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The Sovereign Shield: Grace for the Faithless (Genesis 20:1–7) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back. You're listening to Reformed
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Thinking. It's good to be.
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Here today we are doing a deep dive into a text that honestly,
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it's a bit of a problem. A problem text for.
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Sure, it's one of those chapters that can really unsettle the,
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you know, the Sunday School version of the Bible a lot of us
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grew up with. We've got our usual stack of
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commentaries here, some pretty dense theological essays, and we
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are turning all of our attention to the first part of Genesis
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chapter 20. It's the chapter most people
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sort of skim over. You know you're trying to get to
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Genesis 21 to the birth of Isaac, but if you actually stop
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and look at it, it's shocking. Shocking is exactly the right
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word because we just finished looking at Genesis 18 and 19,
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right? So if you're following the
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story, the narrative flow, Abraham has just been on this
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incredible spiritual high. I mean, he stood on the heights
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overlooking Sodom. He interceded.
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He wrestled with God, so to speak.
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He spoke with a pre Incarnate Christ.
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He really looked like a giant of the faith.
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He was the friend of God. That's the title he gets from
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this period. He's bold.
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He's confident in God's justice. He trusts that the judge of all
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the earth will do what is right. And then you turn the page
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literally the very next movement in the text, and we were in
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Genesis 20, and it feels like the floor just drops out from
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under you. It is a massive, massive
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regression. It's spiritual whiplash.
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We go from the man of faith to a man who, quite frankly, is
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acting like a practical atheist. That is a strong charge.
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I mean calling the patriarch, the Father, the faith and
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atheist. It sounds harsh, I know it does.
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But when we really look at the text, we have to ask the
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question, what does a man really believe when he acts as if God
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isn't there? Or at the very least, as if God
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is incompetent. Yes, as if God isn't strong
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enough to handle a local warlord in the Negeb Desert.
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It's a failure of faith at the most basic level.
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So the whole premise of this deep dive them is to figure out
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how does the gospel itself survive when the supposed hero
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of the story is doing everything he possibly can to wreck it?
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Right. And the thesis we're going to
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see emerge from all these sources is pretty clear, the
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history of redemption, the very promise of salvation.
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It doesn't rest on the steadiness of the believer.
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And Abraham is anything but steady.
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Here he's not steady at all. The whole thing rests entirely
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on the sovereignty of the covenant keeping God.
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OK, let's get into the text then.
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Section one of our outline here is the descent into fear.
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And what's interesting is that the sources all point out that
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this descent this fall, it starts before Abraham even opens
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his mouth. That's right, It starts with his
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feet. It starts with geography.
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Yeah, geography in the Bible is almost never just about maps.
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It's theology verse, one says. From there Abraham journeyed
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toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh
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and Shore, and he sojourned in Gerar.
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And most of us, myself included, you read that and your eyes just
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glaze over. It sounds like a travelogue.
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Then he went here. Then he went there.
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But why does this specific move matter so much?
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Well, you have to look at where he just came from.
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He was camped by the oaks of Mamre, and in the narrative up
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to this point, Mamre is the place of stability.
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Right, that's where he built an altar.
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He built an altar there. It's where he had that
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incredible fellowship with the Lord under the trees.
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It represents communion, shade, rest, being in the right place.
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And he leaves that. Should go to the Negeb.
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He leaves that to go to the desert.
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The Negeb is harsh territory. It's dry, it's on the fringe.
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And Gerar Gerar is the Borderlands.
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It's philistine territory. So he's moving from the
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sanctuary to the marketplace, in a sense.
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That's a great way to frame it. He moves from communion to
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commerce. He leaves the place of
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revelation and communion to go to a place where he's a
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stranger, he's an outsider. He feels exposed.
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Why do you think he did it? The text doesn't explicitly say
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Abraham moved because. It doesn't know and there's a
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lot of speculation in the commentaries on this, but you
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have to remember what he just witnessed, the destruction of
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Sodom. He literally saw smoke rising
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from the valley of Sidham like the smoke of a gigantic furnace.
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He saw the full force judgement of God poured out.
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So it could be a kind of trauma response.
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It could be maybe he sees this terrifying judgement and he just
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he just wants to get away from that scene.
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Or maybe it was something more practical like a drought in the
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area of Mamaray. We don't know for sure.
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But whatever the reason, the effect is the same.
