Good morning. How are y 'all doing today? Wonderful.
That is a fantastic answer. Well, I'm glad to
be back with you guys. Very excited to be here.
If you don't know who I am, I am Pastor Nathan.
And today we're going to be talking about those
sins that we seem to continually struggle with.
Anybody have one of those? Anybody have a whole
list of those? Right? Yeah, you know, the question
often comes up with, people that I get the opportunity
to talk to, especially new believers, but they're
like, how do we deal with the conflicting reality?
That on one hand, we're forgiven, we're set free
from the power and control of sin. And then on
the other hand, we're continually being challenged
with some particular sin that just seems to always
get us, right? As we grow in our faith, there
are so many things we seem to leave behind. You
know, I don't wrestle with that anymore. I don't
wrestle with that. But every single one of us
seems to have something that is kind of like
our thing, the thing we wrestle against. Well,
Hebrews 12, verse 1, after the great hall of
faith, says this. Therefore, since we also have
such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us,
let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin
that so easily ensnares us. Now, that's a verse
I've often read in my life, and I've read it
probably, thousands of times at this point, and
I've always read it with the idea that the sin
is just kind of the general idea of sin in general.
But in preparing for this study, I dug a little
more on this verse, and I found out that when
it says the sin, in the Greek, it's singular.
What it's referring to is the sin, or it could
be a category of sin that so easily ensnares
us. In other translations, that ensnare is translated
entangle, trip us up, cling so closely. One of
them is the sin that so easily besets us. But
the idea is that the sin that so easily holds
onto us, and the us is you individually, myself
included. You see, we know all sin ensnares us
to different degrees, but biblically it seems
to indicate that each one of us, has a sin that
we individually struggle with much more than
other people struggle with. And in Paul's teaching
here in Hebrews, he's talking about laying aside
each one of us that sin that so easily ensnares
you. It doesn't easily ensnare other people,
but it's the thing that seems to trip you up
most. It's a thing sometimes people will say
like, oh, I just can't say no to it. I just can't
resist it when the temptation comes. Or for those
of us that may have been walking with the Lord
for a long time, it's that sin that you think,
my goodness, I thought I was past this. And here
we are again dealing with this temptation. Now
there's many examples of this type of thing in
Scripture. As you look in the book of Judges,
you have a man named Samson. The sin that so
easily ensnared him was lust. He just kept getting
in trouble with it over and over again. We see
in the lives of David and his son Solomon that
the sin that so easily ensnared them was a weakness
for women. And it was something that continually
caused problems. In the New Testament, we have
the apostle Peter who struggled with fear of
others. That was the sin that he kept struggling
with over and over. When he was pressed into
a situation where others were going to be judging
him or holding him to his beliefs, he would often
freak out and struggle. We know that in the story
of Jesus' crucifixion, he denied Jesus because
he was afraid of what the people might think
of him. And then even later on, after the resurrection
of Jesus, during the birth of the early church,
We see Peter, who had made these amazing professions
of who Jesus is. He was a part of the early growth
of the church. We find him in the city of Antioch.
And the scriptures tell us that he was afraid
of the Jews, so he sided with them. And then
that was where Paul the Apostle rebuked him.
Well, we all have something that we struggle
with. And here in Genesis chapter 20 today, we're
going to see that Abraham's struggle was lying
when pressured or in fear of others. That was
his struggle. Instead of standing firm in his
trust and his dependence upon the Lord, when
he was faced with a situation where someone powerful
might come against him, his ensnaring sin was
to lie and to try and think of how to figure
out the situation in his own wisdom. And so that's
what we're going to be looking at today here
in Genesis 20. Not only the sin in Abraham's
life, but really what to do about it. How do
we follow Hebrews 12 when it says to lay aside
the sin that so easily ensnares us. What does
that look like practically, how we might find
ourselves doing that in our lives? But more importantly,
what we're going to learn today here in Genesis
20 is that no matter how long you've been walking
with the Lord, you're never going to be without
sin in this life. Not that we want to sin, but
you will never be without sin in this life. And
so no matter how long you're walking with the
Lord, when you stumble, and I say when because
it will happen, into that sin, the sin that so
easily ensnares you, God's grace is still there.
And it doesn't mean that God is done with you.
It doesn't mean that you've lost your salvation.
It doesn't mean that God can't and never will
use you again, but quite the opposite. But first
we're going to worship the Lord, so let's pray
together. Father, we're so grateful to you. We're
so grateful to your word, and God, just what
you teach us through your word. Lord, over and
over again, we are learning the lesson that you
are faithful when we are faithless. That is the
story of man, and God, there's so much grace
in that, so much mercy in that, so much forgiveness,
God, in the relationship that you extend to us
through Jesus Christ. Lord, we're so grateful
that you died for us. We're so grateful that
it's through faith. That we access the grace
that leads to us being saved and being able to
be your children, God. Yet, Lord, here on this
earth, we battle against the devil. We battle
against our flesh. And, Lord, the enemy is so
good at condemning us when we mess up. Lord,
the enemy is so good at pointing at the thing
that we seem to wrestle with most and use that
to... to make us feel like you don't love us
anymore, to make us feel like that we've blown
it so bad that we can never, ever be used again.
And Lord, those are lies from the pit of hell,
literally. So God, today we want to be encouraged.
And we know you're going to encourage us through
your word because that's what you do. Lord, teach
us what to do with those sins that we struggle
with uniquely in our own lives. And Lord, remind
us again that we are saved because of you, not
because of anything we've done. That, God, you
are the God of healing. You are the God of restoration.
