There were once two cities that were terrorized by God. Not only did their two biggest buildings fall down but every building came down in a rain of fire and lava and ash. Everybody was wiped out. It did not have to happen. Just ten men could have stopped it – not just any men but a particular kind of men.
Here is the whole story:
Genesis 18:20-33
And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five?And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there.
And he said, I will not do it for forty’s sake. And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there.
And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there.
And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there.
And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.
Genesis 19:24-25 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
So there you have it: for the lack of 10 good men we have the complete destruction of two cities.
The moral of the story: Make sure you have at least 10 righteous (full of rightness) men in your city or county. It can make all the difference in the world.
But what kind of “rightness” are we talking about here? God defines that himself in His Law summarized by the Ten Commandments. And to make sure we understood what those meant he gave us hundreds of minimum case law applications of those 10 commands. Minimum case law applications means that if the law holds for this minimal case it certainly holds for even greater cases.
Here is an example: You shall not steal. A minimum case law would be: Do not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain. We can safely say this applies to greater cases such as: do not neglect to pay the pastor of your church who ministers to you.
It takes a lot of understanding of God’s word to know what rightness consists of and then you have to apply it in practice to actually be righteous. And if you can’t do it you had better hope there are ten men in your area that do. Because those 10 men may be all that stand between you and divine judgment, a truly terrible thing.