Episode Transcript
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Turn to Genesis Chapter Twenty. We
continue our reading of God's Word in the
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book of Genesis and I will be
preaching from this chapter as well. As
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we come to Genesis Chapter Twenty,
please keep in mind that this follows the
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destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the
rescue of lot, the great evils between
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lot and his daughters. Now the
camera, so to speak, if this
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were a movie, would zoom or
pan rather over to Abraham. I returned
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to him and to his the account
of his life. Abraham has been observing
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these things, observing the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah from a distance. I'm
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literally seeing the smoke rising up from
the valley as they were destroyed. Now,
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after those events, Abraham journeys on. Remember, he is a traveler
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in a land that has been promised
to him but he does not yet possess.
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So let's continue reading of the Lord's
Servant, our father in the faith,
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Abraham, Genesis Chapter Twenty. From
there, Abraham journeying toward the territory
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of the NEGEB and lived between Kadash
and sure and he sojourned in Gerar.
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And Abraham said of his of Sarah, his wife. She is my sister.
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And Abimelech, King of Garar,
sent and took Sarah. But God
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came to Abimelech in a dream by
night and said to him, behold,
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you are a dead man because of
the woman whom you have taken, for
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she as a man's wife. Now
abimelech had not approached her. So he
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said, Lord, will you kill
an innocent people? Did he not himself
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say to me, she is my
sister? And she herself said, he
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is my brother. In the integrity
of my heart and in the innocence of
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my hands, I have done this. Then God said to him in the
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dream, yes, I know that
you have done this in the integrity of
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your heart, and it was I
who kept you from sinning against me.
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Therefore, I did not let you
touch her. Now then return the man's
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wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you
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and you shall live. But if
you do not return her, know that
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you shall surely die, you and
all who are yours. So abimelech rose
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early in the morning and called all
his servants and told them all these things,
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and the men were very much afraid. Then ablimelech called Abraham and told
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and said to him, why have
you done, or what have you done
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to us, and how have I
sinned against you that you have brought on
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me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that
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ought not to be done. And
Abimelech said to Abraham, what did you
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see that you did this thing?
Abraham said, I did it because I
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thought there is no fear of God
at all in this place and they will
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kill me because of my wife.
Besides, she is indeed my sister,
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the daughter of my father, though
not the daughter of my mother, and
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she became my wife. And when
God caused me to wander from my father's
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house, I said to her,
this is the kindness you must do to
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me. At every place to which
we come, say of me, he
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is my brother. Then Abimelech took
sheep and oxen and male servants and female
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servants and gave them to Abraham and
returned Sarah, his wife, to him.
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And Abimelech said, behold, my
land is before you. Dwell where
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it pleases you. To Sarah he
said, behold, I have given you,
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I have given your brother a thousand
pieces of silver. It is a
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sign of your innocence in the eyes
of all who are with you, and
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behold everyone, and and before you
sorry and before everyone, you are vindicated.
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Then Abraham prayed to God and God
healed Abimelech and also healed his wife
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and female slaves so that they bore
children, for the Lord had closed all
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the wombs of the House of Abimelech
because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. If
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the story sounds a little familiar,
it's because it is. Abraham has pulled
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this move before and many of the
same events have happened before. Previously.
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It was in chapter twelve in in
Egypt. It's important to think about these
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events with Sodom and Gomorrah and the
rearview mirror, so to speak. In
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Sodom and Gomorah we saw so clearly
the Lord's judgment on this city for many
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different things, but a few or
two in particular were highlighted, and that
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was for sexual perversion and for injustice, gross sins on both sides of those
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things. God had heard even the
outcry of Sodom and Gomorah's neighbors and had
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punished them. Abraham had so clearly
seen how important these things are to the
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Lord, how these there, how
how there exists in this world, we
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might say, a broader moral order
to which all are accountable, to Sodom
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and Gomorrah, Gar are Egypt,
wherever Abraham would travel the world all over,
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was accountable to these things, to
upholding the norms of society that we're
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not just normal because they were generally
accepted, but were normed by God himself.
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Justice, honor in procreation. And
what we see is that when these
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things, when people undermine these things, there is judgment from the Lord.
