Genesis 20
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We have finally made it to chapter 20.
We are right in the middle of the story of the events around Abraham’s life.
We took a break from talking about Abraham to talking about Abraham’s nephew Lot who had chased the world rather than following the father of faith.
The city that he was in, Sodom, was destroyed.
He fleas that city and then there are other things that happen that create issues and we won’t revisit that particular issue.
But now we’re back to the story of Abraham.
We are back to God‘s story of promises and fulfillment.
Let’s review for a moment.
God has chosen Abraham.
He has called Abraham away from his homeland to a place that he had not yet been.
He has made promises to Abraham about being a great nation. And blessing him and cursing those who curse him.
At this point in the series of promises, it’s been many many years since God had made that first promise to him that he would have a son, and that through him the nations would be blessed.
He has reaffirmed that promise on multiple occasions.
But even despite being reminded of God‘s promises,
There has been some lapses in faith from Abraham as well.
You will remember Abraham and Sarah had tried to accomplish this promise with their plan.
Essentially, Sarah set Abraham up with a maid servant from Egypt. Hagar…
And their goal is to provide the promise through that union.
But that was not God‘s will.
God had promised that Abraham would have a child with Sara not Hagar.
But regardless, they do that and there’s complications that follow that venture with Hagar and Sarah.
And the hardest part of all of this is Sarah is still without a child.
She’s been promised a child, but she’s not getting any younger.
She still doesn’t have one yet.
After a few more years of waiting, in chapter 17 God gives them a date to expect this child.
God tells Abraham that a year from then he would have a son.
Well, then we’re introduced to the situation with Sodom and Gomorrah and everything that happened there with Lot and his girls.
And so now that that story is behind us, we expect to find in chapter 20 a glorious account of the birth of Isaac.
We expect to find the birth story of the long awaited son of Isaac.
But in chapter 20, that’s not what we find.
What we find is another lapse of faith in Abraham.
Now, before we get there isn’t it interesting that Abraham in scripture is known as the father of faith.
We even sing songs as children about father Abraham, and his many sons, many sons had father Abraham.
I am one of them and so are you so let’s just praise the Lord.
We celebrate this man.
In many ways, He’s an example of what it looks like to have faith in the Lord and to walk by faith not by sight.
Galatians tells us that it is those who are of faith who are Abraham’s children.
It was Abraham that Paul said that he hoped against all Hope.
And yet this man of faith. This friend of God has highs and lows.
He has moments where his faith shines against the backdrop of hopelessness.
He has moments where it’s clear why scripture calls him the father of faith.
But then he also has some low moments as well. Doesn’t he?
We come to one of those low moments tonight.
Look with me in verse 1-2.
From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
No, you may be thinking haven’t we read something like this before?
And we have.
25 years earlier, Abraham did the same thing in Egypt.
When he went through Egypt, he told everyone that Sarah was his sister because he feared because she was so beautiful that they would kill him take her and so he just lies.
In both cases, they leave Abraham alone they don’t kill him, but the first time, Pharoah takes Sarah and here Abimelech takes Sarah.
I have to say here— Sara must’ve been a very pretty lady. Even at 90 something years old Abraham feels like he has to lie in order to protect himself.
Sounds like Abraham was a lot like me and that he out punted his coverage when it came to his wife.
But This really is a weird thing that he does.
Especially to do it twice after all the bad things that resulted from his previous try with this kind of deceit
Remember…. because Pharaoh of Egypt had took Sarah 25 years ago, God brought plagues upon his house to the point where Pharaoh says get her out of here.
And when he does, he sends Abraham and Sarah with all these gifts and servants and maidservants and everything.
A few chapters later, we find Abraham and Sarah are using one of those maidservants in their own ploy and effort to have a son.
And here he is again doing the exact same thing.
He goes in to this area, He lies about Sarah being his wife.
He leads her to lie because she would’ve had gone along with this plan.
And Sarah as a 90 year old woman is taken by a pagan king into his home, and the king is taking her for his wife.
Fresh off the promise that they will have a son within the next year, Abraham is lying, and his wife with whom he is to have this promised child is taken from him and taken into a pagan King‘s house.
Are we all up to speed on how twisted this is?
