One of life’s embarrassing moments is when you’re in a crowd and you laugh at something which no one else laughs at. About all you can do at that point is to turn your laugh into a cough to try to cover it up. At those moments, you wish you could become invisible.

Have you ever thought about how embarrassing it would be if your thoughts were uncontrollably linked to your vocal cords, so that whatever you were thinking was broadcast for everyone to hear? Instead of, “I’m pleased to meet you,” you would blurt out, “Oh, no! I’m going to miss the kickoff if I talk to him now!” Instead of, “Great sermon, pastor,” as you go out the door, you would hear yourself saying, “I thought it never would end!”

You can identify, then, with poor Sarah. She laughed when God did not. She managed to conceal her laughter, but that doesn’t work with the Lord, who knows the very thoughts and intentions of our hearts. When the Lord said, “Why did Sarah laugh?” she denied it and said, “I didn’t laugh.” But the Lord knew differently and said, “No, but you did laugh.” It wasn’t a laughing matter to the Lord.

The problem was that Sarah’s laughter reflected her unbelief in the promise of God. Unbelief is a more serious sin than most of us realize. To doubt God’s promise is tantamount to calling God a liar. It is to say that I know better than the eternal Creator. It is to demote God from His place of sovereign power and to promote myself over Him. God doesn’t take kindly to unbelief.

All of us struggle, at different levels, with the problem of unbelief. Perhaps, like Abraham and Sarah, you’ve prayed for something for years, but God has not answered. Life is passing you by while you wait. You struggle with doubt as you often wonder whether He is hearing your prayers. You may have suffered some tragedy, such as the loss of a close loved one, and you wonder, “Where was God when this happened?” Maybe it’s a family problem that has dragged on for years. You wonder, “Why doesn’t God do something? Why doesn’t He answer?” Sometimes I’ve struggled with doubt when I’ve needed some small thing that would be easy for God to provide, something which I knew would further His work, and yet in spite of my prayers, God did not answer.

The Lord’s word to Sarah speaks to all who struggle with unbelief (and that’s all of us): “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?” The absurdity of the question gives it its punch. How could anything be difficult for the Lord, who spoke the universe into existence? And if nothing is difficult for Him, then how can I persist in my unbelief? God goes for the jugular. He makes us confront our doubt. This story of Abraham and Sarah waiting all these years for the promised son teaches us an important spiritual lesson:

God brings us to the end of our strength so that we will trust in His ability to do the impossible.

By nature we all trust in ourselves most of the time, and in God only when we really have to. If we trust in ourselves, then we glory in ourselves. But God’s purpose is that we glory in Him alone. So through various means He graciously brings us to the place where we have no hope except in Him, so that we trust in Him and He gets the glory. The first step in this process is ...

1. God brings us to the end of our strength.

After the meal, the guests ask Abraham, “Where is Sarah your wife?” (18:9). It’s an interesting question, since they know the name of Abraham’s wife without any mention of it by Abraham. Later the Lord knows what Sarah is thinking. And yet here He asks, “Where is she?” Why does He ask this? I think the Lord asked so that Sarah, hearing her name spoken, would eaves-drop on the conversation to follow. Abraham had already heard the promise concerning Isaac (17:15-19). Surely he had told Sarah. But she was struggling with doubt. So now the Lord comes so that Sarah can hear it straight from His mouth and believe.

Note that the Lord begins by promising that which was humanly impossible: “I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son” (18:10). We are informed, “Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him.” The Lord couldn’t see her from where He was standing. We’re also reminded that Abraham and Sarah were old, and that Sarah was past the age of childbearing (18:11). It was humanly impossible for her to bear a son. She was already through menopause. In her natural strength, she was barren.

That’s where the Lord wants us in our relationship with Him, to recognize our weakness so that we will trust His strength. Many people mistakenly think that the reason they struggle in their Christian lives is that they’re too weak. That isn’t so. The reason we struggle in our Christian walk is that we do not recognize our own weakness for what it is, and so we trust in ourselves rather than in the Lord. When we see our weakness and cast ourselves on the Lord’s strength, then we’re strong. God doesn’t help those who help themselves. God helps those who are helpless. When they helped themselves, Abraham and Sarah came up with Hagar and Ishmael. When they were helpless, God gave them Isaac. Hudson Taylor used to say that when God wanted to open inland China to the gospel, He looked around until He found a man weak enough for the task.

This applies to salvation. One of the main things that keeps people from God’s salvation is the notion that they can do something to contribute to the process. They think that if they clean up their lives a bit, or if they go to church or give money or whatever, they can qualify for salvation. But Scripture is clear that Christ didn’t die for decent folks who have worked hard to put their lives in order. Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6). You can’t receive the salvation He offers until you see yourself as a sinner, quit trying to save yourself, and cast yourself upon His free and sovereign grace, crying out, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” Salvation is not a matter of human ability combined with God’s ability. Salvation is totally of the Lord.

But our problem is that even after we’ve trusted in Christ for salvation, we mistakenly think that we’re competent to live the Christian life with just a little help from the Lord. And so the Lord has to bring us again and again to the point of helplessness, where we acknowledge our own insufficiency and depend His all-sufficiency. This is illustrated many times in the Bible.

Take Hannah (1 Samuel 1), for instance. She was another barren woman who desperately wanted to have a son. The Lord wanted her to have a son, too. So do you know what He did? He closed her womb! That’s a strange way to give a woman a son! Her husband’s other wife, Peninnah, who was not a godly woman, had many children. How frustrating for Hannah, crying out to the Lord for a son, to see Peninnah, who didn’t seek the Lord, with many children!

But that’s how God works with His people. He wants us to see that without Him, we can do nothing. If Hannah could have had children on her own, like Peninnah, she wouldn’t have needed the Lord. And the Lord wasn’t getting any glory from Peninnah and her brood. She could get along quite nicely by herself. But when Hannah finally had Samuel because the Lord gave him to her, she sang a song of praise and gave Samuel back to the Lord to serve Him.

God wants each of us to see that our situation is humanly impossible without Him. That way, we’ll look to Him for His power, praise Him when He delivers us, and He will be glorified through our lives. But sometimes, instead of trusting Him with our impossible situations, like Sarah, we doubt Him. What is the source of our unbelief?

2. Unbelief stems from a human perspective that leaves God out.

There is a difference between Abraham’s laughter (17:17) and Sarah’s laughter, as seen in the fact that the Lord did not rebuke Abraham for laughing, but He did rebuke Sarah. Abraham’s laughter may have stemmed from his being startled or astonished at what the Lord had just told him. He had it fixed in his mind that Ishmael would be the son of the promise (as 17:18 shows). But apparently the Lord, who knows our hearts, knew that Abraham was not doubting God’s promise to give them a son through Sarah. He was just surprised by what God had said.

But Sarah’s laughter was different. It stemmed from her unbelief which stemmed from looking at things from a human perspective. She was past the age where she could bear children. Besides, she had been barren even when she was younger. Remember, Sarah’s comment in 18:12 represents what she thought to herself, not what she said out loud. The gist of it was, “I’m too old even to enjoy sex with my husband, let alone get pregnant and bear a child!” Adding up all the human factors, she concluded that she could not in any way bear a son at age 90. But she left out one crucial factor in her calculations: the power of the omnipotent God to do that which is humanly impossible!

