Chapter 19 of the book of Genesis deals
with the destruction of the city of Sodom.
The Lord came to Abraham and informed him
of the fact that because of the wickedness
of Sodom, it was necessary for the judgment
of God to come.
Abraham pleaded with the Lord for Sodom, interceded
actually saying, what if there are 50 righteous?
Would you destroy the righteous with the wicked?
And the basis of Abraham's intercession was, the
Lord of the earth should be fair or
be just.
Even in judgment, God must be fair or
just.
God cannot be unjust in any action at
any time ever.
Now this is an area that Satan is
constantly seeking to make a case against God.
How can a God of love or would
a God of love condemn a man to
eternal hell who has never heard of Jesus
Christ?
What about that person who lives over in
Africa, who lived and died never knowing of
Jesus Christ?
Is he going to have to suffer forever
in hell because he lives in Africa and
never has had a chance to hear?
It is interesting, the Bible doesn't give us
the answer directly, but the Bible does give
us an indirect answer, and that is that
God is totally fair.
When God judges, it will be absolutely just.
And Abraham's argument with God was, shall not
the Lord of the earth be fair or
be just when God spoke of the judgment
that was going to come?
Now, Abraham saw an inequity if God would
judge the righteous with the wicked.
That wouldn't be fair.
That's the premise and the basis of Abraham's
argument with the Lord, that it wouldn't be
fair to judge the righteous with the wicked.
Now, Jesus said to His disciples, in this
world you're going to have tribulation.
But He said, be of good cheer, I've
overcome the world.
The church has had tribulation.
The church today is under great persecution in
Romania.
They're tightening again their communistic hold and they
are again beginning to really persecute the church
in Romania.
Many of the pastors have been in prison
in the past few weeks.
Christians have been persecuted in China, in Russia,
and in those communist-dominated countries, as well
as the Muslim-dominated countries.
Communism is not the only form of Christianity.
Islamism is perhaps the greatest form of Christianity.
In the Islam countries, it is a capital
crime to seek to convert an Islamic person
to Christianity.
He'd be put to death for that, causing
him to change his religious beliefs.
And so, the church has always experienced persecution
from the world.
The Bible says, don't count it strange concerning
the fiery trial, which is to try you
as though some strange thing has happened unto
you.
In fact, if the world loves you, then
you better examine your position.
But if the world hates you, don't be
alarmed.
Jesus said, it hated Me.
The servant is not greater than his Lord.
So, the persecution that the church experiences, though,
has as its source or origin the world
and the worldly system.
The great tribulation that is coming, or the
judgment of God, whenever that comes, then the
church is not a victim.
Because God will be fair in His judgment.
And if there be fifty righteous, the Lord
said, sure, I'll spare it for fifty righteous.
Abraham finally talked Him down to ten.
And God said He would spare it for
ten righteous.
And the angels of the Lord came unto
the city of Sodom.
We'll get into that as we get into
the nineteenth chapter.
But they could not find even ten righteous.
Lot, that righteous man, the only truly righteous
person they could find in the city was
Lot himself.
And not even his family was thoroughly righteous.
But being merciful, God led his family out
with him.
Now, twice in the New Testament, once by
Jesus and once by Peter, is this used
as an example of the last days.
Jesus said, as it was in the days
of Lot, so shall it be at the
coming of the Son of Man, and how
that the judgment did not come until the
day that Lot was taken out of the
city, and then God rained upon the city
fire and brimstone.
Jesus uses that, but points out the fact
that Lot was delivered before the judgment came.
And Peter also points out to the deliverance
of Lot, showing how that God knows how
to deliver the righteous, but to reserve the
ungodly for the day of judgment.
Delivering that righteous man, Lot, who was vexed
by the manner of life of those around
him.
So, taking the same argument of Abraham, shall
not the Lord of the earth be just?
Would it be just that God would bring
his great wrath and judgment upon the church,
along with the unbelieving world?
No.
And even as God delivered Lot, God shall
deliver his church before the great period of
judgment and the wrath of God comes upon
the earth.
It's just a matter of God's principle in
judgment.
So, in the 19th chapter, and there came
two angels to Sodom at even, and Lot
sat in the gate of Sodom, and Lot
was bidding them to come into his home,
as he bowed himself in the oriental custom
towards the ground.