You are the God of hope. And that is the God
we serve. And so, God, in that, we want to worship
you now and proclaim your holy name because you
are amazing. We love you so much, God. We thank
you infinitely because we are so blessed through
you. We love you. Be praised. Be glorified, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, so we
are in Genesis chapter 20. And like I said, we're
going to be talking about those sins that we
all seemingly continually struggle with. Here
in Genesis 20, we have a story that is very similar
to the story we read about in Genesis chapter
12. In Genesis chapter 12, if you remember, that
was when Abraham, who was named Abram at the
time, had just arrived in the promised land and
had been traveling around the promised land,
building altars and worshiping God. And then
there was a famine in the land that caused him
and his family to have to go south down into
Egypt. Now Egypt at that time with the Nile River
was just very lush and very abundant with food
and stuff. And so they went down there to kind
of stay until the famine in Canaan was gone.
And we remember that he got in trouble down there.
One of the reasons he got in trouble is because
the Bible tells us that his wife Sarai at the
time, she was 65 years old, but she was a woman
known for her legendary beauty. She was an incredibly
beautiful woman. And so when they went down into
Egypt, Abram at the time, he was afraid that
if people found out that she was his wife, they
would kill him to take her. And that was a fairly
common thing at the day. And so he had told her,
hey, wife, I want you to lie when we get there
and tell everybody that you're my sister. And
the reason behind that was because the custom
of the day was if there was an older brother
who was the head of the house, people would have
to come to the brother to negotiate to take the
sister's hand in marriage, right? If you were
the husband, they'd just kill you and take her.
But if you're the brother, there was enough respect
to go negotiate for some reason. And so he thought,
hey, you know, they're going to come negotiate
with me to take Sarai, and I will just say no,
right? And problem solved. Well, what he didn't
count on was that Pharaoh, who was the ruler
of all of Egypt, didn't have to ask, didn't have
to negotiate. And he found out about this beautiful
woman in his land and he took her anyways. And
then in response said, hey, Abram, I took your
sister. So here's riches, here's servants, here's
camels, here's wealth. And so that's a good trade
-off, right? And so as the story goes, Pharaoh's
household got cursed because God was like, you
know, or Pharaoh found out that she was married.
Abram got her back. They left the land. And that
whole story there in Genesis chapter 12 was a
story of Abram's faithlessness. It was a story
of him as a man of God, walking with God, who
knew God, decided in the moment of fear. that
I need to revert to my old habits. I need to
revert to my old ways and act how I had acted
previous in my life before God was around. And
so this for Abram was lying in the face of pressure,
especially when he was in the face of powerful
men who might otherwise harm him. His go -to
was, okay, make up a story. Make up a story that
I think is great and that's how we'll get through
it. Now that story actually takes place 25 years
prior to Genesis chapter 20. And what we're going
to be reading here in Genesis chapter 20 is almost
the exact same story. The sad story of Egypt
when he went to Pharaoh earlier was that as he
went to this land, Pharaoh, he didn't build any
altars like he did in the promised land. There
was no worship. There was no faith. There was
no trust. But the greater issue was that there
was no witness. As he was a representative of
God, he went down there and misrepresented who
God was being a liar. Now in Genesis 20, Abraham
is 100 years old. His wife is 90, but she is
still of legendary beauty. And so he's going
to be a century -old man having walked with the
Lord for multiple years at this point, and yet
he's going to fall into the same exact sin that
he did 25 years earlier. Read with me in Genesis
20, verse 1. It says, from there, Abraham traveled
to the region of the Negev and settled between
Kadesh and Shur. While he was staying in Gerar,
Abraham said about his wife, Sarah, she is my
sister. So King Abimelech of Gerar had Sarah
brought to him. Now, we're not giving any backstory.
We're not, you know, told that Abraham was afraid
of Abimelech and all this stuff, but we're going
to find out later here in the chapter that that
is indeed what was taking place, that Abraham
was afraid of this powerful man, the king of
Gerar there, who was actually a Philistine king,
and so this is what drove him to lie. Now, when
it says from there Abraham traveled, this is
taking place shortly after the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah. That was in Genesis chapter
19. And so he is going to leave the place he
lived, which was Hebron, and travel down south
to the region of the Negev. Now, we don't know
why he left. Some speculate that because of his
proximity to Sodom and Gomorrah and all the sulfur
and the meteors and all that stuff, that there
was bad air quality and they had to get out of
town until the air cleared up. We don't know.
But the Negev was this desert that was south
of Israel, and Shur was this other desert region
that was kind of to the west towards Egypt. Kadesh
was a town named Kadesh Barnea, and so what he
did is went down to this kind of desert wilderness
area to settle while he waited for whatever he
needed to wait for to go back up north. Now,
Gerar was a Philistine city, and it was obviously
one of the capitals because the king of the Philistines,
Abimelech, lived there. And this city is commonly
known as kind of the southern border to the Promised
Land. If you're an archaeology nut, you can actually
go visit the remains of this place today in Israel.
It's called Tel Haror, and look that up on Google
if you want. Okay, but here's what's going on.
After his faithless failure 25 years earlier,
He returned to the promised land, and then as
we read from Genesis 13 and 14 and all the way
up to here, we read these stories about how he
grew in his faith, how over the years of him
walking with the Lord, he got more mature as
a believer. Over the course of those 25 years,
he... just grew in his faith through so many
different experiences that we've looked at. One
is he learned to trust God, which he didn't do
in Egypt, through God covenanting and making
promises, a promise about this is the land you're
gonna inherit. And then God had to say, bro,
for real. And then, you know, over and over.
And then he said, hey, you're gonna have a son.
And then he goes, you're gonna not only have
a son, but it's gonna be through your barren
wife, Sarah. Right, all this stuff was going
on. He learned through his walking with the Lord,
just like we do, how faithful God is. He learned
that despite mistakes over and over and over,
God is faithful. God always steps in. God is
there, but God also wants obedience and God wants
all these things from him in just being a good
representative of God. He also had just learned
how mighty God is, how God feels about sin in
wiping out the entire plain of Sodom and Gomorrah.
