Our Father, we bow before You. Our eyes are shut, our heads
are bowed, indicative of the position of our hearts. We fall
before You, O Lord, knowing that Thou art our God, our Creator,
our Provider, our Sustainer, and Thou art God our Savior. You're Jehovah who saves sinners
like us through the person and the merits and the work of Your
only begotten Son. We thank You, Father, that we
have access into Your very presence by a new and living way, the
way of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. We're thankful that
You always hear us pray. And we pour out our hearts before
You, Lord, this evening on behalf of our desire, first of all, to
worship tonight. Worship is so contrary to the
flesh, We need the presence of the Spirit
of God to keep us on track, to keep us focused upon our God,
and upon this portion of Scripture to which we have come tonight
to study. Oh, Spirit, teach us more of
the Lord Jesus, of His sinlessness, of His perfections, of the glory
of His being, of all of His attributes, teach us, O Spirit, of His time
of humiliation when He joined Himself to our flesh, when He
was made flesh and dwelt amongst men, when He walked on this earth
for so many years, and yet was not received, not welcomed, and
for the most part, not believed. And yet our Lord Jesus fulfilled
your purpose in His coming. For by His sufferings unto death,
He satisfied every demand of your law and justice in putting
away the sins of your people. And by His obedience unto death,
He brought in for all of your children righteousness. A perfect righteousness. And in that righteousness, we
stand before you. We are rejoicing tonight again
in the goodness of our God through the Lord Jesus to us. We do pray
that You'll bless these who've been mentioned tonight. And certainly
on our minds, especially, is Evelyn, dear sister in the Lord,
with whom we've spent many, many blessed times of worship. And
Lord, it would appear, according to the medical community, Her
time in this world is coming to an end. And we know that for
your children, that when you have deemed that her life be
ended here, she will be absent from this body and present with
the Lord. We have a good hope through grace. The children of God have no need
to fear death, It is but the messenger sent from our Lord
saying, the Master says it's time for you to come home. And
it will be indeed glory for her to see the face of the Son of
God. We rejoice that she is one of
your own and we pray for her family. A very difficult time,
especially for the unbelievers in the family. People who don't
understand what it means to be a child of God. An heir of grace. And for them, they don't know, though there
is certainly sorrow, but they don't know about the joy of being
with Christ Jesus someday and enjoying fellowship with Him.
We ask You, O Lord, to bless with all of these other folks
that we've mentioned. We pray for them, for Dawn's
mother there in ICU that You would minister to her, and all
of these others. And we recognize Your providence
in all things. And we rejoice that the hand
of our God is active in all of our lives, directing us to the
end that You have appointed. And so we rest in You, Father,
through the Lord Jesus, our Savior, and we pray and ask that You
would be with us this evening as we open up this portion of
Scripture. These things we ask in the name
of the Lord Jesus and for His sake. Amen. This evening we come
to the book of Genesis chapter 20. And I've given this message,
this title, Abraham, Blessed, but Still Sinful. Blessed, but Still Sinful. We saw back in chapter 18 that
the Lord revealed Himself to Abraham Three visitors appeared
at Abraham's tenth door, and one of them was the Lord Jesus
in pre-incarnate form. Abraham had Sarah to prepare
a meal for them, something for them to eat, and the Lord Jesus
sat down at the table and enjoyed fellowship and enjoyed a meal
with Abraham and with Sarah. And then when the other two messengers,
the other angels, the two angels, when they went to Sodom to escort
Lot, out of those vile cities, the cities of the plains, the
Lord spoke with Abraham. And first of all, the Lord kind
of said to himself, shall I hide what I'm going to do from Abraham? Abraham is my friend. And of
course, the Lord is speaking after the manner of men. And
then he did indeed reveal to Abraham what was in store for
Sodom and Gomorrah and all the cities of the plain. God made known his secret will
to Abraham. Now the Lord was under no obligation
to reveal what He was going to do to Sodom and Gomorrah. He wasn't under any obligation
to reveal secrets unto Abraham or to anyone else as far as that
goes. But He does reveal secrets unto
whom He Well, if you want to hold your place there and look
with me in Matthew, and I'll have you go to Matthew chapter
13. Look at Matthew chapter 13, and
I'll just read a couple of verses here. Matthew chapter 13, look
at verses 10 and 11. Matthew 13, 10 and 11. And the disciples, they came
to Him. And of course, He had spoken
to them the parable of the sower. And we're all familiar with,
at least somewhat familiar with that parable. And so the disciples
came to Him in verse number 10. They came to Him and they said,
why speakest thou to them in parables? And he answered and he said unto
them, because it is given unto you, it is granted, it is manifested
unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, the
issues of the gospel. But to them it is not given,
it is not granted. God grants information and understanding
of His secret will to whoever He wants to. And if He wants
to hide the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, the mysteries
of the Gospel, the mysteries of how He saves sinners, if He
wants to hide it from one and then reveal it to the other,
that's His business. And God there in Genesis chapter
18, He revealed to Abraham what He intended to do, what He purposed
to do to the city of Sodom where Lot lived. God has to give understanding
of secrets. Especially the secrets of His
gospel. The secrets of His saving grace. The mysteries of the Kingdom.
