As we remind you, and hopefully one of these decades we'll have some video stuff ready for you so where I don't have to continue to remind you.

But it seems that if I don't remind you, you don't read in the bulletin that there are visitor cards located in the chair in front of you.

Please grab one of those and fill it out. Give us some information about you and just so we can stay in touch with you.

Put it in one of the little churches here and there's also one in the back.

These churches are also where we receive the financial gifts and the tithes and offerings that you guys give unto the Lord.

So please continue to be faithful as the Lord leads you to sow into the ministry of really Vision 21 where we have a three year ministry plan.

We'll probably sometime in March talk a little bit more about that because we'll be coming up on a quarter place there.

We are maybe a couple of weeks away depending on some of the paint and stain and all that good stuff and trimmings.

Mr. Lonnie has done an amazing job on our baptistry over here and so he doesn't want any kudos so we'll just give him kind of...

We'll pretend like we don't know who he is, right?

But he's done an amazing job putting this together and so we will...

We're about two or three weeks, would you say, Mr. Lonnie, from being completed.

We have three, maybe possibly four baptisms now that are scheduled for our first day.

And so, amen, maybe we'll do nothing but have baptisms and celebrate the Lord all day long, amen.

And real quickly, I wanted to read the bulletin.

There's a lot of things going on in there that we have in our church but the biggest thing is tonight.

Tonight at six o'clock, we have a bonfire out back.

Please just park in the parking lot.

We have five and a half acres out back.

We're really working hard on doing some things with this property to serve the community and to serve our fellowship here as well too.

But we finished last Sunday putting the fire pit in.

We got a big fire pit out back.

And so, at six o'clock, we'll have a fire going.

David's going to have some hot dogs cooked for everybody.

So, don't eat dinner.

Come and have hot dogs.

We'll have some chips and all finger stuff and some drinks and stuff.

So, just come.

We're not doing anything special other than just hanging out, hanging out and just enjoying each other's company a little bit

and just spending some time out by the fire.

If you want to bring some things for s'mores, please do that.

Help yourself.

We're not going to have all that ready just because I don't know who would want s'mores and who wouldn't.

So, as a family, if you would like to have s'mores, bring your stuff out there.

You would like to have s'mores, make sure you tell your dad, okay?

Jeremiah, she raised her hand, just so you know.

And so, the onus is on you now to bring s'more equipment.

And so, just kind of come hang out.

And please, please, please, kids, let's stay out of the pond.

Please.

Thank you very much.

Guys, let me just say that.

If you have any inclination to go to the pond, we will make sure that does not happen for you, okay?

All right.

I think that's all the announcements we really had to make at this time, isn't it?

Okay.

And we're going to go ahead and dismiss our pre-K through fifth grade.

If you guys will follow Mr. David out the door right there.

For us in here, let's grab our Bibles as we continue in our series.

This series is called In the Beginning, our exposition, look, study, verse by verse of the book of Genesis.

And this week, we get to chapter 20.

And today's message is entitled, here we go again.

Here we go again.

I have to say, last week, I probably just threw my own self under the bus because I dropped my Bible at the end.

And I said, thank goodness we're finished with chapter 19 of Genesis.

I'll never have to preach 19 again.

And the Lord just reminded me in my prayer time this week, oh yeah, you might have to preach that again one day.

You shouldn't say that, you know?

And so you do what I tell you to do, right?

If you pour me out, here I am, Lord, right?

Then if God says that, then guess what?

You'll preach that again.

But it was one of the hardest sermons for me to bring forth for you because it was just horrible at every turn.

The horrific circumstances.

If you weren't here last week, I'm not going to give you a complete recap.

But it ties into where we're going in chapter 20.

In chapter 19, we see Lot.

And Lot is in a, he has lost his ever-loving mind, okay?

Chapter 19 shows us what sin and sinful man look like.

As you give into temptation, and temptation takes you down another road and another road.

Lot, at one point in time, was a very, very wealthy man.

He was as wealthy as Abraham was.

In the horny place, we send free sins of fear and steals.

And that's theúa-B as the感謝 ore.