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The effect is the same. He leaves a place of spiritual
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strength and deliberately puts himself in a place of perceived
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weakness. He enters the jurisdiction of a
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local king named Abimelech. King Abimelech.
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Let's talk about him for a second, because he's the
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antagonist of the story, at least on paper.
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Right, he's set up to be the bad guy.
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What do we know about him? At this point, not much.
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He represents the world. He's a philistine king.
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He has power, he has a harem, and in Abraham's mind, Abimelech
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represents a visible, tangible threat that God's invisible
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promise might not be able to overcome.
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And that fear, that calculation, it triggers the old habit.
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This brings us to the logic of the lie, verse 2.
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And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife.
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She is my sister. And the response is immediate.
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And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.
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It's so blunt. There's no negotiation recorded,
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no conversation, just she is my sister and then boom, she's
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gone, taken into the King's harem.
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And we have to pause here, because if you know your Bible,
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if you've been reading Genesis up to this point, you are having
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some serious deja vu. Oh yeah, we've absolutely seen
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this movie before. Genesis chapter 12 Decades
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earlier, Abraham goes down to Egypt because of a famine.
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He gets scared of Pharaoh. What do they do?
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He tells Pharaoh that Sarah is his sister.
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Pharaoh takes her into his harem.
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God has to intervene with plagues and Abraham gets
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unceremoniously kicked out of Egypt.
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You would think after a fiasco like that, he'd have learned
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his. Lesson, you would think, but
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here he is, an old man now, and he recycles the exact same sin.
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And the source material uses some very visceral language to
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describe this. I saw that it references
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Proverbs 26 point. And the one, like a dog that
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returns to his vomit, is a fool who repeats his folly.
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That is a gross image, but it really does fit.
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Doesn't. It it fits because it shows us
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something deeply true and uncomfortable about human
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nature, about our own hearts. We like to think that spiritual
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growth is this straight upward line.
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You know, you conquer a sin in your 20s and it's gone for good.
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Check that box, move on. Right.
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But what Abraham shows us is that old sins, those fleshly
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survival mechanisms we created before we really learn to trust
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God, they don't just die, they go into hibernation.
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They sit in the basement waiting.
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They do. And when the climate changes,
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when you move from the spiritual security of Mamre to the
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perceived insecurity of Gerar, the hibernation ends, the old
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fear wakes up, and the old security policy kicks right back
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in. And it was a.
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Policy. That's the part that's so
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damning. This wasn't a panic move in the
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moment. Later in the chapter in verse
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13, Abraham actually admits it. He says, When God caused me to
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wander from my father's house, I said to her, this is the
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kindness you must do me at every place to which we come, say of
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me, He is my brother. That's just it's breathtakingly
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cynical. It means this was their SOP,
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their standing operating procedure for dealing with
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foreign cultures. It was premeditated.
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The motto was secure your life first, speak the truth second.
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Maybe it's raw pragmatism. It's the morality of survival,
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not the morality of faith. And look at the logic he uses to
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justify it. He explains it to Abimelech
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later. He says, I thought, surely there
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is No Fear of God in this place. Verse 11 He profiles the entire
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population of Girar. He does.
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He looks at them and says these people are Philistines, they're
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pagans, they don't know Yahweh, therefore they have no moral
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compass. Therefore if they see my
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beautiful wife, they will kill me to get her.
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So I have to lie to stay alive. He assumes that because they
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aren't church people, they're essentially monsters.
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Precisely. But here's the profound irony
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that all the sources just hammer home in this entire chapter from
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start to finish. Who is the one person acting
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without the fear of God? It's Abraham.
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It's the prophet. It's the patriarch.
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What is the fear of man? It's functional atheism.
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It's the moment when the visible threat, the king, the sword, the
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financial ruin, or whatever, feels bigger and more real and
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more immediate than the invisible promise of God.
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So Abraham looks at King Abimelech and sees a giant.
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He looks at God's promise to protect him and sees, well, a
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nice idea maybe, but not something that's really going to
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stop a sword. It's a total collapse of faith
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and we have to stop and remember the stakes here.
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This isn't just some domestic dispute.
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It isn't just a bad marriage moment, though it is absolutely
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terrible for Sarah. Oh, it's awful for Sarah.
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She's treated like property pawned off to a stranger to save
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her husband's skin. It's a horrible betrayal, but
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redemptively, historically, the stakes are cosmic.
