Genesis 20:10-11 – And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing?” Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’”
Anyone who is married will tell you how easy it is to fall into bad routines and old ruts, even though it always makes things worse and never better. In the marriage of Abraham and Sarah, we see this principle playing out painfully.
In Genesis 20:1-18, we read of the account of Abraham moving and again giving away his lovely wife, now around 90 years of age, as he had previously in Genesis 12:10-20. Fortunately, God intervened like one of the big guys in a mob movie through a dream that revealed to Abimelech, who was king of Gerar, that Sarah was in fact married and that God was going to kill him and his family if he touched her sexually. Moses tells the story in such a way as to stress the innocence of Abimelech (e.g. 20:6). It is also clear that Abraham is a coward, and that Sarah joins him in a lie. The story shows that, sometimes, there are people who do not know God that behave better than the people who do know God. Of course, things should not be this way, but sadly sometimes they are.
In 20:7, God declares that Abraham is a prophet, which is the first mention of a prophet in the Bible. Until this point, God has been the only one functioning like a prophet, calling creation into existence by His Word, and speaking to His people directly but not much speaking through His people, which is what prophets do. God uses Abraham’s sin to evangelize to Abimelech, telling Abimelech that Abraham will pray for him, and that those prayers will be answered. Since we’ve all had moments like Abraham, in tomorrow’s devo we will continue learning about this story as God steps in to turn Abraham’s mess into his ministry.
In what ways has God stepped in and used what you tried to ruin for the good of yourself or others?
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