(Article written by Sheila Gail Landgraf - Poem written by Shel Silverstein)
Today’s
story reminds me of an old favorite Shel Silverstein poem called “Sister For
Sale.” It goes like this:
“One sister for sale,
One sister for sale,
One crying and spying young sister for sale
I'm really not kidding so who'll start the bidding
Do I hear a dollar?
A nickle?
A penny?
Oh isnt there isnt there isnt there any
One person who will buy this sister for sale
This crying spying old young sister for sale.”
One sister for sale,
One crying and spying young sister for sale
I'm really not kidding so who'll start the bidding
Do I hear a dollar?
A nickle?
A penny?
Oh isnt there isnt there isnt there any
One person who will buy this sister for sale
This crying spying old young sister for sale.”
If you
think it is a harsh thing for one to consider selling his sister, what about
the case where one decides to give his wife away?
Can you
believe that once again, even after all they went through about 25 years
earlier in Egypt, Abraham decided to ask
Sarah in another time to say she was his sister? Unbelievable!
Oh boy!
The first time I read the next part of
the story I got so mad at Abraham. Here
he was at the pinnacle of his life. God
had twice confirmed his covenant with him.
He had so many victories. He was
rich and blessed. God had spoken
directly to him! He had received divine
visitors who told him the promised son was about to be on the way. He had faithfully left his old sinful ways
behind and had learned to focus on the things that God was telling him to do
instead of making his own plans. He was
enjoying peace inside the tent of Sarah again.
His relationship with Sarah had drastically improved. God had saved his nephew as he had
requested. All was about as good as it
gets until suddenly we hear of Abraham committing that same old sin again! We have to shake our heads in disbelief that
he could be that thickheaded and thoughtless.
Abraham couldn’t even be original and commit a new sin; it was that same
old sin that he had repented of before.
You would think a mature Christian could get out of old sin patterns
like that, especially if they had a name like Abraham.
I
suppose after Sodom and Gomorrah the pasture lands were looking pretty sparse. The cattle had pretty much used up the fields
around Mamre and Abraham decided to move on to the city of Gerar and let his
cattle graze in better pastures. This
foreign land was ruled by King Abimelech.
This name was a title that was given to many kings in that land, similar
to how the kings in Egypt were all called Pharaoh, and all the rulers of
America are all called President. All of
the kings of Gerar were called Abimelech.
Abimelech
was a Philistine king; probably a polytheistic one that believed in many gods
instead of only The One True God that Abraham and Sarah believed in. Perhaps
this is why Abraham had a fear of entering the land. This was a land where
beautiful women were often abducted and sold into marriage and/or slavery. It was a dangerous place for a woman to be
traveling. Abductions were
common in that day. Bandits would swope
down from the hills and kill the men and take the women for profit. Even in her old age Sarah was still radiantly
beautiful. She did not follow the custom
of the women of the land of wearing a veil.
Her face was open and her beauty was obvious to anyone passing by. It
seemed that Abraham sinned more in times like this when he was alone with Sarah
and fearful of what could happen to her.
At home, in the land where Sarah kept her tent near Mamre, Abraham had a household of trained fighters
for servants. He had no reason to fear
there. Sarah lived naive and protected
there. She was always safe, but not so
here in the land of Philistine.
You
have to wonder after all that God had done and promised why Abraham would have
been afraid, but he was. Had God not
protected them in Egypt? Why would he
not protect them in this land full of Philistines? Both lands were full of pagan and uncivilized
ways, but God would go with them wherever they traveled. Still we notice Abraham’s fear.
In
Gerar, Abraham committed a sin he had done much earlier in his life. He passed Sarah off as his sister instead of
his wife again. Of course, just like the
last time, this resulted in her being taken into the harem of the king, only
this time the king was Abimelech and the land was Gerar.
Some people like to look at both of these
similar incidences and say they are just two accounts of the same event. I beg to differ. The main reason I think they both were true
at different times is the differences in the stories, not the
similarities. They took place in two
different lands with two different kings for one thing. One incident was in Egypt; one incident was
in Gerar. One had Pharaoh as king; one
had Abimelech as king. In the first
incident Abraham was young in his walk with God. In the second incident Abraham was mature in
his walk with God. We can say the same
about Sarah also. It should be noted
that in the first incident they were known as Abram and Sarai; in the second
incident they were known as Abraham and Sarah.
God had changed their names as well as their hearts by the second time
this happened. We will point out some other
differences too, as we go along with this story.
This repetition
of “say you are my sister” gets even
more frustrating when we read further down the historical line of time and see
that Isaac later did the very same thing to his wife Rebecca. How strange!
