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It is important to pray for the city, whether it be your local city or cities abroad. Abraham didn't know the mix of good and evil as he discussed the two doomed ancient cities with the Lord. Abraham did generally know of the existence of evil in these ancient cities but did not know precisely what was going on and brought the discussion first in broad outline with the Lord while chiming in with specfics as to how many where still on the side of good.. Job friends stood on the side of presumed guilty in their discussions with him as to why he was in so much trouble but they didn't know within their accusations precisely how Job supposedly transgressed nor did they know if his alleged transgressions were long standing or maybe very recent after a long run of good works but enough to reverse his fortunes as the chastisement and punishment for crimes he wasn't yet admitting to.. In several places in the Bible believers are admonished to pray for the city In Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 7 it says to pray for the prosperity of the city if you want prosperity for yourself. "Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." Whether you are working in a city, living near a city or visiting a city there is a joint infrastructure shared with others and someone else for example is fixing and maintaining the roads you travel. Hopefully the lights are on, the escalators are working and lets get the show on the road. The feel of the city has a lot to do with how the people in the city are feeling. The city is symbolic of the massesin scripture as well as having particular meaning to this or that specific city. You in praying for the city, would not for example edit your prayer for prosperity, health, peace, for the city and so on by asking for this grace in praying with the exception of those who are stealing, and in omission of those who are involved in this or that transgression You are not sanctioning stealing by somehow including in your general prayers those who may be stealing. Evidently even Abraham found it okay to pray for cities that were strong examples of erroneous, behavior also highlighted in Ezekiel as having included strong elements of violence as a manifestation of what was wrong in these cities. He was able to proceed without knowing who was who precisely and the example found is that within the city there may be an uncertain mix of good and evil is indeed is partially unknown and the breath of prayer for the city should seek inclusion from the point of view of the intercessor, rather than either bypassing the prayer completely or not including the city as a whole and all the people of the city in the discussion. The gamut of all possibilities seemed to be discussed by Abraham with the Lord and although the outcome was unfavorable to the cities, mercy might have been extended to all if there had been but a few.. In this discussion Abraham is outlining the possibilities with what if and prayer discussions sometimes follow outlines while possible crossing into specifics.. There is no need to worry about crossing the bridge into praying for the bad guy and having to figure out before you pray who among the many is the bad. The charter of the prayer is to ask for grace and mercy and for the turnaround is necessary. Jonah did have it wrong in wishing outright for the demise of Nineveh for what he considered to be just cause. He was still used as the messenger by the Lord despite his reticence, rebellion and clashes of motives with the Lord. He knew up to that point that just about all of the city was up to no good and wished to see them get their due, but what the Lord was asking from him was in fact in the form of an outline and doable within that and Jonah was at a point of strong disagreement with the Lord as to what should be done with the city and its occupants. . Jonah did despite his prior contentions get to work and did the job getting his message across this vast city in 2 days. The Lord's view is that the chain of events should include a message of repentance and a chance to do that. Jonah initially and stubbornly wanted to untie that chain and chance and unwind on second chances for anybody. It wasn't his duty to get it right for others but he was called to involvement as a messenger and the rest of what would happen was up to the Lord and the responses of the masses of the third parties involved. Johan himself seems to have identified that just about everybody deserved to be cast away in this great city, and did not want mercy for them no matter what subsequently could transpire. There may be some hesitancy to pray for the city for reports about what people are doing there that is not so good. But this isn't the vein of gold found in prayer and it might be good to make efforts to oppose the idea of excluding in the prayer for the city.. Those seen as most errant are probably a good group to specifically include in the prayer for the city, in calling upon the mercy of the Lord. Maybe start with the seemingly worst group in your prayer for the city if you do any groupings in your prayer at all. Within the world of prayer, in the spirit of Jonah, you can get it done and get a full intercession in for the city and everybody in the city. In the end, Jonah did walk the walk and talk the talk and go through and the best possible result came about. If at first there is some uncertainty, confusion or lack of clarity as to what to pray for, ask the Lord for the outline for the prayer for this city. Wise people can also makes mistakes in judgements of character as in the case of Job's friends. Abraham never got the right number in his discussion, but his discussion shaded towards mercy if mercy could be found. The moral of the story is don't hold back on praying for the city or symbolically the masses of people because of your own judgment as to the guilt of the guilty a judgment that even if you try to make is always going to be somewhat cloudy and despite not knowing enough on the not always tangible mix of good and evil you do know enough to proceed with the prayer as per the call to pray for the city and it is to be for the city and all its inhabitants.
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