Now, hospitality was something that was extremely important
in that eastern culture.
And here, Lot sitting in the gate of
the city, it is interesting that in that
culture also, the women did most of the
work.
The women would go out and plow the
fields, the women would go out and plant
the fields, the women would go out and
harvest the fields, while the men attended to
the more important things of sitting in the
gate of the city and talking about the
weather.
Whether or not it's going to rain tomorrow,
you know.
Also, sitting in the gate of the city
was a place of prominence.
All of the judgments were done in the
gates of the city.
If there were conflicts between people, problems, they
would come to the elders, the elder men,
who would sit in the gate of the
city, and the elder men would give judgments
concerning the conflicts that had arisen.
And thus, it was a place of honor
and distinction to sit in the gate of
the city.
And so, Lot, sitting in the gate of
the city, saw these two men as they
were coming at evening, bowing down to them
in the oriental custom.
He invited them to turn in to the
servant's house and tarry all night, to wash
your feet and rise up early and you
can go on your way.
And they said, No, we will abide in
the street tonight.
But Lot, knowing the conditions of the city
and knowing the danger of such a thing,
pressed upon them or constrained them greatly.
And so they turned in unto him and
entered into his house, and he made them
a feast and did bake unleavened bread, and
they did eat.
But before they were able to lie down,
the men of the city, even the men
of Sodom, surrounded the house.
Both old and young and all of the
people from every quarter.
And they called unto Lot and they said
unto him, Where are the men which came
in to thee tonight?
Bring them out to us that we may
know them.
And this is to know them in an
intimate sexual way.
And Lot went out at the door unto
them and shut the door after him.
And he said, I pray you, brethren, do
not so wickedly.
Behold, now I have two daughters which have
not known man.
Let me, I pray you, bring them out
unto you.
And do ye unto them as is good
in your eyes, only unto these men do
nothing.
For therefore came they under the shadow of
my roof.
Now this, of course, first of all shows
what low esteem the woman was held in
in that particular culture.
Lot was willing to sacrifice his own two
daughters unto this mob.
Their virginity and all.
He was willing to turn his own two
daughters over to the mob that they might
do what they would to his two daughters.
And yet, seeking to protect the two men
who were strangers to him.
But yet, if you would take a visitor
into your home, then you took the responsibility
for them to really take care of them
completely.
But women were held in extremely low esteem
in that day.
In that culture.
And in many of the primitive cultures.
Women, be thankful for Jesus Christ and for
Christianity because Jesus is the one who brought
really the elevation of womanhood and the honor
to the women.
And that equalizing of the honor and blessing
and all.
And it's really through Christianity that women have
been able to rise and to take their
proper place.
Not as a servant or not in any
way subservient to man, but on an equal
basis with man.
But you won't find that in any culture
outside of where the Christian gospel is gone
and where the Christian culture is gone, there
always has the state of the woman been
elevated.
Where there is not a strong Christian gospel,
the state of the woman is always that
of a subservient state.
And if you study your history, you'll find
that this is so.
In Greece, in the Greek culture, which was
supposed to be such a cultured nation, the
women had a very low place, especially the
wife.
She was considered just one step above the
slave.
So it is the gospel of Jesus Christ,
which is declared there is no difference, male
nor female, bond or free, but has given
us all an equal status in Christ.
For Christ is all and in all, and
in and through Him the equal status has
been established.
But here Lot, and again I believe that
secondly, it shows that even Lot himself and
his own morals and his own values had
been corrupted by his living in Sodom.
I do not see how you can live
in the midst of such corruption and it
not have some influence upon you.
Living as we do in this day and
age in which we live, we are under
constant bombardment and constant pressure to accept evil,
to tolerate evil, and to accept perversion as
natural.
And if you dare say something against the
homosexuals, you have a prey going on out
in front.
They'll file suits and everything else.
And it's got to the place where people
become sort of cowered into a position of
just not stating your beliefs.
If you would dare say in a university
class, but Jesus is the only way to
salvation, they make fun of you.
They put you down.
They call you narrow, bigoted and everything else.
If you make any affirmation of faith and
a belief in living a moral, pure, righteous
life, then you're accused of being a Victorian
and living in the past and all of
this because of the tremendous pressures.
