Genesis chapter 20 and verse
1. We have a few Bibles now. If you don't have a Bible and
you'd like one, we have some sitting around in the holders. If you need a Bible, you're welcome
to use those. That's why we put them there.
Genesis chapter 20, and let's begin reading. I want to read
to you this entire chapter. And Abraham journeyed from thence
towards the south country, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur,
and sojourned in Gerah. And Abraham said of Sarah his
wife, She is my sister. And Abimelech king of Gerah sent
and took Sarah. And 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 also slay a righteous nation? Said he nodding to me, She is
my sister, and she herself said, He is my brother. In the integrity
of my heart and innocency of my hands have I did 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.
And 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 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 called 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 where 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 pleases
thee. And unto Sarah he said, Behold,
I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver, and behold,
he is to thee a covering of the eyes, and to all that are with
thee, and with all others. Thus she was reproved. So Abraham
prayed unto God, And God healed Abimelech and his wife and his
maidservants, and they bore children. For the Lord had fast closed
up all the wounds of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah,
Abraham's wife." I guess it was lawful back in those days for
a man to marry his half-sister. Seemingly that's what Abraham
had done. The Lord deals with humanity
gradually. He gradually opens our understanding
to know things, and things that He sometimes allows at first,
He disallows later on. And later on, He forbids such
marriages. Now, I want to begin here in
verse 1. Verse 1 is very important in the life of Abraham. And Abraham
journeyed from Phentz towards the south. Now that's a very
significant statement. Abraham journeyed. And then Abraham
journeyed. Abraham had not traveled now
for probably 20 to 25 years. And this is very important here.
And now Abraham journeyed. Now why do I say that's important? I want you to look back in chapter
13 and verse 14. This is why this verse is so
important. Here's what the Lord had already told Abraham all
the way back in chapter 14. You remember when Abraham and
his nephew Lot had separated themselves one from another.
And here's what the Lord told Abraham in verse 14 of chapter
13. The Lord said unto Abram, after
that lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look
from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and
eastward, and westward. For all the land which thou seest,
to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will
make thy seed as the dust of the earth, So that if a man can
number the dust of the earth, then thy seed also shall be numbered. And look at verse 17. Arise,
walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth
of it, for I will give it unto you. Then Abraham removed his
tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebrew. And there he built his altar.
And there's where he stayed. He came here to memory, and that's
where he was until the 19th chapter of this book that you and I have
just finished. He stayed there until the Lord
brought judgment upon the cities of the plains, Sodom and Gomorrah,
and Lot and his daughters fled to the mountains. Not until then
did Abraham begin to journey again. Now I think as we study
this, it seems very obvious why Abraham had not journeyed like
the Lord told him to. Do you know why he didn't? Well, if you look at what took
place in chapter 19, And then in chapter 20 he begins to journey
again. It seems so obvious that Abraham
stopped his journey because Lot was very dear to him. Mamre,
you could come out here from Mamre up on the hilltop and you
could overlook the cities of the plain. He could come and
in the view of his eye he could see where Lot dwelt. And it seems like that Abraham
felt probably responsible for Lot, he probably had an affection
for Lot, and he wouldn't leave this place of memory. And he
dwelt there for probably 20 to 25 years. But then you come here
in chapter 20, after the judgment had fallen upon Sodom and Gomorrah,
And when Lot had fled to the mountains, him and his daughter,
in that sad, sad state, and then what happens to Abraham? Now
he begins to journey. Now what does this teach us?
It teaches us this, that sometimes the Lord has a particular direction
for his children to go in. He has something special that
he'll have them to do And He's been known to remove those things
and those people that stood in their way from doing those things. Now He's been known to do that.
The best way, one man said, to secure our loved ones and to
secure our goods is to commit them to the Lord and never let
them be a hindrance to us in doing His will. I think that's
some good advice, don't you? I remember John Bunyan, way back
in the 1600s. The law at that time was that
they weren't allowed to preach. If you weren't a member in the
established church, and you didn't have license to preach from the
state, you couldn't preach. And John Bunyan was a preacher
of God's grace, and they told him, if you don't stop preaching,
if we catch you preaching one more time, we're going to put
you in jail. Bunyan had a wife. He had children,
he had a little blind daughter, and he said he began to think,
what's going to happen to my family if they put me in jail? My wife's going to go hungry
and beg my little blind daughter? What's going to happen to her?
But he thought, he said, I thought to myself, what's going to happen
to my family if I do stop preaching? So he said he'd come to this
conclusion. that both he was better off, his wife and his
children were better off, to commit everybody to the Lord,
and do the Lord's will, and let the Lord take care of his family.
