“Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away instead of sparing the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people who are in it? You could not possibly do such a thing: to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. You could not possibly do that! Won’t the Judge of the whole earth do what is just?”” Genesis 18:23-25 CSB https://bible.com/bible/1713/gen.18.23-25.CSB

Abraham was convinced that a little leaven should influence the whole dough. Abraham believed the righteous in a place was a buffer to the judgment the wicked rightly deserved. Yet the Bible teaches no one is righteous, not one. This is offensive to most, for most people see themselves as good. Yet God measures every word, every thought, and every deed against His perfect requirements and the life of Jesus. Who, then, is truly righteous? God is free to do as He pleases, and the righteous have suffered with the wicked. Yet the Church is the leaven in the dough. It is the desire of God that no one should perish but for all to come to eternal life. The Church today should not lament the evil in our society by wanting God’s judgment to come upon the guilty. The evil in society results from the Church failing to be more influential, and thus, as the Scriptures state, judgment will indeed begin in the house of the Lord. Instead, the Church should embrace its mission to teach obedience to everything Jesus commanded to everyone so that when God sees our society, He finds many righteous people and becomes increasingly unwilling to condemn but rather to bless the nation whose God is the Lord.