And that's the signs of bugs.

longer e

It doesn't matter what you choose. I'm happy with the other. And so they do that. And so Lot makes his decision. And it says that Lot lifted up his eyes and he saw the cities of the plain. And there was a drawing there. Ah, look at the cities of the plain. It was well watered. It reminded him of Egypt. I just left Egypt. It reminds me of Egypt. I want what I had in Egypt. Remember, they had just come from a time of being very disobedient. They came into the land of promise.

They were finally there, but there was a little bit of a drought there. And so a famine was taken over. And so Abram, in his intelligence, didn't trust God and leads them down to Egypt. And again, steps out of the will of God. God spiritually spanks them and they come back. So anyway, they come in here and Lot goes from a position of lifting his eyes towards the area and wanting to live in the cities. And he pitched his tent as far as Sodom.

And in the next chapter, we see that he's living in Sodom. He has to be rescued and be brought. And in the next chapter, we see that he is in the gates of Sodom, which means he is in he's in a leadership position of this horrific town.

The passage tells us before Lot ever moves in there, that the men of Sodom were wicked. Everyone knew that they were wicked. They knew that they did not follow the Lord. But Lot still went there anyway.

We come to chapter 19. And real quickly, we have these angels that appear to Lot. They come to the city and they say, hey, we're coming here to the city and Lot says, come to my house.

And they said, no, we're just going to stay down in the square. No, don't go to the square. Lot knows exactly what's going to happen to them. Don't go to the square.

You need to come to my home. They come to their home. And at that time, they go to the home and it says in the scriptures that every man in the city, from the youngest to the oldest,

were there trying to break the door down to get in Lot's house in order to have sex with these men. Bring them out.

I mean, this is the depravity that's going on in this time. So they're warning. The crowd's getting antsy, getting antsy. So the two angels reach outside, bring Lot inside, strike the men with blindness, so that they wear themselves out, groping for the door.

And so now all of this is taking place. And so the angels reveal themselves to Lot that we are angelic messengers of divine destruction.

This city is going to be destroyed. You need to get out of here. Get whoever's close to you, your people, and get out of the city.

And the passage tells us what happens a lot. He lingers. He lingers.

After all this mess you just saw, all these people trying to come in here, and he continues to linger.

So that the angels have to come and literally pick him up and take him outside the city and set him there.

And yet he still lingers. He still lingers.

And we understood that we see that in our lives.

A lot of times we get in a situation where we know we're not walking down the path that God knows we shouldn't walk down.

The Holy Spirit brings about conviction in our life.

The Holy Spirit brings a recollection, a reckoning in our lives that we need to change directions.

And we know that, yet we linger.

And when we linger, I'm telling you, ten times out of ten times, you get yourself in trouble.

You find yourself in a position you wish you would have never been in to begin with.

So when the Lord brings about that in your life, don't continue to sit in it.

Don't continue to sit in it.

So anyway, he lingers.

And then what happens is, a lot comes to a place where all the destruction is going to take place.

They're told not to look.

He still doesn't want to leave.

And so they say, look, we've got to get you out of here.

Go to the mountains.

Look, I don't want to go to the mountains.

I'm not going to be able to survive up in the mountains.

I'm a city guy.

I'm a metropolitan guy.

I can't survive in the wilderness.

Let me go to this other town.

It's a little town.

It's just a small town, and it's close enough for me to get away to.

And the reference there, just a little town, means there's just a little bit of sin there.

It's not as bad as Sodom was.

So let me go there.

It's not as evil and wicked as Sodom.

But obviously, it's worse than he ever thought, because just in a few verses later,

he and his daughters, the only ones who survive in there, they're in Zohar.

By the Lord. And now he's living in a cave with his two daughters. And everything that they've ever known, their whole world, has just been destroyed. And so the two daughters decide, well, there's no other man in the face of the earth that we could ever carry on the family name with, so we're going to get our dad drunk, and we're going to sleep with dad and have boys.

The mindset, the depravity, there is nothing new under the sun, Solomon tells us. We look at what's going on in the world today, we're like, wow, we've lost our minds. Yes, we've lost our minds.

But there's nothing new under us. They just didn't have social media back then to put everything out there so we'd know about it so instantly.

