Sermon Nuggets Mon July 9 Backsliding
Verses: Gen 20:1-18
Backsliding
Now I really don’t keep up with
Oprah Winfrey eating habits, but more than once while I am at the grocery store
I keep seeing these tabloid papers with photos of her thin then heavy then
skinny again with a new diet, then overweight, realizing she struggles like
most of us with backsliding when it comes to the temptation of food.
Now backsliding might be going
backward with personal goals, or it can be the same with sin. We seem to be
conquering some old habit only to find us slip back into the same old patterns
again that seem to have some grip on us. For some it is the temptation of
money, or sex, or power, or lying, or stealing, or gossip, or pornography, or
drugs or alcohol, or temper, or compromising principles.
Sin is a reality of the world in
which we live, but so are the consequences of that sin. What we sow we shall
also reap. We spoke about the destruction of the Sodom and Gomorrah and the
sins of Lot and his daughters, but now we see what happened to our most
righteous of men who found favor in God’s eyes-Abraham. Let the record show
that we have an example of one who you’d think would have learned his lesson 24
years ago but falls into temptation once again and backslides in his faith.
And I would look to look at some of
the contrasts of dealing with temptations as illustrated in this passage. 20:1,2 Now Abraham moved on from
there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and
Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, 2 and
there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister. ” Then
Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a
dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of
the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”
As we read the story it seems as if
we are reading the 12th Chapter all over again. Abraham travels to a
foreign land and instead of telling people that Sarah is his wife, he says she
is his sister. There is the pagan custom that the king or ruler can take any
woman into his harem as a wife or concubine and so he takes Sarah.
Comparing the two stories, in 12th
chapter they are in Egypt with the Pharoah as king, now they are in Negev with
King Abimelek In the earlier account Abraham
is still somewhat new in his faith walk, where as now he has been in
relationship with God for 24 more years. Another apparent difference is that
God inflected serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Sarah
and that is how Pharaoh realized he was lied to by Abraham. Abimeleck became
aware of Sarah being married by God speaking to him in a dream. His household
apparently couldn’t have children. Surprisingly, in both situations Abraham
makes out pretty well. He leaves with a good deal of gifts. What caused him to
back slide again to the former ways?
We will address some of those
tomorrow.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Tues July 10 Fear
Verses Gen 20: 9 Then Abimelech
called Abraham in and said, “What have you done to us? How have I wronged you
that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done
things to me that should not be done. ” 10 And
Abimelech asked Abraham, “What was your reason for doing this?”
11 Abraham replied, “I said to
myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill
me because of my wife.’12 Besides, she really is my
sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became
my wife. 13 And when God had me wander from my
father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to
me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”
Fear
What leads us to backslide?
This story is of Abraham’s backsliding.
What caused him to lie and allow the king to take her away
from him? It began with the fear - In
both incidents in Chapter 12 when he was in Egypt and here Negev. Abraham was a
foreigner in a foreign land. It is easy to want to be like the others, and not
stand out. It is easy to adapt to customs of a foreign land if you are going to
live there for awhile.
We talked about that digression in Lot and the influence the
evil society had on him in Sodom. Now, however, we see Abraham was afraid of
his life and his property that he would be killed and his things taken away if
they knew that Sarah was his wife. In killing Abraham then others would be free
to take his wife and without legal sons, perhaps his property.
Abraham is influenced by the fear of
man over the fear of God. From the beginning he is conscious of the realization
he is an outsider and people do not deal kindly with people of other
races. Abraham's motive is his, and
perhaps also Sarah's protection. Despite being a man of faith, he went to such
lengths in order to protect himself. He was not acting in faith, but in the
flesh.
May we be warned. We too may be
more worried about our situation and circumstances, concerned about the
possibilities of an uncertain future. God invites us at times such as these to
cast all our care upon him. Why? Because he cares for you.
Now as a
parenthesis Sarah must be some woman. Who at the age of 90 years is so
attractive that the king desired her and wanted to include her as part of his
wives or concubines. I don’t know what she was using, oil of Olay or some skin
conditioner, but if they discover that formula, ladies, buy it.
Why did Abraham fear man instead of God? I wonder if
it is the old understanding that certain gods ruled over certain peoples. The
gods of different nations prevailed in certain areas was the common thought.
