Gen 20
covenant & assurance
(genesis 20)
Jason Procopio
At the end of 2020, the elders were thinking through what to do once we finished our series on 1 and 2 Peter. We, like pretty much every church in the world, were thinking through the difficult year we were ending—COVID brought with it incredible frustration and incredible uncertainty. We all found out what it was like to work from home; some of you even lost your jobs because companies couldn’t cope with the lockdowns. Many of you got sick, or saw your family members get sick; a good number of us even lost people close to us. It was a rough year for everyone.
So we wanted to go to a particular place in the Bible which would help us navigate, not so much loss, but uncertainty. Because that’s the one experience absolutely all of us have shared—uncertainty about the present and about the future. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the immediate future, and we don’t know what’s going to happen in the extended future either. This uncertainty is difficult to live with; it’s difficult to not cave in under the weight of it.
Whether we realized it or not, this past year has simply served to highlight a desire all human beings have always had. What we long for as human beings, about as much as any other one thing, is assurance—certainty concerning what lies ahead of us. We want something solid to stand on, something dependable; we want to know that no matter what else happens, this aspect of our lives is certain.
That is why we decided to continue this series in Genesis, particular in chapters 13 to 22. Because perhaps more than anything, these chapters highlight what we can depend on, and why.
And today’s text—Genesis chapter 20—is, strangely, a perfect picture of the assurance we have in our God. I say “strangely” because at first glance, it seems to be the opposite. Genesis 19, which we saw last week, is incredibly dark, incredibly grimy, really depressing. This whole section of Genesis focuses on Abraham—we’re with him in nearly every chapter. In Genesis 17, God renews his covenant with Abraham; in Genesis 18, God speaks to Abraham like a friend. But then in Genesis 19 we leave Abraham and deal with his messed-up nephew and city-wide depravity and judgment and destruction.
So all you want after reading Genesis 19 is to get back to Abraham as quickly as possible. Coming out of that dark situation, all you want is some light. And in Genesis 20, we’re happy to see Abraham’s name at the beginning of the first verse—finally! Back to our guy!
But then, as we keep reading, our heart sinks a little, because we see our hero, Abraham, taking a path that is almost as dark as the one we saw before! And we’re thinking, This is a joke, right? We’re back here again? Hasn’t he already done this before? Didn’t he learn from his first massive mistake? Apparently not.
After the events in Sodom and Gomorrah, we come back to find Abraham traveling to a place called Gerar. We don’t know why he and Sarah relocated, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that just like in chapter 12, when they were in Egypt, Abraham asks his wife Sarah to say that she is in fact his sister. Now of course this is true, in a sense; she’s his half-sister, as we see in v. 12. (I know it’s weird, but things like that happened back then.)
But even if it’s not entirely a lie, it’s certainly not honest either. The reason he asks her to say she’s is sister is because he’s afraid that if people know he’s Sarah’s husband, he’ll be killed so they can take her. So we can see why he would want to do this…but think about it for a minute. By saying that Sarah isn’t his wife, but his sister, they may not kill him, but they can still take her. In other words, he’s expecting Sarah to be taken (and he’s right), but he offers up the path of least resistance for that eventuality.
We’ll come back to Abraham in a little while, but what we see in this story is essentially one thing: that God protects and honors his covenant. And he does it here, not mainly through Abraham, but through Abimelech, the king of Gerar.
Protection from Sin (v. 1-7).
Now the king of Guerar in this text is called Abimelech. This word “Abimelech” isn’t a name, but a title, which simply means “ruler”—like “Pharaoh” in Egypt. (That’s why there’s more than one Abimelech in the Bible.) But this is the first one we come across in the Bible, and we don’t know much about him except that he is a pagan king; he’s not a member of the family of Abraham.
So Abraham and Sarah come to Gerar in v. 1, and then things happen very quickly. In v. 2 Abraham says that Sarah is his sister, and immediately after, we see that Abimelech “took” Sarah (and by the context we know that this means he took her to be his wife).
Now I’m going to ask the question that’s probably on a lot of our minds, if we’ve been following the story (but which most of us probably wouldn’t ask out loud): isn’t Sarah old? We saw in chapter 17 that Sarah is ninety years old. There are some older women who are absolutely beautiful; but this is still kind of unusual—that a king, who could take any woman he wanted, would take a ninety-year-old woman to be his wife.
In fact, in this context, it makes sense. This is a political move on Abimelech’s part. Abraham is a wealthy and a powerful man, and marrying into his family would have been a good political move for the king; it would have made an alliance between his kingdom and the powerful man’s family.
