Have you ever heard of the 10-20-life laws here in Florida? Those laws are set up for repeat offenders who commit a crime using a gun. The first time you’re caught you get ten years in prison. The second time you get twenty. Third time – life in prison. And all the statistics show that they seem to be effective in our state.
What if God did that with us? What if God’s grace towards us was based on how often we committed the same sins over and over again? Well, two things would happen. First of all, God’s grace would then be determined by our works and it would no longer be God’s grace. Secondly, we’d all be in a heap of trouble. We all have an area in our lives that we struggle to live consistently faithful in. We’re all repeat offenders against God’s law in one way or another.
Maybe you struggle with: pride, lust, lying, gluttony, laziness, gossip, unforgiveness, hatefulness, etc. And it’s frustrating. We want victory over sin, not bondage.
Well, Abraham had some areas of his life that he was a repeat offender in. Mainly his propensity to try and lie his way out of a tight spot. And what we see in Genesis chapter twenty is the cycle of sin that Abraham found himself in again. And hopefully as we look at Abraham’s sin-cycle, we can learn how to avoid this same cycle of sin in our own lives as well.
Abraham repeats his past sins
[Read Genesis 20:1-2.]
Abraham, what are you doing? Don’t you remember what happened the last time you decided to go out of Canaan.
[Read Genesis 12:9-10.]
The first time Abraham went south to Egypt he lost his wife for a time to a heathen king but saved his own life by lying about who she was. (God bailed them out of that mess.)
Now twenty five years later Abraham is traveling south towards Egypt and again looses his wife to a heathen king. (But saves his own skin by lying about who she was.) And hence we have the first part of the cycle of sin – going towards your weakness.
Now we don’t know why Abraham was going south, but the last time he did that he fell into sin because he couldn’t stand up to the threat of his own life. Now he’s going right back to the scene of the crime where the temptation to lie would still there. And obviously he wasn’t ready to stand up to that temptation.
This is the best place to stop the sin—cycle before it even begins. Surround yourself with that which is good, not that which corrupts.
[Listening to immoral rock-n-roll music example.]
[Read Philippians 4:8.]
We need to make sure we don’t go towards influences that will tempt us into sin. Abraham, unfortunately, went to where the temptation was just too much for Him.
But even though he had this weakness, we see how:
God faithfully protects His people
[Read Genesis 20:3-7.]
God again comes in and cleans up the mess that Abraham had made. God had a plan for Abraham and Sarah and would make sure it happened. And we must remember here, God’s using sinners to accomplish His will on the earth. They’re bound to mess up at times. And even though they sinned against God, they were still His children whom He loved and whom He’d continue to protect.
God was also protecting the covenant to bring forth Israel by keeping Sarah sexually pure. There would be no doubt that Isaac to come would be from Abraham and Sarah’s union. There’d be no opportunity for someone to say that maybe Sarah was made pregnant by a heathen king or that the nation of Israel was born from adultery.
God protects His people.
[My child who runs into street example.]
But just because He protects us doesn’t mean that our sin doesn’t get addressed. So the next thing we see is:
Abraham gets rebuked by a heathen king, again
[Read Genesis 20:8-9.]
Just like Pharaoh did twenty five years earlier, Abimelech rebuked Abraham for his dishonesty. This friend of God is being rightly rebuked by a heathen, enemy of God.
And it’s especially ironic since God called Abraham his prophet up in verse seven. This is the first time that term is used in the Old Testament. And what’s a prophet? Basically, it’s someone who speaks to the people for God. But God’s spokesperson gets caught using his words dishonestly. How shameful.
Now here’s an opportunity to get out of that sin-cycle. When you get caught, when you get confronted, when you get rebuked, take that that occasion to get humble and focused on doing right. It doesn’t even have to be God doing the talking – like here. But if by any means you realize that you’re doing wrong, that’s a signal from Almighty God to repent and do right.
But Abraham doesn’t get the message here. He puffs up in pride and actually tries to justify his sin. Maybe he was embarrassed in front of the heathen king, maybe he was embarrassed in front of his wife, who know. But we now see how:
Abraham justifies his sin
[Read Genesis 20:10-13.]
How pathetic. Abraham’s excuse for his dishonesty is almost as bad as Adam’s excuse for eating the forbidden fruit. Remember that gem? “Adam why did you eat the forbidden fruit?” “uh, that woman that You gave me…”
Here, Abraham blames everyone but himself for his sin.
1. He blames the people of the region, v11
2. He blames his own father, v12
3. He blames God, v13
Hey Abraham, it was your own fault. You needed to trust that God would protect you no
matter the circumstances! It is never right to do wrong!
And this is the kind of attitude that keeps someone in the cycle of sin. Denial of sin, ignoring sin, justifying sin, and excusing sin. Doing everything and anything to keep from admitting you have something to deal with keeps you in a sin-cycle.
[Relative asking me about cousin’s strange behavior story.]
When we’re made aware of sin in our life, we need to deal with it and move forward. Not dealing with it keeps us trapped and consequences will come.
Now when we look at the passage here, we don’t see Abraham getting a lot of consequences for his sin except for the public, humiliating rebuke from a pagan king. But think about these two effects of his sin:
1. His wife was in on the lie
2. His son will lie just like he did later in life
Justifying your sin opens the door for your loved ones to follow your lead right into the
same sin. Have you ever seen your kids do something that’s wrong because they learned it from you? It’s a heartbreaking thing. For so many reasons we shouldn’t justify our sin.
Did Abraham ever repent of his dishonest tongue? We don’t really know. It’s implied that he did because of the way God continued to use him and refer to him as a righteous man. And we do know that if Abraham did repent, forgiveness was there because God is faithful. And we see two more examples of God’s faithfulness in this passage.
God faithfully provides for His people
[Read Genesis 20:14-16.]
It sure seems that God got His message across loud and clear to Abimelech. He didn’t want God’s wrath on him so he gave Abraham a lot to restore Sarah’s name and reputation.
You see, God doesn’t stop providing for His children because they’re sinners. He provides for us because He loves us. And many times when His provisions come they’re a message of love to us that helps to increase our faith and obedience to Him.
When my children are disobedient I still feed them. When my children are disobedient I still let them sleep in the house. When my children are disobedient I still provide clothes and whatever they need to live. (But that’s it! When you’re disobedient you don’t need tv and video games to live! Only the basics!)
[A whole day without tv story.]
God still provides for His children even when they’re disobedient. And not only that, but:
God faithfully restores His people
[Read Genesis 20:17-18.]
It seems that Abraham was moved by the gifts of Abimelech so much so that he prayed that God would reopen the wombs of all the women in Abimelech’s household. And even though God knew, as earlier indicated, that Abraham would pray for Abimelech, I don’t think God made Abraham pray for him. I think this is an indication that God had restored Abraham and then honored his prayer for Abimelech.
You know, God’s in the restoration business. He brings life where there’s death, He brings focus where there’s dullness, He brings strength where there’s weakness, and He restores purpose where there’s loss of direction.
[Old Camaro story.]
God restores us when we fall so we can fulfill His purposes for our lives.
Now, the important thing we need to remember is, the more sin we get into, the more the Lord has to work on us to restore us back into shape. Just like restoring an old automobile. Some old cars are so beat up that they need a lot of pounding and scraping and sanding to get the metal back into the right shape. Some old cars might just need a little buffing and some new paint.
We decide how painful our restoration process is by when we get out of the sin-cycle. Do we get out at the beginning? Or do we justify our sin even when its ever before us?
Sometimes, people continue in sin so long that it becomes a sin unto death. They refuse the Lord’s calling for righteousness for so long that God simply takes them home.
[Read I John 5:16-17.]
This passage doesn’t identify any particular type of sin, but does indicate that God will keep His church pure even if it means ending a person’s life prematurely. But we need not let things get that far. Jump out of sin’s cycle early so God’s faithful restoration comes quickly!
