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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Genesis 20:7
“Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die.”
Is Abraham thick or what? He did this in Egypt and was found out and now he does it again.
In our culture it’s hard to understand what he was up to but one thing must surely stand out – Sarah must have been some beauty. Here she was at 90 years of age and so attractive that Abimelech wanted to add her to his harem. Her beauty must have been outstanding – no wonder she had been called “Princess”.
Mind you, Abimelech probably wasn’t that bright either – if Sarah means “mother of nations” – the probability was that she was not a virgin.
The interesting thing about both these excursions is, however, that although they were definitely “second best”, God still used them to prosper Abraham. In Egypt (Chapter 12), Pharaoh gave him sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels, and servants (including Hagar) – here, Abimelech gives him sheep, cattle, and slaves + 1000 shekels of silver.
The moral of these stories is, however, not that we should go for second best, but that God’s love and grace are ‘big enough’ to cope with our indiscretions, if our hearts are really seeking to follow the Lord.
There is a lesson here for Abimelech too. Stop going after other women. (He didn’t learn that either - see Genesis 26 for an extreme case of déjà vu.)
It is interesting to see that when Abimelech protests his innocence before God, God replies that because of that He has protected his integrity. Nevertheless, he still has to go and submit himself to Abraham for a prayer of forgiveness and mediation. God calls Abraham a prophet and here, he also acts as a priest.
He did in the previous chapter as well. That covers the account of Lot’s escape from Sodom and Gomorrah just before its destruction. It includes that amazing account of Abraham treating God like a used-car salesman. What if there were 50 righteous? Oh, I won that. What about 45 and so on down to 10 and in the end, it was evident that only Lot was righteous. And Lot had compromised so much his wife “looked back” and ‘froze’ (Genesis 19:26) and his daughters copied the morality of the city dwellers and committed incest with him (v 32 –36).
On the other hand, Abraham was developing into a mature man of God.
What about you? What have you learnt recently? The Christian life is to be worked out. We are all supposed to mature.
If you don’t, be careful because it’s easy to become like the society in which you live – like Lot did – and not realise it until it’s too late. (See also Romans 12:1 & 2.)
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