God will still be God, no matter what I do!!
Have you ever walked into a meeting and notice someone say, “Well, now that he’s here we can finally get started.” Or, have you waited to get an important paper signed or stamped and knew you couldn’t do anything else until you got that paper signed or stamped?
Apparently, Abraham thought that way about God! Reading these verses, and earlier verses when Abraham took a detour through Egypt and did the very same thing there, gives me a visual picture, an acute realization that Abraham, though righteous, was still a common man, just like you me. A common man with faults, emotions, feelings, and sometimes wrong opinions of God, and God’s sovereignty in all things.
The Bible tells me in James, chapter 5, verse 17, that, “Elijah was a man just like us.”
Aren’t you tired of listening to “bigger than thou” opinions? Do you hear people talk about others, and how ‘they can do, and do, and do’ so much better than you? Hey, those other people are no different than you! They are no better than you, in God’s eyes, and have no special worship formulas that can take them into a deeper spiritual relationship with God.
Abraham believed, that since he was not in the specific area that God had visited him before, he told Abimelech, "I said to myself, ’There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’
And, you know, it works both ways. Not only can we have a ‘higher’ relationship with God like Elijah, who was a man [person] just like us, but we also have the same basic human traits that Elijah, Abraham, and Moses had. Meaning, we can fall just as hard, or make the same seemingly brainless mistakes that were made in some of these people’s lives.
Abraham actually believed that God was not capable of protecting him from the people of Gerar. Abraham believed that, since there was no worship or fear of his God in Gerar that ultimately God was not there or capable of providing him the same protection that he received in the great plains of Mamre (Genesis 18).
Chapter 20 of Genesis is yet another chapter in our lives that let’s us know that
God will still be God, no matter what I do!!
I. What I do
II. What He does
III. What They do
IV. What We should do.
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I. What I do
1. My Actions
Verse 1 of Genesis 20 starts without any fanfare, and, without any mention of God. It seems that Abraham simply chose, probably of his own accord (we don’t know), to move from the great plains of Mamre. To search for a better place even though God had told Him in previous verses that the place he was at was his.
So many times we become like Abraham. We don’t see any great ‘super’ natural evidence of God’s working in our lives and we begin to wonder if God is still there, at work in our lives.
When we begin to wonder, then we begin to wander, then we begin to waver. We begin wondering if God has left, or is taking a nap, or has chosen to depart, leads us to begin to wander spiritually, mentally, and physically. We wander from church to church, or ministry to ministry, or thought to thought. Wondering and Wandering. Back and forth we go until we begin to waiver in our faith. We begin to waver in our dedication and our commitment to God.
Abraham had just witnessed the destruction of two cities. He saw the rising of the smoke from the distance as he sat under the trees that overlooked the plains. He saw God’s prophecy against those two cities carried out before his eyes. But some time has passed since that catastrophe; some water has flowed under the bridge. Abraham probably got busy with the herds and the crops and the harvests, and the household, and the servants, and, He probably hasn’t really spoken to God in some time. He probably hasn’t seen God face to face, like in Genesis 18, and he’s beginning to wonder if God is still going to carry through with His promises. Or, maybe God will need his help to accomplish all that He needs to accomplish. After, all there’s a lot to do, and God shouldn’t be concerned with the little, boring, and mundane areas of his life. He’s wondering, and wondering, and pretty soon, he begins to wander
He begins to wander spiritually. He begins to wander physically. He begins to wander mentally. Seemingly more important things other than God are occupying his mind, his thoughts, and his actions.
Abraham moved on from there. Have you moved on from there? Have you moved toward a ‘less Christian’ life? Does seemingly more important things of your life other than God occupy your mind, your thoughts, and your actions.
Abraham’s actions are stereotypical of someone that is not letting God be the center of their life.
When God is not the center of your life, it leads you wonder, wander, and waver. Abraham wavered and out comes the words.
2. My Words
Abraham’s actions led him to say things that were not right, or lies. Abraham says in verse 2 of Genesis chapter 20, “she is my sister.” Which, in itself is a half-truth, but, more importantly than that, she was also his wife.
Abraham let his wondering, and his wandering, and his wavering drive his mouth. You know the Bible tells us in James 3:5-9, “Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8 but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.”
God doesn’t speak to us in half-truths. Can you imagine God telling you there is a half a chance that you will go to heaven? Can you imagine that God tells you you’re going to heaven, then we you get there He tells you something different? NO! You cannot imagine it, because God doesn’t work with half-truths. He works through the truth because He is the truth!
So many times our inaction or actions will drive us to say something that we either shouldn’t say at all, or, is a half-truth stretched to fit our inappropriate actions.
What happens? What happens when we, who are children of God, become entangled or twisted up in a lie or half-truth? God steps in, just like He did in Abraham’s life.
II. What He does
God stepped into Abraham’s entangled web of deceit through Abimelech’s dreams.
Now this brings about some thoughts about God and how He chose to handle Abraham’s lie. It also calls into mind some thoughts about the previous time that Abraham lied (Genesis 12) and Abraham and Hagar as well. It seems that in each of those times there is no direct “divine judgment” exercised over Abraham. God chose to either work through those people that Abraham lied to, or, as in the case of Genesis 20, to actually threaten those that Abraham lied to.
The Philistine King was threatened in a dream, when he apparently had done nothing wrong!
I really don’t have any answer for this other than what we have titled this message.
God will still be God, no matter what I do!!
And what God chooses to do in any particular situation or circumstance is entirely up to Him. However, we must also remember that these people that Abraham talked to were very barbaric people. People in this day and time thought nothing of sacrificing their children and servants to appease their Gods, or to get what they wanted.
My thoughts concerning how God handled it is that God knew that any other way would not have been accepted by the Philistine King. This king thoroughly understood war, death, and the sovereign rights of a king. He was given an ultimatum and he graciously took it!
So many times we become entangled in a web of lies and deceit and God steps in and corrects the situation either through the person we wrong, or some other way. We tell ourselves the same thing that Abraham says in verse 11, ’There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’
We make ourselves believe that God cannot possibly get us out of the situation, so we concoct a lie or a scheme to make it come out the way we want it to, yet, that isn’t always the case, is it? More often than not, we mess it up.
What we do, well… we mess it up
What He does, well… He cleans it up
And, all this impacts:
What do they do?
III. What They do
Most of the time when God steps directly into our lives, it’s not even close to what happened to Abimelech. But, it may be vaguely familiar, it may be remotely similar.
You go into a job interview and they want to consider you for a job, but you tell them you can’t work on Sundays because you go to church. You don’t hear the Lord prompt the person doing the interview; you don’t see any ‘divine judgment’ rain down out of the skies on top them. You don’t see the hand of God grab them by the collar and threaten them. But, you do notice a change in their conduct, their composure, and they tell you they don’t see anything wrong with that.
God came to Abimelech in a dream two separate times. The first time he told him what He was going to do. And, the second time God told Abimelech what to do.
God is waiting to ‘strike’ down your enemies, the ‘Abimelech’ in your life.
IV. What We should do.
What we should do is to surrender all that we have to God and try to walk in His way. However, there are times when our mouths get ahead of our minds. Sometimes, our bodies get ahead of our faith. And, we end up telling a lie that we think will protect us. Or, much worse, we end up living in a lie.
The Bible tells us (James 4:8) to “Come near to God and he will come near to you.”