That's where Mr. Bunyan comes to, and that's good
advice for you and us, isn't it? I was talking with Brother
Moose Parks just the other day. He preached for us not long ago.
And he really feels in his heart that he needs to go back to the
Virgin Islands where he used to be a missionary. And he has
family here. His children are here. His grandbabies
are here. And now he's having trouble selling
his house. And they called him and said,
Moose, we really need you down here. You know, just feel like
we need you down here. And his heart's burdened to go
down there. So he's going to pack up, he said, and not only
leave his children, but he's going to leave his unsold house
and continue to make payments on it until it's sold. And here's
the reason why. I know, he said, what the Lord
would have me to do. And my children, or my house,
my goods, don't need to stand in my way. And you know, sometimes
if they do stand in our way, the Lord removes them. And that's
what he's teaching Abraham here. He removes them. Brothers and
sisters, there's nothing more important, if you know what the
Lord's will for your life is, there's nothing more important
than doing it. Don't let anything stand in your
way. Goods and kindred, let them go. And this mortal life also. There was a man who came to the
Lord Jesus one time, and the Lord told him, you go preach
the gospel. You come and you follow me, and you go preach
the gospel. And the man said, Lord, I'll
follow you, and I'll go preach too. If you'll let me first,
go bury my dead father. And you remember what the Lord
told him. Now this may sound harsh to some of us, but what
the Lord is teaching us here, that if you know the will of
God, if He's revealed His will to you, there's nothing more
important than doing that. And He told that man, He said,
you let the dead bury the dead. You have some unsafe people,
you have unsafe brothers, you have unsafe sisters, and you
let them bury your father. Now that sounds harsh, doesn't
it? But the Lord was teaching us, when I show you what My will
is for you, then don't you let anybody hinder you. Abraham,
I've given you this land. Now you walk up north, and you
walk over to the east and the west and south, and you look
at this land that I've given you. But Abraham just settled
down, and there's where he stayed. And then the Lord comes and said,
Abraham, I'm going to remove your nephew. I'm going to remove
that which is holding you here. That's a good lesson for us to
learn. And I tell you, it's a blessed thing. It's a blessed thing.
It was a wonderful blessing when Abraham became willing to journey
again. Now you say, Bruce, why was that
a blessing? Well, I tell you why it was a blessing. He could
have sat right here at memory until he got old and died and
missed all the blessings that he obtained through journeying.
He not only obtained blessings himself, but he was a blessing
to many people in his journeying. I even think, and we'll see this
probably next week, that Abimelech was probably converted through
Abraham. That wouldn't have happened if
Abraham had set your memory until he dried up and got old and wasn't
able to. It's a blessed thing when the
Lord doesn't let us get too relaxed and too content and too concerned
with this world that we sit down at ease. And we're so apt to
do that, aren't we? We get secure with our four and
no more. We get the house remodeled and
everything's at comfort in our little place and we just sit
down and get at ease. And we get in this comfort zone,
don't we? And that's what we want to say.
And the Lord, like an old mother eagle, that's got all her little
babies in a nest, He comes and He begins to pull out those feathers.
And He begins to pull out that grass. And He exposes the thorns. And the little chicks get tired
of sitting on those thorns, so they have to fly out of the nest.
It's a blessing, brother, when the Lord does us that way. And
he gets us out of our comfort zone. And we start journeying
again. We're pilgrims here, aren't we?
Abraham had forgotten, I guess, that he was a pilgrim and a stranger
here. He settled down and wanted to
farm. He found some good pastor to
feed his cattle. I don't want to leave this place.
The Lord's got a way of making him leave this place. He'll remove
the hindrances from him. Terrence and I have been studying
through the book of Acts together. And one of the things we've noticed
about the book of Acts, one of the ways the Lord spread His
gospel through the book of Acts is by just driving those men
out of their homes. Saul of Tarsus rose up to persecute
them, and they had to leave their houses. Their goods, and some
of them left their families, but they went everywhere preaching
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They'd persecute them
in one city, and they'd just flee to another and go to preaching
there. It's not good, brothers and sisters, to be too comfortable
in this world. Don't let your relatives, don't
let your dear loved ones, hinder you from serving the Lord and
worshiping Him? Just don't let them. Don't let
them. That's the first thing we learn
about this. And then, when Lot had been removed, bless his heart,
then Abraham began the journey again. Now look in verse 2. Look
in verse 2. And Abraham said of Sarah, his
wife, she is my sister. And the Bimelech king of Geras
sent and took her." Now this is an amazing thing, that this
is the second time, you remember chapter 12, this very same thing
that happened before. Abraham told Pharaoh when he
went down to Egypt, because there was a drought in the land of
Canaan, and he got scared and told, and he said to Sarah, you
tell all these men that you're my sister. And this is the second
time he did this. told this deception. You say,
Bruce, well, it wasn't really deception, but it was deception. It was deception. You know, there's
a lot of things that's true, but boy, when we get finished
with it, because we use it to secure our safety, don't we?
