All right, let's open our Bibles
now to Genesis chapter 20. Genesis 20. And Abraham journeyed from Thense
toward the south country and dwelled between Kadesh 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 arose 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?
For thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done.
And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What sawest 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, and I said unto her, this
is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me. at every place,
whether we shall come, say of me, he is my brother. And Abimelech
took sheep and oxen and men's servants and woman'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 pleases 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 was she reproved. So Abraham
prayed unto God and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his
maidservants and they bear children. For the Lord had fast closed
up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah,
Abraham's wife. We'll end our reading there.
Let's bow together in prayer. Our father, coming to thy courts
again this evening with rejoicing. We come before you, Father, rejoicing
in Christ our Savior, rejoicing in who he is and what he's accomplished
for his people and why he did it and where he is now seated
at thy right hand as our intercessor and mediator. Father, we have
nothing about ourselves to glory but how we glory and rejoice
in Christ our Savior. And we're so thankful that you've
given us another opportunity to meet together and to worship
him, to lift up and praise his name. Father, I beg of you that
you would send your spirit upon us and enable us to do that.
Enable us in this hour to worship you in spirit and in truth, to
lift up the name of Christ our Savior. Father, give us eyes
to see him. Enable us to to see, and with
quiet awe and wonder, worship our God with grateful and thankful
hearts. Father, reveal yourself to us
tonight in your redemptive glory, we pray. And what we pray for
ourselves, we pray for your people everywhere, wherever they meet
tonight. Father, bless your word for thy great namesake and for
the good of thy people. Father, in this dark dark day,
we're thankful that you have not left yourself without a witness. And we pray you'd cause your
glory to be seen in our day. And Father, we're thankful for
the good report we've had on several who've been sick. We
especially thank you, Father, for bringing Novi back home.
Pray that you continue to strengthen, heal her body, and raise her
back up to full health. We're so thankful that you've
caused this surgery to go well for her. And we dare not forget,
Father, to continue to pray for those who need you especially.
You know each heart and each need. Father, we pray you'd be
with your people. We beg of you that you'd heal.
But especially, Father, that you'd give grace sufficient to
endure this trial that you've sent their way. All these things
we ask, and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name, the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. All right, I've titled the message
this evening, Unbelief and Righteousness. Now there are two natures in
every believer. There's the nature of the flesh
and the nature of the spirit. We often call those two natures
the old man and the new man. And that old man, that nature
of sin, he can't do anything but sin. And the new man, he
can never sin. He can only be righteous. So
both these two natures, this nature of sin, nature of unbelief,
and righteousness, both always dwell in every believer. And
our text this evening gives us a crystal clear picture and example
of that truth. Now as I read this story, this
chapter in chapter 20, it probably sounded familiar to you. And
the reason it sounds familiar to you is because it is. This
very same thing happened just a few chapters ago, about 25
years prior to Genesis chapter 20. In Genesis chapter 12, Abraham
and Sarah tried to pull the same stunt when they went to Egypt.
Look back there at Genesis chapter 12. You know, they did this right
after God told Abraham. He said, Abraham, I'm going to
bless them that bless thee. I'm going to curse them that
curse thee. Abraham should have felt protected,
at ease, at no worries, God's gonna bless him. He's gonna curse
those that curse him, bless those that bless him. Right after God
said that, look what Abraham and Sarah did in Genesis 12,
verse 11. And it came to pass when he was
come near to enter into Egypt, they said unto Sarai his wife,
behold now I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon, therefore
it shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see thee that
they shall say this is his wife, and they'll kill me, but they'll
save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my
sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul
shall live because of thee. And it came to pass when Abram
was coming to Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman, that she was
very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her and commended
her before Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
And he had treated Abram well for her sake. And he had sheep
and oxen and he asses and men servants and made servants and
she asses and camels. And the Lord plagued Pharaoh
and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.
And Pharaoh called Abram and said, what is this that thou
hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me she
was thy wife? Why saidest thou she's my sister?
So I might've taken her to me to wife. Now therefore behold
thy wife and take her and go thy way. I mean, Pharaoh, the
head of Egypt, which in pictures, in scripture is a picture of
sin and the bondage to sin, says Pharaoh told Abram, this is wrong.