That's the only difference, people. And so they do this, and they have two boys. The first son's name is Moab, and he becomes the father of the Moabites.

The second son's name is Ben-Ami. He becomes the father of the Ammonites.

And to this day, the scripture says, to this day, those two are part of a people group that continue to oppose the people of promise, the people of covenant.

To this day, showing you again how when you try to take things into your own hands, how messed up it gets.

And so we see the horror last week of chapter 19, and I almost feel terrible going through chapter 20,

because there's really nothing, chapter 20 is kind of uneventful.

I don't have any huge scary things to throw at you today, okay?

So, you know, you don't have to plug the ears of the kids here today.

But looking at this, all the horror of it, there's an interesting thing to note in biblical history,

because many people ask, many people come up with a question,

what was the morality, what was the morality before the giving of the Mosaic Law, okay?

Before Moses was on the horizon, what was the morality?

Paul answers that in Romans 1, if you ever think of that.

What they're asking is, way before Moses was on the horizon, way before the giving of the Ten Commandments,

it was way out there.

But it's near to us, because Paul reminds us that God has written the law on our hearts.

God has written the law on our hearts, revealing His invisible attributes, okay,

so that we know what right is from wrong.

So certainly, what was recorded in Genesis 19 that we just went through,

the people knew it was wrong.

They didn't have to be told.

You don't have to be told that if I pull a gun and put it up to Josh and shoot him in the chest,

I'm not sure if that's right or not, you know.

I'm not sure if it's right or wrong, you know.

We'll have to look at the law on this.

No, it's wrong!

We know it's wrong, okay?

And so, Lot has become a debased human being after having all these herds and flocks,

and like I said, he's relegated and living in a cave.

And in this case, we see that Lot and his daughters actually have so little faith in God.

They really do.

The God who's rescued them already repeatedly on behalf of his kinsman, Abraham,

but they have so little faith in God, like Sarah,

they decide to take matters into their own hands.

And what happened when Sarah decided to take things into her own hands?

She has a son, Ishmael,

and to this day, the people of Ishmael are against the people of covenant.

This is what happens when we step outside of the will of God.

And again, there's a key issue here that I want to remind you of that we need to see,

is that in chapter 19, the mindset was,

what they wanted was they wanted to have a future.

They wanted to have a future.

And what they wanted was an established identity that would continue.

And maybe what they even wanted,

and it's certainly implicit within the text,

is they wanted their father to have progeny,

so that his name would continue.

But his name, Lot's name, was never continued.

And here's an important thing that we need to recognize,

in the entirety of this story,

in the substance of the chapter 19,

is this is the last time that Lot is ever going to be mentioned.

He's done.

I mean, he'll be referred to in the New Testament,

and Peter...

Peter...

Ben-Ami, they're not remembered as descendants of Lot whatsoever. Instead, they're remembered as competitors or even enemies. You don't remember them as descendants of Lot to this day. And in chapter 20 is a setup, though, for a happy story. Because we're finally going to get to some happy things here, okay? Because in chapter 21, the God's promise of the birth of Isaac, the promised child is going to come in chapter 21.

But what we've seen up to this point as we get ready to unfold chapter 20 is that Lot's disobedience, his carnality, his lack of faith, all these things combined means that he's cut off.

But Abraham is not cut off. And you might think that this is interesting because right at the eve, even just at the eve of Isaac being born, the son of promise being born, Abraham still doesn't fully trust God.

It blows my mind. He still lives in fear. Here we go again. Here we go again. Chapter 20, verse 1.

From there, Abraham journeyed toward the territory of Negev and lived between Kaddish and Sur. And he journeyed to Gerar. And Abraham said of his wife, Sarah, she is my sister.

Now, didn't we just go through this before? They went down to Egypt and they tried this mess before. She's my sister, okay?

And you would think, you know, how many times do we get kind of a spiritual spanking? We learn our lesson and we don't make that mistake again.

I mean, we always do that, right? No, no.

But still, let's not be so hard on Abraham. But here he goes again. She is my sister. And Abimelech, the king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken. For she is a man's wife.

Now, Abimelech had not approached her. That means he had not been physical with her, okay?

Now, Abimelech, oh, sorry. So he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people?

