Good morning and welcome to another workweek. I trust your weekend was full, fruitful and fun. Marge and I had a great day yesterday, up early to teach at our home church, Southcliff, and then immediately across town to another sister church to assist in a training. Since we had to drive to Dallas and needed the travel time we got there early and worshipped with them. You know, it’s always great to get out and experience different churches from time to time. Now I’m not talking about going to a different church every week, that’s not good at all in my estimation. We’re called by Christ to be a contributing part of a “local” body of believers, that doesn’t mean that you float around to a bunch of churches and never plug in. But when you do have the opportunity to worship at a sister church seize it! Marge and I love to worship on vacation, and we’ll be doing that on our trip down to Cozumel in August. (I might need to brush up on my Spanish!) In fact, it was just that “vacation worship” that lead us to LBC in Maui! The point? If God rules your heart you will be eager to worship Him wherever you are at. Never miss an opportunity to praise your Heavenly Father!
Today is sort of an odd chapter in Genesis. As I read it this morning, I just sort of sat and scratched my head. It seemed out of place and even the story is a repeat. I wondered if we were still maintaining chronological order here in Genesis. But all of God’s Word is essential and it had to be to make the final cut, right? In fact, have you ever thought about God’s selection process in what to include in His Word? I mean the Bible should be about 1 million pages, right? We’re a pretty dense, hard headed people and we need the additional instruction don’t we? But God only gave us what He gave us, so rest assured to make the final cut, everything that is in here is crucial. So, let’s dig deeper into chapter 20 and discover a few of the reasons God has it here for us.
We see in the chapter that after Sodom and Gomorrah is destroyed Abraham wanders very far South and ends up in a foreign land he is unfamiliar with, Gerar. He was fearful of the people and what they would do to him and if they would take Sarah, so he goes back to his same old bag of tricks and instructs Sarah to tell everybody that they are brother and sister. Now recall Abraham had already pulled this in Genesis chapter 12:10-20. Abraham doubts the Lord’s protection for He and Sarah and he takes the impetus upon himself to protect them. The only problem? It required a little, tiny, small, insignificant, minor lie. That little lie had big implications back in Genesis 12 to all involved and this time it is no different.
So, the king of Gerar, Abimelech, does indeed see that Sarah is very beautiful and takes her into his palace as a concubine. Now at this time recall that Sarah is 89, she must have still been quite a looker at 89! As soon as this happens the Lord steps in and does what He does, protects His own. God comes to Abimelech in a dream and tells him he’s going to die for what he’s done. We also see that God has closed up the wombs of Abimelech’s wives and servants so no one can have kids as long as he holds onto Sarah. He pleads innocence to the Lord and drags Abraham into the throne room to see what’s really going on. Abraham comes clean and divulges the white lie. You see Sarah technically is his sister…half-sister. They had the same father but different mothers. Oh yeah, and he forgot to mention they are married. Ooops, sometimes we can conveniently omit or rearrange facts to meet our needs, can’t we? Abimelech had never touched Sarah so he releases her immediately along with sheep, oxen, male and female slaves, 1000 pieces of silver and also some free land. Abraham’s lie unintentionally cost Abimelech a small fortune.
But what did it cost Abraham? Anything? Oh, it cost him alright. You see as long as we are living with sin, God’s blessings will not fully materialize. You remember God’s promise to bring them a son, Isaac? Where is he? God’s not bringing him into this mess. Not until Abraham, admits his sin (Gen 20:17) and gets right with God, which he does. So guess what happens in the NEXT verse that opens up chapter 21? You guessed it, the Lord visits Sarah and she conceives Isaac. Folks, there is no coincidence in God’s Word, the timing here is amazing. When we make a practice of sinning against God it will have implications. This was Abraham’s second time to sin against God in the same way by lying about Sarah’s relationship and he had to admit, repent and get right with God.
But what strikes me about this story is the power of a lie and the ripple effects it has. But to be really damaging it has to be a big, harsh, nasty, vicious lie right? Nope. Well then it has to be a “medium” lie that seems “somewhat harsh” right? Nope. But surely a little white lie to protect myself or someone else used properly will be OK right? After this story you should know the answer to this even as much as you might not like it. The answer is nope, no way, nada. A little lie has the same damaging effects as a big lie. A small lie hurts and costs as much as massive one.
Abraham’s failure to clarify sister from stepsister seems rather minuscule doesn’t it? Well look what it cost everyone involved:
1) A delay of God’s blessing to Abraham and Sarah in their son Isaac
2) A separation of Abraham and Sarah as she is taken into the palace to live away from her husband
3) It cost Abraham peace as he had to admit His sin to God, Abimelech and Sarah and ask forgiveness
3) It cost Abimelech peace as the Lord visits Him and threatens to kill him if he keeps Sarah
4) It costs Abimelech’s wives and servants as they are not able to be blessed with children
5) It cost Abimelech greatly financially, 1000 pieces of silver, sheep, oxen, male servants, female servants and land
All of this because Abraham feared for His own protection, doubted God and told a little white lie. Folks there is no classification of lies. There is no hierarchy of lies that hold their own individual levels of damage. It is but one class and the damage this class causes is the same, great. A lie is a lie and they will all cause great damage as we sin against God and others. It’s quite ironic that satan “lies to us about lies.” Satan whispers, “small ones are ok, they really don’t hurt anybody and if they somehow help you out in the process, then they can’t be that bad right?” Don’t believe the lies of satan, know that lies are against God and against others and they all cause great damage, great harm and come at a great cost to yourself.
Stick with the truth and you can’t go wrong. I heard it said one time, “the great thing about the truth is that no matter how many times you tell it, it never changes.” So true.
Blessings for your day and your walk in the truth.
“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” John 14:6
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