Considering
that this same scene happened three times that we know of to the Hebrew
ancestors, someone finally came up with one theory that in a Hurrian society
there was a status known as “wife-sistership.”
It is very possible that Abraham and Sarah could have participated in
one of these Hurrian societies. In this
state it is said a Hurrian could adopt his wife as his sister and give her
special status in which she would be treated as a blood relative of the
husband’s family. This was a higher
status than just sister or just wife. This
is also a fact that seems odd when you read The Song of Solomon and you hear
him say “my sister, my spouse.” That is
a whole new lesson for another day that is full of wonderful details about how
the Church should relate to Jesus Christ as a bride awaiting a groom. We will save that for now and continue with
Abraham, but it is a another little understood example of this Hurrian way of
relating to your spouse as a sister.
Abraham
had asked Sarah to tell the Egyptians that she was a relative of this special
class and the Egyptians understood the status and did not harm her. Maybe he was thinking that the Philistines
might respect this too. However, this theory does not hold strong when
you consider that both kings, both times, realized that they had been deceived
and confronted Abraham with their anger at the situation.
When
the Egyptian Pharaoh confronted Abraham he said very little in his own
defense. He simply let the king
talk. However, when King Abimelech heard
from God in a dream that Sarah was Abraham’s wife and Abraham was a prophet and
that Abimelech was as good as dead if he took Sarah as his own; Abimelech
confronted Abraham with these horrible
facts and Abraham actually spoke up and defended himself. He made excuses for his actions. He had no excuses to offer 25 years earlier
when he faced Pharaoh, but with Abimelech the conversation was extensive. Abraham explained to Abimelech that he
thought he might be entering an ungodly place where other men would kill him
for the beauty of his wife. Then he
explained further that she was really his sister too, being the daughter of his
father but not the daughter of his mother and finally he mentioned the fact
that he had married her. He stated that
he had instructed her to say she was his sister whenever they went through a
foreign country in order to spare his life.
Do you
think Abimelech was impressed with Abraham’s testimony? No, I don’t either! He must have thought Abraham a fool, yet in
his dream where God had spoken to King Abimelech, even though he was a pagan king; God had said that Abraham was a prophet and
that Abimelech should ask him to pray for him.
This
was a perplexing situation for both Abimelech and Abraham. Neither of them really wanted to become
prayer buddies! Abraham had caused the
problems that Abimelech now faced; a problem that had left him and his whole
household sick and sterile because of Sarah’s presence among them. Yet, Abraham would be the one who was
qualified by God to pray for healing from this.
The sinner was asked to pray for healing from the sin that he had committed. Abimelech had to be very humble in his anger
toward Abraham, and Abraham had to pray very humbly for a man he had
deliberately deceived and had not even actually asked forgiveness from; one who
had abducted his wife, however innocent he may have been at the time of who she
was. Abraham had just made his excuses
and stated his technical reasons for not being a liar. No repentance was uttered at all.
It is
amazing that God would even hear his prayer and heal Abimelech and his kingdom;
but that is exactly what God did. The
ways of God are so much higher than we can ever figure out. His perspective on things is so different
from ours. His wisdom and knowledge is
so far above our finding out. His Deity
surely emphasizes our own humanity and puts an exclamation point at the end of
the sentence.
You
would think that God would have been so mad with Abraham. You would think that He would turn a deaf ear
to his prayers until he repented and apologized to God first, then Abimelech
AND Sarah.
This
must have surely been embarrassing to God for the pagan king to stand in public
head and shoulder’s taller in righteousness than the great Prophet –
Abraham. Abimelech’s actions had been
pure and based on noble motives. God had
acknowledged this earlier when Abimelech pleaded with Him in his dreams. Abimelech was innocent; Abraham was
guilty. Still it was Abraham’s prayer to
God that brought the healing of Abimelech and his people. Why?
Because God had chosen to make an everlasting covenant with
Abraham. His mercies would never end
toward Abraham. The pagan world looking
on hoping that Abimelech had the answers would see a weak foolish man named
Abraham call on the name of God and a miracle would happen. It would be obvious to everyone that this
miracle had nothing to do with Abraham and everything to do with God. God uses even our weak and foolish ways to
bring about His purposes.
This
often happens in the Christian world, though it usually goes unnoticed. Christians often fail and have times of
disobedience and unbelief. At such times
unbelievers may look to be the most righteous, and rightfully so; but it isn’t our
righteousness that answers prayers and brings healing – it is only the power of
God.
We have
to shift our thinking from the fact that Abraham had regressed in his
understanding to the fact that the faithfulness of God to Abraham at this time
is amazing! Even now, in the midst of
the same old sin patterns of the old man called Abraham, God is not ashamed to
call him His friend and answer his prayers.
