Genesis chapter 20 and verse
1. And Abraham journeyed from Thames
toward the south country, and dwelt between Kaddish and Shur,
and sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his
wife, She is my sister. And Abimelech king of Gerar sent
and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in
a dream by night and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead
man, for the woman which thou hast taken, for she is a man's
wife. But Abimelech had not come near
her, and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, she is my
sister? And she, even she herself said,
he is my brother? In the integrity of my heart
and innocency of my hands have I done this? And God said unto
him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity
of thy heart. For I also withheld thee from
sinning against me. Therefore suffered I thee not
to touch her. Now therefore restore the man
his wife, for he is a prophet and he shall pray for thee, and
thou shalt live, and if thou restore her not, know thou that
thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine. Therefore
Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and
told all these things in their ears, and the men were sore afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham
and said unto him, What hast thou done unto us? And what have
I offended thee, that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom
a great sin? Thou hast done deeds unto me
that are not to be done. And Abimelech said unto Abraham,
What sawst thou that thou hast done this thing? And Abraham
said, because I thought surely the fear of God is not in this
place and they will slay me for my wife's sake. And yet indeed
she is my sister. She is the daughter of my father,
but not the daughter of my mother. And she became my wife. And it
came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father's
house, that I said unto her, This is thy kindness which thou
shalt show unto me at every place whither we shall come. Say of
me, He is my brother. And Abimelech took sheep and
oxen and men's servants and women's servants, and gave them unto
Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said,
Behold, my land is before thee, dwell where it pleaseth thee.
And unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand
pieces of silver. Behold, he is to thee a covering
of the eyes unto all that are with thee and with all other. Thus she was reproved. So Abraham
prayed unto God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his
maidservants, and they bare children. For the Lord had fast closed
up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah,
Abraham's wife. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Does anybody know what déjà vu
is? Déjà vu. Well, it means already
seen. And it's a feeling that we sometimes
get that we've seen this before. We've been here before. Well,
maybe you felt a little bit of déjà vu when we read this passage
together. Isn't this very similar to what
happened in Egypt when Abraham and Sarah went down to where
Pharaoh was? Isn't this very similar to the
situation that arose there when Pharaoh tried to take Sarah to
be his wife, thinking that she was sister to Abraham? And here
we find exactly the same situation arising with another man, a man
called Abimelech. Bimelech was probably the king
of what became the land of the Philistines and here we have
Egypt and at least the predecessors of the Philistines and Abraham
repeating his mistakes amongst them both. What was Abraham thinking? What was this man doing? And
why did he keep making the same mistakes? Let me say in passing,
as we think about this man Abimelech, that there is little in this
chapter, little in Abimelech's conduct here, that is wrong. As indeed was the case with Pharaoh. Now I'm not saying that he was
without reproach because we could perhaps make a case that there
was a degree of lustfulness in the eye of both men. But in the main, the deviousness
seems to have been on the part of Abraham and Sarah. So I've got just three things
that I want to mention to you with respect to this narrative,
because really the story is very self-explanatory. But here's
the first thing that I want us to remember. A half-truth that
is told in order to deceive is a lie. And it is always more
honourable to tell the truth. Let us remember that. Here was
a man, Abimelech, who didn't worship the one true God, and
yet had occasion to wonder at Abraham, a prophet of God, for
his deceitfulness in the way in which he tricked Abimelech
and almost caused him to be slain at the hand of God. The second
thing I want to draw your attention to is that God's people remain
sinners despite the saving grace of God towards us. Let Abraham's
weakness be our warning. Let his folly be our wisdom. We rightly remember Abraham as
a man of faith, and yet he failed to trust the Lord, to trust the
Lord's protection, despite God's promise to be his shield. God
had said, I will be your shield. And Abraham thought that he had
to make up a story in order to be protected from Abimelech. Even the faith of the strongest
believer will drain away quickly if it is not sustained by the
power of God and by the Lord Jesus Christ. And let everyone
who imagines that they are saved by their own faith beware. Because if it wasn't for the
fact that God gave us faith and maintained that faith, we would
quickly lose any faith that we had. The Apostle Paul says in
1 Corinthians 10, verse 12, let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall. And here's the third point that
I want you to remember from this little story, this little narrative.
How blessed Abraham was to be in reality shielded by God despite
his unbelief. Abraham didn't believe that God
was his shield and his exceeding great reward at least not in
this instance and yet God proved his faithfulness to Abraham and
while Abraham doubted and acted out his doubts His lack of faith,
God proved himself yet to be faithful to his little child. And that perhaps is the real
message of this chapter, the real power in this account. God was faithful when Abraham
was not. God stayed true when Abraham
doubted. God proved dependable when Abraham
brought shame on his testimony. Our salvation is all of grace. There is nothing commendable
in us, nothing of merit, nothing of worth. Think of this. Sarah was now, or very soon would
be, carrying that child of promise. That child that Abraham had so
long sought for, Yet the man was seemingly unable to help
himself or his wife in this situation. And that just speaks of our frailty
and our weakness. But despite ourselves, thanks
be to God for his providential care upon us. How many times
Maybe I need to speak to the older people rather than the
younger people about this. But here's a testimony. How many
times have we let the Lord down and yet he has still been faithful
to us? Let me not criticise Abraham,
but rather thank God for his goodness and declare publicly
that there but for the grace of God go I. Out of Abraham's
weakness came wealth and recognition for Abraham and he was able to
freely live at peace in the land at Abimelech's invitation and
he received much in the way of wealth from Abimelech. How many
mistakes we make but the Lord in love overrules them and in
faithfulness blesses us nevertheless. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us.