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Well, with those things in mind, genesis chapter twenty is a little bit
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shocking. What is Abraham doing?
What is going on here? In fact,
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Abraham, I'm sorry, Abimilech,
this foreign king who has nothing to
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do with the Covenant of Grace,
this Pagan King, seems to be the
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more moral one, doesn't he?
Abraham seems to be the one who's all
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mixed up, giving his wife over, saying she's a sister and all of
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these things. And as we reflect
on Abimilex honor and righteousness, even in
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light of Abraham's lack of honor and
righteousness, we have several things to learn.
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We've several things to learn about our
life in this world. About the
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covenant of Grace, about our relationship
with unbelievers, as we, like Abraham,
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sojourn is pilgrims in this world.
So what I'd like to do this
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evening is reflect first on abimelex actions, then Abraham's, and then draw a
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few implications from those. So first, notice what happens. Abraham comes into
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Garral Garar, and she, he
is saying publicly, and we find out
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later as well, he says even
directly to the king, she is my
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sister. The king then goes,
sends for Sir Sarah, sends for Sarah
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and verse two, and takes her
as his wife, but he does not
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know her in an intimate way.
The Lord then comes to Abimelech in a
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dream and says this. Behold,
you are a dead man because of the
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woman you have taken. Just as
a quick note for good interpretation that will
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hopefully benefit you later on. Notice
how the Lord speaks here, in this
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present tense way. You are a
dead man, and yet he's not dead
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and he doesn't die. Why does
the Lord speak this way? Well,
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it's a way of speaking prophetically.
It's a way of saying this is what
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will come upon you if, almost
as if saying you are as good as
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dead if you continue in this way, and that's in fact what the Lord
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does say. He says, but
if you do not return her or seven,
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if you do not return her,
know that you will surely die,
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you and all who are yours.
That language, you shall surely die.
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Of course, reminds us of the
language in the garden. If you disobey
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this command, you will surely die. He says to Adam and Eve.
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There is a moral order which must
be preserved, and Abimelech is not a
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preserving it, even though by accident. Nevertheless, he's not preserving it.
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Next, so first, notice abimelecs
response to what the Lord says. He
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says, Lord, will you kill
an innocent people? Did he not say
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of him himself? To me,
she is my sister. Notice what a
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notice what a BIMILEC does not do. He does not fight the Lord on
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the principle of the righteousness. He
doesn't say, what's the big deal?
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Can't I have whoever I want?
Am I not the king? Now he
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in essentially agrees with the Lord's principle
from morality here, but he says he's
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innocent in the matter because he didn't
know he was breaking the law. Second
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notice his concern is not merely for
himself. The first thing he says is,
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Lord, will you kill an innocent
people? Here's the actions of a
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good king. Why will you judge
not only me but of these people I'm
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caring for when I did not sin
against you? Notice how rightly the ABIMELIC
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appeals to the principle of justice as
well. We've seen this numerous times and
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Genesis. The Lord upholds a principle
of justice. Remember when Abraham was appealing
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for Sodom and Gomor and he said, if there are not fifty righteous people,
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ten righteous people, will you save
this city? God cares about justice
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and a BIMILEC appeals to that in
as many ways, mirroring God, he
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makes his case. He said I
did not do these things, and the
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Lord upholds what he says. The
Lord doesn't say to Abimilech you're making excuses.
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You should have known. The Lord
affirms him in his appeal. The
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Lord affirms him in the Righteous Appeal
that he makes and he says, yes,
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I know that you have done this
in the integrity of your heart.
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That's a very strong way to speak
of an unbelieving pagan king, and he's
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not speaking of that himself. The
Lord says that of this man. It
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doesn't mean that Abimelech is perfectly righteous
or that ABIMILEC has met God standard of
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perfection, but he does mean that
on this level, Abimelech has been had
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integrity in the way that we generally
mean that. He goes on to say
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that it was I who kept you
from sinning against me, this providence of
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all the wombs being closed and whatever
it was that kept Abimelech and Sarah apart.