To secure our being in birth, not to be in birth, Here in verse
11, I want you to look at this. Here's two reasons that we're
giving you why Abraham deceived Abimelech and said, Sarah is
my sister, not my wife. First of all, look here, and
this is, I had to laugh when I found this, in verse 11, and
Abraham said, here's the reason now he gave Abimelech the copper
line. Because I thought, surely the
fear of God is not in this place and they will slay me for my
wife's sake. Why did he lie to secure his
life? He was afraid that they would
kill him. They will slay me and take my wife. Ain't it an amazing
thing that Abraham was so happy and willing to trust the Lord
with his soul? But he hadn't yet trusted the
Lord with his body. Ain't that amazing? Could a believer
be this way? Well, here the father of the
faithful, he was that way. How many children of God have
found great peace and full assurance of faith in regard to eternal
things, but are full of unbelief and fear when it comes to temporal
things? I have trusted the Lord with
my soul. and with these eternal blessings,
but I'm so fearful of trusting Him with my body and the cares
of this life. What an untold relief it is,
and some of you have experienced this, when a poor guilty sinner
is enabled through grace to give himself up to the Lord Jesus
Christ and find rest for his soul. and to know in His heart
of hearts that if I leave this world today, He has secured my
eternal salvation. Now you won't find a greater
blessing than that. Did you know that? For you to
know in your heart of hearts that you've been enabled in your
soul to give yourself to Christ, that you know He's secured your
soul. What a blessing that is. But yours is only the beginning
yourself. We don't stop here, do we? We don't come to Christ
and say, Oh, bless His name, my soul has found rest in Him,
and stop there. Then we begin to learn to trust
the Lord with our bodies and with these temporal things. This
is what the Sermon on the Mount is all about. We went through
that, didn't we? It's coming to the point in our
heart, in our faith, that we not only trust the Lord with
our eternal salvation, but we see the all-sufficiency of God
our Father to care for us in this world. And I tell you what,
it takes some practice to come there. It takes some experiences
to come there. That's why the Lord Jesus was
preaching to us, and He said, why don't you behold the fowls
of the air? You never see them out your sow
and seed. And they don't plow, they don't
till, they don't gather into barns, but your Father feeds
them. Are you not much more important,
He said, than the fowls of the air? And the lilies of the field,
look how beautiful they are. And nobody clothes them. You
don't see them pulling and spinning clothes. Who clothes those lilies? The Father in heaven clothes
them. And if He so clothed the lilies of the field, will He
not much more clothe you? O ye of little faith! O ye of
little faith! What was Abraham's problem? It
wasn't the matters of the soul. He knew how the Lord had saved
him. He knew where his righteousness was. He believed Christ for his
righteousness. But I'll say it seemingly, he
never had come to this place where he said, I'm going to commit
my body to the Lord. He saved my soul. Can he not
care for my body? He secured my eternal well-being. Can he not secure my temporal
well-being? Therefore, take no anxious thoughts. The Lord Jesus said, What shall
we eat? What shall we drink? What shall
we wear? Your Father in heaven knows that
you have need of these things. Therefore, seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.
All of them, every last one of them, shall be added to you. You'll think that when Abraham
had trusted the Lord to secure his soul and his salvation, he
would naturally have trusted him with his body. But that's
not the case. I thought, I thought surely they
will slay me. And he got so anxious about it
all. They'll slay me. They'll slay me. That's a happy
man. who has obtained peace and assurance
that the Lord has secured his soul, but that's a happier man
who has not only seen the Lord has secured his soul, but he
rests in the Lord to secure his temporal needs as well. He's
a happy man. Can you imagine Abraham, the
father of the faithful? You know why he couldn't enjoy
his journey? And I imagine this is one reason
why he didn't journey. He was afraid to. He's anxious
about it all. And it was this mistrust of the
Lord's care for him that caused him to lean to his own wisdom
and his own ability and his plotting to secure his own safety. And
it all comes to naught, doesn't it? It all comes to naught. Now
we can plan, and we can plot, and we can put our confidence
and our own ability to secure ourselves, but I tell you what
it'll do, dear child of God, it'll come to naught. It'll come
to nothing. The Lord is not going to have
us going through this life so anxious that we will not trust
Him to care for us. If you've got a little child,
Little Jalen, what if, turns to Miranda, what if a neighbor,
there to the south of you, comes up to your house and says, I
need to talk to you parents. Something's going on with your
parents. Well, come on up and we'll talk. And he sets down
and he says, don't you love your little son? Well, sure we love
him. Don't you care for him and feed
him? Well, sure we do. What are you talking about? Well,
he's been down there on our doorstep begging for food. And he's so
fearful and trembling. Like you're not taking care of
him. Wouldn't that embarrass you? But what about our Father
in Heaven when we go through this life and we're so fearful
about everything and so mistrustful about everything and so fearful
that He's not going to secure us that we're anxious about it
to the point we're willing to lie and deceive people about
it? Now that's what gets us in trouble, ain't it? All of us
have been there, the father of the faithful. Bless his heart,
he was there. And notice here in verse 13,
something else. Something else in our life. When
I saw this here in verse 13, look at this. When did Abraham
and Sarah plop this scheme up? It wasn't a recent thing. It
had been over 20 years ago when they did it. Look in verse 13.