And so, it's hard to live in the
midst of a society that is so corrupt
without it rubbing off a little on us.
At least we don't speak out on the
issues in which we should be speaking out
because we feel sort of threatened.
Now, Lot's own morals had been corrupted to
the extent that he was willing to give
his daughters over to be abused by these
men.
The gesture was not a fine gesture of
Lot's.
It was a gesture that showed his own
moral depravity as a result of living in
Sodom.
Lot made the choice of moving into the
plains.
He pitched his tent towards Sodom.
That was the beginning of it.
But now he has his house in Sodom.
There is a danger in pitching your tent
towards the world.
It's interesting.
Blessed is the man who walks not in
the council of the ungodly, nor stands in
the way of sinners, nor sits in the
seat of the scornful.
There's a progression there.
First of all, you're listening to the council
of the ungodly.
Next of all, you're standing around with them.
And the next thing, you find yourself sitting
in their company.
Lot moved towards Sodom.
Next, he was living in Sodom.
But it had its effect upon his own
life and upon his own moral values, the
offering of his daughter to this crowd of
men.
But they weren't interested in his daughters.
They were desiring these men that had come
to Lot.
And so, Lot said, don't do this wickedness
to these men.
They came under the shadow of my roof.
They're under my protection.
And they said, stand back.
And then they began to say, this fellow
came in to live with us as a
stranger and now he's going to try to
judge over us.
They said, we'll deal worse with you than
with them.
And they pressed sore upon Lot.
And they came near to break the door.
But the men, that is the angels, put
forth their hands and pulled Lot into the
house.
And they shut the door.
And they smote the men that were outside
the door with blindness, all of them, so
that they wearied themselves to find the door.
And the men said unto Lot, that is
the angels, do you have any here besides?
Do you have sons or daughters?
Whatsoever you have in this city, bring them
out of this place.
For we will destroy this place because the
cry of them is waxed great before the
face of the Lord, and the Lord hath
sent us to destroy it.
And Lot went out and spake unto his
sons-in-law, which had married his daughters,
and said, up, get out of this place,
for the Lord will destroy this city.
But he seemed as one that mocked unto
his sons-in-law.
Now, though Lot did not escape the pollutions
of Sodom entirely, and the Bible gives testimony
of him in Peter, that righteous man, referring
to Lot, and it speaks about how he
was vexed by the way people were living
around him.
Though he was strong enough because of his
early background and experiences with his uncle Abraham
to survive in this corrupt society, yet his
living in the midst of the corrupt society
cost him his family and the morals of
his children.
Now, there are some times I hear people
say, well, I have my own philosophy that
I live by.
I don't need Christianity.
It's just a crutch.
I remember sitting one night with a man
who was a plumber, and he was just
one of these hard, hard guys.
And I don't need any crutches, you know.
And Christianity is just a crutch, and I
don't need it.
Going on and on.
You know how he was a self-made
man.
He had his own philosophy, and he could
get by and all of this.
Of course, he was drinking the whole while
he was talking to me.
But I watched the three sons of that
man, that particular man, as they all got
into drugs.
And I saw his sons totally destroyed by
drugs.
So where he might have been able to
maintain in a society with his booze, his
sons weren't able to maintain.
And they all really just destroyed themselves with
drugs.
Many times a man will say, but I
am able to do it.
I am able to stand.
I am strong and all this.
But really, unless you set a strong example,
a spiritual example in your home, your children
cannot withstand the pressures of the society and
the day and the age in which we
live.
And you're really sacrificing your children to this
corrupt world.
You may have a philosophy.
You may have that by which you can
stand.
But your children are facing ungodly pressures, and
they need more than just a philosophy.
They need the power of the Holy Spirit
within their lives.
And thus, you, for their sakes, need to
get right with God and set a strong
spiritual example because they'll never survive.
Lot was able to, but his children weren't.
And so as he went to his daughters
and said, get out of here!
This place is going to get destroyed.
God's going to destroy this city.
They just mocked him, and he was as
one who mocked them.
Thus, he lost his family to the corrupted
morals of Sodom.
And when the morning arose, the angels hastened
Lot saying, arise, take your wife and your
two daughters which are here, lest you be
consumed in the iniquity of the city.
