“Just as Promised” (Genesis 21:1-34) | 7/26/20
Genesis 21:1-34 | 7/26/20 | Thad Yessa
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I have THREE MAIN POINTS for you this morning:
Point #1 - the sin in THE WORLD is not as dangerous as the sin in YOU. (19:30; 20:11) The sin in THE WORLD is not as dangerous as the sin in YOU.
They say “the first step is admitting that you have a problem”. But both Lot and Abraham start with a misdiagnosis of the real problem. At first glance, we might be tempted to applaud them, for their awareness of and concern for the threat posed to them by external sin.
After Sodom, we hear: “Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar.” (19:30). This is the same Lot who, last week, despite Sodom’s imminent destruction, had gotten so attached to his worldly lifestyle in the city that he “lingered”, and the angels of the Lord had to literally drag him kicking and screaming out of town. At which time they instructed Lot to “escape to the hills”, and even then, he protested, demanding that they let him flee instead to Zoar, the “little” city nearby, because he couldn’t bring himself, even under threat of DEATH, to give up the comforts and temptations of city living.
So when we read just a few verses later that Lot has now decided to LEAVE Zoar, and head to the hills after all, we’re inclined to commend him. Has Lot finally repented and turned from his worldly ways? Finally “renounced ungodliness and worldly passions” - Titus 2:12? Perhaps Lot’s FEAR, in v30, of staying in Zoar, is born out of a recognition that even a LITTLE city, characterized by a LITTLE ungodliness, deserves the EXACT same fate as Sodom. So Lot gets out of Dodge before the Zoarites get what’s coming to them too.
But that interpretation overlooks one crucial detail from last week’s story; remember, the angel had assured Lot in v21: “Behold, I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.” So Lot’s worry here demonstrates NOT his newfound pursuit of godliness, but rather, his faithless FAILURE to trust in the promise of God.
Similarly, let’s skip ahead to Abraham, in ch20. Abraham tells us plainly in v11 why he lied to King Abimelech: “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place”. Gerar is in the territory of the Philistines, you know, like GOLIATH… like Israel’s greatest enemies for hundreds of years during the period of the Judges and into the early monarchy. Isn’t Abraham RIGHT to be afraid, of this people’s LACK of fear, for Yahweh? No, he’s not. Vv3-10 prove that his fear was an unfair misdiagnosis of these early Philistines; the irony of ch20 is that Abraham, God’s chosen man, has to be reproved and morally instructed by Abimelech, this uncircumcised PAGAN. In fact, God’s diagnosis in v6 is that Abimelech is a man with “integrity of heart”. God hasn’t even said that much of ABRAHAM, at this point. God certainly didn’t choose Abraham because of his impeccable character. And once again here, Abraham’s fear triumphs over his faith.
What they BOTH should have been afraid of was not the sin in Zoar… not the sin in Gerar… but the sin in their OWN HEARTS! Lot and Abraham were BOTH too busy finding specks in the eyes of the Zoarites and the Philistines to notice the LOGS clouding their own vision. And yet, friends: if you and I, in our OWN hypocrisy, judge Lot and Abraham, and we fail to see OURSELVES as really no DIFFERENT from them, then we’ll just confirm the story’s very point: that we’ve ALL got PLENTY of sin to worry about “in here”, without worrying about the sin “out there”. The greatest threat to believers and to the church today is not the sin in the WORLD; it’s the sin in US.
I am absolutely convinced that one of the most subtle, yet diabolical and destructive ways that Satan wants to use this “current cultural moment” to blind and deceive many people, is by convincing them that the REAL problem is COVID-19. That the biggest threat today is systemic racism. Or the anarchy that has been proposed and perpetuated as a response. Don’t mishear me. Those are all real dangers, threats that we need to take seriously, as God’s NEW chosen people, who have been called to be light and salt, to expose darkness and preserve righteousness, to stem the decay and corruption around us in this world that God so loves. And yet, brothers and sisters, we cannot forget that the sin “out there” is NEVER as dangerous to us as the sin “in HERE”.
Let me just give you two practical, biblical reasons why we should be more concerned with the sin in US, than the sin in others: #1) Because you do not have the power to CHANGE anyone else’s sin. James 1:20 says, “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God”; in other words, me getting angry about someone else’s sin has NO power to produce the righteousness of God in them, to FREE them from that sin. Only GOD can do that. And SECOND, on judgment day, you will not answer for ANYONE else’s sin. Ezekiel 18:20 “A son will not be punished for his father’s sins, and a father will not be punished for his son’s sins. The righteousness of the righteous person will be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked person will be his own.” So stay in your lane. Worry about yourself. And you will still have PLENTY to worry about.
Now, that makes it all the MORE remarkable that God DOES call us in the NT to be concerned with the sins of fellow brothers and sisters in the church. Matthew 18: confront a believer who sins against you… 1 Corinthians 5: kick evil people out of the church; a little leaven leavens the whole lump. … Why? Because Christ has unified us, he’s made us one body. And if one member of the body suffers, we all suffer. That’s how tight-knit the church is designed to operate: your sin is supposed to AFFECT me, personally. And yet, AS a collective Body, we still ought to be more concerned with sin in the CHURCH, than sin in the world; we should EXPECT it from the world! They don’t know any better; but we have been set apart, we’re called to “be holy, as I am holy,” says the Lord.