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We are standing on the precipice of Genesis 21 and what happens
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in Genesis 21? Isaac is born.
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The child of promise, the miracle baby, the seed through
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whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
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The very line that leads directly to Jesus Christ.
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And Abraham just handed the mother of that promised seed
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over to a Pagan King's bedroom. Just let that sink in.
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One of the articles we read used this image that really stuck
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with me. It's said that the dragon from
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Revelation 12, the ancient enemy who waits to devour the child
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the moment it's born, is effectively waiting in the bed
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Chamber of Abimelech. Wow.
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That puts a chilling spin on it. This isn't just a lie.
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It's an act of spiritual warfare, even if Abraham doesn't
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see it that way. It is if Abimelech sleeps with
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Sarah. The lion is corrupted.
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We don't know whose child Isaac is.
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The great promise of Genesis 3.15 that the seed of the woman
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will crush the serpent's head is hanging by a thread.
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And Abraham is risking the salvation of the world to save
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his own neck. He.
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Is and that brings us to the second section of our outline,
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the divine interruption because Abraham has made his deal, he
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thinks he's safe. Sarah is gone.
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The plan of God is in ruins and then God shows up.
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What? That's it?
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Verse 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night.
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I love this part. I love that God doesn't go to
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Abraham. He doesn't wake his prophet up
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and review him. He bypasses the believer
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entirely. He goes straight to the secular
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authority. He goes to the Pagan king.
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This is a massive statement about God's jurisdiction.
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We tend to think God only operates inside the church or
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inside the covenant community. Right, we put him in a box.
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We do, but here Yahweh asserts his absolute authority over a
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Philistine war Lord who doesn't even know his name.
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He has no problem stepping into Gerrard.
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He invades his sleep. He enters the dream completely
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uninvited and the message is just terrifying.
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Behold, you are a dead man. No, hello, no good evening.
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I am the God of Abraham. Just you are dead.
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You are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken,
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for she is a man's wife. God just cuts straight through
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all the spin, Abraham said. Sister Sarah went along with it
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and said brother, the court officials all said single
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available woman God says wife. He names the reality of the
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situation. He does, and by naming her wife,
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he names the sin adultery, and he immediately pronounces the
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sentence for that sin, which in his court is death.
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And it's interesting, The sources point out that even in
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this Pagan culture, God holds Abimelech accountable to a
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universal moral standard. Abimelech didn't have the Bible.
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He didn't have the 10 commandments on stone tablets.
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That's right, Mount Sinai is still hundreds of years in the
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future. But this shows that the moral
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law, specifically regarding the sanctity of marriage, is written
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on the fabric of creation itself.
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It's written on the conscience. Natural Law.
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Exactly. Adultery is a capital offense in
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the court of Heaven, regardless of your cultural background or
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what you think you know about God.
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So Abimelech is having the worst nightmare of his life.
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A deeded he doesn't know has just pronounced a death sentence
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on him. But he doesn't just cower, he
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argues back. He does.
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This is where it turns into a kind of courtroom drama.
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He defends himself and verse 4 gives us this crucial detail.
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Now Abimelech had not approached her.
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So nothing physical had happened, yet the line was still
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pure. The line was pure.
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So Abimelech says, Lord, will you kill an innocent people?
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And then he lays out his legal case.
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Did he not himself say to me she is my sister?
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And she herself said He is my brother.
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In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands, I
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have done this. He pleads ignorance.
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He says I was tricked. I was operating on bad
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information. And he's right.
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He was completely tricked. He acted on false intelligence
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that was provided to him by the man of God.
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It's so humiliating for Abraham when you think about it.
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The Pagan king is the one using words like integrity and
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innocence. Well, the Prophet is the one
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hiding and lying. It is a total role reversal.
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The world is acting more ethically than the church in
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this moment. Abimelech makes an appeal to
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God's own justice. He basically says, God, surely
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you are a just judge. You cannot execute a man for a
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crime he didn't even know he was committing.
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And God actually listens. This leads us to Section 3,
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which I think is the theological heavyweight champion of his
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entire chapter. It's the doctrine of restraining
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grace. This is where we need to slow
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down and really pay attention because God's response to
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Abimelech it changes how we understand everything about sin
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and Providence. Verse 6 God says yes, I know
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that you have done this in the integrity of your heart.