We’re so quick to calculate from our human perspective how God is going to be able to do His work. Before Jesus fed the 5,000, He asked Philip, “Where are we going to buy bread, that these may eat?” (John 6:5). Here were about 20,000 hungry people (including women and children) in a remote place. The disciples had already told the Lord their solution: “Send them away, so that they can buy bread” (Mark 6:36). But the Lord tested Philip by asking, “Where are we going to buy bread?” It was a humanly impossible situation.

Philip should have said, “Lord, apart from Your power, there is no way that we can come up with enough bread to feed this crowd.” But what did Philip do? He got out his calculator and determined that 200 denarii (200 day’s wages) worth of bread wouldn’t even be enough. So what? The disciples couldn’t have scraped together 200 denarii if their lives depended on it. But that’s how we think when we look at things from a human perspective. We calculate, but we leave God out of the calculation.

Perhaps you’re facing an overwhelming problem right now. Maybe it’s the salvation of a loved one, and you’ve thought, “There’s no way this person is going to come to faith in Christ. He’s just too far gone in sin. He’s been addicted to drugs for years. He’s been drinking and lying and living for self, with no possibility that he’s going to change.” No human possibility! But is anything too difficult for the Lord? With God, all things, including the salvation of the chief of sinners, is possible! Factoring God into any situation suddenly changes the equation!

As I said, we tend to shrug off our unbelief as if it’s no big deal. But God doesn’t do that. There’s a theologically staggering verse in Mark 6:5, which states that Jesus could do no miracle in His home town of Nazareth, except for healing a few sick people. The next verse adds that “He wondered at their unbelief.” Even though God is sovereign in His almighty power, He has chosen to limit His working through our faith. So He views unbelief as a serious sin, and He confronts it in His people, just as He confronted it in Sarah:

3. The Lord confronts our unbelief so that we will see things from His perspective.

The Lord’s confrontation got Sarah to face her sin and to look at things from His perspective. Isn’t it interesting that the Lord first confronted Abraham about Sarah’s sin (18:13)? The Lord viewed Abraham as spiritually responsible for his family (18:19), so He asked him, “Why did Sarah laugh?” Again, how ironic that the Lord who in His omniscience knew that Sarah, behind Him inside the tent, laughed (the text says she did it silently, “within”), asks, “Why did Sarah laugh?” He wanted Abraham and Sarah to think about that question. The answer was, “Sarah laughed because she didn’t believe the Lord.”

As I said, unbelief is sin because in effect it calls God a liar and me the truthful one. It says, “I know better than the omniscient, all-powerful God, what He can do or not do!” It implies either that God doesn’t know what He’s talking about or He isn’t able to do it. So the Lord asks a second question, “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?” Is there anything you can think of which would make the Lord exclaim, “I’m not sure I can pull it off!”?

Unbelief is also serious because invariably it leads to other sins. Sarah denied that she did what the Lord says she did: “I didn’t laugh.” The text adds that she was afraid. But how foolish to think that we can hide our sin from the Lord who knows every thought in our heads! The Lord didn’t let Sarah off the hook. He confronted her with the truth: “No, but you did laugh” (18:15). He got her to face her sin of unbelief and to think about things from His perspective with the rhetorical question, “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?”

The most loving thing the Lord can do is to make us face our sin of unbelief: “No, you did doubt Me. Admit the truth yourself, because I know your heart.” Then He lovingly gets us to consider things from His almighty perspective: “I could never be in any situation which would be too difficult for the Lord to work.”

Think about it: Is there any problem you’re facing that is too hard for God? Is there a family problem that just got so bad that the Lord would have to say, “Now it’s too tough for Me to handle”? Are any of your circumstances outside of His control? Do you suppose He’s in heaven, wringing His hands, and saying, “Oh no! I didn’t expect that to happen! I can’t deal with it now!”? Can you dare to think that there is some sin which you have committed or some awful habit to which you are enslaved which the Lord is not able to forgive and deliver you from? Is anything in your life too difficult for the Lord?

A woman once came up to the famous Bible teacher, G. Campbell Morgan, and asked, “Dr. Morgan, should we pray about the little things in our lives, or only the big things?” In his British manner, Dr. Morgan drew up and said, “Madam, can you think of anything in your life that is big to God?”

The Lord’s rebuke brought Sarah to faith. Hebrews 11:11 states, “By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.” In fact Sarah received more than faith. Her reward was faith, laughter, and the Lord’s commendation (as James Boice, Genesis [Zondervan], 2:156-157, points out).

4. When we trust God to do the humanly impossible, He rewards us.

Because she faced her sin of unbelief and thought about things from God’s perspective, Sarah received the faith to conceive Isaac. Faith is a gift God is ready to give us the moment we will turn from our unbelief and see Him for who He is: the God for whom nothing is too difficult.

Also, Sarah received laughter. Her laughter of doubt (18:12) was replaced with the laughter of joy when Isaac was born (21:6). In fact, Isaac’s name means “he laughs.” Since that was the name God gave the boy, it means that God wanted to give Abraham and Sarah the right laughter of His blessing in place of the wrong laughter of doubt. God has a way of turning our sin, when we repent, into that which brings praise to Him and joy to us.

And Sarah received commendation from God. In 1 Peter 3:6 the Holy Spirit inspired Peter to use Sarah as an example of a holy woman who submitted to her husband by calling him “lord.” The only place in the Bible it is recorded that Sarah called Abraham “lord” is in Genesis 18:12, right as she was laughing at God’s promise. The Lord, in His grace, looked beyond Sarah’s doubt and picked out her submission to her husband and held it up as an example.

In the same way, the Lord is gracious, ready to forgive us and meet our every need when we turn from our unbelief and trust in His mighty power. He may not give us an instant answer. As with many of those in Hebrews 11, the great chapter on faith, we may die without receiving the fulfillment of His promises this side of heaven (Heb. 11:13, 39). But that doesn’t undermine the faithfulness or power of our great God, the God with whom all things are possible. We may not understand His ways and the reason for His delays. But we dare not doubt His goodness toward His chosen ones or His power to fulfill His purpose with them in His time and way.

Conclusion

Jeremiah the prophet was a godly man who faithfully spoke God’s word to a disobedient people who rejected both him and his message. For years he warned them of coming judgment if they did not repent, but they didn’t want to hear it. They mocked him, threw him in a muddy pit, and listened to the false prophets who told them what they wanted to hear, that God wouldn’t judge them for their sin. Finally, just as Jeremiah had warned, the powerful Babylonian king Nebuhadnezzar came and besieged Jerusalem. Jeremiah was thrown into prison by the wicked Jewish king Zedekiah because he was predicting a Babylonian victory.

In that bleak situation, a strange word came to him from God. The Lord told him to buy a field from his cousin because he was the closest relative with a right of redemption. This would be like telling someone to buy a house in Sarajevo when it was under siege. It was obvious that the country was about to fall to a foreign king, who would confiscate all property. So you would be throwing away your money. But God told Jeremiah to buy it as a testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness to His promise to restore His people to the land. So Jeremiah obeyed God and handed over the precious little money he had to purchase this field. In that context Jeremiah prayed, “Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You” (Jer. 32:17). The Lord confirmed Jeremiah’s prayer by answering, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?” (Jer. 32:27).

If God has you in a humanly impossible situation, it is to bring you to the end of your own strength so that you will trust in His ability to do the humanly impossible. You may not ever see the answer in your lifetime. But you can trust in Him and give glory to Him, knowing that His Word of promise will stand, and that He has not forgotten His promise to you. In Genesis 18:10, the Lord says to Abraham and Sarah, “I will surely return to you ....” God’s Word to us is always surely, even when circumstances shout, “No way!” Remember God’s question, “Is anything too difficult for Me?” and trust Him to do what is humanly impossible. May He bless you as you wait on Him!

