Genesis 18:17–19

Through this faith we have fellowship with God, with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. He is not ashamed to call us His friends, as Abraham was called the friend of God. In business with the world, we say what has to be said about the matter in hand, as politely as we can. Once that is said, it is finished. With a friend, we open our minds. We speak of things that have nothing to do with business, of everything that is in our hearts. When Abraham was called the friend of God, God was not talking with him about the promises made to him. He was telling him all His intentions about the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.

So the Lord makes His ways and thoughts known to Abraham, as a man would to his friend. He reveals secrets to him that do not concern him. If they did concern him, Abraham would in a sense have a right to hear them, and the Lord would surely tell him. But he has no personal interest in the matters communicated. They are the Lord's thoughts and purposes about a city and a people Abraham had no contact with whatever. They were strangers to him and he to them — and that quite deliberately. So the Lord now deals with Abraham as a friend — not even as a disciple, much less as a sinner, but as a friend.

Here it is not a question of salvation, but of communion with the mind and purposes of God. Let Christian parents notice and seriously weigh this. When God was looking for a man to whom He could disclose His secret counsels, He chose one marked by the simple trait of "commanding his children and his household."

Do we not also see the connection between the man of God and the prophet? Men of God was their standing title, and Abraham too is called "a prophet." Amos says, "For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets." To be with God is the way to see into the reality of things — even of the world itself.

Abraham enjoys the most intimate communion with the LORD, who reveals His counsels to him as to His friend. Intercession is the fruit of this revelation. Judgment falls on the world. Abraham stands on the top of the mountain and talks with God about the judgment that was to fall on the world below, where he was not. Lot had taken his place in that world, and he is saved, but only as through fire.

Lot could not intercede with God as Abraham did. He did not know what it was to draw near to God. He was too deeply caught up in Sodom's affairs to have communion with God. We cannot intercede with God on behalf of wrongdoers unless we are separate from them and know the intimacy of communion with God.

Man is naturally a great planner for the future down here. Knowing God's plan for the future is a fine antidote to man's planning and plans. And "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" contains one of God's ways in His dealings with the members of the household of faith, as much as with the father of the faithful. If the things which must soon take place are known to you and stay with you, the flesh will be judged. The world will be spoiled for you, and the very hope of the coming glory will break its gripping power over the natural mind.

The heavenly visitors set out toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them for some distance. That led to the incident in which we see Abraham as the friend of God. A mere servant does not know what his Lord is doing, as the Lord showed in John 15:15. A friend, though, has access to things kept secret from others.

In business with the world, we say what has to be said about the matter in hand, as politely as we can. Once that is said, it is over. With a friend, we open our minds. We speak of things that have nothing to do with business, of everything that is in our hearts. When Abraham was called the friend of God, God was not talking with him about the promises made to him. He was telling him all He intended to do in the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.

God gave the promise of blessing when His call first reached Abraham. That is in Genesis 12:3. Then in Genesis 18:18 He confirms it to him. Again, in Genesis 22:16-18 He enlarges the promise, and we find that it will be carried out through "the Seed," who is Christ... Once the Seed is introduced, He is never left out, because everything in the way of fulfilment depends on Him.

He was given the privilege not only of becoming a great nation, but also of being the forefather of the Messiah, in whom all the nations would be blessed.

God gave the promise to Abraham, and He will carry it out in his seed on earth in days to come. "I will make of you a great nation … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Here room is left for blessing to go out to the Gentiles. But note this: they are to be blessed in Abraham, and afterwards in his seed.

We know the use that the Spirit of God makes of this promise. He says, "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed'" (Galatians 3:8). Abraham did not, and could not, foresee how far the faith he acted on would reach when he answered God's call. But God foresaw that it was the one way of blessing for all the families of the earth. So now, in our small measure, only God can foresee how far the blessing to others may reach when one soul answers the call of God in simple, whole-hearted faith.

This is not a question of salvation, but of sharing the mind and purposes of God. Let the Christian parent notice this fact and weigh it. When God was looking for a man to whom He could reveal His secret counsels, He chose one who had this simple mark: he was "commanding his children and his household."

So he did not spare a thought for himself or his house. Like a true man of faith, he used his place in the presence of God to plead for a brother — a man whose love of the world had plunged him into the very middle of the place that God was about to give over to everlasting destruction.

"For I know him": was that ever said about Lot? It would have had a sorrowful meaning in Lot's case; it has a blessed one in Abraham's. For this is the knowledge of approval, of divine delight. It is the knowledge that prepared the way for Jehovah to trust him with His secrets. Abraham was the one to whom He could tell what no angel knew. Only the angels who had their orders from Him knew, and they were about to carry out His judgment.

Here it is not a question of salvation, but of communion with the mind and purposes of God. Christian parents should note and weigh this. When God was seeking out a man to whom He could disclose His secret counsels, He chose one with the simple mark of "commanding his children and his household."

More than this, the Lord knew Abraham well, and knew that Abraham would command his children and his household. This is just what God Himself does. Great numbers of people, by contrast, act irresponsibly in so serious a matter. And Abraham did not merely give orders to his children. His character and conduct were such that they respected him.

The Lord does look for the household to reflect the ways of God with the head of it… And I do not mean only the children, though the children have the nearer place. I mean servants too, if there are any in the house… where there are such servants, the same should be true of them. For what brings blessing among the children secures blessing among the servants. At any rate there should be godly order, even if the children or servants have not yet come to know God.

When I look at the whole record of God's dealings with His house, I find one constant mark. He uses power on the principle of righteousness. He set up His holy authority and has carried it out without ever backing down… Now the servant must always take his Master as his model. If God rules His house with power used in righteousness, so must I. If I differ from Him in any single detail of my conduct, I am wrong in that detail.

A believer's family is not exempt from the need of faith. The father's faith cannot stand in for the child's… Here is not a promise but an assurance. It rests on what his faith produced in practice, in this Old Testament example of faith. God had called him out of the idolatry around him to keep the way of the Lord. So he owned Him as the God of his household, and not only as his own God. With such purpose of heart, his house would prove the wise man's proverb true: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."