And here's what I say. It came to pass that when God
called me to wander from my father's house, that I said unto her,
Sarah, this is thy kindness which you shall show me. And every
place where we come, say, He is my brother. Ain't this amazing? They plotted this when they still
lived in Ur of the Chaldeans. They plotted this there in the
old country, you see, before they came into the new country.
What do we see in this? This old man. The old man. We still have a lot of things
hanging on to us that we brought out of the old country, don't
we? The old man still plots and he still schemes just like he
always has. How many of us have lived for
years in a bad attitude? or we've held on to bad theology,
or unscriptural practices in our worship, in our service to
the Lord, and these are things that came out from our nativity,
that came with us in our birth, are what our father or our aunts
and uncles taught us, and we need to be converted from them. But I tell you who's going
to have to convert us. It's the Lord. It's the Lord. Abraham never even knew anything
was wrong with what he was doing. Do you know that? He never had
any idea. Well, Abimelech knew it. Pharaoh knew it. Abimelech said,
you've sinned against me. Abraham's still trying to justify
it. Why? He didn't think there was anything wrong with it. And
you and I can believe things. We can practice things. We can
have attitudes that's not right. But you know something? It takes
the Lord to open our hearts and make us see. I'm going to convert
you from death. Look over here in Deuteronomy
right quick. Just to your right. Deuteronomy chapter 8. Deuteronomy
chapter 8. Look in verse 2. Deuteronomy
chapter 8 verse 2. The Lord is speaking here to the
children of Israel. And thou shalt remember all the way which
the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness,
to humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart,
whether thou would keep his commandment or not." Now wait just a minute,
Brother Simpson. You're telling me the Lord didn't
know what was in their hearts. Is that the meaning of this verse?
Is the meaning, especially when we read on in a minute, is the
meaning not so much that I'm going to know what's in your
heart, but I'm going to let you know what's in your heart. Read on, verse 3. And he humbled
thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which
thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might
make thee know. that a man doeth not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of the Lord doeth man live. Thy raiment wax not old upon
thee, neither did thy foot swell these forty years, that thou
shalt also consider in thine heart that as a man chasteneth
his son, so the Lord chasteneth thee." What it was, he's going
to make them know. He's going to make them know.
Why does the Lord have to bring things to our attention? Well,
He can't convert us from it if He don't. You may tell me, Bruce,
now that's wrong. But you can't convert me from
that. Not in my heart. You may force me into changing
my practices, but you can't change my heart. You'd be like that
woman who told her little girl, told her to sit down. You sit
down and be still. She wouldn't sit down. She said,
I said, you sit down and be still. And the little girl sat down.
And her mother heard her murmur something. And her mother said,
what did you just say? She said, I may be sitting in
my body, but I'm standing in here. We make our kids do things. We can't change their hearts,
can we? But the Lord changes the heart. And that's what it takes, brothers
and sisters. The heart needs to be changed.
It wasn't just that Abraham was never going to do this again.
The Lord was going to show him, Bud, you're wrong. You're wrong. And then he never did do it again.
I was talking the other day with an old pastor. I rode with him
back from the cemetery. And he introduced himself to
me. And the pastor said, you're not
too far from here. And I enjoyed talking with him. He asked me, he said, do you
have any converts? No, not enough to speak of. And he said, boy,
I ain't either. I ain't either. And he said,
you know what I'm not seeing today? This sort of encouraged
me about this old man. He said, I'm not seeing any broken
sinners. He said, I'm not seeing anybody coming to Christ out
of necessity. Now, boy, this is good. This is good. And then
he said, when I give an altar call, hardly anybody comes to
the altar. And I thought to myself, I ain't
going there. I ain't going there. You folks know how I feel about
the altar. I know how you feel about the
altar, Carl. I think it's awfully dangerous to tell men to move
their bodies from back there to up here. But I know this much,
too. There's a lot of baggage that
we carry with us. that somebody has told us. We've been educated into that.