Discussion Questions

1. What would you tell someone who said, “I want to believe, but I just don’t have the strong faith you have”?
2. How can we know whether God’s delay means “no,” or whether we should keep seeking Him for the answer we desire?
3. Sometimes Christians say that we need a certain amount of self-confidence. Is this biblically sound? Why/why not?
4. What is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to trust God for? Why was it so difficult?

Copyright 1996, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation

Pastor John MacArthur tells of reading a book that told of a pastor who had been sent to prison for robbing 14 banks to finance his numerous engagements with prostitutes. The author of the book was convinced that the man was a true Christian. MacArthur writes, “Call me old-fashioned, but I think it is fair to raise the question of whether someone who regularly robs banks to pay for illicit sex is truly saved!” (Faith Works [Word], p. 127.)

As you read the story of Lot in Genesis 19, the same question arises: Was Lot truly saved? If all we had to go on was the Genesis record, I would vote no. But, the Apostle Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, calls him a righteous man, “oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men,” whose “righteous soul” was “tormented day after day with their lawless deeds” (2 Pet. 2:7, 8). God, who alone knows the hearts of every person, knew that Lot had been justified by faith (as Abraham was, Gen. 15:6). Even though he was greatly tainted by Sodom’s wickedness, he did not participate in it. Apparently Lot’s conscience troubled him at what he saw around him, although not enough to cause him to flee on his own. He tried to restrain the evil men from their intended sin against the heavenly visitors. Although he had to be dragged from the city to escape its destruction, he did obey by not looking back. But he suffered tragic consequences for his conformity to this evil world. Lot’s life teaches us that ...

When believers live in conformity to this corrupt world, tragic consequences result.

Lot had moved to Sodom to pursue the good life (Gen. 13:10). He had done well financially. He had a house in a prosperous city (Ezek. 16:49). He may have had a seat on the city council, as seen in his sitting in the gate (comparable to city hall). But he ends up escaping with the clothes on his back, losing his wife, and hiding in a cave with his two daughters who make him drunk and commit incest with him so that they can have children. Lot is a sad picture of a man who sought to gain his life, but lost it. He was saved by the grace of God, but saved so as through fire (1 Cor. 3:15)--singed, stripped of every-thing, traumatized by the severe discipline of the Lord.

I fear that there are many believers in our day who are vainly trying, like Lot, to live for the best of both worlds. They have been told by modern evangelists what Jesus will do for them in the here and now: He will help you overcome your personal problems, reach your goals, succeed in business, in marriage, and all of life. They also throw in heaven as an added bonus, although it doesn’t sell as well as the lure of success. So people sign up for success with Jesus, not realizing that He promised trials and hardships in this life. In the Bible, the main reason for trusting in Christ is that He delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:10), of which God’s judgment on Sodom is mild by comparison. If we would see the world for what it is, we might not be so quick to live for the vain things it offers.

1. The world is thoroughly corrupt.

Sodom shows us the world without God. On one level, it is an ugly, repulsive picture. It was a city where it wasn’t safe to be on the streets after dark, where not only the young men, but even the old (19:4) were living to satisfy their lusts, even if it meant homosexually raping two visitors. But on another level, Sodom, like our society, had its attractive side. It was sophisticated and prosperous. “She and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, ...” (Ezek. 16:49). The apostle John says that the world entices us with “the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance” (1 John 2:16, Living Bible). So even though we know from the Bible that the world is corrupt and under God’s judgment, it still has its appeal.

Both Isaiah and Jeremiah condemn Israel for acting like Sodom, in that they not only indulged in evil, but they openly encouraged it and didn’t even try to conceal it (Isa. 3:9; Jer. 23:14). When a society openly flaunts sin, it has become thoroughly corrupt. When it openly accepts and practices homosexuality, it is a sign that God has given that society over to degrading passions (Rom. 1:26-27). It is in the final stages of corruption. Even when the angels struck them blind (the Hebrew word means a temporary, confused daze), instead of repenting, they wearied themselves stupidly trying to persist in their sin (19:11). They remind me of our wicked society which, when struck by the AIDS plague, encourages everyone to have safe sex, but continues full bore in its sin without a thought of God or repentance.

What we need to keep in mind is that though this corrupt world has its enticing side, it is doomed for destruction even as Sodom was. Lot was living in and was conformed to this corrupt world. But before we point our finger at Lot, we need to realize that ...

2. Many Christians live in conformity to our corrupt world.

Like Lot, much of the American church has moved into downtown Sodom. We’re so surrounded by its stench that we don’t notice it any more. W. H. Griffith Thomas observes, “A ship in the water is perfectly right, but water in the ship would be perfectly wrong. The Christian in the world is right and necessary, but the world in the Christian is wrong and disastrous” (Genesis: A Devotional Commentary [Eerdmans], p. 174.)

The solution is to recognize the signs of corruption and “don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within” (Rom. 12:2, Phillips). To recognize and resist the signs of corruption and to be renewed in our minds, we’ve got to saturate ourselves with God’s Word. While there are many marks of conformity to the world, our text reveals six. You can test yourself, to see how much water you’ve let into your ship, perhaps without even knowing it.

Signs of conformity to the world:

(1) You’re living for the same goals as the world. Lot moved to Sodom for the same reason other people moved to Sodom: to get ahead financially. He didn’t go there to reach Sodom for God. He went there to get rich just like everyone else. But Paul warned: “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction (1 Tim. 6:9). Wrong goals!

Tom Sine has observed that often the only difference between Christians and their pagan neighbors is that we hang around church buildings a little more. We’ve reduced Christianity “to little more than a spiritual crutch to help us through the minefields of the upwardly mobile life. God is there to help us get our promotions, our house in the suburbs, and our bills paid. Somehow God has become a co-conspirator in our agendas instead of our becoming a co-conspirator in His” (Christianity Today [3/17/89], p. 52). Each of us needs to ask, “How are my goals in life different than those of the guy next door who doesn’t know Jesus Christ?” The Lord said that unbelievers eagerly seek for material prosperity, but His followers are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:31-33).

So check out your goals. If, like everybody else in the world, you’re just living to become financially secure, to make a comfortable living, you’re being conformed to the world. If you’re living for the world’s goals, sooner or later you’ll be tainted by the world’s moral corruption.

(2) You’re expedient in morals. At first, it looks as if Lot has avoided the moral pollution of Sodom. When the men of the city try to force the two visitors outside, Lot goes out and says, “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly” (19:7). But what he says next is unbelievable: He offers them his two virgin daughters to rape as they please (19:8)! He was trying to prevent one awful sin by suggesting another! He was setting aside morality because of a pressing emergency. He wouldn’t normally sacrifice his daughters, but what else could he do? His daughters learned from him (19:31-38); once they saw their situation in the cave as an emergency, then getting their father drunk and getting pregnant by him was not a moral problem. What else could they do in such a predicament?

It’s easy to have moral standards when the pressure is off. But what about when the pressure is on? Then it’s easy to make up excuses for why what formerly was wrong is now O.K. What is wrong for everyone else is all right for you, because of your unique situation. Look out! If you change your morals to adapt to the situation, you’re blending in with the world!