So Abimelech takes Sarah, and immediately in v. 3, we see something unexpected.
3 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.”
This is incredible. Normally, in a situation like this, what would you expect to see? You’d expect to see God go to Abraham and tell him to come clean. Or you’d expect God to tell Abraham to not go to this city. You’d expect him to talk to the hero. But instead, God dialogues with the pagan. V. 4:
4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? 5 Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.”
So he’s saying something that needs to be said. Abimelech claims his innocence before God; he claims that he had no idea she was someone else’s wife. He’s honest about his mistake, saying he didn’t know what he was doing. And the incredible thing is, God says, “I know.”
6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, 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. 7 Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”
Now there is weight behind God’s threat at the end of v. 7. It’s not mentioned here at the beginning, but at the very end of the chapter, in v. 18, we read that God had made all the women in Abimelech’s home barren because Sarah was there—to show him that this is a very serious matter. So it’s quite possible that Abimelech had known that there was a problem for a little while, but didn’t know what it was until God came to him in the dream.
And so what a relief to hear God say this: “I know that you didn’t mean any harm. I know that you didn’t mean to sin against me. And what is more, I kept you from doing it.”
This is a great kindness God shows to him. But it is not a kindness mainly to him. The reason God keeps Abimelech from sinning is because he is protecting the covenant he had made with Abraham. Because he had made the promise to Abraham that he would become the father of many nations, and would bless all the nations of the world through his offspring, he will not let a foreign king come and hijack that plan.
God has not changed since then. We often talk about our sin, and repent over it, and confess it, and of course we should do that. But we don’t talk as often about all the times we could have sinned, and God preserved us from it. We don’t think about that so much, because it’s not always something we see. But it’s not for nothing that in the one prayer Jesus taught to his disciples, he taught them to pray (Matthew 6.13):
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
What we’re saying when we pray that is essentially, Lord, please keep me from sinning. Don’t let me sin against you. Please stop me if I start to drift in that direction.
And we don’t realize how many times—even multiple times every day—that God answers that prayer for us. All of the sin we could and would have fallen in, if he had not prevented it. All of the offenses from which he protected us. None of us are as sinful as we could be—and that is only thanks to the grace and mercy of our God, who keeps us from it.
Immediate Obedience (v. 8-13)
The next sign of God’s protection we see is that Abimelech doesn’t hesitate—even though he doesn’t know this God, and even though he came to him in a dream (so he could have imagined it). V. 8:
8 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. 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 and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done.” 10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing?”
Now this is just incredible, if you think about who Abraham is, and what he has been through so far. Abraham knows God; he believed in God and was declared righteous for his belief. He has spoken to God as if to a friend. And yet it is Abimelech, this pagan king, who comes to lecture him about what it means to be virtuous. And why? Because he fears God. He hears from God in his dream and immediately calls his servants to tell them about it. You don’t do that unless you have had an experience that is either impressive or fear-inducing; and we see in v. 8 that his servants, in turn, when they hear about what happened, they’re afraid too.
By contrast, when Abraham explains himself, he says (v. 11):
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.’”
Abimelech acts as he does because his experience has caused him to fear God. Perhaps not in the completely honest and holy way we mean the word when we say it; but definitely because he understands that this God is no one to take lightly.
Abraham, on the other hand, acts as he does because even after all he has experienced, he fears man. His fear drives him to unbelief. Because hasn’t God promised him that he will make him a great nation? That he will have a child through Sarah? Hasn’t he seen God’s power and faithfulness on display—when he helped him defeat his enemies to free Lot (in chapter 14), and when he judged Sodom and Gomorrah in chapter 19? He has seen God’s faithfulness, and he has seen God’s power…and yet he still has a hard time believing that God could or would protect him and his wife from being killed, or anything else that would cancel the covenant he had made with them.
So this contrast is important. We have Abraham, who is ostensibly the hero of this story, who doubts and who sins because of his doubt. And we have Abimelech, who does not know this God or what he is capable of, and yet who is willing to confront a potential political ally for his sin…because God came to him, and spoke to him, and convinced him that he was real and powerful and worthy to be obeyed.
And to both men, in their very different contexts, God is saying the same thing: I will protect my covenant. Even if it means exposing your sin, so you can repent. Even if it means supernaturally convicting you, though you had no desire to know me before. I will protect my covenant.
It is only God’s intervention that keeps Abraham from ruining his relationship with Sarah by giving her to another man. And it is only God’s intervention that brings his deception to light, so that Abimelech might be protected from sin.
He does both of these things because he is faithful to the covenant he made to his people. And no situation—good or bad—will cause him to shift his plans for us one bit. He is faithful to his covenant with us.