And it's going to take the Lord to bring us out of it. I see
the danger of that altar call, but that dear old man don't see
it. There's some of us that hold to the theology that's not correct,
but it's going to take the Lord to show us. We have to be patient
and love one another and pray for one another and ask the Lord
to show man what's in their hearts. It takes the Lord to convert
us, doesn't it? How long did Apostle Peter think
that the Jews were better than the Gentiles? How long did he believe in his
heart that the Gentiles couldn't even be saved? And one day the
Lord opened his heart and he said, now I perceive that God's
no respected person. And now I see what I've been
seeing wrong all these years, that I have to be saved just
like the Gentiles. What happened to Peter? The Lord
opened his heart. I tell you, Peter never would
have dreamed that it was in his heart to deny the Lord, would
he? But it was there. And the Lord said, Peter, I'm
going to show you what's in your heart. I'm going to convert you.
I'm going to convert you. That's what the Lord did to Abraham.
Abraham, I'm going to show you what's in your heart and I'm
going to convert you. And now here in verse 2, Abraham
and Sarah were brought to the place where they had no choice
but to trust their care to the Lord. Ain't no choice now. Would the Lord go back on His
promises? Would the Lord forsake them because
they had mistrusted Him? Was the Lord more faithful than
Abraham and Sarah? Would God abandon Abraham and
Sarah? No, no, no. He didn't bring them here to
abandon them. He brought them here to correct
them and to increase their faith and increase their joy. and prove
to them, though they had not believed him, yet he would abide
faithfully. That's what he brought them here
to teach them. The Lord had already told Abraham,
Abraham, I will bless thee, and I'll make you a blessing. Abraham,
I'm your shield. You know what a shield is? It's
a defense. You don't use a shield for offense.
It's a defense. When somebody throws a spear
at you, stick up that shield. When somebody gets a sword and
strikes at you, put up that shield. The Lord said, Abraham, I'm your
shield. I'm your shield. He said, My covenant shall stand
fast with thee. I have made thee a father of
nations. He said, Ask her, Sarah, thy wife, I will give thee a
son of her, and that which shall come out of thy loins shall be
thine heir. That's what he had promised.
Would he take all that back now? Abraham had stumbled. He had
apparently failed. He's probably feeling like a
whipped dog. Abimelech had came and got Sarah.
Abraham couldn't talk him out of getting her. And here he sat
over there in the tent by himself. What was happening to Sarah?
Oh, Abraham, how you've fallen. What a wimp you've been. How
mistrustful you've been of the Lord. Would the promise fail? Would
the Lord fail? No, no, no. The gifts and callings
of God are without repentance. The Lord said, Abraham, I will
bless you, and He meant it. Not, I'll bless you if, but he
meant. Abraham, I am thy shield, and
he would rise now to defend Abraham. Abraham never merited these blessings
in the beginning, and he did not demerit these blessings now
that he had fallen. Why did the Lord say, Abraham,
I'm going to bless you? Was there some worthiness that
he saw in Abraham? No. The cause of God blessing
Abraham was found in God, not in Abraham. And when the Lord looked upon
Abraham, and he was seen, he was so unworthy and mistrustful.
Because God had not purposed to bless Abraham because of his
worthiness, he won't withhold the blessing because of his unworthiness.
That's grace, brothers and sisters. That's grace. You and I come
to the Lord Jesus, and He saves us, and we know it's of grace. He brought us to the point where
we could do nothing but say, Lord, be merciful to me. And
He saved us, and we know why He saved us. Because of His grace. And then we turn right around
and get in our heads, When we stumble and when we fall and
feel so unworthy, we get in our heads that in some way we've
made grace void, as though grace was dependent upon us and not
we upon grace. The blessing was not dependent
upon Abraham. The blessing was dependent upon
Him who promised. There's a vast difference between
Abraham and the God who promised, isn't there? No, He didn't bring them here
to abandon them. He brought them here to correct
them and to increase their faith and to show them that even though
they believe not, yet He abided faithfully. And here's another
reason the Lord didn't abandon them. This just wasn't about
Abraham and Sarah. It wasn't just about God being
faithful to Abraham and Sarah. It was about God's faithfulness
to Christ, His Son. The Lord had already told Abraham,
the Messiah is coming out of your loins. Isn't that what He
told him? In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
He that comes out of your loins, he said, is going to be thy seed.