Why'd you do this to me? Y'all get out of here. Now you
would think Abraham and Sarah learned their lesson, wouldn't
you? You would think they would never do that again. And I'm
sure, That's what Abraham thought. When he got up and left out of
Egypt, he thought, I'll never do that again. And over the next
25 years, just briefly consider Abraham's life and how God had
dealt with Abraham. Lot, Abraham's nephew, had been
taken captive. And the Lord enabled Abraham
to take 300 men and wipe out four kings and their four armies. Those 300 men wiped them all
out. Rescued Lot, his nephew, restored everything that was
lost to the king of Sodom and all the inhabitants of Sodom.
And at that time the Lord met Melchizedek. Then the Lord came
to Abraham and told him, he said, Abraham, I am thy exceeding great
reward. You have all these, all these
riches and all this wealth, but I personally am thy exceeding
great reward. And Abraham, I'm going to give
you and Sarah a son. and the Messiah is going to come
through that son. The Savior of sinners is going
to come through that son, through your son. Then the Lord revealed
to Abraham his covenant of grace. He told him about his purpose
and his covenant, his promise of grace in Christ Jesus. Then
one afternoon, the Lord himself with two angels came in bodily
presence and talked with Abraham. They sat and ate. Abraham fixed
him a meal and they sat and ate. And the Lord talked with Abraham
before he went down there to destroy Sodom. And the Lord stopped
on his way and heard the intercession of Abraham and said, all right,
there's five righteous. I won't destroy the whole city
because you made intercession for him. He stopped to listen
to Abraham. They talked as a friend, talks to a friend face to face. I mean, you think about Abraham's
life here. The Lord had blessed him, blessed him with his presence.
He talked to Abraham and he talked audibly to him. He revealed his
purpose and his covenant to Abraham. The Lord hadn't blessed anybody
with that much revelation of who he is and what he's doing
at that point of history that he did for Abraham. Now, after
everything the Lord revealed to Abraham, Abraham knew the
Lord better than anybody. I mean, he just revealed himself
to him so much, you'd think Abraham would know the Lord well enough,
I'm never gonna doubt. I'm never gonna fear, I'm never gonna doubt
the Lord, never gonna question him. Abraham never, ever, ever
should have feared some man killing him. The Lord promised him a
son. Well, Abraham's gonna die someday,
not before that son's born, he's not. He should never have feared
this. But he did. But he did. Now I know all sin is sin, you
can't really categorize sin, one worse than another. One sin
is enough to damn us. Just thinking of telling a lie
one time, that's enough to damn our souls for eternity. But if
you allow me to say it this way, this time, this time when he
entered this place, the writers say this is the Philistines where
he actually went to this time, is worse than the first time
when he went down to Egypt 25 years ago. Because this time,
Abraham is sinning against greater light. I mean, if you can say
it that way. And you know, I thought about this this afternoon. We
all have a particular point of weakness, don't we? That's in
all of us. It's probably different for everybody,
but everybody has this point of weakness. And it's very interesting
to me that Abraham the father of the faithful. His weakness
seems to be the fear of men and doubting Lord. And he's the father
of the faithful. Well, I don't know why I'd expect
me or you'd be any better. Now, Abraham was a righteous
man. I know that he was a believer. He was a man made righteous,
not by his actions, but by faith. Abraham believed God. and it
was counted unto him for righteousness. But Abraham was still a man in
the flesh. He was a righteous man, but he
still had a nature of sin and unbelief too. Unbelief and righteousness
both dwelt in this man. Every believer here can identify
with that. So I have three points I wanted to show us from this
chapter. Number one is this. We only worship
the Lord. in the three persons of his Godhead,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now the nature of flesh that's
in us always wants to look to the flesh to find something to
admire, something to admire in our flesh. We want to find something
in our flesh that's admirable and trustworthy, that we think
is good and will commend us to God so we can trust in that.
The flesh is always trying to do that. And that's the believer
civil war. As long as we're in these bodies,
the flesh is constantly trying to get us to do something we
can take credit for. Something that we can trust in for some
way that we can contribute to our salvation or for our righteousness.
And the new man, he's constantly warring against that as hard
as he can. Say, nope, it's all in Christ.