Did he not say himself to me, she is my sister? And she herself said, he is my brother?

In the integrity of my heart, in the innocence of my hands, have I done this.

Now, that phrase right there, that last phrase is a phrase that is going to be repeated by King David in the Psalms

when he speaks about the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands.

But one thing I just want to make note to you again.

How old is Sarah here?

She is old.

She is old.

And yet still this king sees her and says, I want that.

Now, we talked about earlier how Sarah is revered as one of the most beautiful Hebrew of all time.

You know, see, this lady had to be this old to where the kings would still say, I'll take that.

I'll take that.

I mean, this speaks highly of her beauty, does it not?

You know, you read this, you don't think about that.

But she was an older lady, okay?

Obviously.

But as we've gone through Genesis, I talked to you about first mentions.

And every time the Bible, there's a principle behind a first mention.

And for us this morning, this is the first mention of the word integrity here.

It's the first mention of the word integrity.

And it's from the lips of a Philistine.

It's interesting to me.

A man of integrity.

He says he's a man of integrity.

And God says, you're right.

You're right.

Hey, I actually agree with you.

You are a man of integrity.

And that's why I'm going to keep you from any further sin.

And there's a principle here.

And that is, if you are a person of integrity, if you have honesty, if you're not covering up,

you're not hiding things in your life, and you are who you say you are,

you are the same in private as you are in public,

if you are a person of integrity,

God will keep you from further plunging into those kinds of activities.

God will keep you from going down a path of further sin.

Because we all fall short of the glory of God.

The scripture is very clear on that.

But if you are impersonating...

God will bring about things in you to stop you in your path. Let's not go any further. Let's not go any further. But you are, if you are a person who lacks into integrity, you're a dangerous road of going down to areas that are gonna bring about destruction. But God says you're right,

you're a man of integrity and that's why i'm not going to let you do this i'm not going to let you

go through with this verse six then god said to him in a dream yes i know i know that you have

done this in the integrity of your heart and it was i who kept you from sinning against me

therefore i did not let you touch her in other words you're alive right now okay and you're

having this dream right now because if you touch her you're a dead man you're alive right now

because you didn't touch her this is this is just a good old-fashioned warning all right yeah okay

you're you're only having this dream and alive right now because you didn't touch her and i'm

going to make sure that you don't touch her verse seven now then return the man's the man's wife

notice how he doesn't call him abraham now yeah he's probably fed up you know i remember growing

up i'm the oldest of three kids whenever i got in bad trouble my mom would call my dad she pulled

the old call dad at work thing on the phone and she would never say guess what curtis did it was it

was curtis curtis curtis curtis until i was in trouble then it was she'd pick up the phone say guess what

your number one son did today all of a sudden my name changed i was then the number one son okay and

that's what god's probably doing i'm i've i've had it up to here with abraham you know so anyway

he says now return the man's wife for he is a prophet now stop there that's a very interesting

statement he says that abraham is identified here as a prophet this is interesting as spokesman for god

a mouthpiece for god you know the prophets are a strange bunch if you read through the read through

the the old testament the prophets are an absolute strange bunch does anybody else not read them and

i know that they were god's mouthpiece ezekiel ezekiel for example ezekiel would not be somebody that

would be selected from any pulpit committee ezekiel took all of his clothes off and preached naked one

time that's not a resume builder

okay if i ever say to you today you know what today i got a fresh word for you today

somebody stop me yeah i know jeremiah he appears as some manic depressant you know he's he's manic

depressant all the time and so these these aren't people that you want standing but isaiah is probably

the court prophet but then you get the the 12 minor precinct we call them minor prophets they're not

minor in their message they're minor because they're they're they're uh their writings are smaller but

they're just weird cats they're just all weird cats okay but you know but god uses prophets and he calls

them for his purpose for his purpose and he uses us we're all weird cats too are we but god uses us in

spite of ourselves for his glory for his namesake okay where were we verse seven now then return the

man's wife where he is a prophet so that he will pray for you and you shall live and he actually he

actually says return sarah to abraham he's a prophet and he's going to pray for you and and you will

live okay back to the first mention rule i told you about we have a lot of first mentions in the book

