Beyond The Basics

Transcript:

Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I’m your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Beyond the Basics where we are exploring the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.

Thank you once again for joining me for this episode. We’re going to go through Genesis chapter 20.

But before we do, I want to offer a little bit of clarification from the episode last week on Genesis 19. I had some very good discussions on social media this week regarding the way that sin contributes to the moral decline of a society. And I just want to be clear that all sin contributes to moral decline. All sin results in moral decline in a society.

And I think where the confusion came is that I said that certain sin contributes more to moral decline than others. And I wanna clarify that statement because I think that’s not quite true the way I said it. What I intended to say is that certain sin contributes to moral decline faster than others. But all sin will eventually result in moral decline.

So last week I used the example of homosexuality because that was what was relevant in Genesis chapter 19. But I think the Bible gives other sins that will contribute to moral decline faster than others, namely idolatry and murder. So those really are the three big ones in the Bible: sexual immorality of any kind, not just homosexuality, any kind of sexual immorality, idolatry and murder are the three sins in the Bible that will really contribute to the decline of a society morally faster than other sins, such as lying, or greed.

Again, they’re just as serious of sins as anything else in terms of what it does to our eternal state. They’re just as destructive to our eternal state as any other sin. And they’re also just as destructive to a society, but it takes longer, potentially, depending on the level of the lying or the greed. So I just wanted to offer that clarification. You know, driving 15 miles an hour over the speed limit is disobeying a law and is a sin; but how quickly is that really going to contribute to a society’s decline compared to murder, for example. So that’s what I was intending to say.

So thank you to all of you who mentioned something on social media, provided me with the opportunity to provide some clarification on that.

So with that said, let’s get into Genesis chapter 20.

If you remember, at the end of Genesis chapter 19 Abraham had watched Sodom get destroyed. And so now, Genesis 20, Abraham leaves where he had been staying, near the oaks of Mamre, and he journeyed to Gerar.

And here, we read about a similar scenario to chapter 12. If you remember in chapter 12, Abraham and Sarah had gone down to Egypt, where Abraham told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister. And so Pharaoh took his sister to be his wife and there were all these plagues and then Pharaoh had to give Sarah back and give Abraham a bunch more riches and servants and flocks and all kinds of stuff just to get him to leave.

So here, same scenario as chapter 12. Abraham goes to Gerar and tells Abimelech, who’s the king of Gerar, that Sarah is his sister. And so Abimelech takes her to be his wife.

And so God afflicts the people with barrenness. And then God appeared to Abimelech in a dream and told him, “You need to return Sarah to Abraham. She’s not your wife.”

And so Abimelech confronts Abraham. He gives him Sarah, gives him sheep, oxen, male, female servants, just like as in Egypt. And he gives him a thousand pieces of silver and whatever land he wants. And then Abraham prayed to God and Abimelech and all his people were healed.

Alright, so let’s get deeper into the chapter.

In verse 1, Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb, or Negev, depending on what translation you’re reading. Same word, just a different spelling. So the Negeb is, from where Abraham had started, near the oaks of Mamre, he’s going south toward Egypt.

Now, south is always going to be symbolic of the grave. Egypt, in the same way, is always going to be symbolic of the grave or slavery.

So the question is, why is this important? Why did he go down south? Why is he going towards the Negev, somewhere where he had already gone before? Like I said, this is the same direction to Egypt where he had gone before.

Keep in mind that Abraham had just witnessed Sodom and Gomorrah get destroyed. He can literally see this from his home. It’s possible that maybe the area, the land around it had been destroyed and he was unable to even support his flocks anymore. But he had also witnessed the city that his nephew lived in get destroyed and he had no idea that his nephew was still alive. He may have thought that his nephew might be dead.

So just like last time he went towards Egypt, there was a famine and we even discussed that that famine could have potentially been brought on by God to test Abraham. And now there’s destruction of the cities that he lived near and the cities that his nephew lived in. So these are two very significant events that drive him south, down, towards Egypt. So we’re starting to realize how Abraham deals with difficult circumstances.

So in verse two, Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister,” which is again, as I mentioned, the same thing that he said to Pharaoh. And he falls back, right back into the same sin as he did last time when he was near Egypt.

And it says, Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.