Maybe Abraham had the false understand that His God was also geographical. If
he left the area to another area, then another god of those people prevailed? I
don’t know. One thing is sure he wasn’t looking at God’s wisdom and word, but
his own ideas which got him and gets us into trouble.
One more observation must be made
concerning Abraham’s fears for his own safety. His conduct differs little from
that of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, by inviting the two strangers under his
roof, assured them of protection. Rather than break this commitment, he was
willing to sacrifice the purity of his two virgin daughters and give them over
to the men outside his door. Abraham, fearing for his own safety, was willing
to give over his wife to the king to protect himself from harm.
God had clearly revealed to Abraham
and Sarah that together they will bear a son through whom the covenant promises
will be realized. More than this, the conception of the child must be near at
hand, for he was said to have been born within the space of a year. as
Abraham’s faith at a low ebb? It must be so.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Weds July 11 Compromise
Verses Gen 20: 11 Abraham
replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place,
and they will kill me because of my wife.’12 Besides,
she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my
mother; and she became my wife. 13 And when God had
me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you
can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”
Compromise
Another area of temptation that leads us to backsliding is
compromising morals, ethics and values.
Too often we think just a little bit won’t hurt until we are caught into the
web of consequences.
We see how compromising with addictions soon draw people
back. For one who stopped smoking, just
one cigarette won’t hurt.” Some think “To
take just a little bit of alcohol” soon slips back into old pattern. “I’ll just
take a quick peek at this website.” Soon finds one look isn’t enough. And the
slippery slope like a shoot cause one to fall back again.
For Abraham it was the half truth,
not really a lie. We will see that later, but we find that indeed Sarah and
Abraham did have the same father, but different mothers, so he could say, “See
I wasn’t really lying I told the truth.” He was compromising truth.
Compromise is moving the borders of
truth. There are many people who have no problem with lying straight out. There
are some people who you can never believe because lying is such a part of their
character. Facts can be and often are used in such a way as to convey
falsehood. Wasn’t that the words that President Clinton used when he talked
about sex? It was a half truth in a deceiving manner. When asked point blank he
make the statement in a most self righteous way. “I am not having relations
with that woman” making the present tense of the verb makes all the difference.
As the political campaigns heat up more of lies and half
truths to deceive compromise occurs. Who do we trust?
Now I am tempted at more times than
I care to admit, to say truthful words in a deceiving way, so one can look at
the words and say I am not lying, but conveying something very different. That
is compromise.
I found it
interesting on one of the morning news stations of the report that some
teachers were lying and cheating to keep their jobs by giving students the
answers on standardized tests. One defended his action by saying, “It’s okay if
you don’t get caught.” Is that what God thinks?
Dr Pat
raised and interesting dilemma. What do the Christian Sudanese widows do when
they have no food to feed their children? Should they compromise their faith in
order to live? Will they be willing to have their loved ones killed or suffer
for the sake of honor or conviction, or instead convert to Islam by marrying a
Moslem in order to have life and protection?
Is that question different really from what is facing
Abraham in his mind? It might be safer to not tell the truth, so we won’t be
harmed.
At what point is backsliding really a lack of faith and trust
in God working things out if we are faithful? Hard questions which too often
become man’s ways of rationalizations.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Thurs July 12 Excuses
Gen 20: 1 Abraham
replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place,
and they will kill me because of my wife.’12 Besides,
she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my
mother; and she became my wife. 13 And when God had
me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you
can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”
Excuses
As we are looking at some of the reasons for Abraham’s
backsliding he answered Abimelech. “What was your reason for doing this?” What
was going through your brain? You sinned against me. You sinned against my
kingdom. God nearly killed me. Why?
Abraham
gives three reasons for his deceptive behavior. First, Your people don’t fear
God. V 11. The truth was that Abraham was the one who didn’t fear God enough.
When he looked around he was more afraid of Abimelech and his kingdom than he
was of God. If he had truly feared the Lord, he would have obeyed and trusted
God. It seemed as if Abimelech had a greater fear of the Lord when the Lord
revealed to him the true situation..
Secondly,
Abraham said, “I didn’t really lie.” V.
12. He claims that he did not totally lie since he told a half truth. So he
excuses his deception looking at the letter of the law, not the spirit.