of genesis but this is the first this this is the first time the word prophet is used in in in the

scriptures in the old testament here and and uh it's it's mentioned in this verse and it's used

on behalf of disobedient abraham very interesting now i say i'm shocked at then because at this because

i i said that you would think that there will come a time when god says you know um i don't know

you know i don't even want to be related to abraham i don't want him to have any you know i know he's a

friend of mine you know whatever but you know um you would think he would say the man and this guy

he's a problem child i i've got i've had problems with him since day one when i called him out of

the chaldees ever since i called him or you know who is this knucklehead but god says god owns him

as his prophet and it's interesting because he says he's a prophet and he's going to pray for you

and i would think abimelech is probably thinking

you know well i've just ruined any future ability that i have to really serve the lord um and those thoughts start to kind of wash over our minds man man i've really blown it man i've really made this mistake i can never i can never be used by god again i i god will never use me again let me let me just tell you you don't really understand god you don't really understand him you don't understand the great grace of our god

you don't understand the mighty mercy of our maker when you allow those thoughts to come in he is a prophet and he's going to pray for you he says in fact the lord's going to heal him in the prayer we'll get to that in a second but i also don't want you to misunderstand me because some of you might be thinking oh great all you gotta do is just live my life and do whatever i want and just just say that i'm really sorry when i've blown it and i could just keep blowing it right let's keep blowing it grace blow it grace no no no no no no i mean shall we continue shall we

you know continue to sin that grace may abound more absolutely not paul says no that's not what we're talking about

but the reality because the reality is is if that's your mindset that i can live whatever life i want to and god's going to continue to still use me and i really don't have a repentant heart

what happens is you can stand up and you can lead a bible study somewhere you could stand up here on stage and you could preach a sermon

you could stand up here and still go through all the motions and play notes on on an instrument or keys or sing or all that stuff but you know the reality is you will be lacking something the entire time

you'll be lacking life real life that's what happens you'll be lacking that and what happens is you will begin to shrivel up on the inside

i know a lot of people to put out a good front all day long and on the inside they're so dry

they are so dry and so what happens is there will be pain there'll be sorrow and repercussions all around you

repercussions with your relationships repercussions with your family repercussions and you will dry up on the inside

i think it's i think it's i think it's uh proverbs 13 that says that that the way of the unfaithful

is hard

the way of the unfaithful is hard

it's miserable

and so what happens is when you continue continue to try

to operate from that point thinking that god is just going to continue to just

bless your mess without you even wanting to make real life changes

is you begin to shrivel up inside and you become you begin to operate from a well that you can draw

nothing from

it's a dry well

and you wonder why i've got i've got nothing to give to my family i've got nothing to give to my

brother to my sister i've got nothing to pour out to the people

because

you're trying to draw from a well that has been dry for a long time

you know that's one of the things and i know maybe not everyone can see and i'm not trying to call

any one specific person out but i don't know if you saw this morning

as we

as we rested in that song pour me out

the tears that flowed from sharice's face

i don't know if you've ever noticed how

there'll be sunday mornings when rob is leading a song

and tears

all of a sudden start flowing from his face

that's that means they're coming from a place of this is

this is my overflow

i've met with the lord

this is my overflow

so many of us

we want the power of the lord

we want the blessing of the lord

we want the things of the lord

but we're not really willing to do the work

that brings us there to the place

of obedience and surrender

that's the problem with the church today

as we try to create such a

such a gimmicky and easy ticket for people to walk in

and just come be a part of

there's no real sense of accountability

there's no real sense of responsibility

just let's all meet jesus somewhere

maybe he's in the parking lot on the way to denny's

maybe he's whatever

no no no no no no

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

how are you doing this chapter. Now then return this man's wife or he's a prophet so that he will pray for you and you shall live and if you do not return her know that you shall surely die.

I say that's pretty bold.

You and all yours.

So there you go.

It's getting bigger.

So Abimelech rose early in the morning

and called all his servants

and told them all these things.

And the men were very much afraid.

He rose early in the morning.

I bet he rose early in the morning.

I bet this gave a whole new meaning to early riser.

You know?

If I had a dream from the Lord saying,

if I didn't do this, you're going to die,

I'm up at 3 a.m.

