Genesis 20 – February 14

This Valentine’s Day our focus of attention is on one of the least romantic events in Abraham’s life (or any Biblical character’s life for that matter). Out of fear, this great man of God once again lied and claimed that his wife was his sister. There are two main things that I want you to notice in this chapter. 

Abraham’s Deception

Abraham once again determined that it would be convenient to simply claim that Sarah was his sister. We do find out in his self-defense to Abimelech that Sarah is biologically his half-sister. This is a strange and uncomfortable concept for us, but in those days marriage of this sort was fairly common. In his mind, Abraham thought that he could justify his dishonesty because there was a small piece of truth in there somewhere. You can almost hear the overpowering sarcasm in Abimelech’s voice when he says to Sarah at the end of this ordeal, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver.” (vs. 16) The reality is that if you alter the truth even slightly, it is no longer truth. A partial truth is entirely a lie. 1 Peter 2:1 tells us to rid ourselves of all deceit. Later in that same chapter, we find this description of Jesus. “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” Jesus never distorted reality, twisted the truth, or sought to warp people’s perceptions. Our King who has gone before us has not only shown us how to live an honest life but also died for all of the times we have deceived others. His grace towards deceivers like Abraham (and all of us) should propel us to put away all forms of dishonesty as we seek to serve Him.

God’s Hand of Restraint

God appeared to Abimelech in a dream and mercifully warned him to stay away from Sarah and to return her to Abraham. This is such an interesting conversation between this powerful man and the All-Powerful God. Notice that God begins by explaining that sinning against Abraham in this way would result in the death penalty. We also later learn in verse 18 that all of the women that were part of Abimelech’s household were unable to conceive during the time that Sarah was with them.

However, the most interesting aspect of God’s involvement with Abimelech, at least from my vantage point, is that the Lord says, “it was I who kept you from sinning against me.” This means that apart from Abimelech’s awareness or permission, the Lord had stepped in and graciously prevented him from unknowingly committing a grave sin. How did God do that? The answer is not perfectly clear from the text. All we know for certain is that something occurred, whether physical, emotional, or circumstantial, that prevented Abimelech from consummating a marriage with Sarah. We do have a little hint in verse 17 that “God healed Abimelech,” indicating that there was probably some form of physical malady involved.

Regardless of ‘how,’ the more important question is ‘why?’ There are many possible answers to that question. We know with certainty that the Lord was going to produce an heir through Abraham, so this protective act by God was preserving the covenant. But, on a broader level, God does this kind of thing in the lives of unbelievers all the time. This is part of the doctrine that theologians call ‘common grace.’ Simply put, God places His hand of restraint over the lives of both believers and unbelievers to keep them from spiraling into unrestrained evil. As we see in Abimelech’s case, this kind of restraint is a mercy from God. Romans 1 displays the process by which God will slowly remove His hand of restraint as people suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Consider your own life. Perhaps you can look back and see the gracious hand of God as He protected you, even before you knew Him. I believe that in eternity we will have the opportunity to look back over our lives and see how the invisible hand of God was ceaselessly guarding and guiding our lives from the cradle to the grave.