And so they were hurrying them, saying, get
out of here now.
And while he lingered, there was a reluctance
to leave the place.
Even with Lot, he was reluctant to leave,
just sort of lingering around.
The angels took hold of their hands.
And upon the hand of his wife and
the two daughters, and the Lord being merciful
unto him, they brought him forth and set
him outside the city.
It came to pass when they had brought
them forth that he said, escape for your
life.
Lot, don't look behind you, neither stay at
all in the plain.
Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed.
The word don't look behind can be translated
don't lag behind, or do not turn back.
Don't stay in the plain.
And Lot said unto them, oh, not so,
my Lord.
Perfect example of those who pray, not thy
will, mine be done.
How inconsistent we are even in our language.
Not so, my Lord.
Wait a minute.
Lord is the title.
And even he says, thy servant.
He calls himself a servant.
Lord.
And now he's arguing with the Master.
No, you don't argue with your Master.
If He's your Lord, you do what He
says.
If you're doing what He said, He is
your Lord.
If you're not doing what He said, He's
not your Lord.
And I don't care how much you say,
Lordy, Lordy, or my Lord, or whatever.
If you're not doing what He said to
do, He's not really your Lord.
Jesus said, why do you call me Lord,
Lord, and yet you don't do the things
I command you?
And so here is Lot in this perfect
inconsistency.
As they say, flee to the mountains, don't
stay in the plains.
He says, oh, not so, my Lord.
Behold, now thy servant hath found grace in
thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy,
which thou hast shown unto me, saving my
life.
And I cannot escape to the mountain lest
some evil take me and I die.
Now, he realized the Lord had delivered him
out of the city before it's to be
destroyed.
But he can't trust the Lord to preserve
him there in the mountains.
And so, let me go to this little
city of Zoar.
It's the smallest of the five cities there
in the plain.
It's just a little city.
In fact, the word Zoar means little.
Let me go and stay in Zoar.
And so the angels granted his request that
he might flee to the little city that
was nearby, the city of Zoar.
And the angels said, I've accepted you concerning
this thing.
I will not overthrow this city of which
you have spoken.
So hurry, escape there, for I cannot do
anything till you have come within that city.
There was the impending judgment, but yet it
was to be withheld until Lot was safely
out of danger.
Even as there is an impending judgment of
God hanging over the earth today, but it
cannot come until the church has been safely
placed out of danger.
Hurry.
Therefore, the name of the place was called
Zoar, which means small.
And the sun was risen upon the earth
when Lot entered into Zoar.
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from the Lord out of
heaven, and He overthrew those cities and all
the plain and all the inhabitants of the
cities and that which grew upon the ground.
Now, this destruction could have been by volcanic
action.
Very possible because there is evidence of volcanic
eruptions in that area.
A lot of evidence of that.
There, of course, are tremendous salt deposits in
that area.
I mentioned this morning, there is on the
southern end of the Dead Sea there on
the western side, there is a mountain of
salt that is 700 feet high and 5
miles long.
A mountain of salt.
It isn't a sodium chloride, your table salt.
It's more of the potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate.
Vast deposits of salt.
Mountains of salt in that area that cannot
be explained by slow sedimentation, but have to
be explained by deposits through eruptions of some
kind.
The great overthrowing.
Now, potassium nitrate is a particular salt if
mixed with potassium permanganate.
All you need is just a little glycerin
poured upon it and you've got fire and
brimstone.
You've got a 4th of July display.
You've got fire shooting and spouting and all
it needs is just a little glycerin upon
it to really set the whole thing off.
The heavy water will respond upon the potassium
permanganate and the potassium nitrates will keep the
thing really going and sputtering and sparking.
It's like a flare.
It sputters and all.
With all of the potassium nitrate in the
area, potassium permanganate in the area, and of
course the area did have great asphalt deposits.
Josephus calls the area, rather than the Dead
Sea, he called it the Asphalt Sea because
of the tremendous asphalt deposits.
So all it needed was just a spark
from heaven to set things off.
And so the whole valley turned into a
furnace, a cauldron.
And the judgment of God came upon these
cities and they were destroyed.
But his wife looked back from behind him.
Now notice she was behind him.
She was still lagging back.
The word look back can be translated lag
back or turn back.