Early in the morning.

I'm doing it.

I'm taking care of business.

But he doesn't keep it a secret.

He tells his servants.

Now, why would he do that?

You know?

Why didn't he just kind of keep it a secret privately,

quickly return Sarah,

and wipe his hands?

Clear of it.

It's because he wants witnesses

that God told him in a dream

that if you don't return,

if you return Sarah to Abraham,

you won't die.

He wants witnesses to the fact

that God told him this.

But listen, God is faithful

and he doesn't need witnesses.

But Abimelech doesn't know God.

Okay?

So he's just,

I'm trying to cover.

I'm trying to cover myself here.

That's what he's going through here.

And it says,

And the men were very much afraid.

I bet they were.

Because he tells them the story.

And guess what?

I'm having this dream.

I took this woman.

But guess what?

You all are part of it too.

Because if I don't return her,

I die.

And guess what?

You all die too.

And I bet everyone says,

Let's take a vote here.

How many want Abimelech

to return the woman?

And every one of them

raised a hand and a foot.

Yeah, give her back.

Give her back.

You got plenty of wives.

Verse 9.

Then Abimelech called Abraham

and said to him,

What have you done to us?

And how have I sinned against you

that you have brought on me

in my kingdom a great sin?

You have done to me things

that ought not to be done.

You know, isn't that,

here is a pagan,

polytheistic king

in this little area

that would actually be

a little south of Gaza right now.

Says,

this lost king

says to a man of God,

Why have you done this to me?

How bad is it

when the world

has to hold those

people of God

accountable for their actions?

The world may not

follow the Lord.

The world may not

be surrendered to the Lord.

Let me tell you something.

They know.

They know what they're

supposed to say.

They know those

five scriptures.

Those five scriptures

they're going to hold you

accountable until

Jesus comes back.

And they're going to

rub it in your face.

Oh, no, no, no.

It says,

For God to love the world.

Doesn't it?

You're not loving me.

Oh, no, no, no.

It says that

you shouldn't judge.

Judge ye not.

Let ye be judged.

Doesn't it say that?

And you're judging me.

Oh, no, no, no.

It says that

that's adultery

and you shouldn't be doing that

if you're in the church,

aren't you?

I got you guys.

The world loves to try

to hold the church accountable.

But the question is,

why are we giving them

ammunition?

Why do we?

There's enough ammunition

to bust on the church.

People of the church,

let's stop giving them more.

Stop it.

In the name of Jesus,

stop it.

Stop it.

Anybody ever watch

Bob Newhart,

the old Bob Newhart show?

That was his answer.

He would give counseling.

Couples would come in

for this intense counseling.

And he'd listen to their problems.

He'd go,

just stop it.

Stop it.

That'd be $700, please.

Thank you.

All right, let's get through this.

Verse 10.

And Abimelech said to Abraham,

what did you see

that you did these things?

And Abraham said,

I did it because I thought,

oh, there's the big problem

right there.

Because I sought the Lord?

No, I thought,

I thought,

there's a lot of eyes

in this, isn't there?

I thought there was

no fear of God

in all of this place.

And they would kill me

because of my wife.

Now, this happened

during this point in time,

during this period in time,

and it still happens today

in some of these regions,

that if you are a foreigner,

and you come into their land,

and you have a beautiful wife,

and you have no connection with them,

they will kill you,

and she becomes their property.

So he's afraid of that.

He's afraid of that.

So here again,

it speaks of Sarah's beauty.

I know she's old,

but she's one old hot mama.

Okay?

And so,

and I know you're going to have

a liking for her,

so I'm fearful.

So, you know what?

I'm fearful.

So here we go.