God is not ashamed to tell Abimelech that Abraham is one of His
prophets.
Let’s
stop here and weigh the further shocking significance of the situation that
Abraham had brought upon Sarah and Abimelech.
A divine message had been delivered to Abraham that Sarah would bear a
child who would fulfill the promises of God to Abraham and his
descendants. This was a child that they
had waited for their whole lifetime.
Could Abraham have actually stood willingly by and allowed Sarah to be
forced to be with this King when she had been promised the birth of such a
child by Abraham?
Abraham’s unfaithful and unfounded fears could
have not only sidetracked his own marriage, it could have sidetracked a whole
nation. God had not promised this child
to King Abimelech. God had made the covenant
with Abraham.
Have
you ever done anything foolish that would have seemed to destroy your covenant
with God? Did God show you that He
always keeps His covenants? Abraham was
very, very foolish, taking many precious things for granted here; but God was
faithful and His hesed love prevailed.
Let’s
stop for a moment and think back to Lot’s sins and compare them with what Abraham
did here. We begin to see that Lot’s
sins are not so surprising after all.
Abraham had trained Lot to do the proper things in society and what Abraham
did here with Sarah was very comparable to the sin that Lot committed by
offering his virgin daughters to the men of Sodom to save the angels. Forget the angels; we know that Lot was
really saving himself; just as we see Abraham doing too. Lot had been willing to sacrifice purity for
depravity out of fear, and Abraham had basically done the same thing with Sarah,
only now he had done it TWICE!
Abraham’s
excuse of Sarah being his sister is so thin.
Never mind that it was a true fact.
Facts are often used both in the pulpits and the streets to convey a falsehood. This is how the devil usually gets us; and it is
directly opposed to the operation of God. The
truth always has a way of coming up though, even with all the technicalities.
The old
tradition that Sarah had kept with Abraham in saying that she was his sister had
been proven wrong before. They should
have learned from this mistake and not kept that tradition any more. You should never just keep doing things for
the sake of tradition especially after you find out they are not accurate
traditions and you are just repeating them because you have had a habit of
doing these things in the past. Repeated
sin is still sin; only now it is sin with knowledge, which is the most
dangerous of all sins. We Christians
have a pattern, just as Abraham did of repeating traditional sins and thinking
they are somehow different than new and original sins. How foolish!
How long does it take for men to learn this?
All of
this happened; a repeated sin, an admission of the fact, God’s direct
intervention, and still – Abraham never admits he is wrong and keeps making
excuses. Abraham seems to be sorrier
that he was caught than sorry for his sins!
Have you ever seen your child look up when you have addressed the fact
that his hand is in the forbidden cookie jar?
It seems the same.
And
what was Abraham’s immediate punishment?
He got to show off the fact that he was a real Prophet from God. This would have been sort of like you catching your child with their hands in the forbidden cookie jar and just winking back at them and saying: "That's okay honey, it doesn't matter, go ahead and eat all the cookies you want!"
God answered Abraham's prayers for Abimelech and his household and healed each of them. Also, Abraham was given back his wife as well as some sheep, oxen and servants. He was also given another gift and this was one of the things that stood out as different from the other similar situation with Pharaoh. Abraham was given the opportunity to live and settle in the land, wherever he chose for as long as he chose. They stayed and settled in the land of this Philistine King instead of leaving. It was a gift of the rights to live in the land from the king of the land and no one was to bother them there by decree of the King.
God answered Abraham's prayers for Abimelech and his household and healed each of them. Also, Abraham was given back his wife as well as some sheep, oxen and servants. He was also given another gift and this was one of the things that stood out as different from the other similar situation with Pharaoh. Abraham was given the opportunity to live and settle in the land, wherever he chose for as long as he chose. They stayed and settled in the land of this Philistine King instead of leaving. It was a gift of the rights to live in the land from the king of the land and no one was to bother them there by decree of the King.
Abraham
was also given a thousand pieces of silver as a symbol of Sarah’s vindication. This was an amazingly generous gift. Abimelech specified that this gift was
granted for Sarah’s sake. It honored the
fact that Sarah had been innocent and unharmed while in Abimelech’s harem. It indicated to anyone who would question the
fact of her innocence that she had maintained her purity.
This was money Abimelech indicated should be spent for a magnificent
veil for Sarah’s eyes, so that they would from this time forth be covered. They were not to be covered to keep her from
seeing; but to keep others from looking at her and judging her when she was
innocent.
It is
legend that this veil obtained by Sarah from Abimelech carried a curse that
caused Abraham’s son, Isaac, and his grandson, Jacob, to be blind in their old
age. Though the curse of that blindness
might have been intended as harmful toward Abraham, once again in another story
we will see that God used even this blindness for good. God kept covenant with Abraham even when
Abraham was unfaithful and wrong. God
was constant and true to His promises.