Those things that have to do with the salvation of sinners.
Those things that have to do with the sovereign grace of God. The Lord doesn't deal with all
men alike. In our day, you hear lots of
talk about equality. Equality. And a lot of times
they use the word equity. Let me tell you something. God
does not deal with everybody equally. There are those that
He hides the truth from, and then there are others to whom
He reveals the truth. And you're not going to learn
the truth on your own, not the mysteries of the Kingdom. Now
you may, you could be locked away in a monastery somewhere
and live a life of absolute poverty and absolute silence, as many
do. And take the Bible and read it
and read it and read it and read it, but you'll have no understanding
of the mysteries of the kingdom, the mysteries of God, unless
God reveals them to you. That's just the way it is. And
there are many men who go into like monasteries or they go to
seminaries. And they study and they study
and they read books. They learn Hebrew and Greek and
all of these things. But for all of their studies,
they have no understanding of the way God saves sinners because
God hasn't revealed the Gospel to them. These things have to
be revealed. I know we live in the age of,
and we've been in this age of decisionism for a long time. But it isn't a decision that
needs to be made by individuals. It's a revelation of the very
truth of God that they've got to have in the soul, in the heart. Otherwise, men and women will
continue to walk in spiritual darkness. There has to be revelation. And the Lord says in response
to His disciples, we don't understand why you speak in parables. And
He says, because it's given to you, I have granted to you. This is a free gift from Me to
you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom. It's a free gift.
It's a sovereign gift. If you understand how God saves
sinners, if you understand a little bit of who God is in His authority,
in His holiness, in His sovereignty, if you understand your own condition
of wretchedness and a great distance from God, and if you have some
comprehension of the necessity of a perfect Redeemer, and that
He must suffer, bleed, and die to satisfy God's justice and
put away the sins of His people, if you have understanding of
that, you're mighty blessed, I'll tell you. Because God could
have left you in the dark and you would have groped around
in darkness from now to the day you die and then enter into everlasting
darkness, were it not for the fact He was pleased to gift to
you an understanding of the mysteries of the kingdom. Back up just
a little bit to Matthew chapter 11. Look in Matthew chapter 11. Verse 25. At the same time, Jesus
answered and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth. What is He the Lord of? Heaven. That doesn't shock us. But always
remember this, He's the Lord of the earth too. He's Lord of
everything that goes on in heaven, and He's Lord of everything that
goes on on earth. Well, why is he thanking the
Lord? Why is he thanking the Father? Well, first of all, he
puts it in a negative way. Here's the reason. Because thou
hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent. The doctors. Like in the New Testament, the
lawyers who were the students of the law of Moses. God's hid
the truth from them. If He hides the truth, you'll
never know the truth. And He's perfectly right and
just to hide the truth from whoever He wants to. And what's this? Because thou hast hid these things
from the wise and the prudent, but He's also done something
else. This is to the praise of the glory of His grace and has
revealed them unto babes. unto people who by nature have
no understanding, He gives understanding. Now, why is this? Why does God
hide the truth from some and reveal it to others? Our Lord Jesus gives the answer.
Verse 26, Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."
He reveals the gospel to whoever he wants to. There in Genesis
chapter 18, Abraham would never have known ahead of time of what
was in store for Sodom and Gomorrah if God hadn't told him. If God
hadn't revealed it. But God said, I'm not going to
hide it from Abraham. I'm going to tell him. I'm going
to tell him what I'm going to do. And he did. And of course, Abraham
said, but Lord, would you destroy the righteous with the wicked?