Look to Christ. Rest in Christ. And not only
does our flesh want to look in that for ourselves, Our flesh
also wants to look at other people in the flesh. And we want to,
we just love them, we admire them. And so what we end up doing
is making them out to be better than they really are. And we
can take that to the extent, and I've seen it happen many
times, that we turn it into hero worship. Now, we ought to think
of others better than ourselves. All of us ought to do that. But
not to the point that we put them so high up on a pedestal,
we hold them in awe, and in a way, kind of worship them. We consider
them to be a super believer, somehow on a different plane,
more righteous and closer to God than I am. We put them there. And whenever that happens, it's
so dangerous, because here's what happens. We take statements
that our hero makes, and we make it gospel. I mean, we make it
We just hold that as dear as the written word of God. Whatever
our hero thinks is right or wrong, whatever our hero thinks is what
somebody ought to do, boy, we hold to it. I mean, even if it's
not found in the word of God at all. And I'm sure everybody
knows exactly what I'm talking about. Didn't Isaiah do that
with King Uzziah? God had to kill King Uzziah before
Isaiah could see what's going on. So when the Holy Spirit inspired
the writing of the word of God, he inspired each of these men
to sit down and write the word of God, the Holy Spirit wisely
made it so we can't make a hero out of any of the main characters
in scripture. The Bible never seeks to cover
the sin and the weakness and the failure of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. Lot, Eli, Samuel, David, Solomon,
Peter and James, Thomas. I mean, these are great men of
faith. Men greatly used of the Lord. And Scripture lays out their
sin and their weakness for everybody to see. And you know why that
is? So we don't worship those men.
The Bible lays these things out in such a way that the only option
we have is to worship and trust in The Lord Jesus Christ. The
scripture lays out the faults of these men saved by grace.
So we see there's only one perfect man ever lived. It's the Lord
Jesus Christ. I trust him. He's my righteousness.
Our Savior is perfect in every way. You and I are imperfect
in every way. Our Savior is perfect in every
way. He's perfect in his obedience. And he's perfect in his love. He became a man and obeyed the
law perfectly. He established a perfect righteousness
that he would give to his people. And then he willingly made himself
sin and offered himself all that he is as a sacrifice to put that
sin away. And you know why he did it? For
love's sake. He loved his father. He was determined
to glorify and satisfy his father. And the only way the father could
be glorified is saving his people through the sacrifice of his
son. He had to make himself a sacrifice. Our savior endured everything
that he suffered because he also loves his people. And the only
way they could be redeemed is if he suffers and dies, suffers
everything that he suffered in order to redeem them. He did
it because he loves his people. So the Bible leaves the Lord
Jesus Christ as the only option of somebody to worship. The Bible
is written to show us Christ. Now I know the whole world doesn't
see it, but God's people do. The Bible shows God's elect.
If he's given you eyes to see, the Bible shows you the glory
of Christ. It shows you his perfection.
It shows you his love. It shows you his glory. So he's the only one you want
to worship. Not only is he the only option
of somebody to worship, he's the only one you want to worship
when you see him revealed in scripture, isn't it? So that's
why the Bible presents men the way that it does. And if we really
know that the best of men are really so far from perfect, they're
only sinners, that ought to make us more forgiving, shouldn't
it? towards each other, more understanding with each other.
And that's a real necessary thing if we're going to live in peace
with one another. And we need that, don't we? Because at best,
at best, all we are are sinners. So Christ is the only object
of worship. And the second thing, this leads me right to this,
is a believer is a sinner still. There's no point in hoping that
you'll ever be anything in this life. except a sinner saved by
grace. There's no point in thinking
that you can do something, make yourself any better than that
in this life, because it'll never happen. My very favorite sports announcer
of all time was a man named Keith Jackson. I would listen to Keith
Jackson call a game between two teams I hated, just because I
wanted to hear Keith Jackson talk. I mean, I just loved the
guy. And one of my favorite Keith
Jackson quotes of all time is this. He said, college football
is played by 18-year-olds. And you don't know what an 18-year-old's
going to do until he does it. Now, that's true. That's also
true of a believer. You just don't know what a believer's
going to do until he does it. Don't know. And here's why you
don't know, is because believers are capable of any sin and any
weakness that an unbeliever has or an unbeliever commits, with
the exception of apostasy. A believer can never say, I don't
believe on Christ anymore, trust something else, never. But other
than that, we're prone to every sin, the worst heathen you know
of is prone to. Now that being true, we're not
looking at Abraham in a judgmental way here. We're looking at him
and identifying with him. A believer understands exactly
why Abraham did what he did here. He ought not have done it, but
we understand why he did it. Because his old nature, all these
years later, is the same as our old nature. The nature of the
flesh hasn't changed one bit. And we just don't know how we'll
react until we're put in some of these tough situations. I
know how I should act. Absolutely, I know how I should
act. But I don't know how I will act until I'm put in those circumstances. Let me give you a few examples.
