GENESIS 20:1–6 – From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ 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.”
THEME OF THE DAY: THE PREVENTING GRACE OF GOD. Abimelech has every right to be terrified. Imagine wearing his shoes. He goes to bed, snuggles in for a good night’s sleep, and the Lord decides to visit him in a dream. From Abimelech’s perspective, it was a nightmare! God appears saying, “Abimelech, you have done wrong before my eyes with Abraham’s wife. As a result, you are about to be punished by Me with your life. You are about to die.” Likely in a cold sweat and wide awake, the king pleads his case with the One who holds his life in His Hands – “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this” (Genesis 20:4-5). The response by the Lord calibrates Abimelech towards who really is behind his so-called integrity or refusal to sin with Sarah. And the response is instructional for us as well in our daily battle against sin.
For Abimelech, God reminds him it wasn’t his resolve, self-righteousness, or his self-discipline that prevented him from committing adultery with Sarah. The Lord does affirm him in his efforts but ultimately it was the preventing grace of God that kept him from sinning – 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 (Genesis 20:6).
For us? In our battle against sin there is a dual application. We are responsible to fight. Numerous times we find the scripture exhorting us to “put off and put on.” For instance, the Apostle Paul’s instruction to the Ephesian believers – But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:20-24). Yet, we also are totally dependent upon the preventing grace of God keeping us from sin and the empowering grace of God to resist and overcome sin. Again from the Apostle Paul we find this seemingly paradoxical truth in the Christian life modeled by him – But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me (1 Corinthians 15:10). And this is God’s design to keep us from doing what Abimelech attempted – to not only defend himself but boast of himself in his restraint against sin. Always remember where our boasting is – And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).
PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for Your grace that not only forgives but protects me.”
QUOTE: “Salvation from start to finish is all of God’s grace and so is our war against sin.”
Because of Him,
Pastor Jim