Abraham the Troublemaker (20)
If you did not know who Abraham was and you read this chapter for the first time, which of the two men would you say was the believer? Surely not Abraham, the liar! It was not Abraham who showed integrity, and it was not Abraham whom God kept from sinning. What Abraham did was selfish, but Abimelech responded with generosity. If anybody reveals excellent character, it is Abimelech and not Abraham, “the friend of God.”
But before you draw some unwarranted conclusions, take time to consider the facts revealed in this event. Abraham’s failures were tragic, but from them we learn some valuable lessons to help us in our walk of faith.
Believers do sin. This chapter would be an embarrassment to us except for one thing: The Bible tells the truth about all people, and that includes God’s people. It does not hide the fact that Noah got drunk and exposed himself (Gen. 9:20-23), or that Moses lost his temper (Num. 20:1-13), or that David committed adultery and plotted the death of a valiant soldier (2 Sam. 11). Peter denied the Lord three times (Matt. 26:69-75), and Barnabas lapsed into false doctrine (Gal. 2:13).
These things are recorded, not to encourage us to sin, but to warn us to beware of sin. After all, if these great men of faith disobeyed the Lord, then we “ordinary saints” had better be very careful! “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12 nkjv).
Why did Abraham sin?
For one thing, though Abraham had a sinful nature, he had been justified by faith (Gen. 15:6). God gave him a new name (from “Abram” to “Abraham”), but that did not change his old nature. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:16ff.) and the work of Christ on the cross (Rom. 6), believers can have victory over the old nature, but this is not automatic. We must walk in the Spirit if we hope to overcome temptation.
That leads to a second consideration: Abraham moved into “enemy territory.” After living at Hebron (“fellowship”) for perhaps twenty years, he then decided to go to the land of the Philistines. Gerar is just within Philistine country, but it was still a dangerous place to be. Perhaps it was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that caused Abraham to want to move, but whatever his motive was, the decision was not a wise one. True, Abraham did not go down to Egypt as he had done before (Gen. 12). He was still within the boundaries of the land God promised to give him, but his move put him in a dangerous position. “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation” (Matt. 26:41 nkjv).
After arriving in Gerar, Abraham began to walk by sight and not by faith, for he began to be afraid (Gen. 20:11). Fear of man and faith in God cannot dwell together in the same heart. “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe” (Prov. 29:25 nkjv). Abraham forgot that his God was “the Almighty God” (Gen. 17:1), who could do anything (18:14) and who had covenanted to bless Abraham and Sarah.
But the basic cause of Abraham’s failure was the sad fact that he and Sarah had failed to judge this sin when they had dealt with it in Egypt (12:10-20). They had admitted their sin to Pharaoh and confessed it to God, but the fact that it surfaced again indicates that they did not judge the sin and forsake it (Prov. 28:13). In fact, the sin had grown worse, for now Sarah shared in telling the lie (Gen. 20:5). A home kept together by a lie is in bad shape indeed.
A lighthearted admission of sin is not the same as a brokenhearted confession of sin (Ps. 51:17). If our attitude is right, we will hate our sins, loathe ourselves for having sinned (Ezek. 6:9; 36:31), and despise the very memory of our sins. People who remember their sins with pleasure and “enjoy them again” in their minds have never judged their sins or seen how sinful their sins really are. The father of American psychology, William James, wrote, “For him who confesses, shams are over and realities have begun.”
Abraham and Sarah had convinced themselves that they were not telling a lie at all. It was only a “half-truth” (Gen. 20:12), and half-truths are not supposed to be as wicked as outright lies. They are worse! “A lie consists in the motive quite as much as in the actual words,” wrote F. B. Meyer. A half-truth has just enough fact in it to make it plausible and just enough deception to make it dangerous.
So, believers do sin, but that does not disannul their faith or destroy their salvation, though it may discredit their testimony. Abraham was still a child of God, even though his witness for the Lord had been greatly weakened. However, Abimelech was in a more dangerous position than Abraham, for Abimelech was under a sentence of death (vv. 3, 7).
Abimelech was a man of integrity, and when God spoke to him, he obeyed. He had many fine qualities, but he was not a believer, and therefore he was a dead man (Eph. 2:1-3). This is not to minimize the enormity of Abraham’s sin, for a believer should not do what Abraham did. But Abraham and Abimelech had two different standings before God: One was saved, and the other was lost.
So, any unsaved person who wants to use Genesis 20 as “ammunition” against believers (“You’re all hypocrites!”) had better consider his or her spiritual condition before God. If unsaved people accept what the Bible says about Abraham, that he lied, then they must also accept what the Bible says about them: They are dead in trespasses and sins. In spite of his disobedience, Abraham was accepted before God, but Abimelech was rejected and under divine condemnation (John 3:18-21). God chastened Abraham, but He condemned Abimelech.