Verse 12, besides she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. Okay, it's a little more complicated than that. We've talked about this before. We're not going to go down that road. But really there is a relation, but that's only a half-truth. And that's what happens when we get out of it. We get out of it. Okay, so it's not a through-the-dad-truth. I'm a-in-a-do-ad-truth. I'm a-in-a-i-a-v-h. And that's what happens when we get out of it. But I know she's old. I know she's old. But she's one old hot mama. Okay? And I know you're going to have a liking for her. So I'm fearful. So I'm fearful. So here we go. Verse 12, besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, though not the daughter

get in trouble a lot of times and then we start busting out half truths because we're trying to

protect ourselves and we're trying to defend ourselves or justify ourselves um verse uh

where was i 13 and when god caused me to wander from my father's house i said to her

this is the kindness you must do me at every place which we come say of me he is my brother

okay in other words that was her plan from the get-go look when we get married

you're so pretty that whenever we go somewhere you got to say i'm your brother you're my sister

okay again it just demonstrates a lack of faith that they have in god and you would think that

they would have learned from this but here we go again here we go again same route verse 14

then abimelech took sheep and oxen male servants and female servants and gave them to abraham and

return and returned sarah his wife to him okay this is the same thing that happened when they

were down in egypt and remember pharaoh gives them all these uh all these sheep and oxen and servants

and all this and you know what so i read this and part of me thinks well maybe that was their plan all

along maybe that was abraham and sarah's mo let's go from area to area god's going to protect us and we

and you know once god steps in then all of a sudden we get all the goods and we can go away

well let me tell you what if that really was their heart god would have shut that down in a heartbeat

all right god would have so any of you thinking about thinking about traveling that path of

disobedience and coming up with some sort of scheme god doesn't fall for any schemes okay

because there's nothing new under the sun all right because i already read that i thought that

i wonder if that was your remote okay verse 15 and abimelech said behold my land is before you

dwell where it pleases you to sarah he said behold i have given your brother okay i'm gonna play along

with you guys i've given your brother there's no quotation marks around that i can see it a thousand

pieces of silver it is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you and before

everyone you are vindicated so her honor is upheld here you know she didn't she wasn't physical with

him but this was a situation that the lord prevented but now abimelech is giving her what's known

as a bride's price he's paying the price that he would pay the thousand pieces of silver and what

he's doing is he's making it clear that she is innocent

he's he's taking care of his own hide too okay let's be honest here but he is showing she is a

woman of virtue she is innocent 17 and 18 then abraham prayed to god

and god healed abimelech and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children for

the lord had closed all the wombs of the house of abimelech because of sarah abraham's wife so from

that point when they when abimelech took sarah from that point the women of gerar were unable to conceive

they couldn't have kids okay and so it's like this horrible disaster had befallen them and then there

was the curse of death on abimelech and everyone else if they didn't return sarah but all happened

exactly as god told abimelech if you return sarah which he did if you vindicate her innocence which

you did then abraham who was a prophet will pray for you and healing comes you know abimelech is one of

those interesting figures that god uses in uh part of as part of covenantal history he's not one who's

part of the covenant okay he's not part of the people of the covenant but as one who unwittingly

serves god's purposes in the covenant it's interesting how god has taken adversaries of israel to play this

kind of role i mean remember nebuchadnezzar it says that god raised him up okay for his for his purposes

okay and so but as we look at this remember he he's not abram anymore he's abram

and we'll get to that next week as we as we gather and we'll talk about the child of promise isaac is going to be born and god will do what he was promised to do even though the fact of the matter is abraham has wavered in his confidence in god absolutely wavered but see in abraham's wavering to me that's good news for us because it shows us that god is faithful even we are when we are

unfaithful unfaithful he is so faithful you know and when fear because that's what it is it's fear that abraham and sarah have when fear comes in the door rational thought spiritual insight moral integrity they always seem to make a beat for the door man you know when when fear comes in and abraham once again reminds us that our actions have consequences and so it as always we need to look

before we leap before we leap the thing i want to show i want to close with this morning as i read this is that abraham comes to abimelech okay and abraham at this point right now he can't preach to abimelech he can't give him a message of his righteous god his good god he couldn't give him a message he couldn't say now abimelech you know uh do you know that god loves you and has a plan for your life and here's the four spiritual

laws and i'd like to go through these four spiritual laws and i'd like to go through these four spiritual laws with you real quickly he wouldn't have listened to him would he i mean think about what abraham did to abimelech and all of his people he had ruined his testimony and he couldn't preach to them abimelech wouldn't have received anything from him but what he could do is he could pray for them

and it makes me think that all of us have somebody in our lives that we have hurt at some point or another whether purpose on purpose or not on purpose but we have somebody that we we have hurt

