COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 56 - HAGAR AND ISHMAEL MOVE TO THE DESERT

  Abraham named his son Isaac, which means “he laughs.”  Abraham and Sarah both had laughed to think they could have a son at this state in life.  Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born and Sarah was 90.  All of those who had laughed at Sarah during the boyhood of Ishmael now laughed WITH her after the birth of Isaac.  God had kept his promises.

      

On the day that Isaac was weaned Abraham celebrated by giving a great feast.  Abraham and Sarah wanted the world to join in their celebration of the fact that the birth of Isaac had brought such great joy to them. 

 Yet this birth had ironically brought a sense of sorrow and disgust to Hagar and Ishmael.  Their arrogant false- confidence had been squashed with the birth of Isaac.  Although, in those days The Code of Hammurabi stated that the son of a slave woman had a legal claim on his father’s property:

"If his wife bear sons to a man, or his maid-servant have borne sons, and the father while still living says to the children whom his maid-servant has borne: "My sons," and he counts them with the sons of his wife; if then the father dies, then the sons of the wife and of the maid-servant shall divide the property in common. The son of the wife is to partition and choose."

 Abraham, until the birth of Isaac had said to Ishmael “my son.”  He had stopped saying this to him when Isaac was born, yet we know that Abraham loved Ishmael and was always thinking of him, wanting to provide for him too.  Abraham was in a very hard place in his heart concerning Ishmael, a place where God would have to intervene to bring about the desired results  

  It was obvious that Ishmael was not supposed to be the one to inherit Abraham’s place among the people.  Hagar’s dreams and ambitions were crushed.  Ishmael was very jealous as this had crushed many of his dreams too.  He had been so sure of his future, now he was not so sure.  He resented Isaac in his heart.  

       

 Perhaps Sarah saw a legal fight coming which she wanted to head off at the pass.    Sarah looked out at her son on this day of celebration and saw Ishmael mocking Isaac and she became very angry about it.  The wording of this passage that speaks of “mocking” could mean two things; either Ishmael was mocking Isaac, or Ishmael was playing with Isaac.  It could also mean BOTH things.   Some think that Ishmael, who was already an excellent marksman at 16 was shooting arrows all around Isaac, and they were landing just short of hitting him.  That would certainly bring a reaction from most mothers!

 Whatever he was up to; Ishmael was probably about 16 years old now, and he was old enough to know better.  Sarah was tired of his wild, selfish, dangerous ways.  Sarah talked to Abraham and told him to get rid of Hagar and her son so that this slave woman’s son should never be able to interfere with Sarah’s son’s inheritance.   Sarah was basically asking Abraham to disinherit Ishmael; to make it legal and binding so that Isaac would always be considered the only heir.

  

 At first Abraham was distressed and concerned about this request of Sarah, but God spoke to Abraham and said:  “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman.  Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”    God reassured Abraham that He would make the son of the slave into a nation also, because of the fact that he was Abraham’s offspring.

So it was that Abraham harkened to the voice of God and granted Sarah’s wish to send Hagar and Ishmael away.  He gave them food and water to take with them and they began to wander in the dessert of Beersheba.

 It wasn't long before their water ran out and Ishmael became very weak.  Hagar laid him under a bush and went off the distance of about a bow shot away from him because she did not want to watch him die.  She sat down and began to sob

We are told that the Angel of God heard the boy crying (not Hagar’s tears, but Ishmael’s)  and called out to Hagar.  He told her not to be afraid, to go to the boy and take him by the hand, that God would make him into a great nation.  God opened the eyes of Hagar and she saw a well where she filled the flask with water and gave the boy water to drink.

   

Have your eyes ever been opened to see a well in the middle of the desert?   Where death and desolation was all Hagar could see just one minute before; now she sees hope.  Hope is always the beginning of something better.  God promises a future for Ishmael and God provides the sustenance they need to survive.

         

And Ishmael's life as a young man started right there under a bush in the dessert where Hagar lay Ishmael to die.  How strange and yet, how fitting!  I can think of another incident of hope that started under a bush in the dessert, it was a burning bush and the person was Moses, but that is yet another story.    

 So Hagar and her nearly-grown son began a life in the wilderness of Paran.

 God was with the boy as he grew up and he thrived in the dessert.  This location seemed to be in the northeast section of the Sinai peninsula southwest of Edom and south of the wilderness of Zin, near the Judean mountains but as far north as Kadesh or even Beersheba. 