Now once again, Abraham because of fear of man rather than trust in God, he is making decisions that very much so requires God’s intervention in a miraculous way in order to preserve the purity and the integrity of Abraham and Sarah’s marriage, and to maintain the integrity in the purity of the promised son.
Sarah was not to have a child with a king of Gerar.
She was to have a child with Abraham.
So once again, God intervenes just as he had to do before when Abraham did this.
The first time in what is somewhat of a foreshadowing of what will happen later with God’s people in Egypt, God brings plagues upon pharaoh until he lets Sarah go.
Here we find God appearing in speaking to Abimelech through a dream..
Look at verse 3 and following.
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” 4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? 5 Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” 6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. 7 Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”
So what happens here is really interesting.
God intervenes, and He intervenes by approaching not Abraham, but Abimelech
We would expect God to appear to Abraham and popping him across the back of the head and say, what are you doing, man?
Go get your wife I told you you’re gonna have a child with her.
But God appears to this king and he says.
You’re a dead man because you have taken another man’s wife.
And so in a really important couple of verses, we learned that nothing had happened between this King and Sarah.
The text explicitly says he had not touched her. That’s what verse 4 says.
4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people?
And Abimelech starts pleading his case about that very thing.
He hasn’t touched her.
God, you’re not gonna kill me if I’m innocent, right?
I haven’t done anything with her.
Their marriage has not been defiled by me.
Surely you’re not going to kill someone who is innocent.
What’s interesting here? Is that Abimelech appeals to the character in nature of God.
This king who Abraham thought was a pagan actually has pretty good theology.
He understands God to be a god of justice.
What is also interesting is that Abimelech believes God whenever God tells him that he’s gonna kill him over this.
It’s ironic because in this story, you would expect Abraham to be the one that was fearful of the Lord when actually it’s this king who’s fearful of the Lord
And so this King, appeals to the fact that he did this in the integrity of his heart.
He said hey, he told me this woman was his sister.
I didn’t know she was his wife.
I would’ve never done this had I known she was his wife.
And the Lord responds that he knows that he did this in the integrity of his heart.
The Lord furthermore goes on to say that it was by the intervening hand of God that he did not touch her.
God tells this king that he kept him from sinning against him.
God says I kept you from sinning against me.
We are not told how that happened.
But we do understand God, to have providentially intervened in this man’s life to keep him from sinning against God and from defying the marriage that Abraham put in jeopardy by doing this.
Periodically throughout scripture, we find God providentially intervening in order to preserve his plan that he has established before the foundation of the world.
And God has every resource at his disposal in doing this.
Later in Genesis, we will see God will use a famine and even the sinful actions of some jealous brothers with their brother Joseph to bring Jacob’s family in to Egypt for their protection and then later they will be let go.
And all this was to protect the line of Judah, so that God could send Jesus Christ.
That is just one example. The whole Bible is full of God‘s preservation of his people through divine intervention.
The Bible is full of God’s intervention so that his plan will go forth… Ask Jonah.
Before we move on from this point, God says he kept him from sinning against him.
We certainly know that this is in God’s capability of doing, and so perhaps this is a prayer that we should pray.
That God would keep us from sinning against him.
A professor of mine His father fell in ministry.
His daily prayer was this— Lord help me never to do anything that would bring shame to your name or your church. Lord preserve me from ever hindering my children from listening to me.
This is something we should consider in our prayers.
Moving on from there, God tells this king to return Abraham’s wife.
Because Abraham is a prophet. And he’s gonna pray for you and you’re going to live.
But if you don’t do all of that, your whole family and everyone associated with you is gonna die.
That had to be a little surprising to this King.
he is a prophet… really?
Abraham was acting like anything but a prophet at this point in time.
He had lied to him, and now God tells this king that the prophet who lied to him in the first place that got him into this whole predicament is going to be the one to pray him out of it.
It really is a interesting passage here.
Look what the king does beginning inverse number eight.
8 So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid. 9 Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done.” 10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing?” 11 Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. 13 And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother.” ’ ”
The first thing I want you to see in verse eight is that Abimelech displays for us what immediate obedience looks like.