(3) You’re more concerned for your status than for your family. Lot was willing to sacrifice his daughters to save his guests because there was a strong social custom which said that you had to protect those who came under your roof as guests. But in Sodom, there wasn’t much social stigma connected with sexual immorality. So to protect his status in the community, Lot tried to protect his guests at the expense of his daughters.

I’m sure none of us would do what Lot did, but we often do other things to protect our status at the expense of our families. We work long hours to try to succeed financially, even though it means neglecting the family. Why do we do that? We want the status that comes from success. What do you think of when you hear that someone is successful? That he raised his family to fear the Lord or that he made it financially? Success with your family just doesn’t carry the same weight in our culture as financial success. When we buy into that view of status, we’re being conformed to the world.

(4) You’re not respected by the world for your beliefs. In all these years that Lot had lived in Sodom, there may have been a few times when he had tried to tell them about God. But now when he weakly tries to tell the Sodomites they’re wrong, they don’t respect him (19:9). He doesn’t even have any credibility with his future sons-in-law, who think he’s joking about God judging Sodom (19:14). The reason they didn’t believe him was that it was so out of character for him to get alarmed about spiritual matters. For years he had lived quietly in Sodom, pursuing the same goals as everyone else. So when he “gets religion,” nobody believes him.

Of course, there always will be mockers in the world. No committed Christian will win a popularity contest on the job. But there’s a difference between being liked and being respected. When the world doesn’t respect you for your Christian stand, it may be because you’ve lived like them for so long that it seems out of character for you to suddenly be so concerned about God and morality. The world may not like your viewpoint, but if you live consistently before them, usually they will respect you.

(5) You’re not sure you want to give up the world, even when it’s going to cost you your life. Lot had to flee so that he wouldn’t be destroyed with that wicked city. And yet he hesitated (19:15- 16)! He couldn’t have saved anything if he had remained behind. He would have lost even his own life; and yet he hesitated. It reminds me of the gag Jack Benny used to do, where a robber sticks a gun in his face and says, “Your money or your life!” Jack hesitates. The gunman snarls, “Well?” Jack says, “Don’t rush me! I’m thinking about it.”

Why did Lot hesitate? Because, as Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt. 6:21). Your heart always follows your treasure. If your treasure is in your things, then you won’t want to give them up, even if it costs you your life to hang on to them. The doctor may tell you that if you keep working at the pace you’re going at now, you’ll have a heart attack. But you’re not sure you want to slow down, even though it will cost you your life, because you want all the things you can get with your money. That’s a sign of conformity to the world.

(6) You attempt to keep a little bit of sin in your life, even when God is dealing severely with you. Lot and his wife and two daughters reluctantly leave Sodom, dragged out by the two angels. The angels urgently tell him to flee for his life, and incredibly, Lot wants to barter with them to keep a bit of his old way of life intact. He thanks them for their mercy in saving him, but then he protests that he can’t flee to the mountains as they tell him to do. That would be just a bit too much. Instead, he wants permission to go to a small town nearby, the implication being that since the town was small (Zoar means “small”), its sins won’t be too bad. Derek Kidner observes, “Not even brimstone will make a pilgrim of him: he must have his little Sodom again if life is to be supportable” (Genesis [IVP], p. 135). Note that God didn’t prevent him. The Lord will let you hang onto your sinful way if you insist on it.

It’s easy to do as Lot did. You become a Christian, and God begins to confront you with things in your life that have to go if you want to follow Him. You can find yourself scrambling to preserve as much of the old life as possible, even while God is in the process of stripping you of it: “Lord, I’ll go to church on Sunday morning; just let me spend the rest of my week as I choose. I’ll even give 10 percent, just so I can spend 90 percent as I please. I’ll be outwardly moral; just let me indulge in my mental sins. I’ll give up Sodom; just let me move to Zoar.”

What happens when believers live like the world?

3. When believers live in conformity with the world, it takes a terrible toll.

Who can say what would have happened if Lot had moved to Sodom with a missionary mind-set instead of with a monetary mind-set? Perhaps God would have worked a revival and many in Sodom could have been saved (Matt. 11:23). But as it was, Sodom was destroyed. Lot lost everything he had been working for--his house, his flocks, and his wealth all was destroyed in an instant. Not only that, he lost his wife. Probably she lingered behind, her heart not ready to let go of the good life in Sodom. Overcome by the fumes, she was instantly encrusted with the mineral deposits that fell from the sky, much like the people of Pompeii were entombed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

It is possible that Lot lost other sons and daughters who did not follow him out of the city. The two daughters who were dragged out by the angels had been irreparably tainted by Sodom’s moral corruption, as seen by their incestuous degradation with their father. So Lot, who tried to gain it all, lost it all. By the grace of God and by the skin of his teeth, Lot was saved. But his life and his family’s lives were wasted from an eternal point of view.

This section of the story ends with a poignant scene. Abraham returns to the place where he had pled with the Lord. He looks down and silently gazes on the smoke rising from Sodom’s destruction. We aren’t told what he thought as he looked. Except for the fact that the story of Lot is in the Bible, we don’t know whether Abraham ever found out whether his prayers for his wayward nephew were answered, so that Lot was rescued before destruction fell. But as Abraham stood there and looked at this once-prosperous city laid waste by the just judgment of God, he must have thought, “What a waste!”

Conclusion

A Presbyterian pastor reported that he was talking with a colleague about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. She said, “Well, if that’s the way God really is, then I’m not going to believe in Him!” That’s strange logic! If God is a holy God who pours out His wrath on unbelieving sinners, then we had better believe in Him!

You may not like the idea of a holy God who judges unrepentant sinners. But your not liking it doesn’t change who God is! The fact is, you cannot believe in Jesus Christ, even as merely a good teacher, and not believe in the awful terrors of hell, because Jesus spoke often and plainly about it. In fact, Jesus used this story of Sodom’s destruction, which overtook them as they went about their daily routines, to warn us of God’s final judgment. He said, “But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.... Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:29-30, 32).

Jonathan Edwards, in a sermon on the text, “Remember Lot’s wife,” points out the numerous descriptions of hell given in Scripture: blackness of darkness, a never-dying worm, a furnace of fire, a lake of fire and brimstone, etc. He explains that the reason so many metaphors are used is because none of them are sufficient to represent the awful misery of that place. He then states,

You have therefore much more need to make haste in your escape, and not to look behind you, than Lot and his wife had when they fled out of Sodom; for you are every day and every moment in danger of a thousand times more dreadful storm coming on your heads, than that which came on Sodom, when the Lord rained brimstone and fire ... out of heaven upon them; so that it will be vastly more sottish in you to look back than it was in Lot’s wife. (The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], 2:66.)

There were probably many in Sodom who said, “If that hypocrite Lot is a believer, then I don’t want any part of it.” They perished in their sin. Perhaps others thought, “I’m a better person than that phony Lot,” and maybe they were better. But they perished that awful day. Others said, “I believe in a God of love, not a God of judgment.” They found out that their belief didn’t change who God is. They perished. The only ones who were saved were those who were the objects of God’s compassion (19:16), who heeded the urgent warning of the angels and fled for their lives.

I once preached a funeral service where the family had printed on the memorial bulletin John 3:16. But it was printed as follows: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life.” But they left out some crucial words: “whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Either you have eternal life through faith in Jesus or you shall perish! I urge you as the angels urged Lot, “Escape for your life!” Flee to Jesus Christ and you will not perish in the day of God’s judgment!