That time Abraham and Sarah went down there to Egypt and Pharaoh
took Sarah to be his wife. You know why they went down to
Egypt? Because there was a famine in the land. There wasn't enough
to eat where they were. And they went down there to Egypt. That
picture of sin and bondage to sin because Abraham heard there's
food there. Now you and I look back at that
in hindsight and we say, oh, Abraham never should have done
that. He never should have done that. He should have trusted
in the Lord and stayed right where he was. Just think the
heartache he would have saved himself if he never went down
to Egypt. That's what we'd say. And that's not wrong. But let
me ask you, what are you and I going to do if Lord ever makes
it where there's no food here? And we hear there's food somewhere
else. What are we going to do? Huh? David. I'm confident of this. David
was a man, an emotional man. He had a friend that he truly
loved. And he never would have dreamed
he'd commit adultery with his wife. A trusted, close friend. I mean, David just thought, I
would never commit adultery with his wife. And I certainly never
would have him murdered to cover up my own sin. Oh, I'd never
do that. David never would have dreamed of such a thing. But
one day the army was out in the field out of battle. David, the
king, should have been with him, but he wasn't. He stayed there
in the palace. And because he was someplace
he ought not be, he had opportunity to see Pasheepa taking a bath
on the rooftop next door. Now he shouldn't have done that. God help us that we not be tempted,
huh? How about Peter? Peter was absolutely confident. He would never deny the Lord. He's so confident, I will die
with you. Peter wasn't whistling Dixie
when he said that, he meant that. And then the Lord put Peter in
a situation from a teenage girl where he was tried. And Peter
did, indeed, deny the Lord three times. And we say, Peter shouldn't
have done that. The Lord warned him. He should
have stayed out of that situation. He never should have done it.
The Lord couldn't have been more clear in warning him. He never
should have done that. Well, very true. I don't deny that.
He shouldn't have done that. Well, let me ask you, what will
you and I do if we're ever put in a situation where we feel
pretty certain we'll be tortured and killed if we say I know the
man. I just know him. I just know Jesus of Nazareth.
And we'll be tortured and killed for saying it. You gonna say
it? I know what I should do. What will I do? I don't know.
I'm pretty confident Abraham never dreamed he'd make the same
mistake twice. He never dreamed he's gonna go
someplace and say Sarah's my sister again. Now Sarah was a
beautiful woman. Lots of kings and powerful men
would like to have such a beautiful wife. And this is the plan they
concocted when Lord told Abraham, get up and go out of your father's
house, land I'll show you. As they were leaving, this is
the plan they concocted. We're going to tell everybody
we meet you're my sister so somebody doesn't kill me. I like how Abraham
said that. Say that so they don't kill me
so it will be well for your sake. I don't know men. I mean, I know,
men, it's just, ladies, you just have to be patient with us. I
mean, I've said this before, men are low-hanging fruit. I
mean, there's just no excuse for us. Now, you'd think they'd change
that policy after they left Egypt and Pharaoh embarrassed them,
don't you think? I mean, Pharaoh, this heathen, had to tell Abraham,
the righteous man, what's right and wrong. You'd think he'd have
been so embarrassed. He just... Sarah, we're not doing
this ever again. But they didn't. They didn't.
And Abraham committed the same heinous sin all over again. Now, why on earth would he do
that? Because Abraham's sin nature
was still with him. And 25 years later, After all
of God's blessing to him, after all of God's revelation to him,
Abraham's sin nature hadn't got one whit better. Our sin nature can't learn right
and it can't stop sinning. And listen, it's not that Abraham
didn't know what he was doing was wrong. He knew Abimelech
is a Philistine king and the Philistine knew adultery was
wrong, and he knew it long before God ever gave the law to Moses
at Sinai. Look at verse nine here in our
text. 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 ought not be done. He's correcting Abraham here.
