Genesis Lesson 42 March 31, 2002
Introduction: Read Genesis 20:1-18
Most of you have heard of Babe Ruth, the famous baseball player who was exceptional at hitting home runs. The crowds would cheer his coming to the plate with great enthusiasm. They would say things like "you’re the greatest!" or "we know you’re the best." Babe Ruth played for many years and as the years progressed Babe’s skills diminished. Soon he was striking out a whole lot more than hitting home runs. Those same crowds now booed him when he came to the plate! The crowds applauded him when he was successful but rejected him when he failed.
I guess that’s what we should expect from people when we strike out - when we don’t have the success others expect, but how does God respond to our failures? How does God react when we strike out? How will God look at us when we fail a lot more then succeed in the Christian Life?
These are important questions because we will all have times when we strike out. Sometimes we will have repeated moral failures. Sometimes our faith will not stand the test. Sometimes we we’ll fail to live up to our calling from God or the expectation of others. How does God respond when we strike out?
This is a question we can answer because the Bible shows us how God responds to his people’s faults and failures. The true account found in Genesis 20 is one of the times that God reveals how he responds to spiritual or moral strikeouts. In this story we see that Abraham once again distrusts and therefore lies about Sarah being his sister in order to protect himself. This is despite the fact that Abraham has committed this same sin before when he was in Egypt and had been rebuked by Pharaoh and then he returned to the Promised Land in repentance. You can find this account in Genesis 12:10-13:4.
This occurrence with Abimelech makes Abraham a repeat offender. Abraham has been in this situation before and has failed before. Perhaps you can identify with Abraham here because the same struggles and the same failures keep turning up in your own life, even long after you may have believed they were gone or overcome. When you’re in a situation like this you may wonder how God will respond to your repeated failures. You may doubt God’s love for you and expect to be pulled from the game or even kicked off the team because of your spiritual strikeouts. I’ve got good news for you and me because we see from this story how God really responds when we strikeout. He responds with grace! He does this in four ways in particular.
First: When we strike out God still forgives us
Second: When we strikeout God still protects us
Third: When we strikeout God still blesses us
Fourth: When we strikeout God still uses us
Read Verses 1-2
Now we do not know why Abraham moved from where he was to the location in Gerar. There is no hint from Scriptures that he had done so out of any wrong motives or unbelief. We do know that this city is on the border of or just outside of the Promised Land and that it is ruled by a powerful king-Abimelech. In other words these are very similar circumstances to when Abraham failed before and therefore he should have been even more alert to this temptation. That is a lesson for us also. You need to always be alert for sin but especially diligent when you know you’re in a situation where you are more likely to fail.
Abraham strikesout spiritually speaking because he once again lets his fears dictate his actions and therefore he deceitfully claims that Sarah is his sister. He does this so that he will not be killed so that the local, powerful king can take Sarah as his wife. As a result of his distrust and deceit the worst possible thing happened - Abimelech decided to take Sarah to be one of his wives. This may have been out of personal desire, for she was a beautiful woman even in her old age, or it may have been for political reasons, as was often the case. In any case this is a serious situation because now the entire covenant promise to Abraham and Sarah is in danger of not being fulfilled! We’ll see how God intervened to protect Abraham in a moment but first I want reiterate one way God responds to our strikeouts.
First: When we strike out God still forgives us
This is not explicitly stated in the text, though it is in many other Bible references. Nevertheless we know that Abraham was forgiven because of the ways God responded to Abraham in the rest of the story. God protects him and then bless him with material goods from Abimelech, and then God has Abraham pray for Abimelech’s family to be healed. These acts all imply strongly that Abraham was forgiven and that his relationship with God was a healthy one. This is good news for us! God’s grace insufficient to forgive all of our failures, even when we are striking out a lot more than hitting home runs. He is rich in mercy. He is a unlimited in patience toward his people. He is always ready to restore us by forgiving us. Praise the Lord!
First: When we strike out God still forgives us
Second: When we strikeout God still protects us
Sometimes we may think that our disobedience means that we have forfeited all of God’s promises and protection. We blew it and therefore we are on our own is our way of thinking. Perhaps we disobeyed God’s word about finances and therefore find ourselves in a mess. We may think that our failure to fully obey God would keep God from protecting us or delivering us. Perhaps we disobeyed God by lying and it is leading to or has led to a heap of trouble and we think God won’t help us out because our sin got us there. This is not true. God is a gracious God who still protects us despite our sins. This should not be interpreted to mean that there are no serious consequences to sin or disobedience, remember King David and Bathsheeba. We see God’s protection and intervention in the next few verses.