Now, this is going to be important. Abimelech is not a name. It’s a title, just like Pharaoh or Caesar. And the reason it’s important is because we’re going to see Abimelech pop up again later on because Isaac is going to do the same thing. And it wouldn’t make any sense if this was a name, if this was the same person that both Abraham and Isaac encountered. But it does make sense if we realize that Abimelech is a title. A title for a king. Specifically, a title for the king of Gerar.

So in verse 2 again, what did Abimelech do? The king of Gerar? What did he do? He sent and took Sarah. This is a huge, huge problem. Like a really, really big problem. Why? Because we just found out that there is going to be a child that will be born within the next year. And if Abimelech takes Sarah as his wife, the father of that child will always be in question. You get what I’m saying? If Abimelech takes Sarah as his wife and Sarah has a child within the next year, even if it is Abraham’s child, how do we know? Because she’s now been given to another man. So this is a big, big problem.

We’ve got a serious problem in our hands and so in verse 3, God intervenes and he comes to Abimelech in a dream and says, “Behold, you are a dead man.”

That’s pretty intense. And God is telling Abimelech he’s a dead man in two different ways.

First, God is going to kill him for taking Sarah unless he gives her back because God cannot have Abimelech polluting that promised seed or even calling that child that’s coming into question. God cannot have this. God says, “First of all, I’m going to kill you unless you take Sarah back. Because this is how serious this is.”

Second, God has already made him and his household unable to produce any children. We find that out all the way in verse 18. It says, the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech. So not only was he personally a dead man, but he was not going to have any sons or daughters. His dynasty, so to speak, would be completely cut off right here because he’d be unable to have any children.

So Abimelech responds. The author tells us Abimelech had not approached her so he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people?”

Now, why does he say, “Will you kill an innocent people?”

God is only saying he’s gonna kill Abimelech. But think about it, if the king doesn’t have any offspring, then there’s a power vacuum created. And now multiple people are gonna try and seize power for this throne, creating potential civil war, creating all sorts of issues that we’ve seen played out over and over again throughout history when a king dies without any children.

So that’s what he’s saying. He’s saying, “God, you’re not going to just kill me, you’re going to kill my entire people if you do this.”

Now this is interesting because this is a very similar thing to what Abraham prayed in chapter 18 when he was interceding for Sodom. He said, “Lord, are you gonna kill righteous people and innocent people that live in this city? Is that really what you wanna do?”

Abimelech is appealing to God’s nature just like Abraham appealed to God’s nature. Abimelech appealed to God’s character just like Abraham appealed to God’s character.

So Abimelech goes on to say, “In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” 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.”

So God here is protecting the integrity of the promised seed. Abimelech says, “I did this out of the integrity and innocence of my heart.”

And God says, “Yes, I know you did it out of the integrity of your heart. So I’m going to protect the integrity of this child that’s coming and not allow you to touch her.”

So Abimelech himself here admits that he has not slept with Sarah, he’s not even touched her, and so the integrity of that child, the lineage of that child is still protected and unquestioned. So we can let out a big sigh of relief, is what this is saying. We can say, “Okay, the child’s okay, still gonna be Abraham’s child.”

So God says, “Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live.”

So even though Abraham had sinned here, he had also proven himself an intercessor in chapter 18. So Abraham’s not perfect, but he is understanding of God’s heart. And not only is he an intercessor, but now he’s given the responsibility of a prophet in this verse. So he’s a prophet and he’s an intercessor. Not only for his own people, not only for people that he’s connected to, but now he’s a prophet and an intercessor for other nations. He has interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah and now Gerar.

This is a down payment of the promise that he was given, that he would bless the nations. That’s exactly what he’s doing here. He’s praying and he’s interceding for these nations. They’re small nations compared to now, they’re nations in those days. And he’s praying for them and he’s blessing them. He’s praying for blessing. He’s praying for mercy in all of these cases. He’s praying for mercy on Sodom and Gomorrah. He’s praying for mercy on Abimelech of Gerar.

Now think that we as followers of Jesus are now brought into that covenant that God made with Abraham to bless the nations. Now what does that role look like? What does that role look like in light of what Abraham has done to bless other nations?

We’re called to pray for them. We’re called to intercede for them. We should always be thinking of other nations when we’re praying and when we’re in our prayer time or in our corporate prayer time, our individual prayer time. It doesn’t need to be the only thing that we pray for, but we should not forget to pray for other nations, not just our own because it’s our responsibility to be a prophetic voice and to intercede for other nations and call them to repent and turn to the Lord. That’s the prophetic piece. And to cry out for mercy. That’s the intercessor piece. It’s our responsibility. We shouldn’t take that lightly.