The Messiah is coming out of his loins. Abraham and Sarah
was to have a son, and out of that son was Christ to come.
Not out of Abimelech and Sarah, but out of Abraham and Sarah.
Isn't it strange? And you can see the devil in
this. You can see how he's working. When the Lord there in the 18th
chapter comes to Abraham and says, I'm going to visit Sarah,
and she's going to have your child. Then it comes right here
in this chapter, just a few days later, and the devil is thinking
to himself, now I've got to throw something in here, boy. This
is getting serious now. So what does he do? Well, he
tempts Abraham to lie. and deceive Abimelech. Then he
comes to Abimelech's mind and he says, you stand over there
and get Sarah. She'll make you a great wife. She's a beautiful
woman. You can have a child by her. You think he didn't put
this in Abimelech's mind? You see, the devil knows this
is not just about us, brothers and sisters. This is about the
glory of Jesus Christ. There's what his name is. to
put every blot he can upon the glory of God's Son. Can you imagine
what would have happened if Abimelech would have laid with Sarah and
she became pregnant with him? God's purpose would have been
thwarted because Christ was to come out of Abraham's loins.
That's what this is about. Oh, this poor world. This poor
world thinks it's all about them. Oh, you know, God's cast a vote
and the devil cast a vote and I decided by casting my vote.
And here all along, all we are just pawns. We're just pawns
is all we are in the hands of these great powers, God and the
devil. And we're just moved around wherever
God's pleased to put us. God defends the glory of His
Son. That's why He intervened here.
Now here in verse 3, and I've got to hurry, I won't keep you
too long if I don't. Here in verse 3, now we take up here
what? Here the Lord's going to intervene
now and take up, He's going to take up His own cause. And I
love this. When we come to the place where
we can't uphold the cause anymore, therefore we see the Lord will
intervene and He holds up His own cause. In verse 3, 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, she is
another man's wife. You know what bothers me as I
look around us today in our society? What bothers me most is the silence
of God. towards the sin of this generation. Adultery, fornication, open and
profane sins, and yet when we look at the people of our day,
how many has any fear when they've lived in these open and profane
sins? How many are even embarrassed about it? We're living in a generation
where men brag about being able to sin so freely
and not be bothered about it. Husbands and wives can divorce
and remarry as easily as they can breathe without being concerned
about it. Children can curse their father
and mothers and never give it a second thought. Fathers can
cast off their little children and mothers can forsake their
little children and think nothing about it. And you know what? That's a sign of That's not a
sign of the long-suffering of the Lord. That's a sign of His
judgment. When God lets men go on and sin
as they will and never breaks in upon their conscience to warn
them about it, that's not the long-suffering of God. The long-suffering
of God has a tendency to lead men to repentance. When men can
go on and sin as they will and never be concerned about it,
oh, that's a clear indication of God's judgment upon society. It's the Lord's long-suffering
and His goodness when He warns men and makes them afraid and
converts them of that sin and from that sin. But when they
go on in freely sinning and fearlessly sinning, it's an indication that
God is fattening them as an ox is fatted to the slaughter. We
used to see this little slogan. You remember this. used to put
it on their t-shirts and sometimes you'd see it on a bumper sticker,
no fear. Remember those little signs?
No fear. I'm the captain of my soul. I'm the master of my fate. No fear. You let God come to those people.
You let Him appear to their conscience. You let Him break in upon them
like He did to Bimelech. You'll see a change then. Men
who had no fear before will begin to fear then. Let the Lord break
in and say this, you're a dead man, mister. You're a dead man,
mister. If the Lord keeps silent, the
man will go on. If the Lord breaks in and says, that woman that
you just married, that's another man's wife. You're a dead man,
mister. That woman you slept with last night, is another man's
wife. You're a dead man, mister. You're
a dead man. You lifted your voice and you
took my holy name in vain? You're a dead man, mister. That's what that old preacher
wanted to say. That's what he wanted to say. Men afraid to
stay in sin any longer. Men fearful over their way of
life. It's a profitable thing, here
in verse 4 and 5, when a sinner begins to talk to the Lord concerning
the subject the Lord has brought up. You're a dead man, you've
sinned against me. And what does Abimelech say?
Well, he tries to justify himself a little bit, but he's telling
the truth. Lord, I did this in my ignorance. I know I'm guilty. I did it in my ignorance. But
you know what he's doing? He's talking about the subject
the Lord's brought up. It's a blessing when men begin
to speak to the Lord, and it's not about a new car, it's not
about a job, it's not even about their health, but it's a subject
the Lord has brought up. And what subject does the Lord
bring up with lost people? Come now and let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Though your sin be as scarlet,
it shall be as white as snow. What's the Lord want to talk
sinners about? Their goodness? No, their sin. At first he came up to the temple
and said, Lord, I thank you. I've never committed adultery.
