How Can I Know that God Will Be Faithful?

A Feeble Man and a Faithful God

This morning we’re going to open our Bibles once again, to the first book of the Bible – the book of Genesis. Over the past couple months, I’ve been leading us through a sermon series that looks at the life of a significant man from history, named Abraham. We’ve seen how God initiated a special relationship with Abraham and his household – a relationship called a covenant. God is faithful to Abraham, and has promised a variety of different blessings to him. And as we saw last week, those promises have included the promise that Abraham and Sarah, in their old age, will have a son together, named Isaac.

This morning, you may notice, I’m skipping from Genesis 18, verse 15 to Genesis 20, verse 1. I want to make it very clear here – I’m not avoiding that section of text, dealing with Abraham’s nephew Lot, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I’m going to go back later and preach on that text in a few weeks. But there are two reasons why I’m jumping ahead here to Genesis 20.

The first reason is because I want to be on track to preach from Genesis 22 on Easter Sunday. If it’s not clear to you right now why that is, that’s fine. Just come back on Easter Sunday and it’ll make sense. But the second reason why I’m jumping to Genesis 20 is because it keeps our focus on the unfolding of God’s promise concerning Isaac. In Genesis 20, we see what Abraham and Sarah do, almost immediately after God gave them the promise of a son in Genesis 17 and 18.

So if you haven’t already, turn with me to Genesis, Chapter 20. If you’re using one of our church Bibles, you can find our text on the bottom of page 13. I’ll be reading from Genesis, Chapter 20, starting at verse 1. But before we get started, please pray with me, and I’ll ask for God’s help:

[Pray and Read Text]

A Persistent God with Faithful Promises

Sometimes, when Taylor and I have told the kids we’re going on a fun little trip somewhere – to the discovery museum, or a park or something – it’s surprisingly difficult to actually make it out of the house. The baby suddenly needs a diaper change. Another child is wandering the house at the last minute, distressed because a water bottle has gone missing. Someone else is running back in to use the bathroom. Another child has gone out to the car without a coat, and needs to come back in to get properly dressed for the weather. At times it almost seems like a number of the kids have formed a conspiracy, to do everything they can to disrupt our plan.

But even though it can sometimes feel like we’re herding cats, Taylor and I push through it and do what we can to deliver on the promise of a pleasant trip. Even in our imperfect, often impatient ways of dealing with our kids, we want to bring them the good things we’ve planned out.

And in our text this morning, God shows an even greater patience and commitment to follow through on the promises that he’s made to Abraham and Sarah. We’ll see this played out as we work through the text this morning, which I want to break down under four headings.

First, in verses 1 and 2, we’ll see Abraham’s repeated failure. Second, in verses 3 through 7, we’ll see God’s remarkable faithfulness. Third, in verses 8 through 13, we’ll see Abimelech’s righteous fear. Then, fourth and finally, the remainder of the text describes the restored futures of those involved in all these events. So these will be my four points: Repeated failure, Remarkable Faithfulness, Righteous Fear, and Restored Futures.

(Abraham’s) Repeated Failure

Let’s first consider Abraham’s repeated failure. Verse 1 says, “From there, Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb (that was a desert wilderness in the Southern part of Canaan), and [he] lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. [Verse 2]: And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, ‘She is my sister.’ And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah” (which his to say, he took Sarah with the intent to make her his wife).

If you’ve been tracking with us through this series on Abraham’s life, you might be experiencing some déjà vu right now. Abraham’s behavior here should seem familiar, because it is. He did something really similar a couple decades earlier, in the second half of Genesis 12. When the land of Canaan was affected by famine, Abraham temporarily moved to Egypt. But before he entered the land, in verse 11, he told Sarah, “I know that you are a beautiful woman, and when the Egyptians see you they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”

Abraham is doing the same kind of thing now in Genesis 20. He’s making a call out of the same playbook. As he comes into the land of Gerar, there’s a powerful king there, named Abimelech, which means, “Father of Kings.” And because Abraham is afraid, he backslides into some dysfunctional decision making.

But at this point in Abraham’s life, he has even less reason to think that this is a good idea than he did when he tried it the first time. For one thing, he has the hindsight, now, to understand the problems it caused while he was in Egypt. Back in Genesis 12, we saw that when Abraham went through on this plan, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, ended up taking Sarah to make her his wife. And it made a complicated mess for Abraham, to get out of Egypt with his wife and to go back to the Promised Land. God had to intervene in a significant way to get Abraham out of his dilemma.

You’d expect Abraham to be older and wiser by now. But he makes the same bad decision. You’ve probably heard before that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.” Well, that’s Abraham, here. He should have anticipated that this kind of decision would put Sarah in a compromised position. He should have been watching out for his wife, and not just for himself.

