes, it would have taken only 10 righteous people in all of Sodom and Gomorrah and God would have spared the whole place. Abraham was the friend of God, and he alone had been given that kind of access to God.

In what has gone down in history as the most masterful mediation, Abraham pleaded with God:

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?”

Genesis 18:23-25

And God did right. He always does. He found only 1 righteous, and so He torched the place. And here’s the part you and I need to grasp: if Lot hadn’t escaped in time, God would have vaporized him, too.

To return to Abimelech’s question: Would God slay also a righteous nation?

Answer: Absolutely He would.

Because Sodom’s sins didn’t start with perversion.

“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”

Ezekiel 16:49

Because small sins are just as deserving as big ones.

“There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?

I tell you, Nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

Luke 13:1-3

And Gerar had Sodom as a warning.

“Now therefore restore the man[Abraham] his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.”

Genesis 20:7

This is absolutely vital to understand the nature of God. The first time a man sins, God is extra merciful. Adam and Eve took fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil- God spared them; clothed them. Cain murdered his brother in cold blood- God spared him; marked him so no man would seek vengeance on him.

Sodom, oozing all the sins she is famous for, fell victim to the four kings of the east in Genesis 14. If you read the chapter, you would find that God used Abraham to save them the first time, along with Lot and his wife and daughters. Yet somehow, just a few chapters later, they turned their back on Melchizedek and Abraham and Jehovah, and the brimstone fell.

Not only that, but this is the second time Abraham had wandered into Philistine territory and messed up (see Genesis 12). The Pharaoh of Egypt knew full well that God’s protection was on Abram and Sarai. His kingdom paid extravagant royalties to them! (Genesis 12:16)

Did Abimelech have his head in the sand when Abraham became the wealthiest nomad in the land of Canaan? Did not the war report of how this shepherd with 300 servants conquered 5 kings with their armies come to him? Did not the smoke and cinders of Gomorrah blacken the skies above Gerar?

Would God slay that ‘righteous’ nation?

Abimelech had sinned.

He had ample warning.

The land of Gerar had a graphic demonstration in Gomorrah.

Abimelech had every reason to be very, very afraid of God.

Gerar, like Sodom, had no Bible

God’s dealing with nations is very prophetic and predictable. Human nature remains fundamentally unchanged since 4000BC, therefore a Bible believer does not have to guess, wish, or fret over the fate of any nation current or future on the face of the earth. Their course has already been laid out.

“I (the LORD) will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.”

Joel 3:2

The God of Israel is not calling a meeting to sit down and discuss politics with them, either. He calls to them, “Prepare war” (3:9) and there He will “sit to judge all the heathen” (3:12). To show what will happen in that dried-up river valley, He says, “Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down… for their wickedness is great.” (3:13)

The United States of America should not be expected to become an exception to this rule. Many have, and will, try to excuse America for past revival’s sake, or for foreign missions from its borders. But those two things are the operation of the Church, not a nation. Those are two callings to believers of any nationality, and God expects them to occur within any border, with any economy, with any form of government. (And they do- despite being neither funded nor famous)

Notwithstanding, America should take extra warning because her leaders sit in the seat of Abimelech. They too, from the county board all the way to the Resolute Desk, have listened incredulously to the street preachers’ warnings for the last 100 years. They think like Abimelech: “God would never judge us: God loves us. Look at how much money we give. Look at the big buildings we have. Think of all the people who depend on us.” It is for their sake and yours that I resend a 30 year-old warning:

"When Jonathan Edwards describes the justice of God as pointing its arrow at our hearts, he adds that ours is "an angry God without any promise or obligation at all."

That phrase is biting me right now. I cannot push it off nor brush it off nor wash it off. It is biting on the inside. 

How right Edwards was! What obligations has God to a people like us whose aggregate sin as a nation in one day is more than the sin of Sodom and her sister city, Gomorrah, in one year?

Sodom had no churches. We have thousands.
Sodom had no Bible. We have millions.
Sodom had no preachers. We have had ten thousand plus thousands.
Sodom had no Bible schools. We have at least two hundred and fifty.
Sodom had no prayer meetings. We have thousands.
Sodom had no gospel broadcasts. As a nation we are richly blessed with Christian broadcasts.
Sodom had no histories of God's judgment to warn it of danger. We have volumes of them.

Sodom perished in spite of all these disadvantages. America today is living only by the mercy of God.

The salt of the earth that is saving America at this hour is the Church. Believers, this is your hour. Believers, arise! Believers, begin now to watch, to weep, to work, to war."

From Sodom Had No Bible by Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994)

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