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The Lord says, I did not
let you touch her. The Lord
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gives to him an opportunity to turn
from this potential sin, and indeed Abimelec
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does notice more righteousness and honor in
a BIMILEC. We're a good things worth
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mirroring in our own lives. When
a BIMLEC realizes that he has made a
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big mistake and is about which has
very serious consequences, what does he do?
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Does he delay? Does he make
excuses? No, in Verse Eight,
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it says he arises early in the
morning. He deals with this right
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away. He has a dream.
God speaks to him. Let's let's get
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to work, he rises, earn
their money, he calls his servants.
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They're afraid, they call Abraham and
he meets with them. He deals with
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this right away. He Nips it
in the bud, so to speak.
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Then notice what Abimelec says to Abraham. He says, what have you done
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to us? How have I sinned
against you? And again, notice he's
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appealing to justice. You know I
have not done anything to you. Why
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are you doing this to me in
this way? Then also know what he
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says. Notice what he says to
Abraham, very importantly, right before verse
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ten. He says you have done
to me things that ought not to be
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done. Notice what a mimilect does. He appeals to God's universal moral older
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and he says, Hey, man, everybody knows this is way out of
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line. Everybody knows this. This
is natural law, this is known to
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us all. You just don't do
this. This is a phrase that is
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used in other parts of scripture and
a concept that appears in other parts of
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scripture. The beginning of Romans,
for example, God says that everybody's accountable
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to God. There's basic principles in
this world that people know they need to
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follow. It doesn't matter that they've
ever, never come into contact with the
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Bible, it doesn't matter if they've
never met and Abraham before or come into
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contact with the Covenant of Grace,
because we are all built in the image
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of God, made in his image. We share this common humanity because of
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him. We owe him obedience,
we owe him, we owe him,
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we owe to him to uphold the
norms that he is set in place,
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norms that he's established even in the
covenant with Noah, norms involving relationships between
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men, justice, norms regarding sex
and procreation, even the animals and the
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relationship between man and animals. All
these things just normal human behavior and everybody
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gets this. So Abraham, what's
going on? He was undermining basic moral
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decency, basic moral order. The
even unbelievers understand. In some ways,
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this reminds us. This goes all
the way back to before God's established his
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covenant with Noah. You may remember, in Genesis six, two and four,
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there's this strange verse that's been interpreted
various ways about the sons of God.
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Oh, let me read it to
you actually, since we're so close.
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There the sons of God taking the
daughters of men. I'm genesis chapter
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six. This is right before the
flood, even kind of the occasion of
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the flood, when man began to
multiply on the face of the land and
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daughters were born to them. The
Sons of God saw that the daughters of
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man were attractive and they took as
their wives any they chose, and this
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results and greater evil, and then
you can skim down and you see very
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quickly after that the flood. A
lot of interpreters have asked you what is
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going on here. I think most
likely the sons of God refer to Kings,
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kings with great authority, taking women
as they please, grabbing women,
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grabbing them, taking them as their
personal possession, doing with them as they
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want, which of course undermines basic
family relationships, basic justice, basic principles
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about law and order and sexual ethics
and all these things. These are the
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sin that precipitated the flood. It
was the sin and Sodom and Gomorrah.
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It's the sin here that's now being
highlighted again, and a Billik saying I'm
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innocent, I didn't just go take
some lady. You said she's my sister.
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I'm not committing of those sins.
These things ought not to be done.
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Then notice what he says after this. He allows Abraham to defend himself
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in verse ten and a Bimlich said
to Abraham, what did you see that
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you did this thing? Abraham said, I did it because I thought there
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was no fear of God in this
place. Will come to his reaction in
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a moment. But no us.
After all of this, what is Abimelech
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do? Amazing. He takes sheep
and Oxen, male servants and female servants,
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gives them to Abraham and return Sarah's
wife to him. You'd almost think
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that returning Sarah would be enough.
Right, he took his wife, sorry,
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give her back, but he goes
much further. He goes above and
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beyond to make sure that in the
eyes of all he was innocent. Here
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he gives the Abraham sheep and oxen, male servants, female servants. He
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treats this sojourner in his land almost
as an equal. Notice the contrast,
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by the way, between again Sodom
and Gomorrah and lot. Remember that when
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they were pressing in on lots house, they they said to hear. Why
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are you here, you foreigner?