I've never been involved in fornication. I'm not an unjust man. I don't
commit extortion. The Lord wasn't interested in
hearing that was it. He wouldn't even talk to him. He was interested
in what that old man back in the back of the church had to
say. Oh God, I've sinned against you. Oh wash me. Oh forgive me. Be merciful to me. When we come
to the Lord and we begin to talk with Him about the subject that
He wants to talk about, we'll find it a very profitable conversation.
Well, I went to the Lord and He didn't hear me. Well, what
did you ask Him about? What did you talk to Him about? I told
Him, you know, I've been pretty bad, but I was going to try to
do better. Well, no, I didn't understand why He didn't hear
you. Lord, I know it ain't been too well for me, but I'm going
to try to get my act together. I promise you. But the Lord won't
hear me. I'll tell you why. He tells us
how to pray. Take with you words and turn
to the Lord and say, Lord, take away my iniquity. Receive me
graciously and then I'll praise you for it. Try that. Try that
and see if that don't work. Abimelech, the Lord appeared
to him here and said, Abimelech, you're a dead man. You've sinned
against me. Oh Lord, he begins to talk with him now. This heathen king begins to talk
with the Lord. Verse 6 and 7, God said unto
him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity
of your heart. But you did it. You did it. Don't you deny you did it. And
he did. When the Lord got finished with
him, he told Abraham, he said, you've caused me to commit a
great sin. Ain't that what he told him? Before he's trying to hint
around, Lord, it's Abraham's fault. But finally the Lord said,
you'd have did it. It was in your heart to lay with
that woman and you would have done it if I hadn't stopped you.
Ain't that what he told him? The Lord reveals something here
to Abimelech. The only reason he said you didn't
lay with Sarah and bring death upon yourself immediately, I
will help thee from sinning against me. Ain't that amazing? Here is the sovereign goodness
of God. The sovereignty of God and the
goodness of God, they meet in one. And they kept this man from
sinning against Him. You know who rules the desires
of a man's heart? You know who rules a man's heart?
Somebody said, Oh, God is trying to influence you. God don't try
to influence people. He rules the heart. He rules
the heart. The King's heart is in the hand
of the Lord. What is the heart? Well, it's
the seed of the will. It's the seed of the understanding.
It's the seed of the affection. And all of that's in the hands
of the Lord. The king's heart, not just the
peasant's now. But here's the man that sits
on his throne, got a crown on his head. He's judging everybody
else. He keeps alive other people.
He puts other people to death. He's the man, you know. But who's
got his heart in their hands? The Lord. And what does he do
with it? Well, he tries. Forgive me for
mocking this, but I can't help it sometimes. We hear this all
the time, and I just get so livid. The Lord's trying, He's trying
to show you this, He's trying to... And we get caught up with
using these phrases ourselves. The King's heart is in the hands
of the Lord, and as the rivers of water, He turns it. He turns it, wheresoever He will. That's the sovereign goodness
of God. This world looks upon the sovereignty of God and thinks,
My word, that's the greatest enemy I've got. The best friend
this world's got is the sovereignty of God. Now that's so, brothers and sisters.
What turns you from darkness to light? Did you ever go to the Lord and
pray with the old prophet, Lord turn me? Don't you even pray
that today? When you know what you must do
but you don't have a heart to do it, oh Lord turn me. Well if he's not sovereign to
turn you, you won't be turned. And if He's not sovereignly good,
He won't turn you. That's our hope, isn't it? I
can't pray for myself for Him to turn you. I can't pray for myself to turn
me if God is not sovereign, if He don't rule in the heart. Oh,
it's a blessing when the sovereignty of God, the sovereign goodness
of God, withholds anybody from sinning and bringing death. That seems to be what he said
near to Abimelech. He said, the only reason you
didn't die, I kept you from sinning. If I hadn't stopped you from
committing this sin, I'd have killed you. I'd have killed you.
I either had to kill you or stop you. So I stopped you. I stopped
you. How many have been ready to commit
a sin that would have brought the judgment of God upon them,
yet God in His sovereign goodness withheld them from sinning? How
many of you and I, in the days of our rebellion, would have
committed the unpardonable sin and sealed our doom, but the
Lord withheld us from sinning? What kept us from sinning away
the day of grace? He did. Why did we find it in
our hearts one day to turn from the course of sin? He put it
there. Why did we begin to think of
salvation and forgiveness? Because He turned our thoughts
in that direction. Why did it come into our hearts
to arise and go to Christ and seek for mercy? God turned our
hearts. The Lord is sovereign in His
goodness, and He takes hold of our hearts, and He turns it unto
Himself. That's why we're saved. That's
why we're saved. Anytime you see a poor broken-hearted
sinner turning to the Lord, desire and mercy, you can just bank
on this. God's put that in his heart.
