Genesis 20:1-18

Genesis 20

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Abraham and Abimelech

1 And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar. 2 Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.

3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

4 But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also? 5 Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”

6 And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her. 7 Now therefore, restore the man’s wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”

8 So Abimelech rose early in the morning, called all his servants, and told all these things in their hearing; and the men were very much afraid. 9 And Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? How have I offended you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done.” 10 Then Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you have in view, that you have done this thing?”

11 And Abraham said, “Because I thought, surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will kill me on account of my wife. 12 But indeed she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. 13 And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said to her, ‘This is your kindness that you should do for me: in every place, wherever we go, say of me, “He is my brother.” ’ ”

14 Then Abimelech took sheep, oxen, and male and female servants, and gave them to Abraham; and he restored Sarah his wife to him. 15 And Abimelech said, “See, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.” 16 Then to Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver; indeed this vindicates you before all who are with you and before everybody.” Thus she was rebuked.

17 So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; 18 for the Lord had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Ge 20:1-18

• Transcript

  Almost there Facebook Winder quit so I have to restart that. Give me one moment. I'm so sorry. Sometimes this is a little bit of a pain. So just give it one moment. It should be starting up here in a second. And we are just as a preview at Genesis chapter 20. So if you want to go ahead and grab your bible so we wait for this to start Genesis chapter 20. And we'll begin at verse one and we'll go through the entire chapter together okay, I'm gonna have to refresh this page. Let's see. Genesis chapter 20, beginning of verse one. We're just going to skip it. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and devotions. It's so good to be with you this morning. We're at Genesis chapter 20. Once again, I wish I could tell you that we were at a fun chapter to read. But we are at a necessary chapter to read. Everything in God's word is profitable, it doesn't return void and so it's good for us to read but it's not always fun material. Sometimes it's sometimes it's disturbing, because we're reading about people. So why don't we go ahead and have some coffee we might need to this morning. We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the steam. What a blessing it is to come and sit at your feet. We thank You for Your Word. And we pray that as we read it now that you would help us to understand it. Please, Lord, care for us in Jesus's name, Amen. I just realized what was going on. I've done this once before. This is where I almost go live on my personal Facebook page instead of the church's one. That's what's going on. Give me about 15 seconds, maybe 30 And I might be able to get this set up. I was thinking to myself why is it so weird? Why would this be doing this? I don't know. But just as a type Genesis 20 There's a lot of moving parts here that you don't see in the background. Sometimes I get caught up in and thinking oh, there's only going to take a few minutes and then my wife reminded me Brian, sometimes it takes you over an hour to get coffee and devotion done. There's all sorts of technical hiccups and glitches it seems at times, but Thank the Lord. That's not always the case. There are things that work and I think we're live on Facebook now. So let's go to Genesis chapter 20. Genesis chapter 20. Try not to poke myself in the eye with my glasses. And Abraham journeyed from there to the south and dwelt between Kadish and sure and stayed in giroir Now Abraham said to Sarah his wife, she is said of Sarah his wife, she is my sister. And the beam Alecia king of giroir, sent and took Sara. But God came to be Molech in a dream by night, and said to him, indeed, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken for she is a man's wife, but a bee Molech had not come near her and he said, Lord, will you slay a right a righteous nation also? Did he not say to me, she is my sister. And she even she herself said he is my brother, in the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands. I have not done this. And God said to him in a dream, yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart, for I also withheld from withheld you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. Now therefore restore the man's wife for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not restore her know that you shall surely die, and all who are yours. So it'd be Molech rose early in the morning, called all his servants and told all these things in their hearing. And the men were very much afraid. And a bee Molech called Abraham and said to him, What have you done to us? How