Discussion Questions

1. Is it wrong to pursue wealth (consider 1 Tim. 6:9)? How should a Christian balance seeking career success with Matthew 6:33?
2. Should Christians seek to move from an especially wicked city? How can we raise godly children in our corrupt society?
3. Are there two classes of believers, the “carnal Christian” and the spiritual? What errors have resulted from this teaching?
4. Should we warn unbelievers of hell when we tell them of the gospel? How urgent should we be in our appeal to them?
5. Can a worldly Christian have assurance of salvation?

Copyright 1996, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation

Four ministers got away for a retreat. As they sat around the fire talking, one pastor said, “Let’s all share our besetting sins. I’ll go first. My besetting sin is that every so often I slip away from the office to the race track and bet on the horses.”

The second pastor volunteered, “My besetting sin is that I keep a bottle of wine down in my basement. When I get really frustrated with my deacons, I sneak down there and have a nip of wine.”

The third pastor gulped and said, “My besetting sin is that I keep a punching bag at home. When I get mad at somebody in the church, I go home and think about that person as I hit the punching bag.”

They all turned to the fourth pastor and asked, “Well, what is your besetting sin?” He hesitated, but they coaxed him. Finally, he said, “My besetting sin is gossip, and I can’t wait to get home!”

We all struggle with besetting sins. They’re like a piece of furniture that you keep hitting your shin against. At some point, you would think you would learn to avoid it. But when it’s been a while and you aren’t thinking about it--Whack! You do it again.

Genesis 20 shows us Abraham, the father of faith, whacking his shin on the same piece of furniture. He does the same stupid thing here that he did in chapter 12: He claims that Sarah is his sister, and she is taken into the harem of a king. Liberal critics argue that these two accounts (and chapter 26, where Isaac does the same thing) are really the same story, which a not-too-smart editor mistakenly put in several places. But there are a number of obvious differences between the three accounts, and there is no reason to doubt their historicity. They are true to life and show us that certain sins plague us throughout life, and that they are often passed on to our children.

After the high point of Abraham’s fellowship and prayer (chap. 18), you wouldn’t think that this could happen. If the Bible was a fairy tale, it wouldn’t. But the Bible is a realistic book that shows us the humanness of all its heroes. Abraham’s weak areas show us the struggles in the life of faith and give us hope for ourselves. If God could work with a sinner like Abraham, then He can work with me!

There are two main themes in this chapter: the failure of Abraham; and, the faithfulness of God. Yes, Abraham sinned, but God didn’t cast him off. He dealt with His erring child and followed it up by fulfilling the long-awaited promise of a son (chap. 21). That’s grace! The chapter shows that ...

While we are prone to besetting sins, God is marked by holiness and grace.

There’s a fine balance here. If the text only portrayed Abraham’s sin and God’s grace, we might be inclined toward license: “Don’t worry about your sin, because God is gracious.” But the chapter won’t allow that wrong application. God’s holiness and the damage our sin causes is balanced with His grace, so that we won’t take our sin lightly.

Before we look at the passage in more detail, let me deal with a question you may have, namely, why would Abimelech be interested in marrying a 90 year-old woman? Pharaoh took Sarah into his harem when she was about 65 on account of her great beauty. But 90? Was Sarah really that stunning?

Part of the answer involves the longer lifespans of people in that day. Abraham lived to 175 and Sarah to 127. Thus at 65, she would be just past the halfway point of her life, certainly not too old to retain her beauty. At 90, she would be comparable to a woman of 53 who lived to 75, so she still could be attractive, although past her youth. But the text never mentions her beauty in chapter 20. Probably Abimelech wanted her in his harem to cement an alliance with the wealthy and powerful Abraham, who posed as her brother. Later, Abimelech did enter into an alliance with Abraham (21:22-34). Thus while Sarah was not in the flower of her youth, she was an attractive woman whose family ties could help Abimelech politically.

A second question is, Why did God appear to Abimelech, but not to Abraham? Why didn’t God stop Abraham from his foolish action? I think the reason is that God sometimes allows us to fail to teach us that our salvation depends totally on His sovereign grace, and not at all on ourselves. This event took place on the verge of Sarah’s becoming pregnant with Isaac. That couldn’t have happened if she was in Abimelech’s harem. In his attempt to protect himself, Abraham almost spoiled God’s promise to give him a son through Sarah the next year (18:10). This serious failure, right on the verge of the promise’s fulfillment, showed Abraham again that if God’s promise was to be fulfilled, it would be totally because of God and not at all because of Abraham. Abraham’s sin shows us that ...

1. We all are prone to besetting sins.

If Abraham had one, you can be sure that we all have them! Often, like Abraham, we fail in the everyday worries and fears of life, not in the major crises. Abraham had this long-standing fear for his safety. Back before he left his father’s house, he devised this “white” lie and got Sarah to agree to it in an attempt to protect himself (20:13). If God had called him to go, God would protect him. So this scheme was unnecessary, illogical, and it didn’t even work the two times he tried it. But it was a weak area with Abraham, and he fell into it when he got into these situations. Five observations about besetting sins:

A. Besetting sins are always a danger.

I don’t mean that we can’t experience consistent victory over them. By God’s grace and power, we can. But I do mean that there will never be a time when we’re so strong spiritually that we don’t have to be on guard against them. If you ever get to thinking, “I’ve finally got that problem licked once and for all,” look out! “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Abraham had walked with God for years, but he fell into the same sin that had defeated him twenty years before.

Some branches of Christianity teach that we can reach a state of sinless perfection in this life. How I wish it were so! The Bible teaches that we can have consistent victory over sin, but it also teaches that even the strongest saints are always vulnerable to temptation. As long as we remember that we’re weak, so that we walk in the Spirit, we’ll be strong in His strength. But the minute we forget it, or start thinking we’re strong in ourselves, we’re in trouble.

We need to be careful to avoid situations which expose us to danger. There is no indication here that Abraham sought the Lord about his move to Gerar (20:1). Since the land of Canaan was so crucial in God’s plan for Abraham and since God had blessed Abraham in his years by the oaks of Mamre, I can’t believe that it was right for him to pack up and move without consulting the Lord, especially into a situation that exposed him to his old weakness.

If you know that you’re easily tempted in certain situations, avoid those situations! If you’re tempted by drinking, don’t go near bars. If you’re tempted by lust, don’t go to bookstores where pornography is sold; don’t go to movies with sex scenes. If you’re tempted when you travel alone, make arrangements to be accountable and plan your free time with things that will build you in the Lord. Knowing that we’re vulnerable, we need to plan not to sin!

B. Besetting sins are rooted in the love of self.

If Abraham had been loving God, would he have tarnished God’s name (which was associated with Abraham) by lying? If he was loving Sarah more than himself (as every husband should do; Eph. 5:25), would he have been willing to let her be taken from his side and exposed to adultery? Why did Abraham do such a thing? Because he was afraid that he would be killed (20:11). He loved himself more than he loved God or Sarah.

I have read statements by “Christian psychologists” to the effect that most of our problems stem from feelings of low self worth. I read an article recently explaining that one reason pastors commit adultery is low self esteem. But the Bible teaches that most of our sins stem from the fact that we love ourselves more than we love God and more than we love others. Any man who commits adultery is loving himself more than he loves God, his wife, his children, and even more than he loves the other woman. If you try to overcome sin by loving yourself more, you’re simply feeding the source of the problem! The answer to overcoming sin is to deny yourself, not to love yourself (Luke 9:23).

