Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – 3 John
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Luke 18:2-8
Jesus: There was a judge living in a certain city. He showed no respect for God or humanity. In that same city there was a widow. Again and again she kept coming to him seeking justice: “Clear my name from my adversary’s false accusations!” He paid no attention to her request for a while, but then he said to himself, “I don’t care about what God thinks of me, much less what any mere human thinks. But this widow is driving me crazy. She’s never going to quit coming to see me unless I hear her case and provide her legal protection.”
Did you catch what this self-assured judge said? If he can be moved to act justly, won’t God bring justice for His chosen people when they cry to Him day and night? Will He be slow to bring them justice? Mark My words: God will intervene fast with vindication. But here’s the question: when the Son of Man comes, will He find anyone who still has faith?
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Jesus poses a very sobering question to those gathered around Him that day. “When the Son of Man comes, will He find anyone who still has faith?” He just used Lot, Abraham’s nephew, as an example of the widespread sin that caused God’s judgment to fall on Sodom and Gomorrah those centuries earlier. Remember the story?
Two messengers from God came to Abraham to tell him that God was about to destroy the city in which Lot and his family resided. Abraham pleaded with the messengers and asked if there were 100 faithful individuals in the city, would God spare the city? God accepted the change and Abraham continued to plead with God and lower that number until God agreed that if even 10 righteous men could be found in the city of Sodom, the city would be spared. But not even 10 could be found.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Abraham had asked if God would spare the city if he volunteered to take God’s message to the city and preach in the streets. I wonder if Abraham offered to tell God’s story to any who would listen in those great cities if God would have delayed His judgment against them. We will never know, but we do know that not 10 righteous could be found among all the citizens of that vast populace. God rescued Lot and his daughters. But even Lot’s wife turned back toward Sodom and was destroyed because of her lust for the sinful pleasures of the city instead of her love for God and obedience to His commands.
I’m writing from the seventh, perhaps now the fifth or sixth largest city in the United States today. And I wonder, if God’s messengers were to come to this city, how many righteous men would He find? There are churches everywhere. There are people who sit on the pews of those churches every week, sometimes several times a week. But how many are really righteous and doing all that God asks of them? How many really stand up to the scrutiny of the messengers if God were to send them into the city to examine our hearts today?
I think the people in Sodom and Gomorrah were surprised that God found them sinful and evil. I think most thought they were okay with the Creator. I think most attended their worship services regularly. No doubt few, if any, worship the God of Abraham, but some may have said they did. Some probably heard Lot’s words when he told them how he gained his wealth and came to live in the plains of Sodom and Gomorrah. Some probably even added a prayer to this God of Lot’s so that He wouldn’t be left out in their pantheon of gods to be honored and worshiped. They thought they were okay.
I think our cities today are in much the same place Sodom and Gomorrah were. We abuse physically, emotionally, and spiritually those that come to our cities. We laugh at those who contend that Jesus is the only way to heaven. We push aside those that dare to tell us how to act and speak and love our fellowman. We think those that really follow God’s rules a little on the insane side. Surely God doesn’t expect us to follow those archaic laws in this modern era. Things have changed. He can’t expect us to worship Him like Abraham and David and Daniel. That was Old Testament stuff. We have been enlightened in this age, right?
Not so fast. We haven’t changed. We have the same DNA. We have the same basic desires as our ancient ancestors. We need food and shelter just like they did. We want to be loved and we want to love just like our forefathers. We have this spiritual makeup that craves to worship something whether we want to recognize it or not. Oh, we have new toys and disguised idols rather than gold and silver images of some deity, but if you watch our behavior, we have raised a lot of things as our gods today. Jobs, houses, sports, money, leisure, even our families tend to get our worship instead of our Creator. We set things up as gods and worship them as surely as those in ancient times bowed to those wood and gold and silver icons.
So Jesus question today is as critical as it was 2,000 years ago because God will come as He did in the days of Noah and Lot. “When the Son of Man comes, will He still find anyone who has faith?”
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