Abimelech knew that this was wrong, and he just couldn't believe. that Abraham put him in this
situation. It's a solemn warning to us on
many, many levels. The heathen is the one acting
better than the believer here, isn't he? You know, there's never an excuse
for a believer ought to always conduct themselves honestly and
righteously in faith. But be mighty careful of taking
a snapshot of a person, man or woman, just any individual time,
because you don't know. If you'd have took a snapshot
here, you'd have thought Abimelech was the one who knew the Lord,
and Abraham was the heathen. Not so, not so. And I'll tell
you, here's, even when we're called on it, my goodness, look
at verse 12. This is such a good example of
our sin nature. Abraham says, and yet indeed,
she is my sister. She's the daughter of my father,
but not the daughter of my mother. And she became my wife. Abraham
knew he was wrong. He got called on the carpet for
this, and he's still trying to justify himself. And you know what? Again, there's
not a person in this room can be hard on Abraham. Because this
is man's big problem. Trying to justify himself. Adam
in the garden. As soon as he ate that fruit,
what was he trying? He was trying to justify himself to the extent
he'd say, God, this is your fault. If you hadn't made the woman,
I wouldn't have done this. This is man's problem, trying to justify
ourselves rather than begging for forgiveness and trusting
the Lord. I say this often, I think it's worth repeating. We will
never be forgiven of our sin. And we've never really confessed
our sin until we see My sin is all my fault. There's no excuses
for it. There's no reasons to justify
it. I'm guilty and what I deserve is for God to damn me. And I'm
not confessing my sin until I mean that. I mean, that's easy to
say, but do you mean it? Do I mean it? I deserve for God
to send me to hell. Now the Lord sees everything.
He sees our guilt. And for He forgives us of our
sin, He's gonna make us see our guilt. For He makes us righteous
in Christ. But as long as we're in this
world, we will be sinners still. At best, a sinner saved by grace.
Which brings me to the third thing. God's elect are saved
by grace. By pure grace in Christ Jesus. Did the thought cross your mind
Why didn't the Lord finally run out of patience with Abraham?
Okay, the Lord bore with him the first time, but now this
is too much. Why didn't the Lord just finally
run out of patience with Abraham and destroy Abraham for his sin? Well, first of all, because God
saves his people by grace. The Lord did not punish Abraham
for his sin. Instead, the Lord blessed Abraham. Look at verse 14. And Abimelech
took sheep and oxen and men's servants and woman'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 pleases thee. And he said, and unto Sarah,
he said, behold, I've given thy brother. And I think it's interesting
there. I think he's being pretty sarcastic there. Your brother.
I've given your brother. a thousand pieces of silver.
Now, that make you wonder? Abraham
went down there to this Gerar where he was sojourning. When
he went down there, he's already a wealthy man. And now, he did
wrong. I mean, repeatedly. He repeated
the same sin. And what did the Lord do? The
Lord gave him more riches. He gave him more livestock and
more servants and more silver, gave him the pick of the land.
He had the pick of Girar, wherever he wanted, he had the pick of
it to live on. And we'll think, you know, that's not right. It's
not fair that Abraham did wrong and God blessed him by taking
from Abimelech. That doesn't seem right. Well,
I mean, I guess you're right. The Lord did not give Abraham
what he deserved, did he? But the Lord doesn't give any
of his people what they deserve. The Lord does not give his people
what's fair, what they've earned. The Lord gives his people mercy.
The Lord saves his people by grace and by his grace alone. And when I say grace alone, this
is what I mean. Without any of our acts, without
any of our works, without any of our morality, without any
of our act right, I didn't do it. It's grace alone without
one iota input from me. The Lord does not give his people
what's fair. Instead, he gives his people
what Christ earned by his obedience, not what we've earned by our
sin. And you know why he could give us what Christ earned? Because
he gave the Savior what we earned. He gave the Savior the suffering
and the death that we deserve so He could be merciful and gracious
to His people. I tell you, I don't want the
Lord to give me what I deserve. Do you? I don't want the Lord
to give me what's fair because of how I act. I want the Lord
to deal with me in mercy and grace. That's the only way I
can be saved. That's the only way God could
not destroy me. Is that true of you? I don't want God to give
me what I deserve. I want God to be merciful. I
want God to save me by His grace. I want God to keep me by His
grace. So why didn't the Lord run out of patience with Abraham?
