For Goodness Sake
When God told Abraham that He intended to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham talked him down to sparing the cities if there could be found even ten righteous people. The common interpretation of the Lord withholding destruction for the sake of even just ten righteous is basically an argument against collateral damage. Basically, the Lord wouldn't wipe out a whole town of reprehensible people if it meant good people were in the path of His destructive wrath. But I don't think this is the only consideration. First of all, righteous people die unjustly all the time, just ask Jesus Christ Himself. Second, God loves all of His children. It's not like God hated all of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah and relished the thought of firebombing them but little Timmy who He actually liked was in the way and He just couldn't bring Himself to do it for the sake of little Timmy. God loves all of His children, including all of the ones He ended up destroying in Sodom and Gomorrah, and there is no difference to the degree or quality with which He loves each child regardless of how righteous they are. Whether we live or die, succeed or fail, prosper or suffer, these are not clear cut evidences of God's favor or displeasure. The sun also rises on the just and the unjust. So if God would not destroy those cities for the sake of ten righteous, it's not just about collateral damage. I think this is what it's about. If there were ten righteous in those cities, God considered that enough goodness to counteract these cities' descent into destruction. Never underestimate how much even the smallest amount of good can accomplish. If we look at some of the great figures of the last hundred years, Malala Yousfazai, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Anne Frank, Viktor Frankl, the Dalai Lama, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Mahatma Gandhi, these are examples of a very few righteous people who looked at all of the evil and hate and instead of buckling under and succumbing to destruction, they stood their ground and they fought and bled with their whole beings to push back the darkness by letting their light and their goodness shine for the whole world to see. If we don't like the way our community or our nation or our planet is going, we can either watch and worry as things get worse and worse, or we can stand up tall, and we can push upwards with everything we have, and God will magnify our efforts. Ten righteous people can save the world from destruction. Are we willing to be one of those ten?
