Never Ceases to Amaze Me

“Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her.”

As I study the scriptures, the magnitude of God’s grace never ceases to amaze me. This passage is just one in an almost-endless list of examples.

Cities Under Judgment

There’s a famous scene in Genesis 18 in which God shares with his friend Abraham his judgment plans for the notorious sinners in the city of Sodom. Abraham intercedes for Sodom out of concern for his relative Lot, who has unwisely chosen to make his home there.

“Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” Abraham inquires. “Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

This has to be one of my favorite divine exchanges in all of scripture. God has no obligation to share his plans and purposes with a mere man. His ways are higher than our ways. He is sovereign and can do whatever he pleases. Yet he actually invites Abraham’s input. “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” the Lord asks his angelic companions rhetorically. The implicit answer is “Of course not.”

What If He Kept Asking?

Once the Lord has graciously agreed to spare one of the wickedest cities on the entire planet for the sake of fifty righteous people, Abraham, fearful but emboldened by his success, seeks to lower the bar. We must be realistic, after all; it’s Sodom we are talking about. “Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking”, he says. “Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” So now Abraham successfully whittles down the original requirement from fifty to forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty. Finally, Abraham stops at ten, notwithstanding that he was the one who set the original number and that God has granted every single request without the slightest recrimination.

That’s as far as his faith and courage will take him. Ten righteous men cannot be found in Sodom, so the city is destroyed and Lot preserved by being almost forcibly removed from it.

The Value of Two Righteous Men

But that’s only because Abraham quit at ten. I wonder how far the Lord was prepared to go if Abraham had kept asking.

Perhaps this passage in Jeremiah tells us. “See if you can find a man … who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon [Jerusalem].” “Go out and have a look, Jeremiah”, says the Lord. “I’ve got you, sure. But let’s see if you can find just one more like you.” If he could, God was willing to pardon a city and nation that had provoked him to righteous anger for centuries.

Don’t you find that incredible? Two men. And not two men so that God could have the angels remove them and preserve their lives while everyone else in Jerusalem got what they deserved, but two men so that the Lord would pardon the entire city for their sake. That’s the magnitude of God’s grace. That’s the incredible scope of his patience and longsuffering.

Our Father values men and women who seek truth and act justly far beyond anything we can rationalize or comprehend. Might be worth aspiring to be in that illustrious company.