God ask a question and the question remains for the purpose of man or the purpose of thought when it comes to events that will occur. God sees Abraham as becoming a great nation, because Abraham instruct his children in the "Lord to do justice and judgment", inorder for God to bring about his promise to Abraham, the promise of the land and many children, that would become a nation. God is looking at Abraham as a man of promise and looking at Sodom and Gomorrah as a land of evil and evil ways. People not willing to heed to him or obey him.

If you think for a moment most children either are very good in school or very bad/least for a time, until they understand the rules. Then kids learn that are very bad that if they play by the rules they less likely to get into trouble everyday. It takes awhile with some students. If a child never has a sense of right and wrong they tend to not follow the leaders in life, or more likely to be in trouble throughout life. What is fair to follow those in charge or those with authority, or to obey corruption. Corrupt people would say follow corruption what right does God have, but to those that know God and love him know why we follow because his ways are good and do not bring harm to them or their friends. Two societies were forming at the time of Abraham after the great flood and tower of Babel. Two groups forming to do either good as Abraham or to be evil as Sodom and Gomorrah. Had man learn the ways of God was better to follow? Had man come to realize God was not the enemy. God consider Abraham his friend in scripture, yet to prove the point we have to go to John and look at Christ words that one is no more a servant but a friend of God, because Jesus made known all he knew of his Father to his disciples. In private Jesus spoke openly about all things concerning God the Father. Our Friendship to Christ and God comes with the knowledge of things to come.

God when he ask should I hide from Abraham in Genesis 18:17 what is going to happen? God begins to tell Abraham of the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah and that he was going to destroy it, as in the days of Noah when he destroy the whole earth by water, he would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah with fire because of evilness of the land. I think of Taliban in Afganistan and other areas and wonder when will they understand that rules are to be followed and the laws of the land though sometimes evil can be changed to good. One has to work with the current leaders and hope that laws are changed for the better. Rebellion might show you mean business, but it never showed people stronger then you that you were civil enough to hold a conversation.

There is a point this morning God was seeing what Abraham would say about Sodom and Gomorrah after all he had family there, (his nephew Lot and his nephew family). Now Abraham knows not Lot's heart or anything really about Lot, but he would protect Lot and his family and had done so when Lot was kidnapped. However Abraham is standing before the Lord and Lord is speaking as friend or business partner to Abraham, because he executed the judgment and justice of God to his family and friends.

Abraham begins to speak his own thoughts to God about what righteousness of anyone living in Sodom and Gomorrah and would they be saved or would they be destroyed. Abraham becomes a little long winded in his asking, but he ask about 50 righteous men would he destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, he then ask about forty and he gets down to ten and it does not say whether God would destroy ten or not, but what we know about the rest of the story only four were left and God took them out of the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, with warning not to look back only to loose one of four in the journey out of there.

God execute judgment he able to bring the righteous out of the city, either through death to life in heaven or out by narrowly escaping so perhaps they will not repeat the evil of that city. It hard to understand always God's justice and judgment but we know it has to do with faith in him and then obedience to God. Can you hear God's Spirit if you have no faith, do you need a preacher or intercessor to tell you about faith? The question is better answer is God able to speak to the heathen, do they hear. God is able to speak to the righteous do they listen?

Paul wrote the Galatians if they received the Spirit of God by the works of the law or by faith. Abraham had faith it was counted to him as righteousness. Faith brought about this conversation with God. Faith gave God opportunity for God to speak about himself and his judgment to Abraham. Without faith this conversation never would of taken place. We can not know Christ without being taught about him, we can not know about the Holy Spirit without knowledge, but God is able to communicate it to us through his Spirit, but we must be willing to listen and to believe what God says. We prove our belief by our obedience if we desire to do the things that are right. Devil believes and does evil. Belief is not enough action of faith must follow. That faith through Christ Jesus might come to the Gentiles but not just the Gentiles but the Jews as well, because despite being a chosen nation they had a responsibility to follow in the footsteps of faith and righteousness as well. Jesus was the promise of eternal life, the hope of tomorrow for all generations that believed. Where you spend your eternity starts with faith, but actions are important, but without faith there is no hope. I am not talking about one mistake or two mistakes, I talking in general about the heart of faith and our intention to do right by faith. Faith is all it takes to be saved.

Dear Heavenly Father we can not be friend without faith, but also action. Our actions speak whose child we are. In Jesus precious name, Amen.

Continual Scripture Study: John 15:14-15 KJV
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

Galatians 3:1-14 KJV
1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
4 Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.
5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.
12 And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.
13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.