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So he starts by validating Abimelech's claim.
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He accepts the plea. He says, OK, you're right, you
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didn't intend to commit adultery.
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But then comes this crushing revelation.
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God adds, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me.
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Therefore, I did not let you touch her.
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It was I who kept you. I did not let you.
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Those are active, powerful verbs.
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They destroy Abimelech's pride in a single sentence.
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Abimelech thought to himself. I haven't touched her yet
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because I'm a noble king. I haven't touched her because I
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have self-control and I'm waiting for the right time.
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God says no, you didn't touch her because I physically stopped
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you. The Hebrew word there is
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interesting. It's.
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Yeah, it means to withhold, to hold back, to restrain.
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It's used in other places of God, holding back the rain or
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holding back a judgement. Here, he's holding back a human
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will. And the source material connects
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this directly to the Westminster Confession of Faith,
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specifically the chapter on Providence.
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How does this verse fit into a Reformed understanding of
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theology? Well, it's a classic text for
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understanding that human beings do not have the kind of
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autonomous freedom that the world and even many parts of the
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church think we have. We have a will.
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Yes, we make choices, but God is sovereign over that will.
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So you're saying God can override our choices?
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He can certainly place boundaries on them.
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Look at the situation here. Abimelech had the nature to sin.
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He's a powerful king who takes any woman he wants for his
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harem. He had the opportunity to sin.
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Absolutely. Sarah was in his palace.
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He had the power to sin. No one on earth could have
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stopped him. All the lights were green for
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him to go ahead. But he didn't go.
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He didn't go. And why?
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Not because he made a virtuous choice, but because God hit the
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brakes. God placed some kind of
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invisible barrier between the king and the woman.
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Does the text give us any clue as to how he did that?
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It doesn't give us the specifics of the mechanism in that moment,
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but later on in verses 17 and 18, it says God had closed all
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the wombs of the House of Abimelech.
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It seems to imply some kind of sudden widespread physical
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affliction struck the entire household, maybe making him and
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his other wives ill or impotent. So maybe a sudden illness that
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night. It could be, Or maybe God just
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removed the desire from his heart.
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Maybe he sent some urgent political distraction.
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We don't know the exact means, but we know the ultimate 'cause
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God intervened to prevent a sin from happening.
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And this is what we call restraining Grace, yes.
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We talk a lot about saving great God, saving us from the eternal
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penalty of our sin. But restraining grace is God
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saving us and the world from the full expression and act of sin
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itself. It's the idea that the world is
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not as wicked as it could be. Not even close.
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It's only because God is constantly actively holding back
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the floodgates of human depravity.
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That's a sobering thought. It means people are by nature
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much worse than they appear on the surface.
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Much worse, John Calvin said that if God lifted his hand of
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restraint, if he removed all the external and internal checks he
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places on the human heart, society would collapse into a
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chaos of murder and theft in an instant.
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The decency we sometimes see in the world often isn't because
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people are inherently good. It's because God is mercifully
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limiting how evil he allows them to be.
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And notice how God frames the sin here.
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He tells Abimelech. I kept you from sinning against
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me. That is such a key phrase.
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That's the vertical dimension of sin.
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God takes it personally. We tend to think of adultery as
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a horizontal sin, a sin against the spouse, against the family.
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God says no. First and foremost, you are
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sinning against me. You are violating my creational
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order. You are attacking my image in
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humanity. But let's be honest, God's
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primary motivation here wasn't just to be nice to Abimelech.
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No, not at all. Abimelech certainly benefits.
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He doesn't die, which is a good outcome for him, but he is not
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the center of the story. The center is Sarah.
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The center is Sarah, and more than that, the center is the
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promise that she carries in her womb.
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God is guarding the mother of the promised seed.
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He's protecting the covenant. This is what our outline calls
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the Sovereign Shield. That's the term Abraham dropped
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his shield of faith. He surrendered, he gave up.
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But God says my covenant does not depend on Abraham being
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brave today. My plan is not held hostage by
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human cowardice. I will overrule A Pagan King's
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lust. I will overrule a prophet's
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fear. I will do whatever it takes, by
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whatever means necessary, to ensure that Isaac is born and my
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redemptive plan moves forward. That is incredibly comforting
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for us today. It means God's ultimate plan is
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foolproof. It means His plan can survive
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our stupidity. It can survive our fear.
