Sunday Sermons
She is my Sister. Sort of.
“She is My Sister. Sort Of. ”
Life surely has its ups and downs. This you well know. In Genesis 26 famine grips the land of Canaan, prompting Isaac to move to the city of Gerar, a town controlled by the Philistines (26:1). Yet our merciful God reassured him, telling him to stay in the land, and not move to Egypt (26:2), and that He would indeed bless him with many descendants —that what God had promised to Abraham would be given to him as well (26:3).
The Lesson Not Learned or Not Taught
“When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, ‘She is my sister’, for he was afraid to say, ‘my wife’, thinking, ‘the men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is beautiful’” (Genesis 26:7).
Years before this, Abraham had yielded to a similar fear and had basically told the same lie (Genesis 12:12-13) immediately making his life unnecessarily quite complicated (12:15). We don’t know if Abraham had ever shared with Isaac this story. And at times we are not eager to pass on the lessons learned from our failures, yet the lessons do need to be taught. Someone has well stated that we'd do well remember our children are walking in many of our same steps, just 30 years later. They will face many of the same challenges or temptations that we once faced. Let's determine to be humble and honest enough to pass on the lessons that we have learned! (Proverbs 5:12-14; Psalm 37:25).
The Thing We Should Fear
Both Abraham and Isaac were afraid that unbelievers would kill them and take their beautiful wives. Yet, that fear, like many of our own fears, never materialized. In both situations it appears that the unbelievers knew at adultery was wrong (Genesis 12:18; 26:10). In like manner, so often we are afraid of things that just never happen, and we forget about the thing that we should fear
- What if my lie brings others into sin? (26:10). Instead of thinking about myself, I need to consider others. This is the essence of maturity. In both cases the lies of Abraham and Isaac could have brought innocent people into a state of condemnation (Genesis 20:3-6).
- What if people act upon my lie? In the case of Abraham, Pharaoh assumed that Abraham was telling the truth about Sarah, that she was available for marriage (12:15-16). We need to remember that people will act upon falsehoods and that we might then feel even more pressured to continue to live the lie. “One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us” (Genesis 26:10). Or, as someone has accurately noted, “Ideas have consequences”.
- What will I say when people, especially, non-Christians find out about my falsehood? In all three examples, Abraham Isaac find themselves in the God-dishonoring position of being lectured and rebuked by unbelievers:
“What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done” (Genesis 20:9).
My Excuse will Sound Like An Excuse
In all these examples, God records what Abraham and Isaac said. It is recorded not because God considered it a good excuse, but rather for our learning (Romans 15:4) that we might not repeat the same foolishness. We need to realize that our excuses for sinning sound just as lame:
- Although God is the only one who can make things "go well", Abraham told Sarah “That it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you” (Genesis 12:13) and although God was the one protecting Abraham's life he attributed his wife with holding his life in her own hands “Because I said, ‘Lest I die on account of her’” (Genesis 26:9).
So often we try to justify a lie or sin with some grand excuse. We are "trying to help" or "spare people", or in order to achieve "great things", one must bend the rules, our sins enable us to “get things done”. Yet the above verse captures the true reasoning behind sin: It is all about self-preservation. The real motivation eventually will surface.
- “Because I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place; and they will kill me because of my wife” (Genesis 20:11).
Yet there was a fear of God in that place (20:5,9). It is easier to stretch the truth or sin when we are ignorantly assuming the worst about others.
- “Besides, she actually is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife” (Genesis 20:13).
Often we can be tempted to do this, to argue that “technically” we did not lie. Yet, after reading this account, we know that when Abraham said, “Tell them you are my sister”, that Abraham was meaning, “My real sister”—my unmarried sister. I am grateful that God choose to record this statement by Abraham. It may have sounded good to Abraham at the time—but just like our “technical justifications” it just does not wash. We must be honest to the core. We must love truth.
Well It All Worked Out—Right?
- “Abimelech then took sheep and oxen and male and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and restored his wife Sarah to him” (Genesis 20:14).
- “Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and make and female servants and female donkeys and camels” (Genesis 12:16).
Someone might read these accounts and come to the conclusion that since the end was good— Abraham lived, Sarah lived and they got a lot of stuff, that Abraham’s deception was a beneficial and necessary thing. That in the end, it worked. Yet, God expects us to thoroughly think through and understand the entire account. In many other places God has made it clear that He hates lying (Proverbs 6:17; Revelation 21:8).
Observations
- It did not just naturally work out. There are two basic assumptions with situation ethics, one is that people “assume” when the situation will end (in reality the situation never ends but only continues into other situations), the other is that people assume that the “end” will be a good end. In all these cases, the lie did not fix or solve anything, rather it complicated things. Abraham was now in over his head. So it looked like Abram had kept his life—the only problem was that he had nearly lost Sarai in the process! “Abram got wealthy…but this bound Abram to an obligation from which he was not able to deliver himself. His scheme nearly lost him his wife, and without Sarai his promised blessing would be doomed” (Bible Knowledge Comm. p. 49).
- In two of the examples, Genesis 12:17; Genesis 20:3ff, 20:18, things worked out because God directly intervened. Without this intervention, Abraham may have never got Sarah back as his wife.
- In the case of Abraham his lie put the entire Messianic future into question. If Abraham and Sarah did not stay together, Isaac would never be born, and if Isaac is never born, Jesus is never born—and we would, as a consequence, all end up lost. On the surface one might never think that some lie of mine might change the world—but as finite humans, we can never control the far reaching impact of any sin (Ecclesiastes 9:18). Let's instead determine that our lives ripple out stability and peace to the world around us.
God is Merciful
In all three examples, God was protecting innocent third parties. “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me” (Genesis 20:6). The world might speculate and come up with what they consider to be “no-win” or “catch-22” situations, yet with God there are not situations in which we must sin (1 Corinthians 10:13). When I look back on these examples, I ask myself the question, “Was the lie necessary?” The answer is “no”. Let us make the same application to our own lives. Someone noted that when we stand before the Lord at the judgment, that we will be struck with the fact of how none of our lives were necessary or even that pressing at times. And how simple it would have been to walk away and say no at the time.
Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.com
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net
