Abraham and Abimelech

Good morning, Good News Church. Today we continue our series, How It Started.

This is now part 20, and we mentioned so far in this series that the book of

Genesis, the first part of it, is about the beginning of the world.

So when we're saying how it started, the first part of Genesis is how the whole world started.

The second part of Genesis, which is roughly starting around chapter 12,

is about the beginning of God's covenant people, right?

How did that get started? How did God's relationship with his people get started?

And so the main character, starting around chapter 12 of the book of Genesis,

is Abraham. And that is the main character.

He's the main character for several chapters in a row.

We also said that Genesis contains some subplots, okay?

A subplot is a secondary storyline within a larger narrative that runs parallel

to the main plot, adding depth, complexity, and thematic richness to the story.

Some of you might go, wow, that's not the way you normally talk,

Mario. I've never even heard you say thematic richness, and that's correct.

I was just reading Google's definition of the word subplot, okay?

I just, I Googled it, and that's what it said.

And so that is what we've been doing the past couple of weeks.

We have covered the subplot, like within the larger Abraham story,

the one that's about his nephew, Lot, being rescued from judgment that came

on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. So that was these last two Sundays.

And so if this were a movie, the camera would now pan back over to the main

character and pick up where that story left off.

So we're going to go to Genesis chapter 20 today. That's where the story picks

Genesis 20 · chapter mention

up. We are back on Abraham.

Genesis chapter 20, I'm going to read to you verses 1 through 18,

Genesis 20 · chapter mention

which is the whole chapter, and then I'm going to read the first five verses of the next chapter.

So this morning's text is Genesis 21 to Genesis 21 5. Here it is.

From there, Abraham traveled to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur.

While he lived in Gerar, Abraham said about his wife, Sarah, she is my sister.

So Abimelech, king of Gerar, had Sarah brought to him.

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him,

you are about to die because of the woman you have taken for she is a married woman.

Now, Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, Lord, would you destroy a

nation even though it is innocent?

Didn't he himself say to me, she is my sister? And she herself said,

he is my brother. I did this with a clear conscience and clean hands.

Then God said to him in the dream, yes, I know that you did this with a clear

conscience. I have also kept you from sinning against me.

Therefore, I have not let you touch her.

Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet and he will pray for you and you will live.

But if you do not return her, know that you will certainly die,

you and all who are yours.

Early in the morning, Abimelech got up, called all his servants together,

and personally told them all these things. And the men were terrified.

Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said to him, what have you done to us?

How did I sin against you that you have brought such enormous guilt on me and my kingdom?

You have done things to me that should never be done.

Abimelech also said to Abraham, what did you intend when you did this thing.

Abraham replied, I thought there is absolutely no fear of God in this place.

They will kill me because of my wife.

Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father,

though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.

And when God had me wander from my father's house, I said to her,

so show your loyalty to me wherever we go and say about me, he's my brother.

Then Abimelech took sheep and cattle and male and female slaves,

gave them to Abraham and returned and his wife, Sarah, to him.

Abimelech said, look, my land is before you. Settle wherever you want.

And he said to Sarah, look, I am giving your brother 1,000 pieces of silver.

It is a verification of your honor to all who are with you. You are fully vindicated.

And then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his female

slaves so that they could bear children.

For the Lord had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech's household on

account of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

The Lord came to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.

Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age.

At the appointed time, God had told him.

Oh, sorry, at the appointed time, God had told him. Abraham named his son who

was born to him, the one Sarah bore to him, Isaac.

When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him as God had commanded him.

Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

And that's where we're going to stop for today.

Some of you may have just heard that story for the first time in your life.

I was just talking with some people just before the service,

and I said, you know, we're at a section of Genesis that hardly ever gets read

or studied or talked about very much.

If you have been following along in this particular series, though,

this story should sound a little bit familiar to you because this same thing

has already happened earlier in Abraham's life. Did anybody remember that?

Like almost this exact story, like everything that happens in this story,

like almost all of it has already happened back in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

The difference being in this case, the king is King Abimelech of Gerar.

And the first time this happened, it was Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

But the same thing that she is my sister. It's a half lie. Let's tell them this

because we're worried about them like thinking you're so hot that they're gonna

kill me so they can have you.

So let's go ahead and say this. And then she goes into the household of the

king and then there's a plague on the household and then the king returns her to Abraham.

Like literally all of this happened in Genesis chapter 12 and now it all happens

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

again in Genesis chapter 20 with a different king this time.