C. Besetting sins always hurt others.

We tend to think of our besetting sins as basically harmless. Abraham probably thought, “This is just a white lie. No one will get hurt.” And yet his sin risked losing Sarah to another man. It must have hurt Sarah’s feelings to be used as Abraham’s buffer to protect his hide. And it caused Abimelech and his household to get sick and be on the verge of death (20:3, 7). We never have the luxury of sinning in private. Our sin always hurts others.

God prevented Abimelech from his unintentional sin, but God wouldn’t heal him apart from Abraham’s prayer (20:7, 17-18). That put Abraham in the position of having to pray that another man’s wife and concubines would not be barren, a prayer that he had asked for his own wife for over 25 years! In chapter 18, Abraham had learned to pray for those who were under judgment for their own sins. Here he learns to pray for those who had been damaged by his sin.

We can’t always undo the damage our sin has caused. But we can pray for those who have been hurt by our sin. We should ask forgiveness, and make restitution when we can. But we need to remember that our sin always hurts others, and thus avoid sinning.

Besetting sins are always a danger; they stem from self-love; and, they always damage others.

D. We tend to excuse besetting sins, not confess and forsake them.

I’d like to be able to report that Abraham confessed his sin and put it out of his life. Maybe he did, but the Bible is silent on it. What we see him doing here is making excuses for it, not confessing it. God uses a pagan king to confront His sinning prophet. Abraham says he thought there would be no fear of God in this place (20:11), and yet the men of that place feared greatly when they heard of God’s potential judgment on them (20:8), whereas Abraham had feared them more than he feared God.

Abraham has three excuses for his sin. First, he says that the situation forced him to do it. Ever since God had “caused him to wander” from his father’s house, he had been afraid he would be killed, and so he had planned this lie (20:13). What else could a man do in such a situation? But how could Abraham really be in danger of losing his life, if God had called him to go into Canaan and had promised to make a great nation out of him? There is no situation where God puts you where sin is no longer sin because of the circumstances.

Abraham’s second excuse was to justify a half-truth as the truth, to say that Sarah was his sister. But though technically true, it was intended as a lie. The important fact in this case wasn’t that she was his sister, but that she was his wife. You can bend the facts or limit them in such a way as to promote falsehood. That’s lying, even if it is technically true. The motive is what counts. Abraham calls his lie a “kindness” (20:13). But a lie is never a kindness or “a little white lie.” It’s always sin.

The third excuse was, “That’s the way we’ve always done it” (20:13). He and Sarah had agreed to do it this way years before. “Don’t take it personally, Abimelech! This is just what we’ve always done.” But just because we’ve always done it doesn’t make it right. Maybe we’ve always sinned!

This story shows us how “a little white lie” can mushroom into a severe problem which hurts many. We’d all be a lot better off if we’d call our sin what it is--SIN--confess it and turn from it.

Thus besetting sins are always a danger; they stem from love of self; they hurt others; and, we tend to excuse them, rather than confess them. A fifth observation:

E. Besetting sins always dishonor God.

Just think what would have happened if Abimelech had consummated his relationship with Sarah! The birth of Isaac, and of Isaac’s descendant, Christ, would be forever under a cloud. Abraham wouldn’t have known if Isaac was his child in fulfillment of God’s promise or Abimelech’s child. Since Isaac was the link in God’s plan to bless all nations through Abraham’s seed, the whole Messianic program was jeopardized by Abraham’s foolish lie.

God was made to look bad through Abraham’s sin. Abimelech must have thought, “If this guy is God’s prophet, I’m not sure I want to know this God!” Abimelech, a pagan, has more integrity here than Abraham, God’s prophet. All sin dishonors God. If Abimelech had committed adultery with Sarah, it wouldn’t have primarily been a sin against Abraham. God says, “I kept you from sinning against Me” (20:6). While our sin hurts others, it always dishonors the God whom we represent.

While we are prone to besetting sins, there is another theme of this chapter that gives us great encouragement:

2. God is marked by holiness and grace.

These two seemingly opposite traits are in perfect balance. God never sacrifices His holiness for grace, nor His grace for holiness.

A. God is marked by holiness.

In His holiness, God struck Abimelech and all his household with some disease which prevented them from conceiving children and would have killed them, if Abimelech had not restored Sarah to Abraham. That’s pretty severe! But it shows how highly God values marriage and sexual purity within marriage.

The text also reveals God as the source of all holiness. God tells Abimelech that the reason he didn’t sin was because God prevented it (20:6). We can never boast in our holiness, because any holiness we have is derived from the Lord. He is a holy God who takes sin seriously. Even though it would have been accidental from Abimelech’s point of view, it would have been sin from God’s perspective. God is holy and separate from all sin. But also...

B. God is marked by grace.

As the psalmist declares, “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared” (Ps. 130:3-4). God’s grace should never lead us to license, but to fear Him and to fear sinning.

We see here God’s grace toward Abimelech. He was a relatively good man, as far as Canaanite kings in that day went. But he was a sinner, just like everyone else. God justly could have killed him to deliver Sarah. But He showed him grace.

We also see God’s grace toward Abraham and Sarah. Sarah wasn’t as responsible as Abraham, since she didn’t devise this plan. But she consented to it. While it’s right for a wife to submit to her husband, it’s not right for her to submit to him in doing wrong. But in spite of their sin, God graciously blessed Abraham and Sarah, financially through Abimelech’s gifts, and with the birth of Isaac (21:1-7). God graciously was willing to be associated with Abraham, even in his sin, by calling Abraham his prophet. If I were God, I’d want to keep it quiet that Abraham knew me until this thing blew over. But God didn’t disown Abraham for this failure. In the many other references to Abraham in the Bible, God mentions his faith often, but He never mentions this sin. Amazing grace!

Thank God that He doesn’t deal with us according to our sins! Because the Lord Jesus Christ bore the penalty we deserved, God is now free to deal with us in grace. Just as God sovereignly chose Abraham and blessed him in spite of his sins, so He has sovereignly chosen us and blesses us in spite of our sins. That shouldn’t make us be sloppy about our sin. It should make us want to be holy in order to please the God who loved us and gave Himself for us!

Conclusion

Juan Carlos Ortiz has captured the balance between God’s grace and our good works nicely. He writes (Leadership, Fall, 1984, p. 46.),

Watching a trapeze show is breathtaking. We wonder at the dexterity and timing. We gasp at near-misses. In most cases, there is a net underneath. When they fall, they jump up and bounce back to the trapeze.

In Christ, we live on the trapeze. The whole world should be able to watch and say, “Look how they live, how they love one another. Look how well the husbands treat their wives. And aren’t they the best workers in the factories and offices, the best neighbors, the best students?” That is to live on the trapeze, being a show to the world.

What happens when we slip? The net is surely there. The blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, has provided forgiveness for all our trespasses. Both the net and the ability to stay on the trapeze are works of God’s grace.

Of course, we cannot be continually sleeping on the net. If that is the case, I doubt whether that person is a trapezist.

Some of you may be on the net, discouraged by besetting sins. Look to God’s grace, confess your sin, accept His forgiveness, and get back on the trapeze. Or in the words of the author of Hebrews, after telling of the faith of Abraham, Sarah, and many others, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:1-2).