And even though our sin no longer poses an ETERNAL threat to us - if you are truly a believer, you cannot lose your salvation - but MAN can you sure “make shipwreck” of your faith! And a true believer will DESIRE to live a life that is pleasing to her heavenly father; she wants to hear “Well done, good and faithful servant”, NOT just squeeze into heaven by the skin of her teeth. A true follower of Christ will not ask, “What’s the bare MINIMUM I can do to make the cut”; he will instead, Colossians 3:5 “Put to death what is earthly in [him]”, he will, 2 Timothy 2:21 “cleanse himself from what is dishonorable, [to] be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master… ready for every good work.”
Point #2: Stress will either drive you to GOD, or back to OLD COPING MECHANISMS. (19:31-35; 20:1-2, 11-13) You’ll either draw close to GOD, or you’ll go back to OLD COPING MECHANISMS.
Where do the stresses of life in Zoar, life in Gerar drive both Lot and Abraham: note - these are NOT new sins for them. How does each RESPOND, to fear? Lot reaches for the bottle, and Abraham resorts back to deception.
Even if Lot WAS genuinely fleeing wickedness, it’s not long before he succumbs again to the worldliness he has become all too familiar with after years of life in Sodom. All it takes is the slightest prodding from his daughters, and Lot is back on the sauce. Which exposes another of his character flaws we see cropping back up here: acquiescence. Back in Sodom, Lot should have stood up to the sin all around him, LONG before he finally decided to in ch19; by then it was too late. But instead, he became a prominent man amongst the Sodomites, sitting at their gates, by acquiescing, by just going with the flow. As Edmund Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And though 2 Peter 2 identifies Lot as a “righteous man”, he certainly did NOTHING to oppose the sin around him. Not in Sodom, not in his own daughters. Yes, I know the text specifies that “Lot did not know when [his daughters] lay down or when [they] arose.” But without getting too detailed, the anatomical fact is that unconscious men cannot do what Lot does here, okay. So his SIN of getting blackout drunk, to the point that he can’t even remember it in the morning, does not excuse him: he was at least a PASSIVE participant in this incestuous iniquity.
Speaking of PASSIVITY, how about Abraham. Remember how passive HE became, back in ch16, when Sarai hatched the plan to have him sleep with Hagar? Then when she regretted her plan, and started abusing his new wife?
Side note: that’s US too, isn’t it - when stress comes, we EITHER turn into a Sarai, and we try and OVER-exert our own will, leaving God totally out of the picture, OR we turn into an Abram and we shut down, and shirk the God-GIVEN responsibility we have to step up and ACT, and instead we just become passive.
And now we’re in ch20, and here’s Abraham - new name, but same old dog, same old vomit - resorting back to passivity and blame-shifting once again. Look at how he answers Abimelech’s question - “Why did you DECEIVE me?” - in v11: Abraham replies: ““I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. 13 And when God caused me to wander from my father's house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother.”’” He essentially points his finger at everyone else but himself: in v11 it’s the PHILISTINES - “Hey, it was your godlessness that drove me to such deception” - in v12, he blames Abimelech, for misunderstanding the truth - he says, “I mean, TECHNICALLY, she IS my sister”, get your facts straight, King - he blames SARAH in v13 - “This is the kindness you must do for me, at every place we come… That way, technically, YOU’LL be the one lying, and I can just be passive and stay neutral” - and he even goes so far as to subtly blame GOD in v13 - “when God caused me to wander from my father's house...”; Heck: I never would have HAD to lie if God had just left me alone back in Ur! But now God’s got me sojourning in all SORTS of dangerous, godless places; He left me no other option”. Interesting textual note: Abraham actually uses the PLURAL form of the Hebrew word “god” in v13. So it really SHOULD read, “when the gods caused me to wander”. Some commentators call it a manuscript error; I think Abraham has resorted SO far back into his old ways, that he unconsciously slips back into his own polytheistic paganism here.
Our past does have a way of following us, doesn’t it? Lot chose to raise his daughters sin Sodom, in a godless environment; can he really be surprised by their actions in this dark cave? When weeks prior, you were ready to sacrifice and exploit your own virgin daughters in order to appease a gang of rapists, can you really be SHOCKED when now THEY ironically use their sexuality to exploit YOU, their father? “What goes around comes around”, right? These are the kinds of kids that parents like Lot deserve, and ultimately raise.
Abraham can’t outrun his past either. Apparently he hasn’t even been TRYING to; he confesses in v13 that he and Sarah made this pact DECADES ago, when they first left Ur. They pulled this EXACT same stunt, almost verbatim, back in ch12 when they lied to Pharaoh in Egypt, 25 years ago. He hasn’t changed a bit. And without meaning to, Abraham admits in v11 where he went wrong; he confesses, ““I did it - I deceived you - because I thought...” See, that was his problem: he started THINKING. When did God EVER call him to THINK? He hadn’t; God called him to OBEY. To walk by FAITH. To trust God. You know, friends: you can get yourself in a WHOLE lot of trouble by thinking. 1 Corinthians 3:20 ““The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”” Isaiah 55:8 “my thoughts are not your thoughts… declares the Lord.” We are called to trust God. To pray. To listen for HIS voice. To study HIS word. HE is trustworthy, your mind is NOT. The mind is a dangerous thing.