Genesis 20 · chapter mention

In this story, it seems to me that Abraham has implied that this has already

happened before, or at least he really almost seems to say this was our standing

policy for how we handle this. If you look at verse 13.

So we knew that it happened back in Genesis chapter 12, but look at verse 13.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

He says to Abimelech, when God had me wander from my father's house,

I said to her, show your loyalty to me wherever we go and say about me, he's my brother.

So I don't know how many times this happened. It happened at least twice because

Genesis records it happening twice, but it could have been more than that because

it seems like this is how they handled it.

So there are two issues that I'd like to address in this text just yeah there's

two issues about this that I would like to address like at the outset and then

move on to like three points three truths that we can get from this passage

so this is I think this is a three-point sermon but before we get to the three

points there's two issues that I want to address first,

the first issue I want to address is the issue of unusually old ages that are

found in the book of Genesis okay in this story you may have noticed Abraham

was 100 years old when his son was born And in this particular chapter,

it does not mention Sarah's age, but her age had been mentioned back in chapter

17 of Genesis. Anybody know about how old she was at this point?

Yeah, she's about 90. So we have 90-year-old Sarah and 100-year-old Abraham.

So those are unusually old ages for the things that are going on in this story.

But those are not the most extreme examples in the book of Genesis.

The most extreme examples of old ages found in the book of Genesis are found

back in chapter five, where you see lifespans of people who are living like 910 years old.

And then they have a son and that son lives to 895, right? And then that guy

dies and his son lives to like 912.

You see those kinds of lifespans early on in the book of Genesis.

So those are the most extreme things. And then later on in Genesis,

when you get to the chapters that we are in now, you still see like less extreme

examples, but stuff that's still going on that is unusual when it comes to ages.

For instance, in this story, Sarah is 90 years old, and yet King Abimelech wants

her as a mistress or as an additional wife.

Sarah's 90 years old. And when Abraham gets into Gerar, he says, say, you're my sister.

Like he is worried about her hotness being discovered in the land of Gerar at 90 years old.

And why did Abimelech think like, yeah, that needs some of that.

Like why in the world did Abimelech think that about a 90 year old woman?

Because that's what he did. Why?

What is this about? And it's not just Sarah.

If you flip over in my Bible, it's a page, but two chapters later in Genesis

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

chapter 22, you will see that Abraham is well over 100 years old because he's

100 years old in what I just read.

And then later on, so he's 100 years old when his son is born.

And then the story in Genesis chapter 22, the son is old enough to talk.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

So we're talking, so Abraham must be 105, 110 years old in Genesis chapter 22.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

And in that story, he's saddling a donkey and climbing a mountain and splitting

wood for a sacrifice at 110 years old? What is that about?

Okay, so the reason I bring this up is because sometimes people doubt the Bible

or they struggle to believe the Bible.

And sometimes the way that this happens is they will just, if they will look

at stuff early on in Genesis and go, the Bible says that people live 900 years.

Like that's not possible, right? So that's obviously untrue.

So let's throw out the whole book.

So I'm gonna share with you today a theory that, if true, could help both with

the super old ages that are earlier in Genesis, as well as some of the older

ages that are in the current chapters that we're looking at.

All right, you ready for it? All right, here's my theory.

This theory is not really unique to me. I've seen other people say these kinds

of things, but I'm just going to say it in my own words.

The idea is this, that the aging process used to be slower for humans back during

the time period of Genesis, especially back during the time period before the flood, okay?

The aging process was slower. So let me explain what I mean by that.

I'm being real specific here. I'm saying slower aging rather than simply saying

living longer, okay? Because those are not the same things.

I mean, they are, like slower aging would cause you to live longer,

but live longer does not necessarily mean slower aging.

And I don't think just living longer is what was happening back then,

okay? When I say just living longer, this is what I mean. This is what I don't

think was happening in Genesis.

I don't think it was this. People were being born and then they were kids, right?

And they were eight year old, nine year old, 10 year old, 11 year old,

12 year old. Then they hit puberty or in 13, 14, 15, 16, right?

And then they're in their twenties and right around in their twenties,

they have like their adult body at that point. And they're like sort of in peak physical condition.

And then they're living their life, thirties, forties, fifties.

Then they get to like sixties, seventies and eighties.

And so they're starting like the decline when it comes to body and there's wrinkles

and there's, you know, need for wheelchair or whatever it was.

I mean, I know wheelchairs weren't invented but whatever was needed.

And then, so this is what I mean if it's just living longer.

So now they're 80, and they're in this position with the wrinkle in the wheelchair, right?

And now they're going to live 820 more years in that condition.