Well, it cannot be that he would destroy the righteous with the
wicked. And of course, Abraham starts off at 50 and he works
his way down. Well, Lord, what if there are
10 righteous people in Sodom? I won't destroy it if there's
10 people there who love the Gospel, who are made the righteousness
of God in Christ Jesus. I won't destroy it for the sake
of 10 people who are righteous. There was one. But I'll tell you something,
there wouldn't have been any word not for the sovereign grace
of God. God was gracious a lot. And as
we studied last week, He was a righteous man. He was a just
man. And His righteous soul was vexed
every single day. He lived in misery because of
all the filth, and the wretchedness that was going on around him. Do you remember what the Savior
said to His disciples? And of course, Judas is gone
by now. It's in John chapter 15. I'll just read it to you. John
15, 15. The Savior said, henceforth,
I call you not servants. For the servant knoweth not what
his Lord doeth. but I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard
of my Father I have made known to you." I have made known to
you. And those of you who are here
tonight, and those of you who are watching, all that you know
about the gospel of God's grace is only because He has made these
things known to you. Oh, how blessed you are. And of course, we know from Ephesians
1, we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. And oh, how blessed Abraham was. Because no man on earth had any
idea of what was going to befall the Sodomites. But one man. Abraham. He's the only man. And then Lot. Because the two
angels of God had to escort Lot, grab hold of him, and physically
take him out of the city when he lingered. God made known His secret will
to Abraham. Let me give you another verse.
It's a blessed few words here in Psalm 25. And I'd like you to look at this.
Psalm 25 and verse 14. The Lord makes known His secret
will to Abraham. Psalm 25 and 14. The secret of the Lord. You mean God has
secrets? When we were little, we used
to say to one another, I've got a secret. I can't tell anybody. But if I tell you, you won't
tell will you? I've got a secret. Their television
program had that name. I've got a secret. Well, the
secret of the Lord. The Lord has a secret. The God of glory has a secret. And it's with all of them who
fear Him, who worship Him. You know what He shows them?
Look at it. He will show them or manifest
to them His covenant. We wouldn't have known anything
about the everlasting covenant of grace and the blood of the
covenant. and the angel of the covenant,
and the grace of the covenant, and the salvation of the covenant,
if God had not made known that secret to us. The word secret
means counsel. He taught us. He enlightened
us. He gave us. He gifted us with
understanding. Oh, how gifted you are. We don't
have any idea of how blessed we are. We won't know fully,
of course, until we get to glory. But most people, people in false
religion have no idea of who God is. But you do. You do. They don't know why Christ
came down here. Here's a good example. He started
a new religion and several great men who started religions and
here's one of them. That's not why He came. They
don't understand. He came to save. He came to redeem. He came to restore. He came to
bring in everlasting righteousness. The secret of the Lord. The counsel
of the Lord. His everlasting counsel is with
those who fear Him. And He shows to them His covenant. He showed that covenant to David
and David said, I rejoice in that covenant. That's all my
hope. That's all my desire in that covenant there. Oh yes, God blessed Abraham. In fact, you know, earlier the
Lord had said, and I don't have time to go back and read it in
chapter 15, but the Lord said to Abraham, He said, I'm your
shield. He didn't say that to anybody
else. I'm your shield. I'm all around you. He said,
I'm your great reward. He didn't say that to anybody
else. I'll tell you, Abraham was a blessed man. But here's
the second thing. Abraham was still a sinful man.
And boy, we get that from this passage of Scripture. Because
you see, the best of men are men at best. God reminds us of that as He
turns the searchlight of His Word upon us. And then we Understand
what Paul said in Romans 7. I know that in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. This flesh is always going to
be flesh. It's not going to get any better.
You know, when the Lord saved you, when He taught you the Gospel,
He gifted you with faith, your human nature, your natural, your
nature, fleshly nature, Adamic nature. It was corrupt then.
Well, guess what it is today? Just like it was when God saved
you. Ain't no better. You haven't
improved? Well, I think I'm a better person.
Well, not your nature. Now, the new man Bless God. We're thankful for
the life of God that's in the soul. God has made us alive. But what we are by nature is
still just as rotten as it ever was. It's never going to get
any better. Don't believe these people who
say, you know, we're slowly ripening for heaven. And then when we
get fully ripe, like ripened fruit, then the Lord just picks
us and says, you're ready to go now. I'm ready to pick a harvest
now. That's not true. We'll get even
better. We grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ, but this growth in grace is a growth
in seeing how much we need grace. and how wonderful the grace of
God is to people who are sinful. And this growth in grace also
involves seeing more and more of how desperately you need the
grace of God. One time you didn't think it
was too bad, but every day that you live, you keep saying to
yourself, and you keep saying, man, that ain't nothing to me
at all. That's growth in grace. Abraham. Oh, how God had blessed
him. But even though the Lord had said,
I'm your shield, he's still fearful. Now, you're not like that, are
you? The Lord says to you, I'm your shield. I'm your fortress! I'm your Savior! Now those kind of promises surely
would leave us to say, well, I'm not going to fear anything.