Ishmael grew to manhood in the desert and became a very skilled archer; no doubt killing small animals that provided clothing and food for them. When he was older, Hagar returned to her native Egypt and found a wife for her son.

 Though there are legends and tales from the Oral scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures hardly speak of Ishmael again until the time when he is 73 years old and Isaac and Ishmael are once again spoken of together in the day when they bury Abraham, indicating that they did keep up with one another off and on over the years, and were probably aware of each other’s lives. 

Ishmael had twelve sons who became tribal leaders living in the land from Havilah to Shur, near the border of Egypt as you go toward Ashur.  Ishmael lived to be 137 years old.  

COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 55 - THE FAITHFUL HEART OF SARAH

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

And so we come to the point in Sarah’s life right before she discovers she is 
pregnant with Isaac.
  

Sarah has been through so much already!  

I wondered - what would have been the state of her heart?

Abraham had taken her as a wife when she was very young.  She was said to be the most beautiful woman on earth at that time.  It is doubtful she had ever known or even dated any man other than her husband.  All she knew of life she had willingly and enthusiastically learned at Abraham’s side.  He had been her shelter, her strong tower, her knight in shinning armor.     She must have adored him in every way.  

In the land of her birth she was the envy of all the women.  Living there, she had it all; the gift of great beauty, the gift of the right husband, the gift of wealth and unending material possessions, a nice home, and a large close extended family.  What more could a woman ask for?

  

One day Abraham came home and said God had told him to leave and go to a place that He would show him.  Everything changed in an instant for Sarah.  She had to follow her husband to a strange and unknown land and give up what every woman secretly desires the most – security.

Did this bother Sarah?  Not at all!  This young woman who had never spent one minute worrying about food, clothing, shelter or safety gathered up her things and said "Let's go!"  

It seems that from the very beginning of her life Sarah had been given the gift of divine insight from God.  She knew in her heart that she was going with her husband on a divine mission of God.  God had made this clear to her, though she probably did not know exactly why and perhaps she never understood all the little details; especially when she considered the fact that she had remained childless for so long. 

So it was that Sarah just smiled and left with Abraham on the back of a camel loaded down with only her most needed possessions.  She rode happily off into the sunset to learn how to live in a tent instead of a house.

Do you think it is an easy thing to learn to live in a tent instead of a house?  Sarah did.  She left behind all those material things that burdened down her time; all of those things that owned her instead of letting her own them.  She now had more time for God and more time for others.  Living in a tent is something all Christians should desire.  You have nothing real to lose and everything valuable to gain! 

 Sarah also quickly learned how to exist without the company of other women, for she was often alone and probably spent hours and hours with no one else to speak to, except for Abraham when he came home tired and grouchy from tending his flocks and dealing with his servants.  

Being alone isn’t always a bad thing either, especially if you know God, as Sarah did.  That is because if you know God you are never really alone.  Sarah allowed God to use the circumstances He put her in to teach her about life.  She spent hours meditating, studying, listening and praying.  All Christians should desire this peaceful growing state in life.  It is really quite necessary in order to be able to grow and move ahead in the journey toward God's kingdom.  Our quiet times tend to eventually make us stronger people.

Up to this point in her life, Sarah seems to have been one extremely happy young woman.  She and Abraham had become very busy teaching all the many people passing through the land how to know, worship and live for The One True God.  They taught at their table, always ending their lessons with bread, wine and fellowship  

Word of mouth quickly spread throughout the land from the people they meet.   They suddenly were blessed with a steady stream of people coming and going.  Their tents were filled with those who wanted to learn more of God’s way of life.  They fed them both physically and spiritually.  No one ever left  unfed.  God kept bringing these people to them, it was part of their mission, part of their destiny.  They were so happy in the midst of this!  Sarah had eyes to SEE God at work in their lives.  She was very, very happy with this life in a tent.  She felt blessed in every way.

 Abraham taught the men and Sarah taught the women.   Sarah’s tent was constantly full of worship.  Her tent actually was the shadow of our pattern of worship today.  Her tent provided the pattern for the wilderness tabernacle that was later used by Moses.  God gave the instructions to Moses, but many things resembled what we know of Sarah’s tent.  

Sarah lit candles on Friday nights to welcome the Sabbath and the candles on the westernmost side of her tent never went out.  The light from these candles was used to bring the fire for the rest of the candles all through the week.  Her tent was filled with constant, never-ceasing unending light.  

A second miracle occurred with Sarah's bread dough.  It never grew stale or moldy and there was always enough to feed everyone that Abraham invited inside.  This resembled what the Israelites experienced in the wilderness with the Manna From Heaven.  This resembles what we now experience spiritually today when we partake of The Lord's Supper or take The Holy Eucharist.