Discussion Questions

1. Does God eradicate our sin nature? What does the Bible mean when it says we are dead to sin (Rom. 6:11; Col. 2:20; 3:3)?
2. How would you answer the argument that if we can’t lose our salvation by sinning, then it will encourage us to sin more?
3. How can we emphasize grace without encouraging licentiousness?
4. Is it ever okay to lie (e.g., to protect someone else)?

Copyright 1996, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation

Sometimes when you read the Bible, you get the feeling that God majors in the spectacular. He spoke and the universe was created. He rained down fire and brimstone to destroy wicked Sodom. He sent the plagues on Egypt and parted the Red Sea. He provided manna in the wilderness and brought water from a rock. We could go on and on recounting the mighty deeds that God has done.

All these things are true and wonderful. But the problem is, most of us don’t live in the realm of the spectacular. We live with the daily, ordinary routines that characterize the greater part of our lives: getting ready for the day, rushing off to work, getting the kids off to school, shopping for groceries, paying bills, mowing lawns, and maintaining the household. Sometimes we may wonder, “How does God fit in with the ordinary?”

The question extends beyond how does God fit in with our ordinary schedules to, “How does God fit in with ordinary people?” After all, in the history of the church, not many of God’s people have been able to speak to packed stadiums around the world, like Billy Graham. Most of God’s people have been simple, ordinary folks who are not famous or politically powerful. They’re people who live rather ordinary lives, except for one significant fact--their lives count for eternity because they are used by God to help fulfill His purpose.

As you think about Abraham’s life, you realize that he was a fairly ordinary man, except that he was a man of extraordinary faith and obedience to God. His life wasn’t made up of one spectacular event after another. Most days, he got up, made sure his animals were being cared for, dealt with problems like sick or straying animals, servants who had squabbles, and finding enough water and food for his flocks and family. The one great miracle in his life was the birth of Isaac in his old age. But other than that, Abraham’s life was fairly routine. And yet he was used in God’s great purpose of blessing the nations through Abraham’s seed, the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Genesis 21:22-34, we see Abraham in a scene from his ordinary life. Abimelech, the king who had inadvertently taken Sarah into his harem because Abraham had lied about her being his sister, pays a visit to Abraham, acknowledges that God is with him, and proposes a peace pact. Abraham uses the occasion to complain to Abimelech about a well which his men have taken from Abraham’s servants. They formalize the peace agreement, Abimelech leaves, Abraham plants a commemorative tree, worships the Lord, and life goes on.

When you come to a passage like this in the Bible, the question is, Why did God include this in sacred Scripture? It seems to me that the answer is, It shows the faithfulness of God in the ordinary. It shows how God faithfully provided all that Abraham needed apart from Abraham’s schemes. Throughout Abraham’s story run two great promises which God made to Abraham: a son, through whom Abraham would become a great nation, and through whose descendants all the nations would be blessed; and, the land of Canaan, where his descendants would live. In seeking to bring about both of these promises, Abraham resorted to human schemes to help God out: with the son, he went in to Hagar and produced Ishmael; with regard to the land, his fears of being wiped out by the inhabitants of the land prompted him to lie about Sarah being his sister, not his wife.

In the immediately preceding verses, God has provided Isaac and dismissed Ishmael, so that Abraham would learn that God’s promises do not depend on human schemes and effort for their fulfillment. Now, without Abraham’s initiative or schemes, Abimelech comes and proposes this peace agreement, so that Abraham receives from God what he previously had tried to get through his deceptive scheme. Now Abraham and his descendants can dwell securely in the land. And, God provides for his need for water through this well. It is a beautiful illustration of how ...

God faithfully provides everything we need for life and godliness so that we can fulfill His purpose.

1. God faithfully provides security and protection.

One of Abraham’s deeply rooted fears when God called him to leave his homeland and go to the land of Canaan was that the people of the land would see his wife and kill him in order to take her. Because of that fear, before they left Haran, he and Sarah had worked out a deceptive scheme to pawn her off as his sister (20:13). It hadn’t worked the two times they tried it. But Abraham still struggled with this fear long after he had been living in the land.

Here God shows Abraham that not only would the people of the land not take his wife, they wouldn’t even take his well. If he would walk with God, so that it was evident to others, Abraham had nothing to fear. Though he was surrounded by pagans who had no scruples about murdering and plundering a wealthy man’s belongings, Abraham could live securely because of God’s faithful protection, apart from any schemes on Abraham’s part.

One of the most comforting doctrines of Scripture is the truth that God providentially protects His children. A believer is invincible until it is his time to go. As David wrote, all our days were written in God’s book before we even were born (Ps. 139:16)! We are secure in His providential care.

A few years ago, a Christian worker was scheduled to fly from New York to Chicago for some meetings before returning home to Los Angeles. His flight from New York was first delayed and then cancelled, so that he would have missed his meetings. So he changed his plans and flew home to L.A. Two days later, he heard on the news that a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles had crashed, killing everyone on board. Checking his ticket which he hadn’t used, he realized that if his earlier flight to Chicago had not been cancelled, he would have been on that flight.

On the flight that crashed was a godly pastor from Southern California. His plane from Pennsylvania had been late, and a friend who had accompanied him to the Chicago airport said that he last saw him dashing through the terminal to make his flight home. But in his case, it was his final home, in heaven.

Why was one Christian man spared while the other was killed? We won’t know God’s purpose until we’re in heaven. But we can have the comfort of knowing that both men were under God’s providential care. When we lived in California and would take our young children to the beach, there wasn’t a second while they were playing in the waves that they were not under our watchful gaze. Even so, as believers, we know that every second of our lives is under the watchful care of the heavenly Father. As the psalmist proclaims, “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope for His loving kindness, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine” (Ps. 33:18-19).

2. God faithfully provides for our basic physical needs.

Abraham took the occasion of Abimelech’s visit to bring up the matter of a well which Abimelech’s servants had seized from Abraham’s servants. Abimelech claimed no prior knowledge of the matter, and the covenant the two men ratified stipulated that the well belonged to Abraham (21:30). In that desert land, a well was essential for survival, both for a man’s flocks and for his family. Because Abimelech wanted this covenant to apply, not only to himself, but to his posterity (21:23), it secured this source of water not only for Abraham, but for his descendants. Isaac would later have to clear up some matters over several wells with Abimelech (chap. 26), but through this treaty, God was faithfully providing for Abraham’s basic physical needs.

Jesus taught us to pray each day for our daily bread. Most of us in our land of plenty don’t have to worry about where our next meal is coming from. Shortly after World War II, a woman went into a grocery store and asked for enough food to provide Christmas dinner for her children. When the owner asked how much she could afford, she replied, “My husband was killed in the war. Truthfully, I have nothing to offer but a little prayer.”

The grocer, who was not a believer, was unmoved by her need. He sarcastically said, “Write your prayer on a piece of paper and you can have its weight in groceries.” To his surprise, she pulled a folded note out of her pocket and handed it to him. “I already did that during the night while I was watching over my sick child,” she replied. Without even reading it, he put it on one side of his old-fashioned scale. “We’ll see how much this is worth,” he muttered. He put a loaf of bread on the other side of the scale, and to his surprise, nothing happened. He added some more items, but to his consternation, still nothing happened. Finally he blurted out, “Well, that’s all it will hold anyway. Here’s a bag. You’ll have to put these things in yourself.” With a tearful “thank you,” the woman took her groceries and left.