You see a sinner crying, Lord be merciful to me. God's turning
his heart. You can't see it. He don't even
know that God's doing it. All he knows is it's here. I
have this need. That's all he knows. Give me
Christ or I die. But God's turning it. Secretly,
sovereignly in his goodness, turning it. That's my hope for
every one of you. That's my hope for myself. Now in the light of this, look
in verse 7. Look in verse 7. Now therefore restore the man
his wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for thee, and
thou shalt live. And if thou restore her not,
know thou, that thou shalt surely die, all that is in thine house. Would you not agree with me this
morning that very few people are brought to this place? I
mean in their conscience, in their heart of hearts, very few
people are brought to this place where life and death is set before
them. There's no doubt about it. The
Lord brought this fellow to this place and here's what he said
to him. You restore her now or you die. You obey my voice right now or
you die. You don't see this man sitting
out there on his throne, meditating. Now, I'm just trying to figure
out all my options. Do I want to choose to obey God? Or do I want to choose to go
my own way? And he's sitting there so calmly,
so coolly, weighing out his options. You don't see him doing that
at all, do you? Why? The Lord has brought him to this
place. It's life or death. Right now,
it's life or death. That's where the Lord brings
a man to. That's where God brings a man to. If you're still debating
upon your choices, if you're still bragging and boasting where
you're going to decide for Christ or not, I'll tell you this much,
God has not yet appeared to you. But when the Lord comes to save
a man, when the Lord comes to bring you to Himself, He don't
leave you a bunch of options. It's life or death. It's Christ
or hell. Save me or I'll perish. That's
what it comes down to. He didn't have any options. And
you and I don't either. We just think we do. This world
don't have any options. This world don't have any choices.
Our choice was made in Adam. And when he fell, we fell. And
the Lord brings us to this place. It's life or death. It's Christ
or die. Who's going to choose that? A drowning man? You throw him
out a life jacket? You throw him out a tube and
say, why don't you decide to get a hold of it? It doesn't make any sense, does
it? Arthur Pink made this statement.
He said, To say that God wants to influence men, but that men
won't let him, is to reduce the Almighty to a heftless spectator,
full of gracious intentions, but lacking in power to make
them good. When the Lord appeared to Abimelech
and said, You restore her now or you die.
What did he do? What did he do? Look in verse
8. Therefore Bimelech rose up early in the morning, and called
all his servants, and told them these things in their ears. And
the men were sore afraid. And he calls Abraham and he restores
Sarah without delay. One more thing right quickly
and I'll close. Verse 7. Verse 7. This is amazing. Abimelech looked upon Abraham
and he basically said, you're a deceiver. You're a wretched
deceiver. You've deceived me and you've brought upon my kingdom
a great sin. But when the Lord spoke of Abraham,
what did he say about it? He's my prophet. He's my prophet. And not only that, but look at
this. He shall pray for thee, and you shall be healed. Ain't
this amazing how God can turn things upside down? Here Abraham
came down here, scared to death of this king, so scared of him
that he lied and deceived him. And now the Lord in His wisdom
and grace has so turned it around that this king's life was dependent
upon Abraham's prayers. Only God can do these things,
and He does. In the eyes of Abimelech, Abraham
had done so great a wrong. But in the eyes of the Lord,
God saw no iniquity in this man. Oh, He corrected him, didn't
He? But He didn't condemn him. He didn't condemn him. This world looks upon the Church
And it sees many, many infirmities and failings and fallings. And sometimes the world issues
a severe rebuke to the Church, and justly so, rightfully so,
and God lets her do it sometimes. But God looks upon the Church
as being in Christ and says, I have not beheld iniquity in
Jacob, neither have I seen perverseness in Israel. And someday when God's purpose
is finished, and everything's made plain, and every man and
woman and boy and girl stands before the Sovereign Lord at
the judgment, the Lord's going to make this world to know that He bestowed many blessings
upon them, gave many precious gifts, because
his church was here in its midst. The Lord has blessed your neighbors
because you, a child of God, are their neighbors. And someday he's going to make
the world to know that. I'd have slayed you, he's going
to tell this world. I'd have killed some of you a
long time ago. One of my children would pray for you. Abimelech was blessed Because
Abraham was in his midst, even though he was there with much
infirmity. And that's the wisdom of God. That's the way he does
things. Let's pray.