A third miracle was the Cloud of Glory that rested over her tent.   God’s Presence could actually be seen with the eyes in the form of the cloud over Sarah’s tent. This cloud was the precursor of the Cloud of Smoke and Pillar of Fire that led the Children of Israel through the wilderness.  These things are symbolic of God's Holy Spirit that was later sent to The Church after Christ arose from the grave.

All of these things that are so familiar to Christian worshipers today started and were brought about by the first shadows of Sarah's tent and Sarah's heart for God.

When Sarah died all of these things went away.  They did not reappear again until Isaac brought Rebekah to live in Sarah's tent.   

These miracles were simply an outward expression of the spirit of Sarah's heart toward God.  She constantly worshiped with every action she took.  She brought God’s light, His Presence and understanding and warmth into their home and into every other place that she went.  The love of God shone from her countenance.    

In those days, people coming to see Sarah in her tent were encouraged and enlightened.  The fresh bread she served her guest symbolized her servant’s heart.  Sarah listened to God constantly and sought His will for managing her home.  There was good hard work and good peaceful rest in the home of Sarah.  God has used the story of her tent to teach us how a home should always be.  God has used the story of Sarah’s tent to paint a portrait of how His true Church should always be.

But even Sarah had her trials and tests.
  

There came the day when Sarah also had to leave this much loved home.  Once again she had to make a long uncertain journey with Abraham, this time they journeyed to Egypt.  In Egypt Sarah and Abraham would be out of the element of life that God had shown them.  Their ways and customs would seem strange to these people living in a pagan land.  It was much easier to eat and have plenty in Egypt, but it was a land spiritually starved for the knowledge of God.    Sarah and Abraham left one type of famine to go to another type of famine.  It was a land of idol worship and spiritual deceptions.  God did not send them this time, they went on Abraham's own human logic.    

This was the beginning of a whole different dimension of Sarah's life.  We have already studied the story of how Abraham asked her to say she was his sister.  This must have been a very hard time for Sarah, but she was filled up with God’s Holy Spirit because of all of the worship from inside her tent for so many years, and so she was not afraid of the circumstances she found herself living through.  Faith exercised daily with prayer and study makes us braver.   It gives us courage and inner strength and we are able to overcome.  Sarah, though she probably did not agree with him, was obedient to Abraham.  She stayed obedient even though he made some very foolish choices concerning her.  

Abraham basically deserted her and lived like a king in the luxury that was provided for him because of the fact that the King was interested in his “sister.”

Sarah must have been furious with Abraham, but at the same time she must have remembered that God HAD sent them off on a mission together.  Perhaps she was often confused, but Sarah trusted God through all of this.  When the time came that she had to face the lusts of a pagan king, God protected her.  

The obedient Sarah with the servant’s heart did the right thing by trusting God and asking for His intervention and they escaped this dangerous situation unharmed and even better off materially than they had been before.

As for their marriage though, I’m not at all sure that they were better off.  

Sarah must have allowed reality to hit her heart a bit, and she must have noticed that Abraham had not come to her defense and that he had been perfectly willing for another man to have her in order to protect himself.   She was given plenty of time in Pharaoh's harem to ponder this.  This knight's shinning armor was becoming a bit tarnished to the lady.  This cowardly action of Abraham did something to Sarah’s heart that Abraham could not fix.  It changed her perception of who he was.   Most women in such a situation would become bitter and hard-hearted and feel that the one they loved with all of their heart had totally abandoned and betrayed them.  Sarah let some of this self pity creep inside her heart too.  Then; because of the bad feelings which dwelling on all of this caused for Sarah, she began to doubt Abraham’s love for her.  The trust factor in their relationship had been completely destroyed.   It was a strange place for Sarah to find herself.  This surely was not the mission God had destined for her life!  Where had she gone wrong?

Sarah got very distracted, spending entirely too much time with worrying about her own problems and she forgot to pay attention to God’s plan.  

She reasoned that she didn’t feel the same toward Abraham anymore, but she did desire to have back some of the security she had given up for him.  She felt cheated, and as if she had been dealt with unfairly by him.   She wanted to emphasize the legal side of their marriage in order to protect herself from further harm.   In her human search to find back the security she had given up for him, Sarah started to devise a way to make Abraham the father he had always wanted to be.  She thought a child would help their relationship.  She knew the only fault that could be laid at her feet was the fact that she had not been able to give Abraham the child he so longed for.  She knew she was now getting older, and would soon be past the age of bearing a child.