So with all that context, here we are after Sodom
and Gomorrah. He goes down to this area. He goes
to the town of Gerar. And he shockingly does
the same exact thing he did 25 years earlier
in Egypt. He succumbed to fear. He relied on
his own wisdom. He forgot what God could do,
what God had done. And so he lied again. The
same exact sin that he's dealt with earlier.
He lied about who his wife was. because he was
fearful of this powerful man in front of him,
the Philistine king. Now, in the intro, we read
that verse in Hebrews where it talks about laying
aside the sin that so easily ensnares us. This
is the old sinful habit that Abraham is dealing
with here, his habit of deception and self -preservation.
It presented itself again before him, and he
gave in to it. And then, unsurprisingly, the
result was exactly the same. He still had his
wife taken from him. And, you know, we have these
sins in our lives. All of us have the sin, the
category of sins that we seem to wrestle with
the most, the ones that keep coming back into
our lives the most, and yet so oftentimes we
find ourselves when faced with that particular
temptation, we give in the same way we always
have. And then we're surprised that the result
is the same. And, you know, you've heard the
statement before, the definition of insanity,
doing the same thing over and over and expecting
a different result. That's insanity, okay? And
so here Abraham is doing the same thing. Now,
the question is, might be, why did Abimelech
take her? Why did he do this? We get no backstory
here. And very simply, the conjecture is, one,
it was her legendary beauty. It's kind of everywhere
they went, people would go, wow, she's beautiful.
And those that were in power, kings and rulers,
had the right to come in and just take what they
wanted. But the other thing is by this time in
Abraham's life, he's been roaming the promised
land for about 25 years. He had a reputation.
People knew who this Prince Abraham was from
the land of Canaan. And so in these times, if
you wanted to ally yourself with another powerful
ruler or a powerful house or tribe, what you
would do is marry into it. And so that's how
alliances were made that daughters and sisters
would be traded off to people to unify countries
and great houses and power. powerful people.
And so it's likely Abimelech was just going,
hey, I've heard of this Abraham guy. You know,
if we could ally him with us, it would be a good
thing. But above all of that, we can't forget
something very important. Abraham is a saved
believer here. He's what we would call today
a Christian. A truly saved individual. He had
been given a new name by this time. His relationship
with God had grown so much where God said, you're
no longer Abram. We're gonna now call you Abraham
because that reflects the new nature you have.
That reflects who you're gonna be, who I've called
you to be. And so Abraham has been in this really
kind of great place of spiritual growth. But
like every single one of us in this room, he
still had an old nature. He had an old nature
that remained with him. And this old nature is
what he goes back to even after all this time
walking with God. Now then, God strikes him down
dead. He loses his salvation, and that's the
end of the story, right? That's how we feel,
don't we? You may have been walking with the
Lord for 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years. And there's
that sin. that so easily besets you. And you're
like, gosh, I know people all around me, they
don't wrestle with this. Why is it my thing?
Why won't God take this out of my side? I am
sick and tired of hearing the thorn that was
in Paul's side. And God said, Lord, just take
it away from me. I've been walking with you long
enough now, Lord. Why am I still wrestling with
this thing? And the Bible is just very clear.
Paul talked about it in Romans. Your old nature
exists with your new nature while you're here
on earth. One day, that'll be gone. But you have
this old nature that is still struggling against
you. And every Christian here watching online,
you know about this, right? You know about this
struggle. The struggle is like, I've been given
new life. I believe everything the Bible says.
The Holy Spirit dwells within me. My heart of
stone has been replaced with a heart of flesh.
And yet, my old nature is still. The Bible talks
about the flesh warring against the spirit and
the spirit warring against the flesh. And we
see that in our lives as the daily fight against
the desire to relapse into old habits or to do
things the way we used to. Right, when before
I was saved, I would get very, I would go from
zero to 60 in anger very fast. My mom used to
call it Hulk smash. I'd lose my keys, and I'm
looking for my keys, and the longer I couldn't
find my keys, the more angry I got to the point
where I started throwing stuff off the tables
trying to find my keys, and just super silly.
And yet, even today, every once in a while, someone
will cut me off on the freeway, and I'm just
like, I'm going to run you off the road. And
then I'm like, whoa. That's not who I am anymore.
And then I'm still like, oh, right there would
be a good spot. Right there would be a good spot.
No, can't do that, right? And it's like, I've
been walking with the Lord for a long time. Why
does that still rear its head in my life? And
it's because of that old nature we have. And
like I said, it seems like no matter how long
we've been walking with the Lord, no matter how
many things we have victory over, right? Oh,
I haven't done that in years and God delivered
me from that and I'm free from that addiction
or whatever. No matter how many victories, There
still seems to be that one thing that so easily
ensnares us, and this is exactly where Abraham
is at. The thing, his natural inclination, his
go -to when pressured is to trust himself instead
of trusting in God. And again, we all have that
issue, right? For some of us, it's gossip. Others,
it might be lying or anger, lust. It could be
doubt. It might be the things that you turn to
when you're worried or stressed or anxious, right?
It could be drugs or alcohol, pornography. It
simply could be emotional stuff you used to do
where before you were saved, when you were stressed
out or angry, you would emotionally disconnect
and get really cold and harsh and mean, and yet
that flares up still after you've had a changed
heart. For some, it's being condemning instead
of forgiving, whatever it is. The sin for you
might not be an issue for someone else. And the
devil will use that to condemn you. Well, they
don't struggle with that. They must be a better
Christian than you. Well, guess what? They're
dealing with the same thing and the opposite.
Their sin is the thing that you're like, I don't
deal with that at all. And the devil's condemning
them. Oh, they must be a better Christian than
you. And so we have this back and forth between
our new nature and our old nature that keeps
rearing its head. Now, Paul the Apostle dealt
with this. We're very familiar with passages
in Romans in chapter 7 where Paul goes through
this entire thing where he's like, look, the
things I don't want to do, I find myself doing.