have I offended you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done. Then be Molech said to Abraham, what did you have in view that you've done this thing? And Abraham said, because I thought, surely fear of God is not in this place, and they will kill me on account of my wife. But indeed, she is truly 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 caused me to wonder from my father's house that I said to her, this is your kindness that you should do for me in every place wherever we go, say of me, he is my brother. Then a beam Electric Sheep, oxen, and male and female servants gave them to Abraham and restored Sarah, his wife to him, and a beam elect said, See, my land is before you dwell where it pleases you. Then to Sarah he said, Behold, I have given your brother 1000 pieces of silver indeed this vindicate you before all who are with you, and before everybody. Thus, she was rebuked. So Abraham prayed to God, and God healed to be Molech his wife and his male servant female servants, and they bore children, for the Lord had closed up all the wounds of the house of a bee Molech because of Sarah, his wife. Well, sometimes you just have to shake your head and ask yourself, What's this about? What's this about? Be what's the best versus some racism see, what are we called to do about this? So what is this about? We're right back to Genesis chapter 12. Right back to God made his declaration to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, that he was going to make him into a great nation that he was going to be a blessing all these things at the beginning of chapter 12. What do they do? They go down in chapter 12, to Egypt and he hands over Sarah to Pharaoh. Just tell him you're my sister, too worried about his own skin, worried about his own life. And here we've gone through all these things. We've gone to Genesis chapter 15. We've seen the covenant ceremony we've seen God spare Abraham, we've seen him reaffirm the promises to him. He thought out more and more and more about God and His promises. And we even saw the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and and saw how much God this is displeased by unrighteousness. And then we get to Genesis chapter 20. And we think after Abraham had seen the smoke going up from the valley in which the Sodom and Gomorrah were they that he would pursue righteousness, but here we find what's most likely happening is that Abraham and B Molech. Come into some type of agreement compact with each other. Remember, Abraham is a wealthy guy. And so Sarah at this point she's she's 90 years old. I don't think that she's a spring chicken. She's she's not you know, she's not attractive in that way towards towards the beam elect. But this is a political marriage most likely, this is not this is just my interpretation what I think's going on here. But God Himself appears to have been Molech and confronts him, and I'm gonna kill you, dude. You took this woman, and she's a married woman and notice what a beam aleck says. He says, in Verse four, Lord will you slay a righteous nation also did she did he not say to me, she is my sister, and she even said in herself he is my brother, in the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands. I have done this. He says, I took them at their word. I have my the innocence of my heart and the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands. I didn't touch her. I didn't know about this. I didn't do this god are you going to destroy a nation are you gonna kill me the head of a nation because of this? And God says, No, I won't. But you ought to repent right now. Go and do it. I kept you. Notice what he said. In verse six, for I also withheld you from sinning against me. God says I stopped you from doing it. Now you gotta go repent from it. You might not have known it but you need to go change it. Now. That guy's a prophet. He's going to pray for you. You need to do this. I'm sure I sit there and scratch my head. I wonder what I'd be more like thought when you hear it that Oh, man. How is this guy Abraham your prophet? I mean, God this is a type of guy you enlisted. Do your work. What's going on here? Well, heroes early in the morning verse nine or verse eight, sorry. So a be Molech rose early in the morning. Now I'm just going to go ahead and this is something I say to my kids all the time. Repent what conviction is hot. Right. If something's heavy on your heart, I don't know who you are what you're doing in your life. If there's conviction that's heavy on your heart, if you're feeling like you got to repent to something don't wait till tomorrow. Do it today. Right now. Go. Because conviction cools. Right? This heaviness of heart that you need to fix something. You got to do it fast. Do it right away. Don't wait. Don't wait, go do it right now. So this is what God calls a beamer like to do and he does it. But he goes and he confronts Abraham, right why why would you do this? Why would you why would you say she was your sister? And notice a few things in a B Molech or in Abraham's answer to a beam like because I thought first surely the fear of God is not in this place and they will kill me on account of my wife, right? So he blames them. He says I did it because I feared you all and you all are godless people. That's interesting coming from the guy who's just tried to pawn off his wife to another man's harem. But then in verse two, he