It is possible that she had given up on God fulfilling this promise, or either she felt pressured to do what she could to make God’s will come about in her own way.  

We humans should never play God! It is very dangerous, and it never ends well. 

Sarah decided to use her servant Hagar to make this much wanted child of Abraham happen.  It was a grave mistake!  

For the first time in all of her history, we hear of Sarah’s sin – not so much that she gave her husband another woman (this was not right either) but absolutely that she devised her own plan instead of listening to God to know HIS plan for her life.  

This is where most of us miss the train to glory.  Sarah was no different at this point in her life than any other ordinary woman who had ever lived on planet earth.  She didn't think or pray.  She acted out of her will instead of God's.  
  

The results were exactly what you would expect.  

Hagar became pregnant with Abraham’s child and he began to lavish his attention on Hagar and the child instead of Sarah.    Sarah had already suffered from lack of self esteem due to the incident in Egypt.  Now she suffered from neglect and jealousy too.  These are a horrible combination of emotions. They would never have entered Sarah’s life if she had not chosen her own way instead of God’s way.  These dangerous emotions can make the most beautiful of women do the most horrible things; and they are not ever pretty to behold.  If you want to see beauty turn to ashes just watch a beautiful woman become neglected and jealous.  It is a very ugly picture!
 

 The bitterness became so bad that Sarah resorted more and more to isolation.  For the first time ever in her life she knew what it was like to feel lonely.  Her relationship with Abraham became almost non-existent.  They passed each other in the camp.  Sometimes they had meals together, but there were no words passing between them.  Abraham slept in Hagar’s tent.  Sarah cried alone in the dark.

The team work that they had enjoyed in the days of their past of spreading God’s word became less and less, and Abraham was tuned in more and more to Hagar’s thoughts and ideas about religion and life.  He used the excuse that he was studying the best ways for how to raise his only son.  

Sarah was very, very miserable.  She detested Hagar’s wild ideas and knew they were totally wrong.  She watched the boy being spoiled rotten and it was all totally out of her hands without Abraham’s backing. 

The other women living in the camp with them, the servants and extended family members probably made fun of Sarah.  At the least they pitied her for being childless and not being able to keep her husband satisfied.  Sarah probably had spells of anger that gave way to long bouts of depression, and she was probably on the verge of hate when somehow, some way, (we are not told exactly when or how)  something happened; she found God again and began to release all of her hurt emotions to Him.

 As she prayed and gave up her heart’s tiny little pieces one by one, God ministered to His beloved Sarah.  He did not desert her.  He began the work of healing her broken heart. This took a long time, but God was there when she decided to reach for Him.  She soon discovered that He had never left her side.  She was the one who had moved, and she was the one who decided to move back.  God had been right there all along.  
  

It was in this time of struggle, through the 13 years of Ishmael’s childhood, that Sarah learned the astounding fact that her true husband was God.  God is the true husband of every soul that covenants with Him.  The covenant of God is above all human covenants.  When we put God's covenant first, all other covenants of the human nature fall into their proper place.  The love of God was far greater toward Sarah than the love of Abraham, but God was still there for both Sarah and Abraham.  If each of them followed their covenant with God together at the same time, the human covenant of their marriage flourished.   Anything that happened between them was designed to flow from God's covenant above them.  This is the secret that so many women never come to understand.  Those who do come to understand, usually find it from hardship, just as Sarah did.  

She began to pray to God again.  She began to worship and adore Him.  She woke up to the fact that Abraham would never be a perfect man and she accepted the fact that he would never be capable of loving her as God did.  She leaned on God and trusted Him to help her with Abraham.  That was when things took a turn and began to change.

 One day Sarah woke up to Abrahm standing in her tent with the look of love on his face again.  He had just experienced another milestone in his own relationship with God.  He was full of talk and excited to share this with her.  He had just received another covenant agreement from Heaven.  It had not happened until he had taken a close examination of who he had become and how far away from God he had walked.  He had finally realized his mistake in allowing Hagar to take over their lives.  Abraham had been brought back by God and he was headed back to his original God ordained purpose in life.  He had confessed his sins to God, and now he confessed them to Sarah.   

He had opened his eyes to the way he had treated his wife and he knew without a doubt that she was the one God had intended for him to love forever.  This had been confirmed by God a million times over.  Abraham had even committed to performing a physical sign which would proclaim that he would no longer be listening or living out anything other than God's will for his life.  He had been circumcised and had his whole household circumcised also.   