So that these people who were living for 900 years, like 90% of it was old, okay?

They would live for just a few years, and then they were elderly for like 1,000

years. I do not think that that's what the Bible is teaching.

I do not think that's what it's saying happened.

In fact, I think one of the ways that you can tell that's not what the Bible

was saying is if you go back to the genealogies in Genesis chapter 5,

Genesis 5 · chapter mention

you will notice that these guys are having their first child at age 162, or at age 90,

or at age 187, okay? That's when they're just starting to have kids.

So it seems to me the whole aging process was slowed down for some reason before the flood.

And I say for some reason, it is a reason that is never stated in the book of Genesis.

Okay, so I don't know what the reason is. You can come up to me afterwards and

ask me about it, but I will tell you I don't know.

You go, well, do you think the oxygen levels were different before the flood

than it is now? I don't know.

Do you think it's because of the UV rays and when all the water fell and the

UV rays and now we age faster? Do you think it's genetics?

Do you think that there were certain genes and then they got less and less as

time went on? Do you think it's because they didn't have trans fats and yellow number five?

Because I saw on Facebook that that's not good for you?

And my answer is, I don't know. Okay, well, I will say this.

It's not trans fats and yellow five because that didn't get introduced right

after the flood. So it's not that.

But as far as all the other stuff, I don't know. Genesis doesn't say what.

I'm just saying if you read through the book of Genesis, you see that there

were these exceptionally long ages because of a slower aging process.

And then after the flood, the aging process begins to speed up,

but not all of a sudden, gradually.

It's not like you have people that are living to 900 and then the flood happens.

And then now you have people that are dying when they're like 80.

That's not what happened. You had people live until 900 and then the flood happened.

And then that next generation lived to 500.

And then the next one was to 400. And the next one was to 200.

And the next one was to 150.

So the change happened gradually over multiple generations.

And it seems to me that Abraham and Sarah are still in the family line or still

in the time period where this aging process was somewhat slowed, okay?

Not as much as pre-flood people. Abraham and Sarah were not living to 900,

but they were doing things at unusually old ages, okay?

They seemed to be aging slower than we do today.

So it is my guess that when Sarah was 90, okay, I'm guessing she probably had

like the body and the appearance of, say, a 53-year-old woman, okay?

And I picked that age on purpose because 53 is around the age that you would

definitely say this person is too old to have children. And that was the case with Sarah.

Sarah was at an age, it seems like, that even in that culture,

it's like, well, you're not gonna have a kid at that age, right?

So she's a post-menopausal woman, and yet...

And King Abimelech, I think, saw her and didn't think of his grandma, right?

So I think she probably had, she was probably 90 years old chronologically.

I'm guessing she looked like she was in her early 50s. She was past the age

of being able to get pregnant, which is an important part of the story,

but probably not so old looking that Abimelech didn't think that she could qualify

for his harem. Same goes for Abraham.

Perhaps the reason that Abraham was climbing mountains and splitting wood at

like 105 or 100 years old is because he had at that time the body of a 68-year-old

man or a 70-year-old man, okay?

I'm not saying he wasn't old. He was still in his old age. Like the passage

says he was in his old age. So I'm not saying he wasn't old.

I'm just saying, I think he was of an age, I think he was the age it says he

was, but I think his body was at an age, this is my guess, that it did not require

a miracle every time he split wood.

You following me? That his body was probably a little younger compared to what

we think of when we think of 110.

So there it is. That's just a theory, but I submit it to you as a way to understand

why the ages in Genesis do not match ours.

It seems to me that conditions were different back then, and therefore aging

was slower and it was different amounts of slower for different generations.

All right. The second issue that I wanted to bring up is what is the point of this text?

You come to this story and we see Abraham and Sarah go into a new land and Abraham

does what he's done before.

Say, you're my sister. I'm worried they're going to kill me. So she does.

She finds the attention of the king and ends up somehow in his household.

Then this plague comes to compound the household.

None of the females are allowed to have children anymore. There's this curse that's happening.

And then God appears to Abimelech and says, give her back. She's married,

right? And they have this whole conversation.

And then he gives her back with a bunch of stuff. And then Abraham moves on.

And then they have a child. It sounds to me like it was later on that year,

because it seems like they're still the same ages.

So sometime within 12 months of this, Isaac is born.

So what's the point of this text? I think that's a helpful question to ask.

Anytime you want to understand the Bible, it's helpful to ask when you read

it, what is the point? What was the point that this was written for?

And this is different than the question, what point could I make from this text?