Read Verses 3-7
God’s revelation to Abimelech in the dream makes very clear that God is very serious about marital purity. Adultery or fornication is no laughing matter or small matter as our society often views it or portrays it in the media. The punishment for marital unfaithfulness, under the law, was death and God tells Abimelech- "you’re as good as dead!"
Now Abimelech had not "gone near her", which means he had not had marital relations with her, so technically speaking he had not committed adultery. So Abimelech appeals to the justice of God and says, "Will you destroy an innocent nation?" Here we see very clearly that Abimelech understood that the sins of the leader of the nation have a great impact on the people being led. Abimelech reminds God that Abraham had lied and that he had planned to marry Sarah with "clear conscience and clean hands." In other words he was inwardly and technically not guilty of sin. God is a just God and only judges in fairness, as we saw in Genesis 19 with the story of Sodom. Now God of course knew Abimelech heart, which was more righteous than Abraham had expected and therefore in his mercy kept Abimelech from sinning.
The main thing I want you to see is how God intervened to keep the promise to Abraham from being ruined. Abraham, like us, does not deserve this but God in his mercy protects us even when we fail to obey him. God gets us out of messes we create by our own disobedience. Thank you Jesus!
First: When we strike out God still forgives us
Second: When we strikeout God still protects us
Verse seven is interesting because God still considers Abraham a man of God, with God’s calling still on his life. We see that God tells Abimelech that Abraham "is a prophet" not "was a prophet." God still has plans to use Abraham, and all true believers, despite the fact that we may strike out repeatedly. In fact Abimelech is instructed to have Abraham "pray for you and you will live." We will see how God’s uses the believer despite their failures even more in verses 17, 18. For now let’s look at how Abimelech and Abraham responded to God’s revelation.
Read Verses 8-13
We see in verses 8-10 that Abimelech and his people have the opposite reaction that Abraham would have expected. Abimelech obedience is prompt and the Bible says that they were "very much afraid." In other words they had the fear of God even though Abraham disobeyed God because he believed that "surely there was no fear of God in this place." This tells us that the reason for Abraham disobedience and distrust was totally unnecessary! God had been watching out for Abraham all along.
Abraham’s response to Abimelech really demonstrates that it is only because of God’s grace and mercy that Abraham, or any of us, is chosen by God. Abraham does confess his sin but hardly in a forthcoming, whole hearted, or repentant manner. He basically justifies his sin by saying that Sarah really is his sister and that the situation of "wandering" in a strange land demanded a "white lie." These verses and those that follow demonstrate the fact that God "does not treat us as our sins deserve!" (Psalm 103:10) In fact God responds to our failures with great grace.
First: When we strike out God still forgives us
Second: When we strikeout God still protects us
Third: When we strikeout God still blesses us
We see this third principle at work in verses 14-16.
Read in Verses 14-16
Who sinned here? Abraham right? Yet it is Abraham who was blessed by God through Abimelech with cattle, sheep, servants, open land, and money. This makes sense only in light of God’s grace and mercy. God still blesses us despite our sins. I can attest to this in my own life. Even when I have failed and struggled, God has still answered my prayers, still provided for me financially, still healed my body, and still blessed me with His presence.
I have often expected some terrible tragedy to happen to me because of my strikeouts only to discover that God is gracious beyond my comprehension. I look at the blessings on my own life and can honestly say, "I’ve done nothing to deserve this and everything not to deserve this." I cannot understand it but I can certainly praise God for it.
Third: When we strikeout God still blesses us
Read Verses 17, 18
Sometimes when I’ve really blown it, when I have sinned I begin to think, "Well that’s it- my ministry is over- God would never use someone like me." I begin to think I’ll be like Samson and lose any ministry empowerment that I have because of my disobedience, but I have found that when we are truly repentant God is merciful, not only in forgiving us, but also in continuing to use us for His purposes. We certainly see that principle at work in these last two verses. Abraham, the one who caused this mess to begin with, prays and God responds and heals Abimelech’s family. God still used Abraham in his role as a prophet and as a blessing to the nations despite his faults. Isn’t it good to know that God doesn’t pull us from the game when we’re in a slump and keep striking out. He sticks with us, not because he has no choice, but rather because of his mercy and grace.
I hope you keep hitting many homeruns in your spiritual life but if you do find yourself in a spiritual slump you can keep your hopes up because when you strikeout God will still forgive, still protect, still bless, and still use you and me.
Closing Prayer