with with something that we and and because of that we just can't preach to them we can't we can't call them on the phone because if we called them on the phone they'd hang up immediately on the other end we can't write them a letter because if we send them a letter it would come back

to us in the mail unopened but we can secretly pray for them we can secretly pray for them and you might want to say well why do i want to do that

why would i want to do that to somebody who has just absolutely shut the door on me two reasons

number one it will free you from being bitter

they may be bitter at you but you can be freed from bitterness by praying for them if you put your

enemies on your prayer list i am telling you and i'm promising you over time they will no longer be your

enemies they they will not and if you pray for them on a daily basis and you bring them before

the lord and ask the lord to bless them guess what if you're doing that then you cannot harbor a grudge

against that person and this is hard this is big boy big girl spiritual stuff right here

it's not easy to do i get it i get it it may be an old colleague it may be an ex-spouse it may be a

brother or sister that erred in some way something somehow some way you got sideways they got sideways with

with you but if you begin to pray for them and not god please change them and make them more like me

no really pray for them and god that you would bless them you would bless them you would rain down

blessings upon them i'm telling you you will be a free man you will be a free woman you will sleep a

whole lot better at night you really will the second reason why you need to do that is because

you'll bless them they'll be blessed and you might be thinking well i really don't want them to be

blessed yes you you really do because here's what's going to happen they're not receiving it from you

now but you're praying for them and you're getting free of it and you're watching them get blessed and

they don't even know that you're the instrument that you're the instrument all these blessings are

happening to me and i just have no idea why and so

so you can't preach to everyone you can't preach to everyone but you sure can pray for everyone and you'll be free others will be free and think about the stories we'll have in eternity to be able to share with one another through that and so this this story

even in chapter 20 is a bad episode but it ends up with a good god god shows himself as being proved proving proving proving the truth of romans 8 28 that all things work together for the good who love the lord even though abraham wavered all things work together for good to those who love the lord and who are called accordingly to his purposes

and so this morning as the worship team comes up this is how we're just gonna we're gonna end this morning

i just want to give you an opportunity

to

spend the next couple minutes

and search your heart

to search your heart

is there someone

someone in your life that you need

to take before the lord

to take before the lord and you need to ask the lord

god

begin to give me a new

heart for them

to begin to pray for them

in such a way

that i'm asking for your blessings

to be poured out upon them

god who is it in my life that i can

continue to

we sang earlier that break every chain

i'm telling you that's what it does

it puts chains on you

it puts chains on you emotionally

it puts chains on you spiritually

it will absolutely shut you down

in a lot of different ways

abraham realized he

he couldn't

he couldn't preach at abimelech

but what he could do is pray for him

and god did the work and brought about healing

with abimelech

and with the community as well too

so this morning

let's stand for a second

this morning father i ask that you would serve our hearts today

that just as abimelech said that i

i am a man of integrity

my heart and my hands

are pure in this instant

i pray that each one of us

would have a desire

to ascend the hill of the lord

and to ascend the hill of the lord

david says

who can ascend the hill of the lord

but those with clean hands

and a pure heart

and we don't get clean hands

and pure heart

simply by doing stuff

we get clean hands

and a pure heart

by surrendering

to the spirit of the lord

and i believe the spirit of the lord

would have us

search our hearts today

and god please bring about

those persons

that person

those relationship

that's in that relationship

that's in our life

that we know

needs prayer

and find us faithful today

for father you

are the heart surgeon

you are the one who brings about

changes in heart

and you are the one

let it

let it

let the work begin in us

first

and this freedom

that we talk about

is not predicated

upon their response

that other person's response

that's the work of the lord

that's the work of the holy spirit

we simply have to be faithful

with what god's calling us to do

and i pray today

that we would walk in that freedom

god hear the prayers

of our hearts today

that we desire

to be a people

that

have the freedom

to raise our hands

because we don't carry

the heaviness of life

we don't carry the

we don't carry the

and I'll be honest with you church it'll age you a whole lot faster too let us walk in a new freedom today let us walk in a new freedom today God's will and God's purpose in Jesus name Amen

Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen

Amen Amen Amen

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Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.