And the things I do want to do, those are the
very things I don't find myself doing. And he's
going through this whole thing of going, what
is the deal here? And in verse 24 of Romans 7,
he gives us the answer. Oh, what a wretched man
that I am. Who will rescue me from this body
of death? Right? Just the frustration. Why can't
this go away? Why do I still struggle with this?
Why won't this leave me? I've had such victory
over so many things, but this one thing keeps
getting me. What a wretched man that I am. In
verse 25, here was his answer. Thanks be to God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with my
mind, I myself am serving the law of God, but
with my flesh, the law of sin. You see, earlier
in this chapter in Romans 7, Paul says something
that's very surprising on the surface when you
read it. As he's talking about the struggle between
the old nature and the new nature, he says, you
know, so I've discovered a law then, that when
my flesh sins, it's not me who is sinning, but
my flesh. But with my spirit, I want to serve
God. And you could read that and go, Paul, are
you excusing yourself? That's what the Gnostics
said in the early church. It doesn't matter what
your flesh does. It's going to perish anyways.
So you could just let your flesh go out and sleep
around and do drugs and hurt people and steal.
It doesn't matter. It's just going to be destroyed.
And of course, 1 John, he talks about that very
extensively. Basically, I'm going to sum it up.
That's dumb. That's not true. It does matter
what we do. However, what Paul is addressing
here is the idea of saying, because I have done
bad, therefore God must not love me anymore.
Because I have sinned, God must be against me.
And that's exactly what the devil loves to tell
us, especially when it's the sin that so easily
ensnares you. I thought you were over this. Apparently
not. You can't be saved. Or maybe you're in ministry
and you're serving and that thing just rears
its head and it gets you again and then the devil
starts saying, oh, you need to step down. You
can't serve God. You're gross. You're tainted.
You shouldn't be teaching the kids the Bible.
You definitely shouldn't be sharing your faith,
you hypocrite. Am I the only one that's dealt
with that? We all deal with it, right? And yet
Paul's answer is thanks be. to God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. You see, we're going to talk
more about this later, but when you've put your
faith in Jesus Christ, you're saved. You are
God's child. You're in his family. You've been
adopted. The promise and the hope of heaven stands
before you. It's a guaranteed done thing. And
we go, but, but, but, yeah, we don't want to
sin, but guess what? You are never gonna be without
sin in this life, ever. So get out of your head
the idea that until I'm perfect, God is mad at
me. You're not perfect and God loves you now,
right? That's the thing the devil keeps trying
to assault in our life. No, God's mad now. Oh,
God's happy today. God's mad now. And we do this
back and forth constantly and it drives you nuts.
So we're going to see some things here as we
move through these verses of how God views Abraham
in light of this old habit, this old ensnaring
sin coming into his life. The first thing we
notice here is that in light of salvation history,
God would not allow Abraham's ensnaring sin to
derail his plan. See, I've said it before. If
God says, this is going to happen, and I'm going
to do it in your life, and this is how I'm going
to do it, As hard as this may be to swallow,
and this is not in condoning sin, but if God
said it is going to happen, you cannot change
that. Now, there's a lot of things God hasn't
specifically said this is exactly what's gonna
happen. There are things in our lives where there's
blessing that is gonna come when we're living
faithfully, and then there's blessing in our
lives that we can inhibit or slow down when we're
living sinfully. But here in Abraham's life,
God said, you're getting this land. You're going
to have a child. Through that child, the whole
world's going to be blessed, and there's nothing
Abraham could do to change that. But it doesn't
mean there was consequences. It just means God's
plan couldn't be derailed. 2 Timothy 2 .3, it
says, if we are faithless, he remains faithful,
for he cannot deny himself. If God made a promise,
God's going to fulfill that promise because God
is God. If he doesn't fulfill the promise, then
God would be a liar, and God's not a liar. God
will work his will despite us sometimes. That's
a prayer I pray every Sunday before I teach.
God, please speak your word to your people despite
me. Because I know what I've done this week.
I know how sinful I am. And so God, please don't
let this be, you know, based on me. Don't let
this be based on, oh, well, you lived a very
righteous life this week. I'm going to let this
message be powerful. No, because I never live
a righteous life. God knows that. And so it's
God, I'm a tool in your hand. Please do what
you're going to do despite me. And so Abraham
here has done a sin. He has lied again. He's
gone back to that old lie. But God said, Genesis
18, I will certainly come back to you in a year's
time and your wife Sarah will have a son. And
so verse three. We're flying through this chapter.
Okay. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by
night. But God. That is one of the greatest phrases
in all of scripture. You see, it is one of my
favorite phrases. It's the phrase that I love
to cling to when it comes to My old nature, my
old habits, my fallen tendency to sin. See, it's
everything we need to know when we fall, when
we stumble, when we mess up, and when we give
in to that sin that just so easily seems to ensnare
us. But God. There's all kinds of but God's throughout
scripture, but one of my favorites is in Ephesians
2, and it says this. And you were dead in your
trespasses and sins in which you previously walked
according to the ways of this world. According
to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit
now working in the disobedient. We too all previously
lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying
out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts.
And we were by nature children under wrath as
the others were also. Verse four, but God. Right,
that's where you hear the sound of the heroes
arriving, you know, Gandalf's on top of the hill.
Ah, the staff shines. That's the moment. But
God, who is rich in mercy because of his great
love that he has for us, made us alive with Christ
even though we were dead in trespasses. You know
what that says? You didn't do anything to accomplish
that work. It wasn't your good deeds. It wasn't
your this and that. It wasn't you cleaning up
your life. It wasn't anything. He died for you.
And through his death, you would be made alive.
All we do is say, God, I believe it. I'm a dead,
wretched sinner, but I believe in you. It says,
you were saved by grace. He also raised us up
with him and seated us with him in the heavens
in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he
might display the immeasurable riches of his
grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For you are saved by grace through faith, and
this is not from yourselves. It is God's gift,
not from works, so that no one can boast. We
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
for good works, which God prepared ahead of time
for us to do. But God. Every believer has this
story. We're going our own way, living our own
lives. We were dead in trespasses and sins. We
were enemies of God, the Bible says. And then
one day, But God. We're people who have walked
with God. And some of us have been walking with
God for years. Years and years in walking with
God. Overcome so much. But there's that one thing
that just seems to keep rearing its head. And
you know what the answer is to that? But God.
That old nature. But God. And it's the same for
Abraham here. 25 years walking with the Lord,
miracles. Melchizedek blessed him. So many wonderful
things have happened in his life. So much growth,
so much maturity in his own walk and generosity
and humility and yet here he is. Oh, king, my
wife's beautiful, lie. But God. Verse three,
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,
which means he had not slept with her yet. 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? They're both culpable. He says,
I did this with a clear conscience and clean
hands. Now, can you imagine, would it get your
attention if you were dreaming one night and
God showed up and said, you're a dead man? What?
You're a dead man because that woman you took,
she's married. Right? Instant defense. I did
nothing wrong. I was told that she was his sister.
They both lied to me. How was I supposed to know?
Now we're going to find out later that Abraham
still is like, well, that's kind of the truth,
but we'll deal with that in a little bit. But
look at this phrase he says. Will you destroy
a nation even though it is innocent? We don't
know here how much time passed between Abimelech
taking her and what we're reading about here.
We don't know if it was the same exact night
or later because he says, would you destroy a
nation? We're going to read later on in verse
18 that God had closed up the wombs of all the
Philistine women. So he says, would you destroy
a nation? Guess what? If the Philistine women
can't have Philistine babies, that means what?
No more Philistines. And so he's like, I'm innocent.
I've done this. He's proclaiming his innocence.
And we would think, well, good. The Philistines
are going to be a problem for Israel in the future.
It's a good thing that he closed up the wombs,
right? Get rid of them right now. But we've already
seen in Genesis where, I believe it was the Amalekites,
where he said, look, they haven't filled their
fill of sinning yet. God is patient. You know,
even with those who don't follow God, our Lord
is still gracious. He is still long -suffering.
He still extends kindness. Yes, the day will
come where he's like, okay, that's enough. You've
had enough opportunity. But here, the Philistines
obviously hadn't met that place yet. This pagan
king, Abimelech, obviously, apparently recognizing
God somehow in this dream, knowing it was him.
He says, I didn't do anything wrong. There was
no intentional wrongdoing here. I'm not trying
to wrong him. I'm not trying to wrong her. I'm
definitely not trying to wrong you. And God agrees.
Look at verse six. 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. God is taking the credit for Abimelech not
having yet gone to consummate the marriage, if
you will. God is keeping a pagan king from sinning
against him in this particular regard. That's
pretty amazing. That's gracious. Now, in the
big picture, yeah, we know Abimelech was a sinner
like any sinner. We know he was a sinner against
God like any other sinner without having put
faith in God. There's no salvation. We know that.
But the scope of this is very narrow, and so
God in his omniscience is declaring Abimelech's
innocence with him. Yes, I know you did this
with a clear conscience. I know you didn't intend
to sin against me. And so my grace in that was
I kept you from sealing the deal. I kept you
from violating her. Why? Because God's plan was
to have her get pregnant with Abraham's baby
because that's the son of the promise. God's
not going to let his plan get derailed. But it's
interesting, God says, I've kept you from sinning
against me. Right? It's like, wouldn't it be
like, no, you've sinned against Abraham. You're
sinning against Sarah. But God says, no, you're
sinning against me. And the specific thing is
I kept you from sleeping with her. Now, this
is a brief aside, but I believe this is a picture
that shows us that the sin of adultery is way
more than you cheated on this spouse or cheated
on this spouse. You're sinning against God directly.
Adultery is a sin against God because he's the
one that created marriage. He's the one that
created intimacy. He's the one that set the whole
thing up. And when we violate that, yes, we're
sinning against people. But the bigger crime,
the ultimate crime, is you're sinning against
God himself. And so, verse 7. He tells Abimelech,
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. Sin
is sin. You break God's law, there's judgment.
One of the objections atheists always have is,
well, I mean, how could the pygmies in the rainforest
have any idea? Nobody told them it was God's
law. I don't know. But God is God. God is going
to be completely righteous and just when he judges
the pygmy in the forest who's never heard the
Ten Commandments. Somehow God has communicated
who he is to those people. And they too have
had the opportunity to respond to him. They might
not know him by the name we know him. There's
a story about, I think it was in Australia, Aborigines.
And some missionaries went out to them. and started
telling them about God and everything, and they're
like, yeah, yeah, we know him. And the missionary's
like, what? You're like an unreached people group.
This is crazy. How do you know him? They're like,
well, we don't know him by Jesus Christ, but
we know him as the God of the thumb. They go,
what? They're like, well, our peoples at some
point went, you know how much of life is not
possible without the thumb? This had to have
been created by somebody with intelligence. And
they're just like, we worship the God of the
thumb. And they're like, oh, well, his name is
Jesus, right? It was just, God knows. God can
reach people. He doesn't need us, but he wants
to use us, but that's a different Bible study.
Okay, back to Abraham. Return the man's wife,
for he is a prophet. Does that ring weird to
anybody? Here's this man, Abraham, proclaims
the Lord, comes up, lies. God shows up in Abimelech's
dream. You're a dead man because you took her.
That's his wife. What? I didn't do anything wrong.
Yeah, well, whether you knew it was wrong or
not, if you don't return her, you're going to
die. So return her because he's my prophet. God
didn't say to Abimelech, yeah, I know. I'm so
sorry. My people are dumb sometimes. You know?
I mean, yeah, you're completely innocent. You
know, I mean. Gosh, if you didn't want to go
to church anymore because the Christians in the
church can be dumb sometimes, I get it, Abimelech.
He's just a big fat liar, a faithless weakling.
I apologize for him. Go about your life. I'll
just let you off the hook this time. That's not
what God says. He says he is a prophet. despite
his error, despite his weakness, despite the
lapse of setting aside the sin that so easily
snares him, in this moment, God says, he's mine,
he's my child, he's my spokesman, he's my representative,
he speaks for me. What does that tell us? So
many of us in the church will sometimes deal
with, I can't serve God, I can't speak for God,
I can't do what God's calling me to do because
I've messed up. And we want to repent of our
sin, yes, and all that. But God is saying here,
he's like, I don't see you through your sin.
If you've trusted in Jesus Christ, I see you
through the blood of Christ. What that means
is I see you spotless. I see you without sin.
You're my child. I've called you to do a thing.
I'm the one who is faithful. You're not disqualified.
Now, do we go on and continue in sin? No. Does
the Bible talk about, you know, those that want
to go continue and live in sin, that you are
withdrawn, especially in the ministry of pastoral
ministry and type of stuff? Yeah, that does exist.
But the idea here is that Abraham is not disqualified
because he went back to his old ensnaring sin.
God didn't say, oops. Well, you know, I mean,
I change whether you're saved from day to day,
and today you're not. No, he says he's a prophet.
You know, my greatest hope, my greatest comfort
in life is that despite the fact that I will
continue to sin in this life, not that I want
to, but I will, my greatest hope is that God
will always see me because of my faith in the
blood of Jesus Christ. He will always see me
as the one he knows I am, the one he created
me to be. And he still works through me. It just
blows me away. And not only does he still see
me as his spotless child through the blood of
Christ, he can still use me for his purposes.
Now again, don't misunderstand. There are consequences
to sin. There's consequences to sinful living
here on this earth. There are... results of us
being disobedient. There's results of us giving
in to those old ensnaring sins. But the point
that I want to make today and what I'm trying
to encourage all of us with is that the power
of the blood of Jesus Christ, the power of God's
promises The power of God to say, I've saved
you because you put faith in me is infinitely
more powerful than our stumble when that ensnaring
snare rears its head again. Don't let the devil
condemn you. You're not condemned. There is no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Don't let the devil tell you that God is done
with you and he will never use you again because
all you have to do is go through the Bible and
you're like, I see a whole bunch of people he
used again after they sinned. Don't think that
you can't speak for the Lord and proclaim the
gospel and share your testimony because, wow,
I did that thing that I've been struggling with
for 30 years. God's more powerful than that.
Paul says where sin abound, grace super abounded.
Grace super abounded. If you're a child of God,
you cannot out -sin his grace. Now, I'm not saying
go try. That's not at all what this is about.
I'm talking about those who know God, right?
If you're truly saved, you truly know God, you're
truly in that position of having that relationship
with him, guess what? You're filled with the
Holy Spirit. What that means is you're going
to feel the guilt when you mess up. You're going
to feel it. You're going to feel the sting. It's
one of the things I've told people so many times
in counseling when they're like, I did a thing.
I don't think I'm saved anymore. And I'm like,
do you feel guilty about it? Yes, I do. Why?
I've sinned against God. And I go, that's proof
you're saved. Because the Bible is very clear
in 1 John 3. If you are practicing lawlessness,
if you are living in sin and you don't think
anything's wrong, you look at the Bible and God
says, don't do that. And you're like, no, he's
wrong. I'm not doing anything wrong. 1 John 3
says, I can question your salvation. But if you're
in tears and going, oh, I'm so afraid. Okay,
let's start with, you're saved. The Holy Spirit
is convicting you. Let's start there. And now
let's start walking to the promises and the truth
of God's word. Did he die for you? Yes. Did he
die for all your sins, past, present, and future?
Yes. Does that include the one you're upset about
now? Yes. Are you his child? Yes. Does he still
love you? Yes. Can he still use you? Absolutely.
And so, we understand that Scripture tells us
that although there are consequences to sin,
there are repercussions, there's all this stuff
that happens, when it comes to our salvation,
it's by grace through faith we are saved. Not
of works lest anybody should boast. And so when
you feel that guilt, yeah, okay, God still loves
you, but you've got to sin. You've got to repent.
You've got to deal with this thing. And that
leads us to that question. It's like, well, what
do I do with the sin that keeps ensnaring me?
And it so easily ensnares me. It's almost embarrassing
how easily it ensnares me. What do I do with
this thing? Well, you know what? You do practical
things. Practical things like what? Avoid the
temptations and the situations that are going
to trigger that sin. The Bible says in Romans
13, 14, make no provision for the flesh. Right?
If you struggle with drinking, don't go to the
bar. If you struggle with drugs, don't hang out
with people who do drugs. If you struggle with
pornography, don't think, oh, I could, no. Put
blocks. There's software blocks. There's all
kinds of stuff. Make yourself accountable. If
you're married and you have a problem with that
stuff, give your spouse the passwords to every
device you have. Be accountable. Be open because
you can't do it on your own. You can't fight
it on your own. Pray for wisdom. Pray for the
strength to change your habits. And this is the
kicker. When you say, okay, God, what do I need
to do to fight against this sin? I know I'm never
going to be completely sin -free, but God, I
want to sin less. I don't want to give in to
this. And the Spirit tells you to do something.
Here's the secret. Ready? Do it. That's where
we get tripped up. God, please help me. Okay,
well, you need to then, you know, talk to this
person, make yourself accountable, and blah,
blah, blah. Oh, no, I can't do that. Tell me
to do something else, Lord. You know why he told
you that thing? Because that thing is going to
help. The other things you've already tried,
they didn't help. So the idea here is take the
steps, the practical steps, right? But again,
in the scope of this study, after all of that,
when you sin again, because you will, seek God's
wonderful mercy and grace immediately. 1 John
1 .9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful
and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Don't give
time and place for the devil to condemn you and
beat you up. Because the longer you wallow in
that, the more our weak, pathetic minds start
to believe him. Don't give him opportunity. I
know it's hard. It's humiliating to come to God
in prayer in the moment of your sin and go, God,
I just did a thing. And I'm so sorry. Please
forgive me. I'm weak. Thank you for dying for
me. In the moment. Now, Verse 8, early in the
morning, Abimelech got up. Yeah, we're going
to do this fast. All right. Called all his servants
together and personally told them all these things,
and the men were terrified. Yeah, duh. God says
you're a dead man. Pretty terrifying. Verse 9,
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. Verse 10, Abimelech
also asked him, what? Made you do this. Right,
when we're out in the world, whether people believe
in God or not, there is still this assumption
on what a Christian is. Like when someone says
I'm a Christian, there's a general idea, even
amongst the unsaved in the secular world, of
what type of person that might be. And I know
there's also weird misconceptions all over the
place. But when a Christian lies to a non -believer,
sometimes it's like, I thought you didn't do
that. When we do something sinful before them,
I thought you didn't do that. You know, Proverbs
25, 26 says, a righteous person who yields to
the wicked is like a muddied spring or a polluted
well. When it says yields to the wicked, what
it's meaning is the righteous person who stumbles
in the face of the wicked, stumbles before them.
You're a polluted well. Why? Well, I could tell
you why. All the Christians that I did drugs
with and partied with in high school, I wasn't
one. They partied harder than I did. And then
when they try and tell me about Jesus, I'm like,
why do I want what you have? You're just like
me. Muddied well, polluted well. There's no life
there. There's no joy. There's no hope there.
But Abimelech says, what? made you do this? Why
would you do this to me? Why would you put me
in the face of God's judgment? In verse 11, Abraham
replied, I thought there's absolutely no fear
of God in this place. They will kill me because
of my wife. You know what the problem is in that
verse? Where did he err? I thought. that's where
he messed up, I thought, I figured, I concluded,
I decided, not, well, I prayed and asked God,
not, I got some counsel, not, I got into the
word, not that he had the word like we do today,
but in our case, none of that, I thought. You
see, when we approach these temptations or these
situations of temptation, especially these snares
that so easily get us, and then we follow our
own wisdom in those things, we're gonna find
ourselves ensnared again. It just happens over
and over. Well, last time I tried this, I'm going
to try it again. Insanity. How about you go to
the Lord? How about you go get the Lord's counsel?
How about you pray? How about you talk to him?
And he says, well, I thought there was no fear
of God in this place. You know what the irony
of that is? Abraham is the one demonstrating
a lack of fear for God in this. He's the one
who, instead of going, God is almighty, God is,
I don't need to worry, I'll let God handle it.
He's the one saying, no, God, I'll handle this.
My plan's gonna work better. And yet he's saying,
oh, I thought you guys didn't fear God, and it's
right back on him. You're the one that's showing
no reverence for him. So then we go on, verse
12. Besides, oh, justification. She really is
my sister. The daughter of my father, though
not the daughter of my mother, like that matters.
And she became my wife. So when God had me wander
from my father's house, I said to her, show your
loyalty to me wherever you go and say about me,
he's my brother. Just like he did in Egypt. Well,
I'm not technically lying. But for a believer,
if you're a believer and you know Jesus Christ,
and you're gonna be like, well, I'm gonna tell
a half -truth. I'm going to leave out information
that they don't need to know. And your intent
is to deceive when doing that? You're a liar.
It's like, oh, it's only a half lie. You notice
nobody ever calls it a half lie. They call it
a half truth. Isn't that interesting? If your
intent is to deceive, you're in sin. And what
Abraham's doing here is just like us, right?
30 years later, I'm still struggling with the
same thing. I'm tired of it. I'm over it. Man,
what's going on? And then we start to defend
and justify. Well, I can't resist. It's just
maybe that's the thorn God wants me to live with.
No, I don't think God wants you to live with
cheating on your spouse. That's sorry. That's
the thing you need to deal with. But we learn
here from Abraham that this wasn't his snap.
judgment thing that he just did when he was pressured.
This was a pattern. This was something planned.
You know, back when I left my father's house,
that either means er or when he left Haran before
he got into the promised land. He had already
pre -planned, hey, when this happens, wife, lie.
And so that was like some 30 years ago this strategy
was put into place and yet here we are 30 years
later in Abraham's life. The sinful habit had
still not been fully worked out of his life even
after all this time. That's not to excuse the
sin and I'm gonna say that a thousand more times
probably. We aim to sin less. God wants us to
pursue obedience to him. But when the devil tries
to condemn you because you messed up and you
sinned, we need to understand we're never gonna
be sin free in this life. And that's why God's
grace and God's mercy super abounds over all
of it. Verse 14. Then Abimelech took flocks and
herds and male and female slaves and gave them
to Abraham and returned his wife Sarah to him.
Abimelech said, look, my land is before you.
Settle wherever you want. And he said to Sarah,
look, I'm 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.
Now, Abimelech isn't giving all of this to Abraham
because he suddenly has this great respect for
Abraham. He's giving it to Abraham because he
has great fear and respect for his God. And so
he's like, just settle wherever you want. I don't
care. Right? He's afraid. He's afraid of judgment.
He's afraid of the Lord. And then look what he
says to Sarah. Look, I'm giving your brother
1 ,000 pieces of silver. He's already been told
that she's married. There's already the assumption
that, yeah, the one you took her from, it's his
wife. And so I read this very sarcastic. Hey,
Sarah. here's a thousand pieces of silver to
give to your brother. You want to call him brother?
Sure, we'll go with that. Get out of here. I
don't want to die, right? So verse 17. 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. Now here's this beautiful
thing. Abraham, you went, you lied, you misrepresented.