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It can survive our worst sins. God's grip on the covenant is
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infinitely tighter than our grip on Him.
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So the immediate crisis is averted.
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Sarah is physically safe, Abimelech is terrified but still
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alive. But now there's this huge mess
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to clean up. The big mess this.
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Leads us to Section 4, Restoration and the Prophet.
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Because God doesn't just reveal what he did, He gives Abimelech
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a command. Verse 7 Now then return the
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man's wife. Simple direct restitution.
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Yes. Repentance isn't just about
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feeling bad about what you did, it's about actively fixing what
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you broke. You cannot keep the stolen goods
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and claim that you're sorry. God demands give her back.
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And he backs it up with a threat.
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If you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you
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and all who are yours. Dying.
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You shall die. It's the same legal language God
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used in the Garden of Eden. It's the language of the law.
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God is not negotiating here. But then right in the middle of
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this threat, in this command, God drops the title on Abraham
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that is, well, it's just baffling in this context.
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He says return the man's wife, for he's a prophet.
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This is a massive moment in biblical theology and it's so
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easy to just rewrite past it. This is the very first time and
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the word prophet, the Hebrew word knobby, appears anywhere in
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the scripture. The first time ever.
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The very first time and. It appears now of all times.
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That's the shocking grace of it. That's the irony.
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God doesn't give Abraham this title when he's building an
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altar at Mamray. He doesn't give it to him when
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he's courageously charging into battle to save his nephew Lot.
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He bestows this high office on him at his absolute lowest
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point, when he's caught in a web of deceit hiding behind his
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wife's skirts. It seems almost unfair Abimelech
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is the one acting with integrity here, but Abraham gets the
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honored title. It tells us something absolutely
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fundamental about our standing with God, the office, the
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calling. It depends on God's sovereign
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election, not on the man's immediate performance.
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Abraham is the prophet and the friend of God because God chose
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him to be, not because he earned it.
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In this chapter. It's pure grace, unmerited
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favor. It is, but then look at the
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function of the prophet here. What does God say the prophet
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will do? He says he will pray for you and
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you shall live. This defines for the first time
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what a prophet is. We usually think of a prophet as
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someone who predicts the future, or maybe as someone who preaches
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fiery sermons speaking from God to men.
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But here the direction of the speech is reversed.
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Right. What theologians call the law of
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first mention defines a prophet primarily as an intercessor,
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someone who speaks to God for men.
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He stands in the gap. He mediates.
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Just think about the humiliation for Abimelech here.
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He's the king, he's the innocent party in this whole transaction,
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but to save his life and the lives of his household, he has
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to go to the very guy who scammed him and humbly asked for
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prayer. It's a bitter pill to swallow.
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You can just imagine Abimelech thinking, God, why on earth do I
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have to ask him for help? He's the liar who caused this
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whole problem it. Forces him to recognize God's
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established order. It forces him to submit to God's
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covenantal order. Abraham, despite his personal
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moral failure in this moment, is still God's designated channel
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of grace on earth. If Abimelech wants life, he has
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to get it through Abraham. There's no other way.
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It's mediated mercy. God could have just healed
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Abimelech and his household directly with a word.
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He absolutely could have, but God loves to use means.
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He loves to involve His people in His work of restoration, even
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when they're the ones who caused the problem in the 1st place.
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The processes return the wife ask for prayer, then you will
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live. It restores the dignity of the
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prophetic office. In a way, God is publicly
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vindicating Abraham's role in front of these Philistines.
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And it restores Abraham too. It forces him to stop lying and
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start praying. It pushes him out of his fear
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and back into his calling as an intercessor.
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OK, so we've covered the dissent, the divine
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interruption, the doctrine of restraining grace, and the
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restoration. Now we need to land the plane.
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Section 5 is theological synthesis and application.
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What are the big takeaways from this messy story?
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First and foremost, I think we have to deal honestly with the
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failure of the human hero. We leave Virar with 0 confidence
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in Abraham's moral fiber. Absolutely 0.
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He is not the guy you want guarding your life savings or
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your wife. He failed to speak the truth.
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Sarah was complicit in the lie. Abimelech was just a self
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preserving Pagan. If you're looking for a hero, in
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Genesis chapter 20, there is only one faithful actor from
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beginning to end, Yahweh himself.