He got up, called all his people together and said, “hey, I gotta tell you about my dream.”
And if we’re honest, nobody really cares about hearing about your dreams, unless God is the one speaking to you in the dream telling you that you’re all about to die
Then I’m certain it does captivate your attention.
But he tells them all of this, and the text says that they are really afraid.
God says you’re all going to die.
And then the king asked Abraham why he did this.
Why did you lie to me?
You through your actions have set the Lord against me.
And so Abraham starts to make excuses.
He said, I figured in this place there were no fear of God.
Isn’t that ironic?
Abraham, who apparently does fear God actually seems to fear these people more so than he fears God in these moments.
And these people seem to fear God more than Abraham.
And then he says, besides she is my sister.
And he’s not technically wrong here.
Now it’s not as weird as you might think but it is still weird.
Sarah was the half sister of Abraham.
Later in Mosaic law there will be a prohibition against this but right now it’s allowable.
But either way Abraham is trying to find a loophole for his half truth.
But telling a half truth is a full lie.
Because the response from the king because of this half truth puts in jeopardy God’s promises.
God expects us to live in integrity to speak with integrity, and to be people of truth because he is a God of truth.
So he’s not OK with half truths.
Furthermore, Abraham said this is what we always do.
Ever since God called me to go to another land, I ask my wife to do me this favor and a lie for me.
And two times already we’ve seen in scripture how that’s worked out.
And so this is a moment in Abraham’s life where he seems to be wanting of faith and trust in God.
What he should’ve done is to trust that the Lord has the ability to protect him and Sarah without his sin.
The Lord proves that by protecting him despite his sin.
And so long story short Abimelech returns Sarah to Abraham. He also blesses him with many gifts.
14 Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him. 15 And Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.” 16 To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.” 17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. 18 For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
And so all is restored. Abraham comes away with more stuff.
Most importantly, the integrity of his marriage, and the conception of this child is maintained.
But man, what a journey.
We said earlier, Abraham is the father of faith.
But here in this moment, he seems to lack faith.
He has moments where if we are honest, we are tempted to ask the question couldn’t God have found a better example of faith than this guy?
But in my opinion, God really couldn’t have found a better example than Abraham.
Now certainly God provided a more faithful person than Abraham through Jesus Christ, the son of God.
But as far as an example of faith and what faith generally looks like in the life of an ordinary believer, Abraham is a wonderful example.
Because like father Abraham, those of us who are his children who are of faith, when it comes to our faith, we have highs and lows as well don’t we?
We have moments where everyone around us would praise us for our faithfulness and how committed we are to the Lord and his kingdom and his mission, but we also have moments in our lives where it’s clear we have lost sight of the one we are to have faith in
Abraham illustrates for us both a good example of faith and an example of how fragile and futile our faith is.
And I find this encouraging.
Like with Peter on Sunday, it is demonstrably true that God never gave up on Abraham just like he never gave up on Peter, just like he never gives up on us.
God’s plan and sanctification will prevail in our lives.
In fact, I don’t know that Genesis chapter 22 hits as hard without this particular blunder.
Genesis chapter 22 we will see that Abraham after many many years of waiting for the son of promise, is asked by the God who gave him the son and who promised him to begin with to offer up that son.
And Abraham in a display of faith like no other, draws back the knife to offer up his son.
God‘s grace would prevail in producing in Abraham, the faith he desired.
So yes, Abraham failed.
Yes, his faith seems to be lacking and it seems not to have shown up here in this moment.
But the preserving hand of God is on Abraham’s life and will produce the faith. God is after.
What I find most encouraging is that despite Abraham’s failures, we still find him in scripture to be pictured as a man of faith.
We find Abraham in heaven when Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Abraham was there in paradise.
And so despite his failures and his lack of faith at times by God‘s grace, he made it.
Church family I hope that encourages you tonight.
One thing I think this passage teaches us is that we really should trust in the Lord.
God is laying before us a negative example of what that does not look like.
But he also proves to the life of Abraham that he is preserving his people and producing in them, faith and goodness and every other fruit of the spirit.
And so don’t let one blunder and one failure derail you from doing whatever it is that God has called you to do.
Let us seek to be faithful and trust in the Word of the Lord.