So in verse 9, Abimelech called Abraham. He brought Abraham to his courts and he actually confronted Abraham and he rebuked Abraham. Just because God told Abimelech, “I’m going to kill you unless you give Sarah back,” doesn’t mean that Abimelek wasn’t rightfully angry. He was very upset with Abraham and he brought him into his court and accused Abraham of doing injustice and his accusations were not, they weren’t false, they were true.

He didn’t tone down his anger just to win Abraham’s favor, even though Abraham’s prayers were the key to turning back God’s judgment on his family. He didn’t walk on eggshells around Abraham just because he was worried he might make him angry and not get a blessing and not get Abraham to pray for him. No, he confronted Abraham and said, “What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you? You did to me things that should not be done.”

So Abraham responded and he said, “I did it because I thought, ‘there is no fear of God at all in this place.’” And he said, “They’re gonna kill me because of my wife.”

And this may be true. Abraham very well may have been correct about that. If God had not appeared to Abimelech, who knows what Abimelech might have done. But the problem is that’s not Abraham’s concern, or it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be Abraham’s concern because remember, God said in Genesis 15, He said, “I am your shield.” God said, “I’m the one who’s going to protect you.”

Abraham had no reason to fear because he had assurances from God that God would protect him. And he may have been afraid that Abimelech’s people would have killed him and taken Sarah but that shouldn’t have been his concern. He should have trusted God.

So he said, “There is no fear of God in this place,” but the problem is there was no fear of God in his heart. He was more concerned about the people around him not fearing God when that problem right there revealed the lack of fear in his own heart.

How many times have we taken measures to protect ourselves around people that we’ve said the same thing about. We’ve said, “These people don’t fear God. They don’t love God. So I’m going to protect myself and end up sinning while doing it.”

Taking protection into our own hands. This is exactly what Cain did. After he murdered Abel, God said, “I’m going to mark you and I’m going to protect you. You have nothing to fear. I’m going to protect you.”

And what did Cain do? He went and took matters into his own hands and he built a city to protect himself. That’s what Abraham’s doing here. We need to guard against this as well.

Then in verse 12, he makes excuses. He says, “Besides, she is indeed my sister.”

Well, yeah, that’s true. She’s his half sister. But as I mentioned last time this happened in Genesis chapter 12, a truth told with the intent to deceive is still a lie. Abraham did not say that she’s my sister because he was just making small talk. He said, “she’s my sister” in order to make Abimelech not realize that she was also his wife so that he would not kill Abraham. This is still a lie. Even though it’s a truth, the intent is to deceive.

And now it gets even worse. In verse 13, he says, “When God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do to me.’”

So now Abraham is blaming his fear on God. He’s saying, “God made me do this.”

Now, it’s true. God did tell Abraham to do this. God did tell Abraham to leave his father’s house. But by saying this, Abraham is blaming his fear on God. He’s saying, “God put me in these situations where I’m gonna fear for my life and fear for the life of my wife. So I have to protect myself because God is not protecting me.”

And in fact, that word “wander” is interesting that Abraham uses this word because it means to err or to go astray. So he’s saying, “When God caused me to go astray.”

He’s saying that instead of God providing a path for him and guiding him down that path, he’s saying that God made him go astray. Abraham is completely engaging in revisionist history here.

So in verse 15, Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you.”

It’s the same thing that Abraham said to Lot when Abraham and Lot were quarreling. Now Abimelech and Abraham are quarreling and Abimelech says the same thing. “Behold, my land is before you. Dwell where it pleases you.” Just like Lot did. And just like Abraham, Abimelech is the king here.

He could have said, “Look, I’m going to put you over here in this land.” But he allows Abraham to take the choice.

If you remember when this happened to Abraham and Lot, Abraham had the ability to choose which land he wanted first, because he was the authority figure. He was the patriarch. He had every right to choose first and instead he gave Lot the first choice.

Now the same thing is happening here. Abimelech has every right to choose which land he could give Abraham and he’s not. He’s giving Abraham the choice. And this goes to show one more time how Abimelech in all his actions here is doing this out of integrity. He’s done nothing wrong. He’s doing this out of integrity and strong character and he’s doing the right thing in trying to make things right with Abraham.