Why didn't He destroy him for his sin? Well, it's because God
saves His people by His grace. And secondly, it's because God
sees all of His people in Christ. Not in ourselves, but in Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ came in the flesh. as the representative
of his people. And he did what none of us could
ever do. He obeyed God's law perfectly. And in Christ, God puts us in
Christ, by faith in Christ. And get a hold of your seat here.
We're as perfect as the son of God himself. Because we are in
him, we are what he is. And this story is a good picture
of salvation by grace in Christ Jesus. Now you think about when
God created Adam, put Adam in the garden. I'm telling you,
Adam had it pretty good, didn't he? I mean, he had it good. God
provided Adam everything he could want and more. God created Adam
upright. He created him innocent. But
Adam could lose his innocence if he disobeyed one law. He only
had one rule. The law of Moses is pages and
pages and pages and pages and pages. Adam had one rule. One. And he couldn't keep it. And
he lost his innocency. Well, in Christ, we're restored. Abimelech restored Sarah to Abraham. In Christ, we're restored. Sarah was restored to the same
old fella that said, say you're my sister. I won't say anything
more about that. I know what Janet Tate would
have said about that deal. I don't know what Sarah said
about it, but I mean, I just, you know, they had a conversation,
I'm sure. But the believer, restored in
Christ Jesus, we're not restored just back to the same old fella,
back to Adam. We're restored far better than we ever were
in Adam. We're restored far better than
Adam ever was in the garden. See, in the garden, Adam had
an innocency he could lose, didn't he? And he lost it. In Christ,
we have a righteousness we can never lose. In the garden, Adam
had life he could lose. In the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. In Christ, we have life we can
never lose. That's why it's called eternal
life. In Christ, we cannot be found guilty of any sin because
Christ has made us perfect. And when any man does sin in
this life, remember, the best way to be a sinner is saved by
grace. What about when we sin? Like Abraham did. What about
when I commit the same sin over and over and over again? Well,
when any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ, the righteous. When we sin over and over and
over again, we have an advocate. And our advocate is also our
righteousness. He knows better than anybody
else we're righteous. He knows better than anybody
else that sin is forgiven because he suffered and died to put it
away. And that's what's pictured here. Look at verse seven. This
is God here. He's speaking to Abimelech. He
says, now therefore restore the man, his wife, for he's a prophet
and he should 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. And verse 17, 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.
Now do you think this had to irk old Abimelech? The Lord told
him, you go to Abraham, He'll pray for you and you'll live.
And Abimelech thought, I gotta go to this fella who did wrong.
I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't know anything was going
on. I gotta go to this fella who did wrong and put me into
this position, and I gotta ask him to pray for me. That's the
only way I can be healed of this plague? That's the only? Yes. Yes. That's God's way. And that's
what happened. And I'll tell you why the Lord
did it this way. Because it's a picture of Christ.
This flesh loves the flesh. Period, end of conversation.
The flesh loves the flesh. And the flesh despises above
all things the man, Jesus Christ. But the one and only way you
and I can be saved is if we beg him for mercy. is if this hated
man, Jesus of Nazareth, suffers and dies in our place, it's the
only way we can be saved. The only way our sin can be forgiven
is if he prays for us and pleads his blood as the reason our sin
would be forgiven. And you know what? That's what
always happens to God's elect. We're always righteous in Christ. Forgiven and made righteous in
Christ and we're always weak in ourselves. So as long as we're
in this world, we're gonna live with this mixture, unbelief and
righteousness. And we're gonna live with it
till Christ comes and takes us home to be with him. And then
we won't put up with this anymore. No more of this two natures,
no more of this unbelief, no more of this sin. Perfect conformity
to the image of Christ our Savior. That's the ultimate end of everything
God's doing. To ultimately glorify his people
and make them every last one just like his son. Isn't that
a blessing? All right, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for your word. How we thank you for another clear picture of
Christ our Savior. Father, I pray that you give
each of us here faith to look to him and rely upon him to rest
in him. Father, we pray that you'd forgive
us our sins and our trespasses over and over and over again.
And how thankful we are to plead the blood of Christ our Savior
that cleanses us from all sin. Father, we thank you. All these
things we ask and thank you, praise you in the name of Christ
our Savior. It's in his name, for his sake
we pray.