Lastly, his excuse is that it’s
really Gods’ fault. V. 13. God had me wander. The implication is that if God
had not told him to leave his fathers house, he would not have ended up in
Abimelech’s kingdom. Then he would not have had to lie. Therefore its not
really may fault, it’s really Gods fault for bringing me into your kingdom to
begin with.”
When someone makes excuses instead
of facing up to their faults they are not taking any responsibility. Still
Abraham no indication of acceptance of responsibility for sin, nor of sorrow or
repentance. While his arguments fail to satisfy us, as they did not impress
Abimelech, they did seem to satisfy Abraham.
I heard an interesting excuse for
sin on a TV interview. One of the commentators was interviewing a young man who
was pirating music and movies off the internet for free that was copyrighted
material. The young man did not think he was cheating because they charge too
much for CDs anyway. That is an interesting excuse. “Not my fault it’s their
fault I’m stealing their material. If they didn’t charge so much then I
probably wouldn’t do it. “
People have a hard time facing up
to wrong and sin and come up with lame
excuses. One person wrote on their accident report that a telephone pole hit
them. Here are other excuses turned into the
insurance companies: The telephone pole was approaching
fast. I was attempting to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end. A
pedestrian hit me and went under my car. The guy was all over the place. I
had to swerve a number of times before I hit him. I was driving my car out
of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in
the same place it had been struck several times before. 
An invisible car came out of
nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished.
An invisible car came out of
nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished.
It is interesting when kids are
caught with a lie how many excuses they can come up with. People will
continually lie to cover up another lie.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Fri July 13 Presumptions
Gen 20: 11 Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is
surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’
Presumptions.
When it comes to backsliding, or yielding to sin as a person
of faith, we can be influenced by our prejudices and presumptions. Abraham
presumed he was dwelling around evil people and coming to those conclusions
felt endangered and therefore reacted in ways there are not in keeping with his
faith. He felt it wise because of his prejudices to lie. We created false ideas
of how things might turn out so we justify our behavior. If we presume we will
get a ticket when speeding some will justify a lie as to the reasons for making
excuses. If we presume we will keep more of our money we might lie when filling
out tax reports. Even if we keep more of our money we presume that is more
justifiable because we presume it will bring us happiness.
We do deal with the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life as James tells us when we face temptations. There
are fears, and excuses, and our minds can also presume things from an earthly
point of view that we see as consequences which either we are attracted to or
from. A person my make presumptions about something he wants an steals it. Or
he might presume something will give him great pleasure even though he knows it
is wrong. He might act out of the fear of being fired, or hired and do things
that are not in keeping with Christian, or godly conduct. Our presumptions can
take the place of prayers.
Next week we will look at the rest of the chapter from the
eyes of King Abimelech who had been wronged by Abraham. Because Abraham
presumed he was an evil and wicked king who did not fear the Lord he acted in
ways that put his family in more danger. But God knew how to deal with the
problem. Instead of Abraham being a blessing to the other nations, in this
incident he was a curse.
His ways were influenced by his prejudices. We carry lots of
prejudices around without not always knowing it. Our presumptions can influence
behavior when we distrust. It can keep us from the truth if we are filled with
pride compared to those around us. Some justify their behaviors when they thing
the people around them are inferior. Prejudices result from presumptions.
A Chinese proverb, “Lose an ax and suspect the neighbor”,
tells about this attitude. A man who lost his ax suspected his neighbor’s son of
stealing it. To him, as he observed the boy, the way the lad walked, the
expression of his face, the manner of his speech- in fact everything about his
appearance and behavior betrayed that he had stolen the ax.
Not long afterwards the man found his axe while digging in
his cellar. When he saw his neighbor’s son again, nothing about the boy’s
behavior nor appearance seemed to suggest that he had stolen the ax
Abraham was God’s
elect, God’s chosen, but he still floundered and failed. Abraham was God’s prophet,
but that did not make him more pious than others. Abraham prospered both in
Egypt and in Gerar, but it was not because he attained a higher level of
spirituality. The most dangerous doctrine for the Christian is that which
suggests that Christians can be above temptation and failure in their Christian
lives, even after years of service or in a privileged position.
Beware, Christian of backsliding when you think you are
spiritual, lest you fall. When you think you are better than others like Abraham
did. Beware when you fear men and not God, or compromise your values or morals
in little ways, or make excuses.
Pastor Dale