But what makes Abraham’s plan even worse, here, is that it shows some level of disregard for God’s promised gift of a son. Remember, God had just recently promised, just a couple weeks or months earlier, that he’s going to give Abraham and Sarah a son together. And yet Abraham here foolishly tests God’s patience, and endangers the promise. When Abraham enters Gerar, and claims that Sarah is his sister – what happens? Abimelech, the king of Gerar, takes Sarah into his household, to be his wife.

As a sidenote here – it may seem strange that Abimelech has this level of interest in a 90-year-old woman who’s past her prime. But there are a few simple reasons why it’s not as strange as you might think. For one thing, you have to remember what I said last week – even though Sarah was 90 years old, Genesis suggests that people long ago had better genetics and used to age more slowly. She likely had a bit more energy and vitality than the average 90-year-old today. For another thing, it’s quite possible that Abimelech was a bit advanced in years himself. Based on his age, it’s possible that his interest in Sarah would have made a great deal of sense. But the third thing to point out here, is that in those days it wasn’t uncommon for a king to marry the family members of other powerful people in order to form something of a marriage alliance. Since Abraham was quite wealthy, and had a lot of servants, and probably seemed rather powerful, Abimelech might have been motivated to form a marriage alliance with Abraham, to give further security to his kingdom.

In any case, Sarah has been taken away into another man’s house. We see repeated failure in the way Abraham lived out his faith. And we’re left wondering: how is God going to keep his promise now? We’re even left with the question: why would God even want to keep the promise? Does Abraham even care about it? It really doesn’t make sense that God would keep putting up with Abraham’s repeated mistakes.

And friends, you and I are in the same boat with Abraham. It’s hard to admit it – but many of you know it’s true. Because we find ourselves repeating the same old mistakes, as well, don’t we? – mistakes that sabotage God’s work in our lives. You might continue to speak to your wife or children with a self-centered heart attitude and a harsh tone of voice. Or maybe you keep looking at shameful, explicit images online, and you fill your mind with twisted thoughts instead of setting your mind on Christ. You might continue to think bitter thoughts about a certain person, instead of forgiving. Perhaps you complain day in and day out, and approach life with a critical spirit, instead of giving thanks to God and practicing contentment. The ways that we repeatedly fail are numerous. After climbing out of the mud, it’s all to easy for us to slide right back in.

So it’s natural that we would ask the question – after all my mistakes, after all my repeated failures, will God still put up with me?

(God’s) Remarkable Faithfulness (8 min)

Well, in the next section of the text, we see encouraging evidence that God doesn’t give up on us. He doesn’t give up on his people. This brings me to my next point, concerning God’s remarkable faithfulness.

God is Faithful to Abraham

In verses 3 through 7, we see God’s remarkable faithfulness to Abraham. When you look through the text, here, you’ll notice that we don’t read anything about Abraham showing signs of regret. He doesn’t pray to God, to confess his foolishness, and to ask for God’s intervention. Abraham doesn’t even seem to understand the senselessness of what he’s just done.

But even though Abraham has just wronged God again, with the same foolish mistake – even before Abraham comes to his senses – God remains committed to Abraham. He’s faithful in the way he steadfastly seeks to do good to Abraham. The LORD essentially swoops in to save the day, and to make sure that Abraham receives the blessing that was promised. And the intense way that God speaks to Abimelech in verse 3 shows just how serious He is about getting Abraham and Sarah back together, to give them a son: “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.” God functionally issues a death threat. He’s so committed to carrying out this promise, and giving Abraham and Sarah a son – he’s not going to let anyone get in the way of it.

Fortunately for Abimelech, we see in verse 4 that, “Abimelech had not approached her.” There had been no consummation of his marriage to Sarah. And this, again, God shows his faithfulness to Abraham here, in that he steps in before Abimelech has a chance to come together with Sarah. Because the LORD wants to make sure it’s abundantly clear, to Abraham and to everyone else, that the baby that’s about to come is Abraham’s baby, and not Abimelech’s baby.

That being said, the text doesn’t tell us whether or not Abimelech was familiar with Abraham’s God up to this point. What we do see here, as you you’d expect, is that he’s quite shaken by this word of warning, and he says, “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.”

And God responds in verse 6, “Yes, I know that you have one 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. Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”

And so it is, God intervenes on Abraham’s behalf. He presses Abimelech to give Sarah back to her rightful husband. God remains remarkably faithful, even in spite of Abraham’s tomfoolery.

God is Faithful to Himself

But I think it’s important to point out briefly why God continues to show how unwaveringly faithful he is– why he remains committed to Abraham and his welfare. Because for many of us, our faithfulness isn’t like God’s faithfulness. Our feelings of loyalty to other people often go up and down, depending on how content we are with the state of our relationship. The intensity of our commitments may change depending on our attitude and circumstances. But God’s faithfulness is different. His faithfulness isn’t a response to our deservingness. It doesn’t depend on outward situations. Instead, his faithfulness is an expression of his unchanging character. He is committed to showing his people kindness and grace, because he’s committed to who he is as a kind and gracious God.

So you could perhaps go so far as to say that God is faithful to us, because He’s faithful to himself. It may sound weird to talk about God being faithful or committed to himself. But it’s actually really good news. There’s nothing better out there for God to be faithful to. It is good news for us to hear that God isn’t fickle – that He isn’t blown about, helplessly, by mood swings, emotional impulses, and gut reactions. But instead, He consistently operates in accordance with his own sovereign goodness. He’s anchored there. He will keep his Word. And so you and I – when we hear those precious words from Romans 10:13, that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” – when we run from our wrong ways of living, to receive salvation for our souls from Jesus Christ – we are given a security unlike any other. God is faithful.

God’s faithfulness to Abraham doesn’t depend on Abraham. But God’s faithfulness to Abraham rests on His unchanging commitment to be the gracious God that He is. He’s faithful to his people to save them, because He is constant and unchanging in his faithfulness to himself.

Do Not Test God’s Faithfulness

But some people, when they hear about this remarkable faithfulness of God – there are some people who might jump to the wrong conclusion. It’s possible you might be thinking, “Well, if God is faithful to his people, even when they do obnoxious mistakes like Abraham did, then I’ll just keep doing evil things and wait for God to show up and help me.”  Do you see how people might start to think this way?

But that’s the absolute opposite conclusion that you and I are supposed to come to. God being faithful isn’t intended to drive us into greater unfaithfulness. God’s faithfulness shouldn’t encourage us to sin against him more confidently. Instead, it should impress upon us, even more, how worthy God is of our loyalty and affection. His faithfulness toward us should drive us all the more, to want to have a matching faithfulness toward him.

So don’t make plans to run off into wickedness, with the presumption that God will show up and save you out of it. Don’t test God, and his patience. Don’t trespass against God’s grace, but be trained by it, to become even more convinced of God’s goodness and trustworthiness.

(Abimelech’s) Righteous Fear

But after we see this display of God’s faithfulness to Abraham, through this vision of the night with Abimelech, the next section of the text describes Abimelech’s Righteous Fear. The righteous fear that Abimelech expresses in this passage – it has two dimensions to it. Certainly there’s an extent to which Abimelech has been frightened by God’s warning. That’s one dimension of this fear. But this righteous fear also consists of sacred respect. Abimelech has humility and a posture of faithful servitude before God, to do whatever the LORD says. It’s possible to be frightened by something, but to still hate and resist it. But Abimelech’s fear here clearly has a dimension of obedient reverence toward God.

And we see evidence of Abimelech’s fright and respect in verse 8: “So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were much afraid.” The first thing I want you to see is that the text says that Abimelech rose early in the morning. The text doesn’t tell us exactly why. But there are two possibilities. On the one hand, it could be because Abimelech was terrified and had trouble sleeping the rest of the night. On the other hand, it could be that Abimelech humbly wanted to obey God right away in the morning when he woke up. Chances are, both of these things are part of the picture.

But there’s a second thing to notice in verse 8. When Abimelech tells his servants what happened, the text says, “And the men were very much afraid.” If Abimelech had treated this dream like a joke – if he was blowing it off, if he wasn’t taking it seriously, it almost definitely would have produced a different reaction in his servants. But the fact that Abimelech’s servants were very much afraid indicates that Abimelech spoke about God’s warning with faithful earnestness, and with gravity.

And it’s only appropriate that this righteous fear – this sacred reverence toward God – would be reflected in how we speak about him, too. If we speak about God in an overly casual way – in a way that suggests that He’s something dull or trivial, that has no real bearing on how we live, then chances are, the people around us will be encouraged to think of God along those same lines. But if we speak about God with earnestness, with urgency, with passion, with fear – well, that’s going to force people to reckon with God in a totally different way.

But as we look further ahead in our text, you’ll also notice Abimelech’s right fear of God, in the way that he swiftly moves to settle things with Abraham. Verse 9: “Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, ‘What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done.’”

Now, let’s stop for a moment, and we need to give some thought to what Abimelech has just said. Abimelech is basically saying, “Abraham, I haven’t been your enemy. I haven’t done anything to hurt you. So why did you put me in such great danger by setting me up to sin greatly against God?” Abimelech recognizes that one of the worst things we could possibly do to someone is encourage them to sin. In fact, the fiercest enemy you and I have in the world – the adversary, the devil – his chief priority isn’t to lead you into pain, or poverty, or sickness, or sadness – no, his greatest desire – the thing he wants to do, to cause the greatest harm, is he wants to get us to sin against God. And Abimelech, out of his surprisingly high regard for God, he asks Abraham why did you do this to me? Why were you encouraging me to sin?

I think as Americans, we’re so individualistic in how we’re wired, we often don’t consider how criminal it is to egg people on into sin – that we would tempt people, or provoke people. It’s a shameful mistake. Jesus Christ taught clearly on this in Matthew 18[:6], when he said, “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” And Abimelech seems to recognize this. He’s sees the gravity of leading people into sin against God, here. And so he’s trying to figure out why Abraham was doing that to him.

Of course, we already know the answer to that. Abraham responds, down in verse 11, by saying, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill be because my wife.’” And then Abraham explains that Sarah is technically a sister – a half-sister, it would seem, based on his description. (But you can hardly say that Abraham is faithful to the truth here).

So Abraham misled Abimelech here, not because he had a rightly-directed fear of God, but because he had a wrongly-directed fear of Abimelech. Abraham assumed that the king of Gerar was unprincipled and irreverent. He made his own personal assessment of the situation and came to a wrong conclusion about Abimelech’s character – again, this sounds like a mistake we might make, too. Abraham leans on self-reliance rather than looking to God to secure his future and supply his needs.

And at the end of the day, Abraham finds himself in a humbling position, here. He, a man of God – even referred to as a prophet of God, back in verse 7 – Abraham the prophet of God has come up short. He has had such little reverence for God, compared to this random king of the Near East, Abimelech. Just by having the title “prophet,” it didn’t make Abraham more godly. Just by being called a Christian, or a pastor, or a Church member – we can’t pretend like that status makes us less needy for God’s grace. Instead, we are challenged here – no matter who we think we are – we’re urged to humble ourselves before the heavy and overwhelming majesty of the Holy One, to listen to his demands, and to lean on his divine power.

Restored Futures

In the last section of our text – in verses 14 through 18, we see the resolution of the whole ordeal – restored futures for Abimelech and Abraham. This is my last point: Restored futures.

Abimelech does just as God told him to do back in verse 7. God told him to return the man’s wife. And in verse 14, we see that Abimelech returns Sarah – and in addition to this, to further confirm his innocence and goodwill, he gives Abraham sheep, oxen, male servants and female servants. In verse 15, he opens up all his pastureland to Abraham and says, “Behold, my land is before you, dwell where it pleases you.” In verse 16, Abimelech goes even further, and tosses in a thousand pieces of silver. Abimelech shows extraordinary honor to Abraham.

And Abimelech also asks Abraham to pray for him, as God instructed, in view of Abraham’s role as a prophet. This happens in verse 17: “Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and females slaves so that they bore children. For the LORD had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.”

The text doesn’t tell us exactly what God had done to prevent the women in Abimelech’s household from having children. But we’re supposed to understand from the context that the barrenness of these women was a grievous consequence for Abimelech to be faced with, for taking Sarah into his house. Because children are understood here to be a blessing from God! A tremendous gift, that refine our character and brighten our lives. Too many young adults today imagine that the best way to live is to put off having children, or to avoid having children altogether – even many Christians have been influenced by this way of thinking. But certainly the Bible presents having children as a blessing – and having barrenness is something tragic and undesirable.

But I really want to make sure it’s clear here, even though Abimelech’s actions led to a plague of barrenness here, a husband and wife dealing with infertility today shouldn’t assume that they’re under God’s displeasure or judgment. Even though God sometimes brings barrenness as a consequence for wrongdoing, this does not mean that every instance of barrenness is some sort of punishment. And we know this, because even in Abraham and Sarah’s case, Sarah’s prolonged barrenness wasn’t a consequence for anything in particular. Instead, God was orchestrating it for a purpose.

And as we see Abimelech’s family healed, and Abraham and Sarah set back on track to bear a son – we catch a glimpse of what that purpose for Sarah’s barrenness is. At just the right time, from the unfruitful, spiritually barren line of the human race, God is going to raise up a Son. And like his forefather, Abraham the prophet, this Son will ultimately be a prophet as well – the Prophet of Prophets. And on behalf of the barren, broken human race, this Greatest of Prophets, Jesus Christ, is the one who will bring healing to the nations.

In restoring the futures of Abimelech and Abraham, we’re given confidence that God has made a way to restore our future, as well. God has remained faithful to his people, for centuries upon centuries, even in our repeated foolishness and failure. So as we close, let’s thank God for his commitment – that he’s faithful to keep his promises, and to rescue his people, in keeping with his unchanging character. Let’s pray:

This sermon was preached on April 6 at Fellowship Reformed, a Presbyterian Church in Mount Pleasant, MI.