You don't belong here. What gives you
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a right to judge us that those
principles of justice and hospitality and again,
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basic moral order and decency being ground
into dust. They're here. We see
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them highlighted. Abimelech doesn't treat Abraham
like the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah treated
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lot. Instead, he raises him
up and he says, here, let
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me give to you, take what
land you want. And to Sarah he
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we read that he gives. He
gives to this, to your brother,
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a thousand pieces of silver, that
it would be assigned to everyone, that
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he was vindicated, he she was
vindicated. He upholds a her honor as
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well. Does Abraham deserve any of
this? Not, doesn't seem to any
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way, all of these great things
Abimilech does. He hears the word of
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the Lord, he'll bays the word
of the Lord. He Bays it quickly,
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you'll bays it righteously, and indeed
he saves himself and his city through
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those righteous actions. So bimile it
gets two thumbs up. Also, look
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at Abraham. Abraham goes, of
course, into this situation and he lies.
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It's true that Abraham is his sister, but he doesn't mean it in
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the way that he says it.
or He, whatever that is. He
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is purposefully deceiving, certainly not to
protect Sarah, but himself, mind you,
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a little bit of a lot,
tossing his daughters out to the crowds
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of the mob. You do this
thing for me, Sirah. You tell
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people you're my sister. So this
is what he says. Also, notice
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that we have, interestingly, in
versus nine and ten. This is not
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my observation, observation of a commentator, this interesting phrase. Verse Nine.
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Then a Bimileik called Abraham and said
to him, what have you done to
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us and how I sinned against you
that you have brought on me and my
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Kingdom of great sin. You've done
these things that they ought not to be
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done. Firs ten, and a
Bimilek said to Abraham, what did you
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see that you bring this thing?
One commentator I read, I mentioned this
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is this is interesting. That why
this phrase? Two Times? A bimilet
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called Abraham and said a bimilet called
Abraham. Why not just start the speech
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and continue it all the way through? Why does it insert again in Bamileca
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is speaking? One possibility is that
he asks Abraham this question and he's not
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getting anything back. He says.
They Abraham, what is this thing you
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have done? Why have you done
this to me? And Abraham just stands
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there because he doesn't have anything to
say. He doesn't any defensor himself,
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so he presses him further. What
did you see that you saw this thing?
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And then we come to another sin
of Abraham. Here he says,
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I did this because I thought there
is no fear of God at all in
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this place. At the very least
Abraham misjudges, because clearly the fear of
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God is in this place. So
the very least Abraham gets it wrong.
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Worst case scenario, he knew it
and then he lied. But either way
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Abraham doesn't do what he's supposed to
do. We're not supposed to just judge
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people like this and sort of call
our neighbors a Sodom and Gomorrah when they're
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not Sodom and go mora. Yeah, no fear of God, they were
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going to do whatever they wanted to
do, no matter what. Gar are
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different story. Not every place in
this world is the same. God extends
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his common grace all the time and
we are blessed to be able to experience
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this day in and day out.
Christians have the opportunity to live in peace
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and even prosperity all the world over. Garre would have been one of these
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places. It obviously was, even
despite Abraham Sins, this king is responding
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to the Lord of the Lord and
blessing and protecting Abraham, even though he
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doesn't really seem to deserve it all
that much. Abraham totally misjudged. That
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imputes to these people something that they
did not deserve. The fear of God,
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by the way, as a phrase
that is most often in the scripture,
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distinguished from what we might read as
the fear of the Lord or the
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fear of Yahway, the fear of
God is a phrase that not always,
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but is most often used as a
way to describe a general sense. There
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is a greater authority, a greater
accountability in people's lives, and you know
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this, perhaps from your own neighbors
don't steal from you, who treat you
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with respect, who you might even
trust to watch your house while you're away,
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or something like that. Why?