The grocer later discovered that the scale was out of order. As the years passed, he often wondered if it was just a coincidence. Why did the woman have the prayer already written before he asked for it? Why did she come at exactly the time the mechanism was broken? Whenever he looks at the slip of paper that contains her prayer, he is amazed, for it reads, “Please, dear Lord, give us this day our daily bread.” (“Our Daily Bread.”)

That was an extraordinary way that God provided for His children. But we also need to see that His ordinary provision of our daily food is an example of His faithfulness. When we give thanks at the dinner table, we need to be truly thankful, and not just mumbling a ritual prayer before we say, “Please pass the potatoes.” God faithfully provides for our protection and for our provision. But He doesn’t just provide for our needs so that we can live comfy lives for our own happiness.

3. God faithfully provides so that we can fulfill His purpose.

Genesis 12:1-3 sets forth God’s purpose to make of Abraham a great nation, to bless him and make his name great so that he would be the channel of God’s blessing to all the families of the earth. This blessing would come through Abraham’s descendant, the Lord Jesus Christ. For these promises to be fulfilled, God had to provide Abraham with a son, which He did in an extraordinary way in the birth of Isaac. He had to provide protection and give him the land, which He begins to do in a rather ordinary way through this peace agreement. But it is significant that God’s blessing on Abraham is evident even to this pagan king, Abimelech, who tells Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do” (21:22). In an initial way, God is using Abraham to fulfill His purpose of blessing all the nations as he is blessed.

We don’t know how much Abimelech knew about the one true God, but he at least knew enough to see clearly that God made a difference in Abraham’s life. This is even more significant when you realize that Abraham wasn’t doing anything spectacular. He was just living the ordinary, hum-drum, day-to-day existence of a nomad with his flocks and herds. He was God’s number one man on earth, but he wasn’t holding miracle services. He wasn’t a TV evangelist. He wasn’t building a sprawling complex of buildings to house his international ministry. He wasn’t traveling all over the globe. His calendar wasn’t full of speaking engagements. He wouldn’t have had much exciting news to report in his monthly fund-raising letter. He was simply living his daily life as the friend of God before the watching world. That world could tell that God was with him in all he did!

This is also remarkable in light of Abraham’s past dealings with Abimelech. You’ll recall that he had been deceptive, pawning off Sarah as his sister. Because Abimelech had taken Sarah into his harem, God struck him and all his household with some illness and threatened to kill them if he didn’t return Sarah to Abraham. When Abimelech confronted Abraham about things, Abraham was rather uncomplimentary, saying that his reason for deceiving him was that he assumed that there would not be any fear of God among such people (20:11). Yet in spite of Abraham’s sins and insensitivity, Abimelech here seeks him out because he recognized God in Abraham’s life!

That leads me to ask, “Does the world see God in your everyday life?”

A. For God’s purpose to be fulfilled through us, the world should see God in our everyday lives.

Please observe:

(1) The world is watching the lives of believers. We don’t always think about it, but if the world knows that we’re Christians, they watch us to see if we’re different than everyone else. They watch our attitudes, our words, and our actions. Are we cheerful and pleasant, even when we’re mistreated, or do we grumble and complain like everyone else? Do we badmouth the boss or other workers behind their backs? Do we work hard or slack off? Are we honest, even in small matters? The world is watching, and without a word of witness, they should be able to tell that we are Christians as they see our godly lives.

Maybe you’re sinking into sudden depression, because you’re thinking, “I’m not perfect!” Stay tuned:

(2) For the world to see God in our lives we don’t have to be perfect. Sometimes we think that we’ve got to be perfect before God can use us as a witness. Since we’re not perfect, we do one of two wrong things. Some try to convey that they are perfect. They cover or deny their sin and try to make it look like they’ve got it all together. The trouble is, people can see that it isn’t true. So they conclude that Christians are hypocrites, and they fail to see God in our lives.

Another wrong thing happens: An imperfect Christian concludes that he had better not say anything about his faith until he gets all his problems solved. The trouble with this approach, of course, is that we never get to that place. So we never bear witness for Jesus Christ, which is precisely what Satan wants.

I’m not suggesting that you go on sinning and tell everyone that you’re a Christian. If you’re not dealing with your sin and seeking to live a life pleasing to God, then you’d be better off not to let anybody know that you claim to be a Christian. But what I’m saying is that sinlessness isn’t the requirement to bear witness for Christ. Just because you’ve blown it with someone in the past doesn’t mean that you can’t be used later to influence that person toward God. Asking their forgiveness is often the first step in that process. In spite of Abraham’s past deception, Abimelech recognized God in his life. Why?

B. For God’s purpose to be fulfilled through us, we have to walk with God.

Abraham was the friend of God. He walked in daily communion with God. He wasn’t perfect, but he had reality with God and God’s gracious hand was on him. One way Abimelech knew that Abraham walked with God is that Abraham had prayed that God would heal Abimelech and his family, and God answered that prayer (20:17-18). Perhaps Abimelech had heard of how God had given Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age. Abimelech could sense that in spite of Abraham’s previous failure in the incident with Sarah, he was a man who walked with God.

Another step in Abraham’s walk with God is seen in verse 33, where he plants a tree and calls “on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.” Planting the tree was an act to remind Abraham of God’s faithfulness, especially in the everyday matter of providing the well which supplied the water for this tree to grow. It also signified a tranquil, settled life, under God’s providential care. The new name of God bore witness to God’s unchanging faithfulness and to the fact that Abraham’s faith was not in Abimelech nor in the treaty between them, but in the eternal God who was his dwelling place. Even in this ordinary incident, Abraham acknowledged God’s faithful care for him.

The point is, as God faithfully provides protection and for our daily needs, and as we walk with Him and give Him the credit for His care for us, as Abraham did, He uses us in the ordinary matters of life to bear witness to a world that desperately needs to turn to Him. You don’t need a theological education to bear witness by your walk with God. Your neighbor may have a Ph.D. and you may be a blue collar worker. But if you have the reality of a walk with the faithful God of the ordinary, your neighbor will know that you’ve got something he lacks.

Conclusion

I read about a successful man who was on a business trip. He normally didn’t attend church, but he was troubled about some matters and went to church, hoping to find some relief. The music and the sermon were okay, but didn’t really help. As he was leaving, a young man walked up and quoted John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” The businessman didn’t see how such a thing could be true and he didn’t understand the connection between God’s giving His Son and a person having eternal life. The man was educated and he articulately expressed his objections. Each time, the young man, who was retarded and knew only this one verse, responded simply by quoting John 3:16.

After this had gone on for several times, the businessman suddenly was struck with the simple truth of that verse. God burned the words into his heart and gave him the faith to believe. He got down on his knees and wept in gratitude. God used the only Scripture this retarded young man knew to give eternal life to this sophisticated businessman (told by Martin & Deidre Bobgan, Competent to Minister [EastGate], pp. 45-46).

If you know the Savior, as you walk with Him and enjoy His faithful provision, God wants to use the ordinary events in your life to fulfill His purpose of blessing all the nations through the Seed of Abraham, the Lord Jesus Christ. What a privilege to be used by the Eternal God as we live our ordinary lives on this earth!

Discussion Questions

1. Where’s the balance between taking measures for our own safety versus trusting God to protect us?
2. How much specialized training (if any) do Christians need to be effective witnesses for Christ?
3. How can we turn everyday situations into opportunities for telling others about Christ? How aggressive should we be?
4. What for you is the most threatening aspect about telling someone about Christ?

Copyright 1996, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation