A Moral Man Condemned (Genesis part 36)
Text: Genesis 20:1-18
By: Ken McKinley
Well we’ve made it to Genesis chapter 20, we’re not quite half-way through this book, and if we’ve learned anything so far, it’s that these men of God in Genesis were just as bone-headed as we are. Adam sinned against God and ruined it for all who would follow him. Noah gets drunk and passes out in his tent. Abraham has stumbled and bumbled along, and his nephew Lot got drunk with his daughters and committed an immoral sin. So if we’ve learned anything, it’s that sin affects everyone, even those who are trying to follow God; even men that we look at as godly and important.
And the fact is – that Abraham is one of the most important men in all of history. Three world religions trace their history back to Abraham (the Jewish religion, Christianity, and Islam). His name is mentioned in the Bible more than 300 times, but in spite of all that, he’s just as sinful as any of us here today. He makes just as many mistakes and messes up just like we do. And today we’re going to see that… AGAIN!
So turn with me to Genesis chapter 20 and follow along as I begin reading in verse 1
(Read Text)
Now about 20 years before the events that we just read about, way back in chapter 12, Abraham and Sarah had gone to Egypt because of a famine, and while they were there, Abraham was afraid that the Pharaoh would kill him and take his wife, so he had Sarah lie and say that she was his sister. And if you remember; God straightened all of that mess out. Well its 20 years later, Abraham’s about 100 years old now, and we see that he falls back into his old habits. This right here should show us that even when we think we’re where we should be, we should always be vigilant and alert when it comes to fighting against and putting to death our sins.
So what we see is that Abraham packs up his tent and moves to a places called Gerar… Just so you know; Gerar is Philistine country. Why Abraham decided to do this is anyone’s guess. Maybe he thinks his nephew Lot is dead, and he’s blaming God for it, so he decides that he’ll go live with the pagans. More likely, the food and water sources that he used for his livestock were growing thin and he traveled someplace where there was plenty of grass and water. But for whatever reason, he moves to a place where pagans live. And when he gets there, he becomes fearful and he lies about his wife, and says that she is his sister. Now the motivation behind that is just selfishness… it’s purely self- preservation. Sarah’s still really good looking, and Abraham’s afraid the people of the region might hurt him or kill him and take his wife, so he starts telling people, Sarah’s not my wife, she’s my sister.
And I’m sorry to say ladies, but the Bible doesn’t tell us how Sarah was able to be so good looking at 90 years old. It doesn’t give us any of her beauty secrets or her exercise program or anything like that. I would imagine that it was God’s doing… but she was in-fact beautiful, and Abraham’s made up this lie to save his skin. And wouldn’t you know it… Abimelech, the king of Gerar finds out about this good looking 90 year old woman, and he thinks, “Well since she’s Abraham’s sister, then it won’t be a problem if I marry her.” And he takes her and adds her to his harem.
So the next time all you ladies think your husband is being a jerk… at least he hasn’t done all the junk that Abraham’s done right? So he forgot your anniversary, well at least he didn’t let some Middle Eastern king add you to his harem right?
So in his ignorance, Abimelech does this, and God comes to him in a dream.
Now I’ll just be perfectly honest with you here. This messes with me a little bit. Abraham and Sarah are the ones who messed up, but God comes to Abimelech and tells him, “You’re dead meat buddy! That’s a married woman you just added to your harem.”
You would think that God would’ve appeared to Abraham and said something like, “Hey Abraham! Didn’t I promise you that you and Sarah were going to have a son? Why are you giving your wife away? What in the heck’s wrong with you?” But instead; God appears to Abimelech.
Now this is important… Abimelech isn’t a believer. He’s a pagan. And we’ve seen God do this before with Pharaoh. And the reason I say it’s important is because it tells us that God is a sovereign God, who can do as He pleases. Psalm 115:3 says, “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.” And Psalm 135:6 says, “Whatever the LORD pleases, He does. In heaven and in earth. In the seas and in all the deep places.” And so God’s got a plan. Sarah and Abraham are going to have a baby, and that baby is going to have a baby, and that baby is going to have a baby, and on and on, until we get to Jesus, who is going to die for man’s sins and reconcile us back to God. And no ignorant Philistine king is going to mess up God’s plan, and neither is Abraham.
I want to tell you something that I was reading just the other day, and I’m still trying to confirm this. But this article that I read said that in the Middle East, in Iraq and Turkey and Syria, and in some Muslim countries in Africa, something’s happening. There are reports of Muslims converting to Christianity. And it’s not because we have IMB missionaries in those places sharing the Gospel with them… it’s because they are having dreams about Jesus. Some of them dream that they die and they find themselves standing before Jesus giving an account, and they realize that Jesus is God and that they have been deceived. And here’s the thing… it was an Islamic website that I was reading this on, and they are saying that over the past 10 – 12 years more than 6 million Muslims have been converted in this way. Of course they’re trying to figure out how to stop all this… but I’ve got news for them. If this is indeed happening, they can’t stop it, and they won’t. “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.”
So again… God comes to Abimelech and He says, “You’re a dead man.” There’s no formal introduction here… It’s just God Almighty, in all His glory and majesty and power and might who appears to this pagan king and says’, “You’re a dead man Abimelech.” It probably scared the mess out of him. And Abimelech is like, “Hey I didn’t know… That guy lied to me, and I didn’t even touch her.” Of course we find out a little later in the text that God had restrained him from doing anything, and I’m going to come back to that in just a minute.