talks about his half truth. Oh, she is my sister. She's, she's my half sisters, some of my father but not in my mother. And so, you know, this was the agreement we had all along. But then he also does something radical in verse 13. And it came to pass when God caused me to wander from my father's house and I said to her, this, this is your kindness that you should do to me in every place, right? So you're my sister. Then it almost seems in verse 13, like Abraham is blaming God, my God caused me to wonder. And so I made this agreement with her. He's been fearful his whole life. How many of us in our lives, even though we have come into contact with a living God are still fearful of the situations of this life? I need to tell you right unless you are going to be convinced that God is for you and he is not against you. That the situations in this life are for your good and for His glory, even the suffering and pain. You will make all sorts of foibles and fumbles as Christians. Get yourself in all sorts of bad moral dilemmas. You'll find yourself in the place like Abraham where he's doing unrighteous things because He's fearful of the present suffering that could happen so we as Christians must need to trust God. He's made these promises when you walk by these promises. And so I'd be more like, gives him money 1000 pieces of silver, camel donkeys, all this stuff and he does this because he's breaking. This is again, my interpretation of this. I think he's breaking the agreement, the political compact that he had had with Abraham, and in this way, Sarah, it says, at the bottom of verse 16, thus, she was rebuked, right? What you've done to me is wrong. This is like, this is like a certificate of support. You've gotten your alimony alimony, you've gotten your your half of the settlement now get out of here, right? This is supposed to be an alliance between a rich guy Abraham and the King of giroir. And now it's turned into just as absolute messages just get out of here. And so Abraham at the end, verse 17, Abraham prayed to God and God healed a beam like his wife and his female servants. Then they bought children right because the entire time Sarah was in the house, they weren't having babies. So what's this about? Same thing we found ourselves in chapter 19 At the end who in the story is righteous? God I love how one commentary said I'm just going to read this to you a little bit. I think this was very helpful to me. The story is a computer's right here. The story of Abraham and Sarah at giroir comes many years after God first called the patriarch and made a covenant with him. God has repeatedly shown himself to be faithful in spite of Abraham's failings. Abraham is failing all over the place. He's going right back to his old patterns in Genesis chapter 12. And yet, God is still working through Him. God was faithful. God was faithful, even though Abraham we find him time and time again as unfaithful but this is the exact point that Paul is getting out in Romans chapter seven. Or in Romans chapter seven. I'm gonna read the verse here. He says, I do not understand my own actions for what I do not want. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Abraham is finding himself time and time again stepping in his own messes is doing the stuff that he shouldn't do and he knows he ought not to do it. Why does he do it? And where can he find freedom from these things? Well, that's not where it ends in Romans chapter seven, but it continues on and chapter in Romans chapter seven, wretched man that I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death. Thanks be to God. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, and that's where I'm gonna go for calling. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the only one who can save us from our own wretchedness. God is the only one who could save us the problem is all of us do an immoral unrighteous things. Now we might not do the types of things that Abraham has done, but we sure have the capacity to do it. And each one of us find ourselves in different points in our life. Failing and fumbling and we need forgiveness. And we need freedom. And that comes by Jesus Christ. Do you see if God was waiting to finally bring about his seed from Genesis chapter three, verse 15. To wait for an absolutely perfect righteous person to be that seed. Well, he'd just have to come down and do it himself. That's what he does. That's what the gospel is. And we're going to be drugged through the mud through the entire Old Testament to see we can't do it. We need him to accomplish it. Can't be someone born of what the Westminster Confession says of ordinary generation, but we need God himself to come down and fix this mess. So he's gonna do it. He's going to send Jesus but it's even going to be through a sinful person, like Abraham. Let's pray. Father, we pray that we would fix our eyes on Jesus, the one who can free us from our sins who has bought us back from death. We thank you that the story is not about our righteousness or even Abraham's righteousness, but a righteousness by faith and a gift of righteousness that comes from you. Please let us cling to you and love you. Please, Lord, don't let us take our eyes off of you. And Jesus's name, Amen. May God bless you may walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ and I'll see you next time. Bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai