The Judge of All the Earth, Part 1

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash
​
For a God who never gets hungry, He sure eats a lot. This isn't because God has been dishonest with us about His needs. God doesn't get hungry or need anything from us. Psalm 50:12-13 put it this way "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?" The expected answer is, "No." God doesn't need to eat something because He doesn't have a body. Even if He did need to eat, He wouldn't be waiting around for us to feed Him because He already owns everything in the earth. 

So why is He eating here? He doesn't need it. This is meant to draw our attention when God does something He doesn't have to do. It means that God is making a point. He doesn't want us to walk away from this passage to say that God has a taste for beef. He is showing Abraham, and us, something special by coming down to eat with Abraham. 

We are only going to get to our first point today: God is personally involved in blessing and judgment. 

In our tour of Genesis, I want us to stare at this point for a minute, namely, the imminence of God, His closeness, His intimacy. This was a point that I had missed in my initial study of this passage, so I greatly owe Dr. Allen Ross for pointing me in this direction for this sermon. It is easy to miss the closeness and intimacy with God in Genesis so far because of all the big things He does. He sets up the world, and then He floods the whole thing. He separates all the peoples by introducing different languages. He brings a plague on all of Egypt. He helps Abraham defeat close to half a dozen kingdoms in battle. He is promising that Abraham will have descendants outnumbering the stars! In the next chapter, He turns the green, fertile fields of Sodom into the Dead Sea with flaming brimstone launched from heaven! 

And then there’s this chapter where He stops by for lunch. 

Our God is not a God who drops care packages through the mail or send judgment via drone. He is personally involved. He operates face-to-face. And we are going to look at that today. 

God is personally involved in blessing and judgment

Once again, here in verse 1, God appears to Abraham. We aren't really told how He has appeared before (except in chapter 15 where He took the form of fire and smoke), but this time we are given a clear picture of how He appears this time: in human form. 

The Lord is clearly one of the men (the One who does all the talking), but who are the other two? Is this some sort of appearance of the Trinity, the three in one? No, the passage itself doesn't support that view. We see in verse 22 (which we will look at next time) that after the meal is done, the three move towards Sodom, but the Lord stops while the other two men go on. Later, in chapter 19, verse 1, we find "THE" two angels arriving in Sodom. The definite article assumes that we would know that it is the same two men who were walking earlier towards Sodom. 

Secondly, contrary to popular books like The Shack, the Trinity is not three separate beings, three Gods. There is only one God. Jesus was clear that He and the Father are One, and that he who had seen Him had seen the Father. There are three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but all One Substance, One Being. Does that break our minds? Yes it does, but it isn't contradictory. We aren't saying there is only one God, and there are also three Gods. We are saying three persons, One God. It's God. It's supposed to be beyond our understanding. 

In any event, God has arrived, and Abraham wishes to serve Him. He acts as a great host, offering a foot wash, shade, and food. He runs around in what one of my professors called, "a tornado of activity" (Matthews, 217). He's running here and there getting everything ready as quickly as ancient technology would allow, and then he stands there like a modern waiter while they eat. 

Now, God could have easily spared Abraham this trouble. He could have created food right then and there. So why? Well, eating someone else's food implies good relations between the two of you. Unless you have some sort of terrible allergy which requires you to bring your own food, you don't bring your own food to someone else's dinner. If you were to invite me to lunch, and I turned it down for no other reason other than I brought my own food, that would be an insult, even in this culture. We train our children to eat even food that we don't like all that much, lest we insult the host. This is even more so in a culture like Abraham's. 

When I was in Togo, the director there told me a story of when they were going into a remote village to do some ministry. The people there were so excited to welcome visitors that most of the village took the day off to prepare this elaborate meal for them. It wasn't much, because it was a poor village, but they put all their hearts into it. The Vapor people sat down, and the director told me, "There were no less than five THOUSAND flies on that meal. I turned to my team," he said, "we are going to eat this. Don't finish your plates (because you'll get more), but you have to eat." As a side bar, that doesn't happen on trips that Americans take, so don't let this story prevent you from coming with me to Togo some day, but this director's attitude illustrates the point we are making here. 

Eating is an act of trust. Dr. Ross puts it this way, "A good case can be made at the visitation to eat in Abrahams tent was meant to convey intimate fellowship, and on the basis of such a close relationship, the Lord would guarantee the imminent birth of the child of promise" (Ross, 342). God sitting down to dinner with you tells you that you and He are friends. Because of that relationship, when He tells you that something is going to be done, it will be. It isn't just because God has a contract with you, and is therefore obligated to do so. He is going to fulfill His promise to you because He loves you. Being friends with God should mean that there is very little to fear. 

I remember taking a political science class with a man who was very well connected in Washington many years ago. He told us the story of a friend who had lost their passport and needed a new one. The problem was this friend was flying out of the country the next day. Anyone who has ever had to get a passport done knows that it takes weeks, if you're lucky, to get something like that. But not if you are friends with someone in that office. One phone call was made, and within 24 hours, that friend had a new passport. It pays to have friends in government!

How much more so with God? Don't you just love verse 14? Can you imagine being Abraham and Sarah in that moment? God Himself is talking to you in between bites of bread that you made, and asks, "Is anything too hard for me? I know that you want a son more than anything, and I promise you that son this time next year." 

What do you want from God? Have you really sat down and thought about it? If you could have lunch with God, what would you want your conversation to be? Probably, if we are honest, would initially say something like, clearing of debt, obedient children, better marriage, less pain, the new Mario Kart, and maybe even more episodes of Bluey. But if we were to interrogate those requests for a bit, what we would find is that what we actually want is joy. We think those things will bring it, but they don't on their own. Joy comes from having more of Christ. It is focusing on the Giver, not the gift. 

And that is why Jesus gave us the Lord's Supper. In this chapter, Abraham washes the Lord's feet, but in John 13, the Lord returns in physical form, not to be served, but to serve. He stoops to wash their feet, and in a flurry of activity, He prepares a meal, ultimately symbolizing His sacrifice. He didn't just prepare the bread, He became the bread, as it were. He doesn't just offer us a meal; He offers us Himself. And now, every time we gather together to eat the Lord's Supper, it is a real communion with Jesus. By faith, we eat that supper with Jesus. Just because we can't see it doesn't make it any less real. Paul doesn't call the Lord's Supper a cup of blessing (1 Cor. 10) for nothing. 

Imagine coming to the Lord's Table desiring to be rid of your sin so that you may behold Christ better, and He smiles at you over a table symbolizing His sacrifice on the cross to give you exactly that and says, "Is anything too hard for me? I know the troubles in your life. I gave them to you to draw you here. I am showing you that you don't need a pain-free body to find joy in Me. You don't need the perfect spouse to find joy in Me. You can find joy in Me while being half-starved in a prison camp, because many of your brothers and sisters have. Nothing is impossible with Me." 

Maybe you are thinking to yourself, "Well, that's great for Christians, but there is no way that I can be forgiven." Let the story of Peter set you straight. Peter, one of the top disciples in Jesus' ministry, denied even knowing who Jesus was three times within sight of Jesus at His trial. He thought He was done. But at the end of John, we find Jesus making breakfast for Peter. And it is at that very moment that Jesus assures Peter of forgiveness. He gave Him three opportunities to say, "I love you" to replace the three times he denied. 

Come to that breakfast. Jesus has provided a way to have fellowship with God restored. If you've been wandering, come back. There's a meal for you. If you have been walking with Jesus, be reminded that He desires fellowship with you. Talk to Him in prayer. Hear from Him in His Word. Eat with Him here at the Lord's Table. We aren't trying to toss a note into the clouds hoping Jesus gets it. Jesus has come to Earth with a set table. 

Let me close with this. I heard of a man who would pray everyday at a window in His home. He would sit in one chair, and would place another chair outside the window and said that this was so that Jesus would have a place to sit. Now, I'm not saying that this is the best way to pray, but that man understands what is happening. He isn't talking to the sky. He isn't just spraying words somewhere hoping something sticks. He knows that he is praying to someone Who is listening. Who is personally involved in His life. 

That's true of you. So please, don't deny yourself a meal with Jesus. Spend some time in fellowship with Jesus this afternoon. It doesn't have to stop here. It shouldn't. Pull up a chair. Sit a while. You are sons of God, heirs to the promise of one day sitting with Jesus face to face, to have a meal in heaven.