God’s Faithfulness Despite Abraham’s
Unbelief
(Genesis 20:1-21:7)
The death bed conversions of evil men bother us. I am thinking of the
thief on the cross? Charles Tex Watson of the Manson gang. In 1969 he
murdered Sharon Tate, 81/2 months pregnant. He is serving a life sentence
in a California prison with no hope of parole. Yet, he came to Christ
powerfully.
God sent Jonah to preach repentance to the Ninevites.
Ted Bundy died convinced that he had been forgiven at Christ’s expense.
Today’s sermon is about God’s outrageous mercy and grace. God
glorifies his grace and faithfulness by being gracious to a man who does not
deserve it—Abraham.
A. THE SETTING
To understand Abraham we must constantly remember God’s big picture
and how Abraham fits into it. God’s relationship with humanity began on the
sixth day of creation. God created man and then declared why he created
him.
(Genesis 1:27–28) "27 So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God
blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the
earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over
the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the
earth.”"
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God created man in his image.
His image is his glory.
He commanded Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth with his
image, i.e. his glory.
He also commanded Adam to rule the earth. That meant servant rule, the
kind of rule displayed at the cross, the kind of authority that stands because
it is slain.
Adam sinned and forfeited the opportunity to fulfill the reason for his
creation.
God started over with Noah, but like Adam, Noah also quickly sinned.
Because God has not given up on his initial plan he replaced both Adam and
Noah with Abraham.
At age seventy five God, for reasons hidden from us, chose Abram out of
all the unbelievers in the world and revealed himself to him. He revealed
himself to Abraham in order to make him the father of a great nation that
would someday fill the earth with God’s image and likeness, his glory, and
rule it as servant leaders.
(Genesis 12:1–3) "1 “Go from your country and your kindred and your
father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a
great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you
will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who
dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be
blessed.”"
Despite the fact that he is seventy five and his wife is barren, Abraham
shows remarkable faith. He believes God’s promise. He journeys to an
unknown land, trusting God completely.
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However, he takes Lot with him!
After a few years in Canaan, a famine occurs. Looking for food Abraham
goes down to Egypt. Forgetting God’s promises to protect him, he lies to
Pharaoh about Sarah. Nevertheless, God shows himself faithful to his
promises. He intervenes on behalf of unbelieving Abraham. He afflicts
Pharaoh and his household with great plagues. Reluctantly, pharaoh enriches
Abram, and our hero returns to Canaan better off than when he left. God
showed himself faithful to his promises even though Abraham was not.
Next Abram and Lot divide. Lot begins his migration towards Sodom, his
heart condition making it clear that he will not be the Son through whom
God’s promises will come.
When the five kings of the North conquer Sodom, and Lot is taken,
Abram pursues with a small army and, because God is with him, conquers
the five kings. On his return Melchizedek comes out to bless him confirming
God’s original blessing in Genesis 12.
In Genesis 15 expands the promises. Abraham’s descendants will not just
be a great nation, but they will be like the sand on the seashore and like the
stars in the sky. (i.e. They will fill the earth with God’s glory). Abram
believes God, and God credits it to him as righteousness. God “cuts” a
covenant with Abram, but only God passes through the split carcasses.
Them, in chapter 16, when Abraham is eighty five, despite these lavish
promises and God’s past faithfulness, once again Abram lapses into
unbelief. He gives up on God’s promise of a son through Sarah, sleeps with
Hagar, and produces Ishmael.
God is not pleased.
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Now fourteen years have passed. Abram is 99. In Genesis 17 God returns
to him, and again repeats the promises, and tells him that within a year Sarah
will give birth to a son. Abraham resists. “Oh that Ishmael might live before
you.” God commands Abraham to indicate his faith in God’s covenant by
circumcising both himself and all the males in his household. Because
Abram believes God, he complies.
A few days later, on their way to Sodom, God and two angels visit
Abram. God befriends Abram. He tells him that he plans to destroy Sodom.
Abram intercedes for his nephew Lot. God destroys Sodom but saves Lot.
Lot’s ensuing reluctance to flee Sodom, and subsequent incest with his
daughters, completes the idea that he is utterly disqualified to be the son
through whom the promises will come.
Now, with the promise of a miracle child within the year, and Sarah not
yet pregnant, Abram again capitulates into monstrous unbelief. Yet, as he
has done so many times in the past God is faithful despite Abraham’s
unbelief.