And the turn back is a preferable translation.
Lot's wife actually began to turn back towards
Sodom.
And in turning back, she was caught in
this great congregation.
And the bubbling, boiling, sputting salts covered her.
And she became a pillar of salt.
Now there are many pillars of salt in
that particular area that in different times have
received the name Lot's wife.
And there are some even today that the
guides will point out as Lot's wife's pillars
of salt there in the southern end of
the Dead Sea region.
Now the southernmost part of the Dead Sea,
the southern 10 miles, is only about 10
to 20 feet deep.
In fact, it's less than that now.
It's extremely shallow.
And many Bible scholars believe that the city
of Sodom actually lies under the southern end
of the Dead Sea.
The northern end of the Dead Sea is
30 miles long and 10 miles wide.
And has a depth of up to 1
,400 feet.
But as a result of the silt that
has settled through the Jordan entering into the
Dead Sea for so many years, the silt
has filled up the bottom and has thus
raised the level of the sea until the
sea extended southward over this plain area of
10 miles square covering it.
And that is more recent in time.
So that they believe that the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah probably lie under the southern
end of the Dead Sea.
We know of the silting process that's taking
place where the Colorado enters into the area
of Lake Mead.
In fact, we are now quite concerned about
this silting up of Lake Mead.
How that the volume of water that it
contains is less because of all of the
silt that is building up.
And the silt is actually forming a dam
of its own in the upper end of
Lake Mead.
Already it is creating quite a problem in
the Aswan Dam which is a relatively new
dam.
And thus the silting process, of course the
Jordan is a very muddy river, and the
silting process of the Jordan filling up the
Dead Sea and causing it to overflow in
the southern end covering the plains and thus
covering perhaps the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
However, in the last 10 years they have
discovered five cities on the eastern bank of
the Dead Sea in the southern end.
And they now believe that maybe these were
the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and Zoar
there on the eastern side.
But we, of course, are not certain on
that and it doesn't really make that much
difference to the scriptural record except that there
is evidence of volcanic action, there is evidence
of this great destruction of God as He
rained fire and brimstone and salt upon this
area.
And Abram got up early in the morning
from the place where he stood before the
Lord in his intercession.
He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward
all the land of the plain and he
beheld and lo, the smoke of the country
went up as the smoke of a furnace.
Now Abram was living in Hebron which is
just about due west from the Dead Sea.
And so in looking down, it isn't that
many miles, maybe 10-15 miles from Hebron
as the crow flies to the Dead Sea,
he saw the smoke coming up from the
area of the plains like a great furnace.
And it came to pass when God destroyed
the cities of the plain that God remembered
Abraham by sending Lot out of the midst
of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities
in which Lot dwelt.
So, the indication here is that it was
because of Abraham that God spared Lot more
than for Lot's sake Himself.
Now, again turning to the New Testament, Jesus
takes this incident and declares of His second
coming as it was in the days of
Lot, so shall it be at the coming
of Son of Man.
Luke's Gospel chapter 17.
When God overthrew the cities of the plain,
and then Jesus said, Remember Lot's wife, for
he who will seek to save his life
shall lose it.
Now, she was seeking to hold on to
the old life of the world.
She was turning back to the old life
of the world.
Seeking to save it, she lost her life.
And so the warning of Jesus, Remember Lot's
wife.
Turning back to the world, seeking to save
the old life of the world will only
destroy you, but he who will lose his
life, Jesus said the same will save it.
Lose his life for My sake.
And so, the reverence of Jesus.
Peter again refers to this, and it is
also referred to in the book of Jude.
How that God destroyed the city of Sodom
and Gomorrah.
Suffering the vengeance of everlasting fire.
So Lot went up out of Zoar.
He asked permission to stay in Zoar, but
when he saw this judgment of God destroying
the other cities, he became frightened.
And he left Zoar, and he went where
the Lord told him to go in the
first place.
Up into the mountains.
He fled on up then into the mountains.
And his two daughters with him, for he
feared to dwell in Zoar.
And he dwelled in a cave with his
two daughters.
Now we see the moral corruption of the
two daughters that were saved.
The firstborn said to the younger, our father
is old.
And there's no more men left upon the
earth.
They thought that the whole earth was destroyed.