Sarah gave thanks to God for the change in her earthly husband.  She knew God was the reason for this.  She had been praying and praying, constantly interceding on Abraham’s behalf.  God had answered her prayers in more ways than she could ever realize.
 

 Shortly after this, as Abraham was sitting in front of their tent one day, they were visited by three heavenly visitors who told them that Sarah would soon be blessed with the promised child.  They both laughed.  They knew they were too old now to have a child.  Still, they hoped!  Hope has a way of making miracles happen.  Why would divine messengers not tell them the truth?  Abraham and Sarah believed again in miracles.  They opened up their heart to every possibility of anything that God wanted from them.  

Once again Sarah and Abraham shared the hope of the promises of God.  Once again, Sarah had hopes for her relationship with Abraham to flourish and grow.  Sarah forgave him and they begin to renew their relationship together, a little more each day.  

  It still wasn’t easy.  Abraham still had blind spots, but Sarah never again forgot that God was her true husband.  More tests would come.  Whenever she was disappointed in the human side of Abraham, she turned to the Divine God who led her through each and every situation.  Nothing that Abraham could do from this point forward would ever hurt her again.   No love could equal the love she had begun to receive from God.  It had always been there, right from the beginning, but she had now learned how to reach out and receive it.  She only looked at what God showed her and she only did what God told her.  

Sarah had discovered a wonderful sense of freedom in this and it made her sometimes happier than those days of her youth.  Life from this point on became a lot less complicated, a lot less stressful and a lot more simple.

However; like every thing that seems to have a happy ending, this new found joy merely brought Abraham and Sarah to another test.

 Another famine happened in the land, and this time Abraham took them to the land of the Philistines.  

Almost as if his memory of the past had been erased, Abraham once again asked Sarah to call him her brother.  

Sarah must have been really crushed this time, but she leaned on God instead of falling apart.  She had learned to be strong and to do the right thing no matter what or who came her way.  Her faith never wavered.  When she was again abducted and placed in the king’s harem she prayed like she had never prayed before.

 
God revealed Himself in a dream to this pagan king and kept her safe from harm.  Her true husband came through for her.

  

God did not let Abraham off totally.  Abraham had to pray for this king that had wanted to take his wife.  Sarah must have enjoyed that part of the situation.  Little did she know how the healing prayers of her husband would affect her future also.  Sarah's own infertility was healed as she stood in the prayer for the pagan king and his household.  The one who had always had eyes to see did not even realize what was going on - but God knew what He was doing.
 

It was probably a LONG ride home that day.

They didn’t actually go back to The Groves of Mamre, but settled in the land that had been granted to them by King Abimelech.  They settled down in the new place with all the gold the pagan king had given them and Abraham, at the request of the king, bought Sarah a beautiful new veil.

Sarah began to live like a hidden, almost forgotten treasure.  Somehow she felt happy and content just to be in her tent and to be spending more time with Abraham.  When she went out, she wore the veil.  She liked the security it gave to her; a security she had not found with her earthly husband, a security she had missed when she had first left on their long journey so many years ago.  God had given it back to her,  just in a different form than she had expected.

 Suddenly she felt young and full of life again, even at this point in her lateness of years.  Though she was actually much older now, for the first time ever, Sarah felt more young at heart.  It was in this content place of life, wrapped inside the veil of security she wore with a new found sense of contentment and sureness of God's love that Sarah  finally discovered she was going to have the long promised child of The Covenant.  

Suddenly she realized that all of the time leading up to this moment had  simply been preparation for becoming the mother of Isaac.  Her mission and destiny in life was about to happen.  God had taught her well and she was now ready. 

To be expecting Isaac was yet another sweet miracle that God had granted to Sarah.  Her joy was unending and she sang songs of praise in her tent again!  

She lit the candles and she baked the bread again!  

All the land heard how Her husband had blessed her and her joy was full.

So what was the state of Sarah's heart just before the conception of Isaac?

Well...... there she sat, right in the middle of her tent. thanking God unconditionally as she lived through the scenes in the middle of her story.  She lifted her praise and thanks to the heavens, not even knowing what would come at the end of her story.   It would have been enough for Sarah now, just to know God's unending love, just to feel His Presence hovering over her tent again.

Now that is what I call great faith;  To be content to not know the end of the story until God chose to reveal it.   

Sarah and Abraham were never happier than this very moment in history, except of course, when they laughed together at the moment of Isaac’s birth.  

It was a great miracle and they were so very, very blessed!

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!