The Bible’s First Intercessor
By Andrew Wheeler
Prayer doesn’t always come easily for me, even when I’m praying about important things. When I first learned to intercede for others, I prayed for my family’s salvation. I knew God wanted to draw them to Himself, but I didn’t know how to pray effectively. On those few occasions when I tried to share my faith with family members, the conversation tended to degenerate into an argument.
Years later my dad told me God had been working in his life over a long period, stirring an interest here and a curiosity there. Unseen to me, as I was praying, God was drawing my dad to Himself. Eventually, through an evangelistic series at a nearby church, God broke through to both of my parents and brought them into His Kingdom.
As intercessors, as we grow in our understanding and practice, we inevitably begin to ask questions about the effectiveness of our prayers. We want to collaborate with God in the work He is doing, but what is that work? We want to pray in God’s will, but how do we know His will? And we long to see answers to our prayers, but what happens when those answers don’t match our expectations? While no single example of prayer in the Bible has all the answers, I believe a look at the Bible’s first intercessor can help with a few of these questions.
Abraham’s intercession for Sodom—and God’s reply—form Scripture’s first example of intercessory prayer. Genesis 18:16–33 recounts God’s revelation of His plan to Abraham and Abraham’s response in prayer. But the story begins long before that.
By Faith: Preparing for Intercession
The Lord said of Abraham, “I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him” (Gen. 18:19).
When God chooses us, He chooses us for a purpose. Our response to God determines our ability to hear His voice calling us to intercession.
God chose Abraham both to bless him and to make him a blessing to all peoples on earth (Gen. 12:1–3). Abraham responded to God’s call in faithful obedience. “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Heb. 11:8).
God initiated the relationship with Abraham, but Abraham’s faithful, obedient response kept him in God’s will. As a result, God confirmed His covenant with Abraham several times (Gen. 15, 17) and revealed His intentions to bless Abraham and use him to bless others.
To be sure, Abraham wasn’t perfect. He lied to Pharaoh about Sarah (Gen. 12:10–20) and wavered in his faith, thinking he had to help God out by producing an heir by Hagar, Sarah’s servant (Gen. 16).
But God isn’t looking for perfect people. He’s looking for people who will be faithful to Him through the years and whose faith will show itself in continued obedience. He found such a person in Abraham, and this set the stage for God’s revelation of His plan to Abraham in Genesis 18.
As intercessors, it’s important for us to hear God’s voice so we can pray His will. Hearing God’s voice begins with living a life of faithful obedience and putting ourselves in a position of partnership with God. This is where God will speak to us.
By Faith: Interceding for God’s Glory
“The Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?’” (Gen. 18:17).
We normally picture intercession beginning with us, as we bring our requests to God. But intercession actually begins with God—though we may not always see that part of the story. God brings to our minds the name of a friend or a situation needing His touch. He speaks to us through Scripture, revealing His heart. By these and other promptings, God leads us to intercession.
In Abraham’s case, God determined to reveal His judgment to Abraham, and He initiated the conversation: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know” (Gen. 18:20–21). Thus God invited Abraham’s intercession in response.
But what about us? Has a close family member or friend of yours ever been threatened by an imminent disaster, such as a hurricane or flood? How did you pray? Were your thoughts consumed with that person’s safety? Did you pray for the city? These are the thoughts that first occur to us, and praying for our loved ones in danger comes naturally.
Disasters often bring poignancy to our prayers. Fear and uncertainty combine to focus our thoughts on loved ones in harm’s way.
My cousin was working in London at the time of the subway bombings. I knew he took public transportation, but because I wasn’t familiar with the system, I had no way of knowing whether or not he had taken one of the targeted trains. My prayers quite naturally focused on his safety—and God answered those prayers (along with the prayers of millions of others, I’m sure).
But Abraham’s prayer focused not on his nephew or even on the city of Sodom, but rather on the character of God. His heart cry, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25) revealed his primary concern—God’s glory and reputation.
Abraham wrestled with God, trying to understand the interaction of God’s judgment and His mercy. He prayed passionately but humbly, not making demands but asking God to reveal more of His character. Much of our intercession focuses on immediate circumstances. When we pray for others, we tend to pray fix-it prayers—prayers that assume God always plans to fix the immediate problem, such as health concerns, financial issues, and relational breakdowns.
Abraham’s intercession revealed a different priority. His prayer for Sodom wasn’t primarily about sparing the people or the city. It was primarily about God acting in accord with His righteous character. For Abraham, intercession wasn’t primarily about people or circumstances. It was about God.
The conversation ended as it began—with God’s initiative. “When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home” (Gen. 18:33). Effective intercession starts with God, ends with God, and focuses on God.
By Faith: Trusting God’s Goodness
Abraham didn’t have to wait long for God’s answer: “Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace” (Gen. 19:27–28).
The smoke told him all he needed to know. Sodom and Gomorrah were gone. What did he think when he saw the smoke rising from the plain? Did he mourn for Lot? Was he angry at God? Did he wonder why he had bothered to intercede for Sodom?
How do we respond when God doesn’t answer prayer the way we expect? How do we handle it when we can’t see how God works?
Not long after my parents found faith in Christ, my mom went into the hospital for cancer surgery. Our family prayed earnestly for her healing and recovery, but—despite a period when it seemed God had granted that request—she passed away several months later. Dad and I went through the doubts that often plague intercessors in the wake of unanswered prayer: Did we not have enough faith? Were we not praying “right” (whatever that means)? We knew God could have healed her. Why wasn’t that His choice?
Scripture doesn’t tell us Abraham’s immediate reaction to God’s answer, but it does reveal his long-term response. “By faith Abraham . . . was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. . . . By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice” (Heb. 11:11, 17).
Abraham apparently didn’t spend much time wallowing in doubt over God’s “no” regarding the sparing of Sodom. Rather, Abraham continued to live as he habitually did—by faith.
Scripture also shows us that God wasn’t unconcerned about Abraham’s personal involvement: “When God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived” (Gen. 19:29).
God is not limited by our intercession. Abraham’s prayer focused on God’s character and glory and did not mention Lot. But this didn’t stop God from acting out of love and mercy for Abraham. The God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20), who is capable of grand miracles, is also concerned with our very personal needs.
We don’t know whether Abraham ever found out about this part of God’s answer. Scripture records no meeting between the two after this episode.
But we do know that Abraham continued a life of faithful obedience after this encounter. Like others in Hebrews 11’s “hall of faith,” Abraham saw many of God’s promises only from a distance, yet he was still living by faith when he died (v. 13).
“Success” in intercession is not so much about getting God to do what we want. It’s about putting ourselves in a position to hear His voice, responding in prayer focused on Him, and believing in His goodness regardless of how He chooses to answer.
In short, it’s about a relationship with God characterized by faithful obedience.
ANDREW WHEELER is co-director of the prayer ministry at Willow Creek’s regional campus in McHenry County, IL. He is the author of Together in Prayer, a book on developing effective prayer in small groups, which is available at prayershop.org.