And thus, man is going to be civilization.
Man is going to be wiped out.
So come, let us make our father drink
wine, and we will lie with him that
we may preserve the seed of our father.
So they made their father drunk that night.
And the firstborn went in and lay with
their father.
He did not know when she lay down
nor when she arose.
And it came to pass on the next
day that the firstborn said to the younger,
I was with my father last night.
Let's make him drink wine again tonight that
you might lie with him that we may
preserve life, the life of our father, the
seed of our father.
And so they made their father drink wine
that night also.
And the younger arose and lay with him.
And he perceived not when she lay down
nor when she arose.
And thus were both of the daughters pregnant
from their father Lot.
The firstborn bear a son and called his
name Moab.
And he became the head of the nation
of Moab or of the people known as
the Moabites.
And the other daughter bear a son and
called him Ben-Amy.
And the same as the father of the
children of Ammon.
And so two nations, the Ammonites and the
Moabites came from Lot.
And this relationship with his two daughters of
which he was unaware.
But again, it shows the moral corruption had
its effect upon Lot's family.
And we see its effects all the way
through.
The effect of a polluted society.
It's awfully hard to live in it and
not be touched some way or another.
Now we leave Lot.
That's the end of him.
We see that he does father a couple
of nations, Moab and Ammon.
It is interesting that Moab inhabited this same
area, the high country that is east of
the Dead Sea.
That was the area of the Moabites.
The Ammonites moved northward and were in the
same range of mountains only north of the
Moabites.
They became important nations.
And Ruth was a Moabitess.
She was a girl from Moab who came
into the lineage of Jesus Christ later on.
So, they are the descendants of Lot through
his two daughters.
Abraham journeyed from there towards the south country
and he dwelt between Kadesh and Shur and
he sojourned in Gerar.
So Abraham was living in the area of
Hebron, but now he is still sort of
a nomadic person.
If you go over to Israel today, you'll
see the Bedouins living in their tents.
And they are nomadic people.
They'll live for a while in an area
and then they'll get up, pack their tents
and move and live in another area.
And Abraham was living in tents.
He never had a house to dwell in.
Dwelt in tents as a Bedouin, as a
stranger, as a sojourner.
It is interesting that Lot sought to settle
down in a city, whereas Abraham always realized
that he was just a sojourner.
He was looking for a city which hath
foundation, whose maker and builder was God.
And he counted himself just a stranger and
a pilgrim upon the earth.
So, Abraham now is moving over into the
country of the Philistines.
Gerar is the area of the Philistines.
And so, Abraham said of Sarah's wife, she
is my sister.
And Abimelech the king of Gerar sent and
took Sarah into his harem.
Now, this is the second time this has
happened.
Abraham did it when they went to Egypt
years earlier.
And he was rebuked by the Egyptian pharaoh
for doing such a thing.
Now again, he's doing the same thing.
And this certainly says something about Sarah because
she's about 90 years old at this point
and still retaining her beauty.
So, if we could only discover the kind
of creams and all that she could use,
we could probably make a fortune.
She is still so beautiful that Abraham is
afraid that they're going to kill him in
order that they might take his wife.
And so he says, now you just say
you're my sister so that they won't kill
me.
And so Abimelech saw her and took her
into his harem.
And Abimelech had not come near her.
But God came to Abimelech, verse 3, in
a dream by night and said unto him,
you're a dead man.
Or you're dead, man.
It's all how you put the punctuation.
And in reality, if you'll notice, that's exactly
what God said.
That art but is inserted.
You'll notice it's in italics.
It means that the translators inserted that because
they didn't know the way we talk today.
And God said, hey, you're dead, man.
And so Abimelech, he said, because of the
woman which you have taken, she's another man's
wife.
But Abimelech had not come near her and
he said, Lord, will You also slay a
righteous nation?
Said he not unto me, she's my sister?
And even she herself said, he's my brother.
It was in the integrity of my heart
and innocency of my hands I have done
this.
God evidently smote him with some kind of
a deadly plague and says, hey, you've had
it, man.
You're dead, man.
Because you've got a woman there who is
another man's wife.
And so he said, hey, Lord, I'm innocent.
Hey, I didn't know.
She said she was the sister and that's
what he said about her.