Well, maybe they're not Christians,
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but they have a sense of right
and wrong, they treat people with integrity
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and honesty. There's a sense in
which they fear God. They have a
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sense of justice and right and wrong, and they follow these principles. This
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is what those midwives did, by
the way, in Egypt, those likely
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Egyptian midwives serving those Hebrews, when
hit Pharaoh went to annihilate all of these
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babies. These midwives, the scriptures
say, feared God and they disobeyed.
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Also in Egypt, Joseph is,
when he says to his brothers, pretending
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to be a pagan king, says, don't worry, I fear God.
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The AMALEKITES, for their war crimes, are condemned for not fearing God,
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for going against again basic moral order. What Abraham is saying here is like
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this is a I thought that this
would be a lawless place, no fear
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of God in this place, a
godless, godless place. Of course he
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was wrong about that. They were
basically decent people, as we see,
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not perfect, as we see in
other parts of scripture, which will get
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to, or I'll just mention one
now. The King of BIMILECH basically fall
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or falls into this same exact thing
with Isaac and Rebecca later on, a
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little weird. There are other examples. There's a problem with a well later
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on and his servants that this king
is not a perfect king, as servants
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are not a perfect people, but
generally it sounds like a pretty good place
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to live, thanks be to God. Finally, in thinking about Abraham's actions
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here, notice what he says.
He says, I did this because I
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thought there was no fear of God
at all in this place and they will
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kill me because of my wife.
Again we've pointed out that he's giving up
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his wife to abuse and danger,
which is wrong thing to do. And
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then notice what he says here.
He gives this like kind of this lame
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excuse. This half it's a truth, but it's deceptive, right, he
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says, he says she is indeed
my sister, the daughter of my father,
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though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.
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so He's explaining himself. But again
he never meant it in that way when
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he says she's my sister. What's
his intention? To hide the fact that
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she's his wife. All right,
so him explaining the she's actually his sister
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does not undo the damage, because
he hid that she was his wife.
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That's the point. So again we've
got some like manipulation going on, him
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trying to wiggle out of this,
and then he says, and when God
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caused me to wander from my father's
house, not the most positive way to
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put the covenant of Grace with which
he's been blessed. I said to her,
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this kindness you mean to do me? Every place to which we come
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say of me. He is my
brother, Abraham. What are you expecting
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from your wife, to go to
every king and every place and be taken
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by these foreign men? This is
awful and really a very embarrassing excuse.
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So this is these are Abraham's actions. What do we make of all of
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this? There are many, many, many, many lessons that we can
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learn from here, but let me
let me draw a few conclusions. Here's
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one. We ought to praise God
every day for his preservation of this world.
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Thank God for that covenant he made
with Noah, that justice would be
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established in this world, that people
would know right from wrong, even though
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they don't always follow it perfectly.
Even though there's a lot of wickedness in
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this world. Though man is totally
depraved, that doesn't mean he's as bad
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as he could be, and that's
because of exactly what we see here.
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In Genesis Twenty, God kept a
Bimlec from sinning there are so many ways
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in which God does this. It
is worth your time to reflect on that
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and to give God praise for the
peace that we have in this world,
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in our city, in our country, to be able to have allegiance to
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a heavenly city, a greater kingdom, the greatest God, to be willing
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to follow him and disobey even the
laws of our own country, if they
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are to class with the king and
our Lord, and yet to be welcomed
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by fellow citizens. It's true,
it's not perfect, it's true it doesn't
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always go that way, but by
and large, at least for this group
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of people here, we have a
lot, a lot to be thankful for,
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to our brothers and sisters, and
this world, also made in God's
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image, though not a part of
his heavenly family, and of course,
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chiefly to God himself, who makes
all of these things right. God preserves
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us, God upholds us. Another
thing we can learn here is that,
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in the same way that God withholds
sin, even an unbelieving people, he
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upholds righteousness, a righteousness that we
can learn even from our neighbors, though
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there are people in this world that
are many people that are not this Christians.