It should be Abraham that is the one that’s showing integrity and strong character. He’s the one called by God. He’s the one who has made a covenant with God, not a pagan king. All the characters in this story are inverted from the way they should be.

That should tell us something. That should tell us that we need to be very, very careful how we deal with people, with the world, with those who don’t follow Jesus. We have the promises of God. So why should we trust in anything else? And when we trust in our own strength and our own power, things go wrong. And it’s very difficult to make things right when we haven’t shown integrity. And this is going to end up causing Abraham problems later on.

So then in verse 16, Abimelech throws in a little bit of a dig. He mocks Abraham. He says to Sarah, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver.”

He calls Abraham Sarah’s brother. He’s mocking Abraham. He didn’t call him her husband. He called him her brother, saying, “Okay, Abraham, you’re gonna say, ‘oh, it’s true that Sarah is my sister.’ That’s not a lie. Okay, all right, Sarah, here, I’ve given your brother a thousand pieces of silver.”

It shows that he’s doing this out of respect for Abraham’s God and not for Abraham himself. He does not have any respect for Abraham at this point. He’s mocking him openly in front of his court, in front of Abraham’s wife. Abimelech is doing the right thing because he has respect for Abraham’s God who appeared to him in a dream and said, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t give this woman back.”

So the good thing is, of course, that even though Abraham was afraid that there was no fear of God in this place, now there is clearly fear of God in this place. Abimelech clearly fears God. So he tells Sarah, “I’m going to give your brother a thousand pieces of silver.”

And then he says, “It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.”

So Abimelech, again, in front of everybody, makes sure that everyone recognizes that Sarah is not at fault here. He is squarely placing the blame on Abraham and Abraham only. And he just keeps saying it, keeps saying it, keeps saying it, keeps digging, keeps digging, keeps digging. He is not happy with Abraham and he makes sure everybody knows it.

But Abraham prayed to God, God healed Abimelech and healed his wife and his female slaves and opened the wombs of all his people.

So how does this point to Jesus?

Well, Abraham, as we found out in chapter 18, is the first intercessor. And now in chapter 20, we find out that that first intercessor still sins. That first intercessor still is found with sin. This is the theme. Every time we think somebody’s on the right track, they fall into sin. It’s happening over and over and over. We’re only 20 chapters in.

This points to our need for a great intercessor who’s going to fully trust in God. That’s who Jesus is. He’s our great intercessor. He’s praying for us even now, and he fully trusts God. He does not try to take his protection into his own hands.

Even the night before he died, and he’s kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he’s praying and crying out to God, and blood is dripping down his face because he’s in so much stress. And he’s saying, “If it be your will, take this cup from me.”

But he didn’t take that cup away himself. He said, “But not my will, yours be done.”

Jesus proved to be able to fully trust God where Abraham could not.

All right, so here’s some questions for reflection.

And if you haven’t yet, go ahead to the website, http://www.beyondthebasics.blog and subscribe so you can download this study guide. You can answer these questions. You can follow along and answer these questions on the study guide. There’s also going to be additional questions on that study guide that I don’t go through. It’s going to take you deeper not only into this chapter, but deeper into a lot of the themes that we’re exploring as we go through it’s going to take you around the Bible. It’s going to show you how these themes connect to the rest of scripture.

So let’s get to these questions.

First, in chapter 12, God sends a plague on Egypt when Pharaoh took Sarai as his wife. In chapter 20, God came to Abimelek in a dream and gave him a choice. Why did God give Abimelek a warning, but not Pharaoh?

Why did God require Abraham to pray for Abimelech to remove the barrenness on his family?

What can we learn from a Abimelech’s response to God and to Abraham? I gave a few thoughts about that, but meditate on that and write down some answers.

How do we respond when we are confronted about our own sin? Do we make excuses or do we humbly repent for what we’ve done?

And last, does God use unbelievers to address sin in his people? How should we respond when God does this?

Well, thanks once again for joining me for this episode. And don’t forget, after you’re done listening, go ahead and subscribe, click follow, go ahead and rate the show on whatever podcast app you’re using. I would greatly, greatly appreciate that. Help more and more people get access to this show. So go ahead and do that and join me again next episode for Genesis chapter 21. Thanks for listening.