When believers sin, they suffer. Charles Spurgeon said, “God does not allow His children to sin successfully.” When we deliberately disobey God, we suffer both from the consequences of our sins and from the chastening hand of God, unless we repent and submit (Heb. 12:5-11). God in His grace will forgive our sins (1 John 1:5-10), but God in His sovereignty must allow sin to produce a sad harvest (Gal. 6:7). Read Psalms 32 and 51 to see what happened to David physically and spiritually because he would not repent and confess his sins to the Lord.
It took only a few seconds for Abraham to tell a lie, but that lie was more than sounds and puffs of breath in the air. That lie became a seed that was planted and grew and brought forth bitter fruit. God hates lies (Prov. 6:17; 12:22). He is a God of truth (Deut. 32:4), the Spirit is the Spirit of truth (John 14:17), and the Word is the Word of truth (James 1:18). “A lying tongue is but for a moment,” wrote Matthew Henry. “Truth is the daughter of time; and in time, it will out.”
What did this one lie cost Abraham? To begin with, it cost him character. Phillips Brooks said, “The purpose of life is the building of character through truth.” God is not just “saving souls” and taking people to heaven. Through the trials and testing of life, He is making saved people more like Jesus Christ and thereby glorifying Himself. Abraham stopped asking, “What is right?” and began asking, “What is safe?” and this led to his downfall. Once the salt has lost its taste, how do you restore it?
He also lost his testimony. How could Abraham talk to his pagan neighbors about the God of truth when he himself had told a lie? Lot lost his witness in Sodom, and Abraham lost his witness in Gerar. “A bad man’s example has little influence over good men,” wrote James Strahan in Hebrew Ideals (Kregel, 1982, 141). “But the bad example of a good man, eminent in station and established in reputation, has an enormous power for evil.”
Imagine how humiliated Abraham was when Abimelech called him in, confronted him, and rebuked him. It is hard enough to submit to the rebuke of a Christian brother or sister, but to accept rebuke from an unsaved person demands a great deal of honesty and humility. “You have done things to me that should not be done” (Gen. 20:9 niv). Those words cut deep! Christians must be careful how they relate to those who are “outside” (Col. 4:5 niv; 1 Thess. 4:12 niv).
He lost his ministry, for instead of being a source of blessing (Gen. 12:1-3), he was the cause of judgment. No babies were born during Abraham’s sojourn in Gerar (vv. 17-18). When a child of God gets out of the will of God, the discipline of God usually follows. Jonah caused a storm that nearly wrecked the ship (Jonah 1); Achan brought defeat to the army (Josh. 7); and David brought sorrow to his family (2 Sam. 12:10).
Abraham almost lost Sarah and Isaac. In that day, a king had the right to take into his harem any single woman who pleased him. Abimelech thought Sarah was a single woman, so he took her, and were it not for the intervention of God, the king would have had normal relations with her. What the king did threatened God’s great plan of salvation, so the Lord had to act to protect Sarah and Isaac. Whenever we do something that forces God to intervene miraculously, we are tempting God, and tempting God is sin (Deut. 6:16; Matt. 4:7).
Perhaps one of the saddest consequences of Abraham’s sin was Isaac’s repetition of it years later (Gen. 26:7-11). It is sad when our sins affect outsiders, but it is sadder still when our sins are duplicated in our own families. In fact, Isaac’s lie was worse than his father’s because Sarah really was Abraham’s half sister, while Rebekah was only Isaac’s cousin.
When believers sin, they are disciplined by God until they come to a place of repentance and confession. This discipline is not enjoyable, but it is profitable, and in the end, it produces happiness and holiness to the glory of God.
Sinning believers can be forgiven and restored. While God did not defend Abraham’s sin, He did defend Abraham and so controlled circumstances. As a result, His servant was not completely defeated. In fact, God called Abraham a prophet and made it clear that Abraham’s intercession was the only thing that stood between Abimelech and death (Gen. 20:7). The fact that God answered Abraham’s prayer for Abimelech is evidence that Abraham had confessed his sins and the Lord had forgiven him (Ps. 66:18-20).
God does not reject His children when they sin any more than a parent rejects a disobedient son or daughter (Isa. 49:13-16). Abraham was justified by faith and had a righteous standing before God (Rom. 4:1-5). Justification does not change; we are accepted in Jesus Christ no matter what we are in ourselves (2 Cor. 5:17, 21; Eph. 1:6). Of course, the fact that we are justified before God means there will be a change in our lives, for “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20). But our position in Christ (justification) is not altered by our practice on earth (sanctification).
The important thing is that we deal with our sins humbly and honestly, confess them to God, judge them and forsake them, and claim His promises of forgiveness (1 John 1:9; Mic. 7:18-19; Isa. 55:6-13). Abraham and Sarah made a new beginning, and so can you.