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It doesn't mean that in certain ways
they can even exceed us in righteousness,
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as Abimilech exceeds Abraham here. One
of the chief sins in Sodom and
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go Mora was the sin of pride. They were going to do no matter
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what, and one of the chief
virtues that we see here in Garre is
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that of humility. We would be
right to exercise that kind of humility and
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that, when we see integrity and
a measure of righteousness and goodness and morality
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in the world, to recognize it, to call it as such, to
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be thankful for it. And so
there might be unbelievers in your life that
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far outside, a far out,
pass you in basic outward morality, and
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you can learn from them, you
can pay attention from them and thank God
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for that. We should have humility
about this and be and also be humble
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and not misjudging other people when God
has blessed them with good gifts. Another
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lesson I think we can learn from
this is that we bless others, we
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bless those who stand outside the covenants
of promise, not because of our superior
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obedience, but because of our testimony
to God's grace. Because notice what happens
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in the rest of the story.
Abraham then prays to God, and God
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heals Abimelech and also his wife his
female slaves, so that they bore children.
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Why did God answer this prayer?
Was it because Abraham was morally superior
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to ABIMILEC? No, it was
because Abraham was close to God. And
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why is Abraham close to God?
Because he's morally superior? No, because
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of God's grace. Remember how Abraham
was initially called all of the same kind
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of world in which ABIMILEC was living, out of idolatry, out of paganism,
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so that he could worship the one
true God. Why did he do
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that? How did he do that? Because of His grace. Abraham is
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a child of grace. He belongs
to God because of grace, and that's
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the testimony he gives to Abimilec when
he prays for him and when God blesses
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him through this man. When we
bless our neighbors, the real blessing that
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we give to them is not because
we stand on some kind of morally superior
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ground, but because we know the
Lord who blesses people even though they sin.
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We know the Lord because he knows
us, and we can go to
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people and give them that grace.
We can show them what it means to
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be blessed by the Lord, to
receive grace as those who have been blessed
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by him. We can also bless
them and showing that, while it's good
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to fear God, it's even better
to fear you ah way, and I
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don't mean to say that that God
is not Yah way or something like that.
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They are the one in the same. But it's one thing to know
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God is just a higher spiritual power
that rules over us and will judge us.
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It's another thing to know him through
the Cross of Christ, through the
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son of promise. It's another thing
to know him as the one who has
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forgiven us of our sins, to
know that we won't have just a measure
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of life in this world if we're
moderately obedient to the principles of this world,
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but that we will have everlasting life, forever and ever blessed in the
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Lord, even though we have not
been obedient in the world. That's what
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Abraham can testify to and that's what
we can testify to as well. Abraham's
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greatness, Abraham's blessing that he will
bestow upon the nation's even as he gives
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it here to Abimelec, is not
because he is more moral than a Bimelec.
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It's because he knows the God of
grace and can testify to that and
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can say to him, believe and
trust in him and you will be saved.
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Finally, as those who have that
testimony of grace, as those who
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have been blessed by the Lord of
Righteousness, we ought to be careful not
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to undermine that testimony by acting in
immoral ways. We not took not to.
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We should never look at our position
in the Covenant of Grace and say,
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well then, I guess I can
do whatever I want, because that
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undermines that testimony and underminds the promise
it. It points to a different kind
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of world, in a different kind
of life, a life that we've turned
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away from. Instead, even as
we honor God's grace in this world,
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his common grace, we should testify
to that special that grace that he is
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given to us by seeking to bear
its fruit in our lives, by willing
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to do the right thing even when
we might fear our lives, by doing
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the right thing even when we are
embarrassed. To do the right thing no
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matter what, because we serve the
Lord, the Lord who has saved us,
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the Lord who is righteous, and
that is his desire for our lives,
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to train us in these things and
to walk in these things. As
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I conclude, I just want to
say that one of the great blessings that
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the Lord gives to us, in
addition to forgiveness of our sins, forgiveness
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like this, is he puts into
our hearts a desire to live this kind
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of life, a desire to live
for his righteousness, that isn't merely a
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concerned with externals and getting things right
in the externals of this world, but
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truly desires to please him. That
happens because he actually changes our hearts and
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he changes our lives. So let
us approach God in that way. Let's
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seek him according to his promises,
according to His grace, and as we
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go and we treat our neighbors,
let us keep God still in mind and
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trust him to preserve us in this
world, even as he pours His grace
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out on even unbelievers