And I'm innocent, Lord.
I didn't really know.
And God said, yes, I know that You
did it in the integrity of Your heart,
for I also have withheld You from sinning
against Me.
Therefore, I did not allow You to touch
her.
So God's hand working in the background.
God not allowing him to touch Sarah.
Now therefore, God said, restore the man his
wife, for he is a prophet.
And he will pray for you and you
will live.
And if you don't restore her, know that
you will surely die and all that are
yours.
Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning and
he called all of his servants and he
told these things in their ears and the
men were very frightened.
Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him,
what have you done to us?
And what have I done to you that
you've brought upon me and my kingdom this
great sin?
And thou hast done deeds unto me that
ought not to be done.
And Abimelech said unto Abraham, what sawest thou
that you've done this thing?
In other words, man, what did I do
to you that you do this to me?
Why did you do this to us?
And he is challenging the man of God.
Abraham is known as the father of those
who believe.
He is used throughout the Scripture as the
classic example of men who believe God and
the Word of God.
And whenever the Bible wants to use a
classic example of faith, it always points to
Abraham.
Because Abraham believed God and it was imputed
unto him for righteousness.
But you know, I like the honesty of
the Bible.
The Bible doesn't pretend at all that Abraham's
faith was perfect.
It tells us even of these lapses of
faith.
It is not faith for Abraham to say,
hey, she's my sister.
That's not really having faith in God.
That's a lapse of faith.
And somehow I get comfort from it.
Because if Abraham's faith were totally perfect, then
I think, oh, there's no chance for me.
You know, if the guy was in everything
just absolutely perfect, well, sure, look how God
blessed him.
No wonder God blessed him.
The guy's perfect.
God will bless perfect people.
But Abraham was not at all perfect, though
he is used as a classic example of
those who believe in God.
What does it mean?
It means that God will honor my little
faith too.
And God will bless me though I am
imperfect also.
It doesn't mean that my faith has to
be perfect and constant and steadfast at all
times.
Never wavering, never doubting, never fearing, never questioning.
It means that God can bless me and
God will bless me just because of my
simple trust in Him as faltering or as
failing as it might be at times in
certain circumstances.
There are a lot of tests that I
fail.
God has put me to a lot of
tests where I failed miserably.
I went out of the classroom with an
F.
But He let me take the test again.
And some of them I failed two or
three times before I passed.
God is gracious.
And God is patient.
And Abraham, our father of those who believe,
was a man who had great faith in
God that brought him recognition in history.
And yet, the faith was not perfect.
Here we find him deceiving the king concerning
his wife because of fear.
Twice he was put to this test.
Twice he failed on this particular test of
faith.
In the supreme test of faith, man, the
guy passed with flying colors.
Isn't it interesting how we can have such
great faith in some areas and then just
turn right around and get totally wiped out?
It makes us realize that even the faith
that we have has come to us as
a gift from God so that we can't
boast in that.
So, the king is rebuking Abraham.
What have you done, man?
What have I ever done to you that
you'd do this kind of a thing to
me?
How come you said she's your sister?
Abraham said, because I thought surely the fear
of God isn't in this place.
And they will slay me for my wife's
sake.
He looked around and said, man, these people
don't fear God.
They're going to kill me for my wife.
And he said, indeed, she is my sister
for she is the daughter of my father,
but she's not the daughter of my mother.
So she was a half-sister to Abraham
and she became my wife.
And it came to pass when God caused
me to wander from my father's house that
I said to her, this is the kindness
which you will show to me.
Every place where we go, say that he
is my brother.
And Abimelech took sheep and oxen and men's
servants and women's servants, and he gave them
to Abraham and restored Sarah his wife.
And Abimelech said, behold, my land is before
you.
Dwell wherever you are pleased.
And to Sarah he said, behold, I have
given your brother a thousand pieces of silver.
Behold, he is to thee a covering of
the eyes unto all that are with thee
and with all others.
And thus she was reproved.
So Abraham prayed unto God and God healed
Abimelech and his wife and the maid's servants
and they bare children for the Lord had
caused a barrenness to come to the house
of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.
So Sarah could have been with him for
a period of time before this all took
place.
And yet he had never come to her
intimately though she was a part of the
harem.
This is the end of side two and
the end of this message.
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