They took your wife. God steps in. Abimelech,
give her back. You're sinning against me. Give
his wife back because he's a prophet, not a liar,
not a wretched lost sinner. He's saved by faith.
He's mine. And then what we see here, God still
uses him. God still uses them. Abraham prays,
and God heard it, and he healed Abimelech and
all the people, the wives and female slaves,
and that's just the big lesson here in this chapter.
If you've sinned, God can still use you. If you've
blown it, God can still use you. If you're like,
but I keep doing the thing. Do you feel bad about
it? Yes. That's the Holy Spirit convicting you.
I can't serve anymore. Yes, you can. Now, yeah,
got to deal with the sin. You can't be living
in the sin and, you know, but you're not disqualified.
You know, the sad commentary here is due to Abraham's
sin, he lost his witness to Abimelech. You know,
we all have people in our lives that we've blown
our witness with. People in our lives that have
been hurt by our behavior. specifically hurt
by our ensnaring sin that seems to have misrepresented
Christ to them or hurt them in some way. And
the reality is is they might not listen to you
anymore when you try and share the gospel with
them. You're the hypocrite to them. You're the
one that's like, you know, oh, no, you need to
get saved. You need to come to church with me.
And they're like, whatever, right? You may have
really damaged that, and that's unfortunately
just the fruit of the sin. That's the fruit of
that disobedient moment, that giving in to that
ensnaring sin. But you can still pray for them,
right? You don't write them off. Well, lost that
one. See you in hell. All right, let's go after
this person. No, if they won't hear you anymore,
don't stop praying for them. Don't stop going
to the Lord. God, I blew it. Yes, God, please
restore my opportunity. Please let them see your
grace in my life. But if they won't, bring somebody
along. Bring something along. God, because whether
or not I blew it, I still love them. I still
want to see them saved, right? Pray for them.
You know, the reality is God can bring beauty
from even the ashes of our sinfulness. Even if
it's not you that gets to be the one to have
that conversation anymore, God can still do a
miracle. But even if you've blown it, it doesn't
mean God is done with you. It doesn't mean you've
lost your salvation. It doesn't mean you're kicked
out of the house. You see, life on earth post
-salvation, it can be really difficult. It can
be confusing as we wrestle with these dual natures
we have now. Right, I've had conversations with
God where I said, you know what, before I was
saved, God, just everything was so much, God,
so much simple. There wasn't this wrestling with
stuff all the time. I was just lost. And then,
of course, I'm like, that's stupid, Lord, I know,
but, you know, it's hard. It's hard wrestling
with this. It can be depressing. fighting against
the condemnation of the devil constantly. It
can be, it can make us feel hopeless, right?
Because we gave in again and we gave in again
to that thing and it's just, we give in to the
world and we have these things that just we keep
falling back into. But Jesus said, be of good
cheer because I've overcome the world. That word
overcome means he conquered it. It got you, yeah.
But I died for that sin. But God, I want to stop.
Okay, well, let's put these things into place.
Let's do this. And then a week later, a month
later, it got me again. Yeah, I died for that
sin. Oh, wretched man that I am, Lord, when will
I be free from this body of death? When you're
dead. then you'll have a new one and we'll be
in heaven and it'll be all good. But right now,
I want you to live the life of striving for obedience,
not leaning on your own, lean on the Holy Spirit.
But your very life of when you fall and you're
restored, that very moment can be a testimony
to people because the very thing you're preaching
is God loves you and wants to save you. He wants
to forgive you and it's not about you doing good
works. And yet, we'll put this pressure on ourselves
that we have to be perfect in our works before
we share God's mercy with people. Don't let the
devil rob you of that. You see, as born -again
believers, we don't want to sin. That's not our
goal. We strive to be obedient through the power
of the Holy Spirit. We pursue that, that we would
have life, right? That we would have joy, that
we would have peace, that our witness would be
strong. Of course, that's our goal, that's our
trajectory. But when you sin, never forget that
you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ,
the righteous one. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you. God, in so many ways, grace can seem like
an excuse. Grace can seem like a get -out -of
-jail -free card. But Lord, we weren't set free
from the power of sin and death without cost.
Lord, it was your brutal death on the cross that
paid the price for all of our sin. And yet, God,
three days later, you rose from the grave proving
that you defeated sin and death. And God, when
we put faith in that, there are these wonderful,
beautiful, life -changing, eternity -changing
promises that are now true in our life. And yet,
God, the devil works overtime to rob those things
from us, to make us feel like because that old
ensnaring sin got us one more time that you're
done with us, Lord, and that is simply not true.
And so, God, for those in this room hearing this
message, Lord, that maybe have been struggling
with that, yes, Lord, they need to repent. Yes,
Lord, they need to deal with the sin. Yes, Lord,
they need to put in place the... barriers and
the accountability and all those things they
need so they don't give into those things. But
God, even while that's happening, that they would
know you're not done with them. That there is
always hope because of you. That God, you still
see them as their beloved children. That you
still love them as much as you always have. And
that, God, your desire is to walk with them and
clean them up and move them forward. But God,
never let them forget that you died for them
while they were dead in their trespasses and
sins. All of us need that, Lord. We want to be
used by you. We want our witness to be strong,
God. We want to be obedient people. We want people
to see our lives and go, oh, that's what a Christian
looks like. But Lord, let us not forget that
a part of what a Christian looks like is a saved
sinner. And so Lord, let us not become prideful.
Let us not lose sight of the reality that God,
although we may sin again, your salvation is
not taken from us. That you are with us and will
be with us forever, Lord. We love you so much
for that. God, I pray you bless us, bless your
people, bless your church, Lord. We pray for
many more to come to know you, that they too
would have the freedom that is found in the gospel
of Jesus Christ. We love you so much. It's in
Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, amen, let's
worship church.