In summary, Abraham is like us. He is a mixture of faith and unbelief.
Sometimes he stalwartly obeys God. At other times he capitulates to
unbelief.
B. THE STORY
(Proverbs 26:11) "11 Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who
repeats his folly."
Abraham is a shepherd. He must continually move his flocks to areas
where there is grass. His home-base has been Mamre, a few miles outside of
Hebron. This story finds him about 35 miles to the SW, in the land of the
Philistines, looking for forage and water for his flocks.
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Gerar is a small Philistine town, and Abimelech is its king. Abimelech is
a title, not a name. It means ‘The divine king is my father.” He is an
unbeliever. He is not an heir to God’s promises. But he is the local chief. He
is the king of Gerar, and Abraham fears him.
1. Abraham’s Unbelief
This should surprise us. Twenty years previously Abraham feared the
Pharaoh, but we were not surprised. Pharaoh was the ancient world’s most
powerful man, but the king of Gerar is another story. He is the petty king of
a small Philistine village. In addition, God has given Abraham tremendous
success over much more imposing foes. Remember how he went after the
five kings of the North to rescue Lot. He and only 300 men against the
armies of five kings, and God gave him success. So why does he fear this
local Philistine Lord?
This text explains the reasons for his fear. His wife, Sarah, was beautiful.
He lived in a lawless age. When a a powerful man saw a beautiful woman,
he just took her. If a husband or other male protector was in the way, he just
murdered him.
When. 25 years prior, God called Abraham to leave Ur of the Chaldees
for an unknown destination, Abraham knew he would be travelling through
bandit infested, lawless lands. Therefore, he made a deal with Sarah. Here is
how he explained it to Abimelech.
10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this
thing?”
11 Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all
in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she is
indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my
mother, and she became my wife. 13 And when God caused me to wander
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from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me:
at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother.”
None of this completely explains Abraham’s fear. We also need to
reckon with the reality of spiritual warfare. The Devil knows that the
fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham will be his undoing. He also
knows that, in this instance, capitulation to fear will derail all of God’s
promises to Abraham. So, he and all of demons attack our esteemed friend.
In light of Abraham’s past, this seems to be the only rational explanation for
the extent of Abraham’s sinful unbelief.
Abraham fears Abimelech more than he fears God. He believes that
Abimelech, not God, has power over him. Here is the root of all fear. It is a
collapse of faith in either God’s sovereignty, God’s goodness, or both. In
fact, fear is a misdirection of faith. The faith that should have God as its
object gets directed to someone or something else. In other words, ungodly
fear is a result of placing our faith in someone or something other than God.
It is a byproduct of idolatry.
Control is always the natural response to fear.
Disobedience always follows unbelief. Abraham disobeys God. He lies.
He tells Abimelech that Sarah is his sister. It was a partial truth. She was in
fact his half sister. They had the same father but different mothers.
Nevertheless it was a lie. Abraham used a partial truth to deceive
Abimelech.
In light of God’s promises, Abraham’s unbelief is especially serious. Had
Abimelech slept with Sarah, two things would have happened. First, she
might have gotten pregnant by Abimelech, and that would have voided
God’s promises to Abraham.
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Or second, if she was already unknowingly pregnant by Abraham, or
ready to get pregnant by Abraham a few weeks later, sleeping with
Abimelech would cast doubt on the paternity of the child. Who is the real
father? No one would be able to say. In either case, the disobedience that
follows unbelief is getting ready to void the promises of God—promises for
which Abraham has waited 25 years.
Abraham knows all of this, yet he commits this monstrous sin anyway,
and that brings us to the grace of God.
2. God Intervenes
Despite Abraham’s unfaithfulness God shows himself faithful.
Ultimately, that is the point of this story. This story is about God’s Amazing
Grace. God has promised to bless Abraham. The promises were not based
upon Abraham’s performance. Remember, God cut a covenant with
Abraham, but only God passed through the carcasses. God has promised to
make Abraham into a great nation. That requires a son by Sarah, and God is
not about to let Abraham’s “weasel-like” unbelief short circuit his
commitments.
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him,
“Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have
taken, for she is a man’s wife.”
4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill
an innocent people? 5 Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’?
And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the
innocence of my hands I have done this.”
6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this
in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against
me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. 7 Now then, return the man’s
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wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But
if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are
yours.”
God intervenes. He appears to Abimelech in a dream. He doesn’t come to
him as a lamb. He comes to him as a Lion. He threatens Abimelech.
Vs 3 “You are a dead man because of that woman you have taken.”
Vs 7 “If you do not return her…you shall surely die, you and all who are
yours.”
Vs 18 “For the LORD had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech
because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife."
Abimelech is a bit put out by Abraham. We can’t blame him. After all, he
is innocent. Abraham deceived him, but now, to Abimelech’s chagrin, God
takes Abraham’s side. God keeps Abimelech from sinning against him.
(Proverbs 22:14) "14 The mouth of forbidden women is a deep pit; he with
whom the LORD is angry will fall into it."
(Ecclesiastes 7:26) "26 And I find something more bitter than death: the
woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He
who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her."
So, God intervenes on Abraham’s behalf because he is gracious and
merciful. But, he also intervenes on behalf of Abimelech because he is
gracious and merciful.
C. LESSONS
1. Fear is a Symptom of Idolatry
Fear is a symptom of Idolatry. It is either an expression of faith in
something besides God. Or, it says something has become too important. i.e.
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my fear is a symptom that I cannot live without ________, or I cannot be
happy unless I get _______.
Fear always motivates control.
Anxiety is just another name for fear.
Demon’s drive fear.
2. Faith precedes Obedience
Unbelief always morphs into disobedience. Faith always morphs into
obedience. Because Abraham believed he left Ur of the Chaldees not
knowing where he was going. Because he believed he circumcised himself
and his entire household. Because he believed he pursued five armies with
only 300 men.
But when he lapsed into unbelief he lied to Pharaoh about Sarah. When
his faith failed he gave into Sarah and conceived Ishmael through Hagar.
When he failed to believe he lied to Abimelech about Sarah.
Like each of us, Abraham is a mixed bag. He is both saint and sinner.
God loves him and cares for him, not because he performs, but despite the
absence of performance. As we will see, God is gracious towards Abraham
in order to produce obedience.
3. Our Obedience is a response to God’s Faithfulness
God is not faithful because we obey. Abraham’s story makes that clear.
God’s faithfulness is designed to provoke obedience.
In a few weeks we will watch Abraham give God super-human,
extravagant obedience. God will ask him to offer up, the miracle son, Isaac.
Without a word he will obey. He will get up the next morning, take Isaac
and go to Moriah to offer him up. Why will Abraham do this? Because of
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this story, and all of God’s other acts of grace and kindness. Through his sin
and God’s grace Abraham will come to know God. He will learn to trust
God. Here is how the author of Hebrews describes Abraham’s faith.
(Hebrews 11:17–19) "17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up
Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up
his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be
named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the
dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back."
Where did Abraham get this faith? He got it by watching God’s
faithfulness despite his unfaithfulness.
Brothers and sisters…You and I learn to trust God the same way.
4. God is infinitely gracious.
Why did God protect Abraham? We want God to judge Abraham and
bless Abimelech. Abraham is a deceitful weasel. Abraham’s deceit will later
reappear in his grandson, Jacob. So, how can God be just and at the same
time intervene on Abraham’s behalf? If you have been coming here for
awhile, you know what I am going to say next.
God was able to forgive Abraham because he believed in the Messiah to
come. That faith united him to the Messiah. All of Abraham’s unbelief,
deceitfulness, and control were imputed to Christ. At the cross Christ took
the punishment that Abraham deserved.
In addition, Abraham’s faith in the Messiah to come united him to Christ
in such a way that Christ’s righteousness became his. On this basis, and this
basis alone, God was able to show Abraham mercy. Abimelech probably
saw God’s kindness to Abraham as a monstrous injustice. But that was
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because Abimelech did not understand the cross. There God fully punished
Abraham’s sin.
Because of the cross God was able to be both just and the justifier
(forgiver) of Abraham.
Although Abimelech’s behavior was much more upright than Abraham’s,
he did not believe in the Messiah to come. As a result, he perished.
God was able to be faithful to Abraham despite his unbelief because of
the cross of Christ.
On the same basis God will be faithful to you. Like Abraham, he will
protect you from temptation. He will keep you from the Evil One. He will
keep you from doing something that would void his promises to you.
5. God wants us to show the same grace to others that he has shown
to us.
Forgive our enemies.
Love our enemies.
Serve our enemies.
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