The
greatest miracle that took place in all of these strange situations where all
of God’s grace was granted to Abraham is the fact that while Abraham was humbly
interceding in a prayer of healing for Abimelech’s household, Sarah’s
infertility was also healed. Just by
standing in the place of prayer, she also received the blessing of the
prayer.
Undoubtably;
our great Prophet Abraham had never thought to pray directly for the healing of
his own wife’s infertility. Husbands of
today beware. Your wives need your
prayers. If you are praying something for others and not praying for and with your wife it is wrong. If you do not pray for them,
you sin against God. God will protect
them; but just the same, you will not be the cause of their blessing. Again,
it is unbelievable that Abraham would have overlooked this! As Abraham prayed for Abimelech’s house to be
healed, Sarah’s womb was opened also and she was made ready for the process of
bearing the child promised by God.
The
thing that really strikes me in this story is the sureness of our covenants
with God.
There
is no excuse for intentional and fearful sins such as Abraham committed here;
but you can be sure if you have given your life to Christ and made covenant to
be his follower that God will forgive your sins past, present and future and
keep you under his precious wings of protection forever.
If you
have committed to being His child and you have been covered in The Blood of
Jesus, you will ALWAYS be His child; no matter what you do in all your
humanness to mess it up, even if you should die right in the middle of a very human sin. If you belong to Him, you are part of His
forever plan, just like Abraham when he made covenants with God.
Just in case it hasn't sunk in with you yet, I will repeat this fact: You can
always count on the covenant you made with God, no matter how human you are or
how terrible your sins may be. Some
people like to refer to this theory by saying “once saved always saved.” I just like to say “God always keeps His
covenants with His people.”
There is
only one thing that can separate you from God once you have made that covenant;
if YOU (not God) decide to quit
believing and deliberately walk away and not have anything to do with God by your own deliberated choice you can decide of your own accord to end the covenant. God will allow this if you
chose it. He does let us chose to be His. He is a perfect gentleman who wants to be loved because we chose to love Him, not because He forced His love on us. He does not force Himself on
people. He is always standing there waiting for you to return, even if you do walk away and He will always be there if you
change your mind and come back. Your stupid and human sins cannot block you from this promise of God’s covenant with you; only your
choice not to believe can block it.
Never think God will not hear your cry if you have made covenant with
Him. His Holy Spirit will always lead
you back home and Jesus will be waiting at the door to greet you.
Of
course, let us understand clearly that it is always better to go to God and
repent and receive that fresh washing of forgiveness and to stay in his
righteousness and walk toward sanctification as much as possible; but if you
slip up and sin again and repeat some awful pattern of the nature of your old
man, God will remember His covenant with you and keep you safe until you meet
him face to face. Your name has been
written in The Book of Life. He will be
faithful to you; just as He was faithful to Abraham. Jesus
is the Good Shepherd. He does not wish
to lose even one little lamb of the flock.
God’s grace is always sufficient for His people. It never ends. It is not our righteousness that saves us but
the blood of Jesus that covers us when we become committed to Him and His
Kingdom. I have never seen the righteous
forsaken.
This
does not mean that sins do not have consequences and that we would not be much
better off without them. Those kids who put their hands into the forbidden cookie jars, even when they go unpunished and eat till they are full, will eventually suffer a severe stomach ache. God knows, like some wise parents do, that we sometimes have to learn lessons the hard way. Sins, no matter how much grace is applied, will always have consequences. We will see in
other stories that Abraham’s unconfessed sins were visited on his descendants
down the line at a later day and time.
We have heard the story of Sarah’s veil. Yes, it is that old law of the universe that declares sin always has consequences. God
is also forever graceful and forgiving.
It is a paradox that is often hard to conceive and understand. Who can understand this the most? Those who have sinned the greatest and received the most grace. Eventually, you get it! I promise you Abraham came to understand it
more and more as he realized the treasure he was about to have in Isaac. Once you do get it and understand, your heart has grown to the point that you will no longer desire those old sins.
God
lets us learn at our own speed, even if we are great Prophets. Abraham will
have his chance to show God his faithfulness again. God is patient and kind and merciful and His
love is unending for those He died to save.
So we have had another look at the heart of Abraham, but it is
hard to leave this scene without also considering the heart of Sarah. That is very rich and full too and
perhaps something to talk about next time.
For today, go out
and dance with joy if you are blessed to be covered with the blood of
Jesus and promised the Kingdom life by a God who always keeps His
covenants! This story should give you great reassurance of God's love for you.
Love Him back. Honor
His covenant with you today by your actions and deeds and give praise to His
Holy Name!