But right here is one of the greatest lessons about how we are saved by grace, not by works, not by our good deeds, and not by our own morality. If being in relationship with God was just based on morality, then Abraham and Sarah would’ve gone to hell, and Abimelech would’ve gone to heaven. Abimelech was not to blame here. But you remember the last couple of weeks when I told ya’ll that the Bible isn’t a story about good guys and bad guys… it’s a story about bad guys and a good God. It’s not good guys that go to heaven; its people that God has forgiven that go to heaven, because there are none who are righteous, no not one.
So Abimelech is pleading his case, and he’s saying, “I didn’t know.” And that’s true. Then he says, “I didn’t even touch her.” And God says, “I kept you from touching her.” This is God’s restraining grace. And we’ve already talked about this some in this series on Genesis. In-fact; if you’ve been with us the last 3 weeks, for three weeks in a row during these sermon’s I’ve reference Romans chapter 1 in some way or another, because it’s so relevant to what we’ve been talking about. Romans 1 tells us what happens to man and society when they reject God, but it also shows us that it is God who restrains unbelieving man from being as wicked as he could be. Armenians hate this stuff, but it’s right there in the Bible.
So Abimelech says, “God I’ve got a clear conscience about this…” And that’s where a lot of people get into trouble. You see; way back when we first started Genesis, and we saw God make man in His own image and after His likeness – that’s where the conscious comes from. It’s the moral guide that God has given to man. Our conscience can help us make a lot of right decisions in life. But the problem is that sin has affected every part of our being. That’s what John Calvin meant when he said man was “totally depraved,” he meant that every part of our being is affected by sin. And that’s why the Bible teaches that we are saved by grace, through faith, and not by works. Even at our most moral, we still fall short of the perfection that God requires, that’s why the righteousness of Christ has to be accounted to us. And that’s only done by faith.
So… back to our text. God basically says to Abimelech, “You can do it my way and give Sarah back to Abraham, or… suffer the consequences!” Don’t you love it when God gives you options? It’s the same options we have today. Believe in My Son and repent of your sins… or suffer the consequences! Abimelech is quick to respond, and it’s really interesting what happens next. He basically rebukes Abraham. The unbeliever is rebuking the believing prophet on how messed up he is. And there’s a lesson here as well. If someone comes to you and says, “Hey, you’re really sinning there,” or “Hey, you’re really messing up your life by doing those things,” or “You’re really hurting your friends and family by your behavior.” The first question we have to ask ourselves isn’t, “Are they a believer?” And it isn’t, “Are they in a lower position of authority or influence than I am?” NO! The first question we have to ask ourselves is, “Are they right?” Is what that person saying the truth or not?!?
You see; at this point, Abraham is on the verge of really messing up and losing everything. He could lose his wife – which means that he’ll lose his promised son as well. He’s lost his witness, he’s damaged his reputation, he’s lost the moral high ground. He’s almost ended up like what we read about Lot in the last chapter. Remember? Lot said to the people of Sodom, “Don’t do this wicked thing!” And they were like, “Lot you’re a hypocrite. Who are you to preach to us?”
And so Abimelech calls Abraham out and says, “Why did you do this?”
Now look at Abraham’s answer (Read verse 11). Basically what Abraham says to Abimelech is, “Well, I thought to myself that all of you people were a bunch of sicko’s and weirdo’s and heathens, so I lied to save my own skin.” So in essence, what Abraham did was, he sinned against them PREEMPTIVELY. Is that messed up or what?
Now here’s the deal because I’m running out of time.
Abimelech; for all intents and purposes was a moral, and upright guy. He was a decent man, but he was still on the wrong side when it came to God. You see; he was born in sin and separated from God, and this passage makes it clear to us that the only reason he was such a moral and decent guy is because God’s restraining grace was upon him. So he’s moral, and he’s decent, and he’s upright, but he’s still under condemnation. Because he falls well short of that mark of perfection which is set by our Sovereign Creator, who is perfectly holy and perfectly righteous, and perfectly just. But God is also merciful, and even though God would’ve been just in simply wiping Amimelech out, He has mercy on him and He has Abraham pray for him, and God relents and shows this pagan king mercy and grace. You see; “good” people don’t go to heaven – “PERFECT” people do. But you can only be made “perfect” when the righteousness of Christ is accounted to you through faith.
And if you’re a Christian, then most likely, you yourself had had moments when you could relate to Abraham. We’ve all messed up from time to time. We’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So our only hope, is… not to try harder and try to be more moral, but to surrender totally to God, and fall on His grace and mercy, and be saved, so that Christ’s righteousness can become ours.
Maybe you relate to Abraham here, a believer that’s struggling with doing what’s right, struggling with sin, constantly making wrong or bad decisions; or maybe… maybe you relate to Abimelech, a good, decent, hard-working, moral person, but you don’t know the Lord. Your moral goodness and decency can’t save you, because it falls short of perfection.
The point of this passage is that both Abimelech and Abraham were sinners. They were bad guys, but God is a good God, who justifies and declares righteous on the basis of ones faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. I hope you see that this morning, and that you believe it and understand it as we pray.
PRAYER
