COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 54 - SISTER FOR SALE

(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.”

― Shel Silverstein

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.

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!