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It really deconstructs that be like Abraham moralism that we
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sometimes hear in sermons. It obliterates it.
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We are not called to be like Abraham in this chapter.
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We are called to trust the God of Abraham, who remains faithful
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even when his people are not. And that, of course, points us
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directly to Christ. It screams for Christ.
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Abraham was a failed mediator in this story.
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He was a prophet who brought guilt and danger on the people
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around him. He endangered the bride to save
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his own skin. You contrast that with Jesus.
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The contrast couldn't be sharper.
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Jesus is the true prophet. He is the better intercessor.
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He didn't lie to save himself. He spoke the absolute truth.
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I am He in the Garden, knowing it would lead Him to the cross.
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He gave himself up to protect and purify His bride, the
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Church. So Abraham here is a type A
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shadow, but a very very imperfect 1.
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He shows us our desperate need for a Savior who is holy,
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harmless, and undefiled. We need a prophet who doesn't
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need to repent of his own lies before he can pray for us.
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There's also a serious warning here for leaders, isn't there?
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The sources touched on this regarding pastors, elders,
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fathers. It is a sobering warning.
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Abraham was a leader. He was the carrier of the
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promise. But when he feared men, when he
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feared the culture of Gerar more than he feared God, he
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endangered the very people entrusted to his care.
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When leaders fear men, the flock suffers.
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That is the principle. When a pastor compromises
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biblical truth because he's afraid of offending the culture
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or afraid of losing big donors, he exposes the church to
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spiritual danger. When a father operates out of
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fear rather than faith, his family pays the price.
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Remember, Abimelech's whole household was afflicted with
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sickness because of Abraham's fear.
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Our cowardice always has collateral damage.
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But we don't want to end on that downer because there is massive
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comfort here as. Well, oh absolutely, the
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sovereign shield that is the great comforting take away
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salvation belongs to the Lord. It brings to my mind that verse
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in Jude 24. Now to him who is able to keep
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you from stumbling. Absolutely.
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The same God who kept Abimelech from physically touching Sarah,
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the same God who placed a restraint on that specific sin,
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is the God who keeps the believer today.
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He keeps us from the sins we desperately want to commit.
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And he keeps us even when we do stumble.
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He keeps the covenant secure even when we are faithless.
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As the Apostle Paul says, if we are faithless, he remains
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faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
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It's such a relief. It takes the crushing burden off
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our shoulders to be the perfect, unflinching heroes of our own
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story. We're not.
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It frees us to be honest about our failures because we know our
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standing with God doesn't rest on our performance, It rests on
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His promise and His power. Before we sign off, I want to
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leave our listener with one final thought.
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Something that came up in our prep for this and it has been
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haunting me a little bit since. The idea of the unseen
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restraint. Yes, we get this rare peek
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behind the curtain here with Abimelech.
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God pulls it back and says, see, I stopped you and it makes you
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wonder about your own. Life, it really does.
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How many times has God done that for us and we had no idea?
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We will never know this side of glory.
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We thank God for the prayers He answered in the ways we wanted.
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We thank Him for the blessings we can see and count.
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But we almost never thank Him for the sins He prevented us
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from committing. That angry career ending e-mail
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you tried to send, but the Wi-Fi suddenly went down.
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The adulterous relationship he blocked because he knew it would
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destroy you even though you cried about it and thought it
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was a tragedy at the time. The catastrophic car accident
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that didn't happen because you were delayed 5 minutes looking
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for your lost keys. The sinful desires that suddenly
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faded away for no reason you could explain.
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The doors that slam shut in your face.
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We look at those things as frustrations, the setbacks.
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But from the perspective of Genesis 20, they might be the
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severe hidden mercy of God. He is holding us back.
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He is keeping us from sinning against Him.
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It's possible we'll get to heaven and find out that our
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greatest debt of gratitude to God is for the thousands of
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things he didn't let happen. So the prompt for you the
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listener is this stop trying to manage your life with half
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truths and fear based strategies.
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Stop playing the Abraham game of safety.
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First, look away from the failed prophet Abraham and look to the
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true prophet Jesus Christ. Look to the one who intercedes
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for you perfectly, even when you're sleeping soundly in your
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compromise. Thanks for joining us for this
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deep dive into reformed thinking.
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It's been a heavy one, but a really good one.
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Indeed, a necessary one. We'll see you next time.