Well, we may say that, but we still fear. You know why we still
fear? Because we're still sinful people. Just like Abraham was. Abraham's a child of God, but he still feels that inbred
corruption with which he was born. He's still a dishonest man. He gets into Gerar, says to the king Abimelech, I want you to meet
my sister." Oh, Abraham, where is your faith, buddy? Brother? I thought you believed God. She's my sister. Abimelech said,
well, I'll add her to my harem. And he reached out and took her. Where is Sarah, Abraham? The
king took her. Why would Abraham do that? Why would he be afraid? You see,
Abimelech even asked that question to Abraham. Look at verse 11
or verse 10. And Abimelech said unto Abraham,
what did you see? that would lead you to do this
thing. And verse 11, and Abraham said, because I thought there's
no fear of God in this place, and they'll kill me for my wife's
sake. You know, there's no fear of
God, but in the heart of Abraham, there's still fear of man. And so he's deceitful. She's my sister. Oh, and remember, this has already
happened before. Twenty-five years before this,
He lied to the king of Egypt. Because you see, there's not
a just man upon the earth. There's not a righteous man upon
the earth. That's you and me saved individuals. There's not a righteous man upon
the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. There's nothing to any of us
by nature. What we are before God is all
of grace and all in Christ Jesus. I remind you, this is not the
fall of a young, inexperienced follower of the Lord. This is Abraham. This is God's
friend, Abraham. Why does the Lord keep showing
us what sinners we are? And you know, He does that in
the Scriptures, doesn't He, Ron? He keeps on showing us through
the lives of others, and then by direct statements, He keeps
showing us what sinful people we are. Why does God keep doing
that? To remind us what we are and
to remind us of how gracious He's been and is being and shall
yet be to us fallen sons and daughters of Adam. And to show
us how much we need the Lord Jesus Christ and His blood and
His righteousness. We sang that song, Come Thou
Fount, O to Grace, How great a debtor! We're debtors
to grace and mercy alone. You see, the Lord shows us our
infirmities in order that we might more love and appreciate
our Savior and all He's done for us. Here's the third thing. Notice the absolute dominion
of our Lord over all things. The Lord's going to take care
of Abraham. He's going to take care of Sarah. Here Abraham, he feared for his
life, but wait, Abraham, have you forgot the promise of God?
Sarah is going to bear your son. He's the promised son. He's the
true heir. God, Abraham had said earlier,
Lord, will you give me an heir or is this Eliezer, this old
servant I've got, is he going to be my heir? And God says,
no, he's not the heir. Your heir is going to come from
you and your wife, Sarah. Forgot about that promise. Kind
of like us, we forget about the promises of God. Try to take
matters into our own hands. We'll see next week. Abraham
and Sarah kind of forgot that promise of God and took matters
into their own hands and Sarah said, here's Hagar. Take her
and have a son by her. You ain't going to have one by
me. I'm finished. I ain't going to bear no children. Well, here's what the Lord said
to Abimelech. Look at verse 6. He spoke to
him in a dream. God's got all kinds of ways of
accomplishing His purpose. God said to him in a dream, I
know you did this in the integrity of your heart. I want you to remember that the
overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and that awful, awful stench
of sulfur still fresh in the minds of all the people who lived
anywhere near Sodom and Gomorrah. They don't want to do anything
against the God of Abraham. The Lord says, you did this in
the integrity of your heart. You didn't know who you were
dealing with here. But we know why He didn't take
Sarah into His bedroom. Because God said, for I also
withheld thee from sinning against Me. Therefore I suffered thee. I would not let you touch her. That's the absolute dominion
of our Lord. God's will, it shall be done. God stopped Abimelech. Now this
is a heathen man. This is a man of Philistia. He worships among the other gods. He worshipped Baal and he worshipped
Dagon. He's not a worshipper of the
God of Abraham. but God stopped him. Because
you see, God rules in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth. None can stay His hand or say
unto Him, what doest thou? Notice, with perfect ease, our
sovereign God works His will to say that God is a mere onlooker
of the things of mankind and that He cannot do His will is
just absolute absurdity. That's foolishness. Why, remember, the heart of the
King is in the Lord's hands. The heart of Abimelech is in
the Lord's hands as the rivers of water. And He turneth them
whithersoever He will. God said, I wouldn't let you
lay a finger on Sarah. I wouldn't let you do that. Preacher, you mean to tell me