Look, sometimes, and this is probably especially tempting for pastors,

sometimes pastors will come to a passage and they will go, what point could I make with this text?

Okay, and I guess that's fine, but before you ask that, you really should ask

the question, what is the point of the text?

And the reason why is I think that there, at least I think there could be a

temptation. If you just go with what point can I make from this text,

I think there would be a temptation for me to make a sermon today,

and the point of the sermon would be lying is bad, right?

And the reason why the point of the sermon would be lying is bad is first of

all, because lying is bad. And the Bible says that in other places in the Bible.

And Abraham lies in this story. So we know lying's bad.

And then Abraham does it in this story. So let's do a story about how lying's

bad. However, that's not the point of this chapter. How do I know?

Well, I know because Abraham is not condemned here. The story is not written

like, whoa, look how bad this lying is, right?

The narrator doesn't tell the story that way. In fact, the way the story is

told, the opposite of like, watch out what happens when you lie. The opposite happens.

When you look at this story, Abraham does the wrong thing.

We know he's done the wrong thing because we have the rest of the Bible.

We know he's not supposed to tell this half truth in order to deceive people.

And yet, he is treated as a prophet.

He is proclaimed to be a prophet in this passage. I'm not even sure he's been

called a prophet yet. Suddenly, he's a prophet in this story where he lied. It says it in verse 7.

This is God speaking to Abimelech, if you could put verse seven of chapter 20 up there.

Now return the man's wife for he is a prophet, right? Not he's a liar and you

know, of course you got tricked.

Like he's a prophet and he will pray for you and you will live, okay?

He is my mouthpiece. Like he doesn't get demoted. Like he retains his status as prophet.

And God even says, I'm not going to heal you unless Abraham asked me to heal you.

And then you get to verse 17. Look how the story ends. Then Abraham prayed and

God healed Abimelech, his wife and his female slaves so that he could bear children.

So this is God's man, who he's answering his prayers, and Abraham even profits from this deception.

Look at verses 14 through 16.

He tells the lie. Abimelech figures out it, figures it out. And then look at verse 14.

Then Abimelech took sheep and cattle and male and female slaves,

gave them to Abraham. He said, look, my land is before me.

Settle wherever you want. And then he gave a thousand pieces of silver.

So the point of this passage could not be, watch out. This is what will happen

to you when you lie, right?

It's not. Now, if you want a passage like that, okay, that exists.

If you want to like, oh, this is what happens when you lie and it's not good,

you can go to the story about Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5,

Acts 5 · chapter mention

and that's a story that does that.

In fact, I'll tell you the story right now real quick, all right?

Ananias and Sapphira have this piece of land. They sell it for a certain amount

of money, and then I guess the way I read it, It sounds like they said to the

church, this is like, they said, we're going to donate all the proceeds from

this land that we sold to the church.

But they don't. They hold back part of it. And they say, this is the amount

that we got from the land. And they give it to the church.

And Peter says, why would you lie to the Holy Spirit? And then Ananias drops dead.

Then Sapphira comes in and they say, is this really the price that you sold

the land for? And she goes, of course. And she drops dead. End of story, all right?

God was getting the early church ready to take sin seriously.

Yes, God forgives us of our sins, but what Ananias and Sapphira did was wrong,

and God made it very clear. But that's not the point of this story.

Well, then what is? I have three truths that I think we can get from this story,

and the three truths are kind of overlapping, but here they are.

Point number one, God is in control of his story in this world.

God is in control of his plans for his people and even his enemies.

You can see that in the story. Look at verse three. But God came to Abimelech

in a dream by night and said to him, you are about to die because the woman

you have taken for she is a married woman.

It's interesting. The way God handles this is God does not look down and say,

well, I want to make sure I don't mess with anyone's free will.

So like Abraham did some, that was stupid. He shouldn't have said that.

And Sarah went along with it. She shouldn't either.

And then Abimelech, he probably shouldn't be taking multiple wives anyway.

So, I mean, it's all bad, but let's just see what happens. That's not what God did in this case.

He intervened. He went in and said to Abimelech, give her back or I'll kill you.

And then look at verse 6. Verse 6 is crazy. Then God said to him in a dream,

yes, I know you did this with clear conscience, because he's saying,

I didn't know she was a married woman, right?

And look what God says back. He says, I know you did it with clear conscience,

and I have also kept you from sinning against me.

Like, I knew that you wanted to do it. I stopped it. I didn't allow it to happen.

Look what he says. I have not let you touch her.

God intervened in the story, and I don't know how he stopped Abimelech from

doing it, but he says, I stopped you.

You didn't never get a chance to sleep with her because I didn't let that happen.

Now, it could be that he made Abimelech get really sick.

That's my guess, because if you remember at the end of the story,

not only were the females all healed, but it says Abimelech had to be healed also.

I'm guessing maybe some sort of sickness is what caused him to not be able to

do what he had intended to do. God wouldn't let it happen.

I think it's important to notice that we serve a God who intervenes in the affairs

of men to bring about his will.

Sometimes he does things so that what would happen does not happen.

All right, point number two or truth number two. And this one's related to number one.

God made sure the child that was born to Sarah in the following year was reckoned to Abraham.

Okay, think about this. Verse six, God says to Abimelech, I have kept you from sinning against me.

Therefore, I have not let you touch her. Can I have that back up on the screen?

I've kept you from sinning against me. I have not let you touch her.

There was never a chance that Abimelech got to have any sort of sexual relations

with Sarah because God prevented it, right?

Now let's go forward to chapter 21, verse one.

This would be, it seems to me because of the ages, this is within the same year.

This is perhaps around nine months later.

The Lord came to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had

promised, which that is a wonderful verse.

Like you could almost take her name out and put yours in. The Lord always does

what he said, and he always does what he promises.

So the Lord came to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he

had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to who?

Abraham. How do we know it was Abraham? Nine months earlier,

she was in Abimelech's house. How do we know for sure it was Abraham?

Because God didn't let him touch her.

And bore the son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed time God told him.

So this is a quote from Philip Bethancourt.

He's a pastor and he wrote a commentary on the book of Genesis.

And this is what he said. He said, the text makes clear that Sarah has no extramarital

relations with Abimelech.

This is a critical detail because it means that there can be no question that

the father of her child is anyone other than Abraham. Why is that important?

Because God made a covenant with Abraham about his son.

God had made a promise to Abraham. And it was that through Abraham's seed,

this promise was going to take place.

Through Abraham's seed, there was going to be a great nation.

And that nation and through that nation, there was going to be blessing for

all the peoples on the earth, which we end up finding out includes Jesus.

Like Jesus is the seed of Abraham, who is the one who brings blessings to all

the peoples on the earth.

But for that to happen, it had to happen through Abraham's seed.

That's what the covenant was. It wasn't merely that Sarah would have a child.

It certainly wasn't that Abimelech would have a child. It was that Abraham was

going to have a child. And from that child was going to come the nation and

the blessings for the whole world.

So God made sure that this child was known by anybody. No, it was Abraham.

Nothing even happened in Abimelech's house. Couldn't have.

Point number three, or truth number three, God works in our lives despite our sin.

That is good news. God works in our lives despite our sin.

Obviously, God can prevent someone from sinning because he does it in this passage.

He literally says, Abimelech, I didn't let you sin against me in this case,

right? I didn't let you touch her.

God can prevent someone from sinning and he does that in this story.

But it is also true that God does not always do that.

In fact, in this story, God did not prevent Abraham from deceiving those people.

And despite Abraham's deception, God continues his covenant with Abraham.

So much so that you get to verse 17. I'm gonna read it one more time.

Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his female

slaves so that they could bear children.

I think some of us might go, well, I don't like that Abraham sinned and then

God answered his prayers.

You like it when you sin and God answers your prayers.

God doesn't only work in our lives when we are sin free.

He works in our lives despite our sin sometime.

In fact, Jesus died on the cross for sins.

Jesus paid the debt we owe so that God could work in our lives despite our sin.

So that God the Father could be just but also have a covenant relationship with forgiven sinners.

That is good news. Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for this passage.

If there's anybody here who doubts your word, I pray that this sermon would

have been helpful for them, that you would use it in their life.

Thank you for your graciousness in that way.

I pray that when we see you work in the lives of sinful people,

that it would not embolden us to sin, that we wouldn't go, well,

I guess I can tell lies and be okay with it. No, of course not.

But rather, I pray that we would be people that go, I'm so thankful that I serve

a God who graciously loves me and sent his son to die on the cross so that he

could love me despite my sins and work in my life despite my sins.

I thank you for keeping your promises and I thank you for keeping your promises

by working through sin and even sometimes keeping your promises by not letting some guy sin.

So we trust you and we recognize you as sovereign and we thank you for your

graciousness and we love you.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let me end with these good words from God's word.

Romans 8 verse 28 says, we know that all things work together for the good of

Romans 8:28

those who love God, those who are called according to his purpose. That is good news.

Thank you.