Poor Abimelech. Abraham, an alien traveling through the land of Gerar, fears the people there and so he conceives a deception. He decides to tell them that Sarah is his sister rather than his wife. (It turns out the Sarah is actually his half sister, but a terrible deception nonetheless.) King Abimelech takes Sarah as his wife. God comes to Abimelech in a dream and tells him that Sarah is Abe's wife. Apparently a God-fearing man, Abimelech takes Sarah back to Abraham and says... "How have I wronged you that you would bring such great guilt upon me and my kingdom. What was your reason for doing this." The reason is obvious. Abraham feared men more than he feared God. Afraid for his own life and not willing to entrust his protection to God, he takes the extraordinary action of offering up his wife. Unbelievable.
What's the lesson here for us? First, if there is a sense in which we are "aliens and strangers" in this world, the last thing we need to do is create mistrust. This defames the reputation of God in our culture. Half-truths are deceptions nonetheless. Secondly, we've got to know God well enough to fear him more than men and entrust ourselves to his care. Incredibly, Jacob pursues the same course of self-protection in Gerar a generation later by offering Rebekah as his sister. "The sins of one generation visted upon the next."
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2 comments:
I thought was so weird that both stories where very similar in that regards. However, such an easy thing deception for self preservation is to fall into.
You can find yourself surrounded by people who will deceive you and trusting that God will protect you from the evildoers is hard to do sometimes but the only way to know real peace.
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