that even the actions of the wicked are under the sovereign
authority of God? Well, the greatest example of
that is the ungodly people who arrested our Savior. You see,
You see the God-man led through the streets of Jerusalem from
Jerusalem to Golgotha's brow. People spitting on him and they
beat him and all the rest of the horrors that they heaped
on him and see him nailed to the tree and see God Almighty,
see it in the Word of God, God punished his soul. God used that ungodly mob. He just used them as His servants,
as His pawns to accomplish His purpose. The death of His Son. And if He rules in the major
thing, that's the biggest horrific event that's happened in the
history of the world. There's been a lot of terrible
things that have happened, but none can equal this. Men got
their hands on God and killed Him. Oh, but in doing that, they
executed the sovereign purpose of God. And if He rules in that
biggest event that ever happened, He rules in all the little stuff
too. If the Lord governed that greatest
act of hostility against Him, You can be certain that He governs
the lesser things. Everything that happens fulfills
the secret purpose of God. And not many people know that. But you do. You know why you
know it? The Lord told you His secret. I govern everywhere. That's our
God. That's our God. And while I know that Abimelech
was aggravated by the deceitfulness of both Abraham and Sarah, and
by the way, they were both complicit in this, And this wasn't, I'll
say this to you, this was not a knee-jerk reaction by Abraham
when he, you know, meets up with Abimelech. Well, the Scriptures
tell us they planned this way back. Said, this is the way it's
going to be. Alright, honey, let's get this
straight. When we're going to a town or a city and some man
comes up and he's a big bruiser of a fella, You don't want me
to die, do you, honey? You love me, don't you, honey?"
Oh, yes, Sarah said, I love you. Well, then you tell them. You're
my sister. They both got in on this. So they were both contributors
to it. And yet, the purpose of God was
fulfilled in all of it. In fact, look at verse here in
chapter 20. Look at verses 14, 15, and 16. Abimelech, he takes sheep, oxen,
men's servants, women's servants. He gives them to Abraham and
he says, and here's your wife. And then he says to Abraham,
you can stay in my land. I'm the king here. You can live
anywhere you want to. He don't want to get crossways
with the God of Abraham. The God of Abraham might burn
down his land just like he burned up Sodom. And then he says to Sarah, behold,
you said his brother, well, Behold, I've given your brother a thousand
pieces of silver. I have enriched him. You know who's supplied in the needs
of Abraham? God did. Where are we going to get money,
honey? Sarah talked to him. Where are
we going to get money? We've got expenses. The Lord
will take care of us. And all of a sudden, it comes
right into their coffers. All these sheep and oxen and
servants, men's servants and women's servants, and a thousand
pieces of silver on top of that! And here's what Abimelech says,
Behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes. He is as a covering,
the word is atonement, before you. He's your atonement or He's
your covering. And I'll tell you, Christ is
our atonement. He's our covering. He's our righteousness. So, here's the last thing. Abraham,
notwithstanding his sinfulness, he's still a child of God. The
Lord said to Abimelech, he's a prophet. He's going to pray
for you. He's going to pray for you. Right
now, he's scared to death of you. But he's going to pray for
you. So the last two verses. So Abraham
prayed unto God because the Lord had smitten Abimelech and Abimelech's
wife and Abimelech's maidservants, all of his harem. The women couldn't
have any children. The Lord just closed up their
wounds. You want an heir? You know, go
out and have an heir. Abraham, pray for him. Pray for
him. God already purposed He's going
to give him healing. At least physical healing. But He says, Abraham is going
to have to pray for you. So God lays it on the heart of Abraham
to pray for Abimelech and his wife. and His maidservants, His
harem, and the same Lord who closed up their wombs, opened
them, started having kids again. That's our God. That's our God. Glory to His name. He governs
everywhere to fulfill His purpose and for the good of His elect,
always. Lord, bless Your Word that's
gone forth. I pray that we'll be encouraged
and also rebuked for not believing You like we ought to. Oh Lord,
help us to trust You. Not to be fearful. Our God is our shield. He is
our exceeding great reward. He has promised never to leave
us nor to forsake us. May we remember that He has made
known to us the greatest secret that He could ever reveal to
us. how God can be a just God and a Savior at the same time. Through the doing and the dying
and the rising again of the Savior of sinners, the Lord Jesus. We
give you the glory and the thanksgiving for all things. For Jesus' sake
I pray with thanksgiving. Amen.