Where do YOU go in times of stress? Do you default back to old, unhealthy coping mechanisms, to self-medicate, self-soothe? Back to the bottle, back to social media and binge-watching to try and numb... passivity, back to that abusive relationship, back to distrust and isolation from people, back to people-pleasing, back to anger, back to fear, back to shame, back to porn, back to workaholism, back to perfectionism, back to being a control-freak, back to OLD patterns…
Or do you let it drive you to the ONLY One with the power to change old dogs. The One who really CAN change leopards’ spots, because He gave them the spots in the first place! The One who says, ““Behold, I am making all things new.”” (Rev 21:5), and has the proven track record to back it up. The One who says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17)
See, that’s the thing, we can ALL relate to the apostle Paul’s frustration with himself in Romans ch7. Paul has just gotten finished unpacking the glorious good news of the gospel in chs1-6, of FREEDOM from sin that is now ours in Christ, but then he PAUSES in ch7, just long enough to look in the mirror, and realize: “Sometimes I don’t feel like I’ve changed a BIT!” He says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ” (7:15-17) Maybe that’s you this morning - maybe you’re coming here, tuning in, and you are FIGHTING feelings of hopelessness and despair, because you feel like the same old dog. You’re reflecting back on this past week and realizing you’re STILL having the same old fights with your spouse. The same old battles with your kids. The same old sin struggles with YOURSELF. Like Paul, you are battling your own FLESH, and honestly, MUCH of the time, your sin seems to still be winning: “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (7:22-23)
So what’s the solution? Where’s our HOPE? Just when he’s on the brink of total despair, Paul hits us with it: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! ” (7:24-25)
And that’s point #3, in closing, friends: Redemption comes not through OUR EFFORT, but by GOD’S INVOLVEMENT. (19:36-38; 20:3-10, 14-18)
There are 2 big differences between Lot’s story and Abraham’s here. We’ve been comparing, but now let’s contrast. Their stories have 1) different ENDINGS, because they have 2) different main characters.
Lot is the main character of his story. God isn’t mentioned ONCE in the end of Genesis 19. Lot takes matters into his own hands, moves his family to the hills, and the rest is history. Literally, this short episode serves as an ORIGIN story, vv37-38, for both the Moabites and the Ammonites, two of Israel’s greatest enemies, for the rest of OT history. And this is the last we hear of Lot, in the OT. Those who go it alone, without God, will be forgotten.
But GOD is the protagonist of ch20. Those are the two most important words in this whole passage: v3: “BUT GOD”. Indeed, they are two of the most important words in the BIBLE: Genesis 50 - “you meant it for evil, BUT GOD used it for good”. Ephesians 2 - “you were dead in the trespasses and sins… BUT GOD, being rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ” And just LOOK at how ACTIVELY God gets involved here in Abraham’s story. God comes to Abimelech in a dream, v3. He warns and instructs Abimelech in v7. Judging from Abimelech’s illness, in v17, God presumably afflicted him with some kind of disease that PREVENTED him from committing adultery with Sarah, as he attests in v6: “it was I who kept you from sinning against me”. Keep THAT in mind when you go through suffering in this life - who knows what SIN God may be otherwise preventing you from… and how does Abraham’s story END? Not only does God bring redemption out of it - God uses this encounter to actually BLESS and establish Abraham in the promised land - but v17: God, despite ALL of Abraham’s faithlessness, still USES Abraham as the means of BLESSING and healing Abimelech, and the Philistines. Because ONLY God can use crooked sticks like us to draw straight lines.
Why does he do it? Why doesn’t God just go choose someone else? Someone who will remain more faithful to Him? Abraham certainly wasn’t chosen on the basis of His OWN merit! God does it, friends, he chooses Abraham’s and Will’s and _____ ‘s because God gets glory from proving that HIS strength is greater than OUR weakness.
Listen: we’ve all heard stories of the drunk who gets saved and never desires another drop of alcohol again, the very THOUGHT makes him sick to his stomach. If that is your testimony, praise God. He certainly has the power to redeem us in that way, and when he does, he gets ALL the glory, because there is no other worldly explanation for that kind of a 180 degree life transformation. But for many of the rest of us, our story is much more like what Paul describes there in 2 Corinthians - “to keep me from becoming conceited… a thorn was given me in the flesh… Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (7-9).
And for all the other “old dogs” like me here this morning who DO still struggle with those same old temptations to sin, let me end by reminding you that the same power of Christ that SAVED you, that “made you ALIVE together with Christ, while you were previously dead in your trespasses”, that same power is now SANCTIFYING you, if you are in Christ you ARE being made new, little by little every day, and let me remind you of the glorious HOPE you have awaiting you...