Vindication (v. 14-16)
This part may be the hardest for us to understand, because it is not something we do today in France. Abimelech gives Abraham very public and very generous gifts, that he can show to anyone who questions him, to prove Sarah’s purity. V. 14:
14 Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him. 15 And Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.” 16 To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother 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.”
He didn’t need to do this. If you remember, when this exact same thing happened to Abraham in Egypt, in chapter 12, the pharaoh simply sent them away with their belongings. There is one very big reason why Abimelech’s gesture toward Abraham is important.
Abimelech’s generosity reminds us of the startling reality that in all likelihood, Sarah is probably pregnant now. This is a little while after God came to visit Abraham and Sarah, when he said that in one year, she would have a child. So Abimelech’s gift would serve as a testimony that the baby in her womb is not his, but Abraham’s.
When we see this, we see two things. We see, first off, just how wicked Abraham’s deception actually was. God has promised him a descendance; he has promised that through his family, all the nations of the world would be blessed. And yet here Abraham is, taking incredible risks with God’s grace. He is putting Sarah in a situation in which she could be stolen from him, and the baby she is carrying might not be his—or could be confused for someone else’s. He considers God’s grace so little as to put the covenant God has made with him, as well as his own wife and child, in harm’s way.
Now we can look down our noses at Abraham here, but how often do we do the same thing? We know what God has done for us; we know what we have received from him. We know that he took our sin and placed it on his Son, who was punished for us. We know that he took Christ’s life and gave it to us so that we might be declared righteous. And yet how often do we look at what he has done and say, “Cool! Thanks!”…and then continue on our merry way, going back to the sin Christ paid for, not pursuing the righteousness God has attributed to us? We esteem the grace of God as lightly as we esteem the guy who let us cut in front of him on the highway—we appreciate it for a second, we flash our warning lights as a thank you, and then we forget it and keep driving.
But despite our indifference to his grace—despite Abraham’s indifference to his grace—God protects his covenant. And that’s the second thing we see. He had promised that Abraham would have a son with Sarah, and that through Abraham’s son he would bless all nations of the world. Through Abimelech, he makes sure that no one will mistake the child in Sarah’s womb for anyone else’s but Abraham’s. He makes sure that his promises come to pass—and that his faithfulness is known.
Answered Prayer (v. 17-18)
The last sign we have here that God protects and honors his covenant, we find in v. 17-18:
17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. 18 For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
If you’re reading this for the first time, these verses can be jarring, to say the least. After the way Abraham has behaved, and the way Abimelech has behaved, the idea of Abraham being the mediator between Abimelech and God, to pray that God would reverse the consequence of taking Abraham’s wife, and that God would listen to Abraham…seems misplaced.
I’d be more comfortable if Abimelech simply prayed to God, and God answered his prayer. That would make sense. Because Abimelech has done everything right here; he seems like the kind of guy whose prayers God would honor.
Abraham, on the other hand, shouldn’t have this kind of access to God, given the way he has behaved. We want to see Abraham put in the penalty box for a while, and that once he has spent enough time making up for his bad behavior, God might accept to listen to him again. And we want that to be the case, because we like the idea that there is a correlation between our behavior, and God’s grace. We like to think we have some kind of control over the situation. That if God answers our prayers, it’s because we’ve done well; and that if he doesn’t, all we need to do is try harder.
But that’s not what we see here. Despite his sin, despite his indifference toward God’s grace, it is Abraham who prays, and God honors Abraham’s prayer. And this happens because God’s kindness toward Abimelech has nothing to do with his behavior, or Abraham’s. God answers Abraham’s prayer because God has made a covenant with Abraham, and God always honors his covenant.
No matter how we might naturally feel about what we see in these last two verses, this is incredibly good news for us. The message here is that our salvation, God’s kindness to us, does not depend on our performance, but on God’s faithfulness to his promises. We could never be good enough to earn God’s favor, and we don’t have to. GOD is good for us. He is faithful to honor the covenant he makes with his people.
Covenant and Assurance
This chapter serves as a turning point in Abraham’s story. It is the point at which we see that what God had promised really will happen, just before it does.
But what difference does this make for us? It’s great that God protects and honors his covenant with Abraham…but really, what does that change?
We saw this a few weeks ago: in Romans 4, Paul tells us that the promises to Abraham aren’t merely for his biological family, but for all those who share Abraham’s faith in the one true God. Abraham believed that God would fulfill his promises, and the fulfillment of those promises was Jesus Christ—so even if he didn’t know that name, he believed in Christ, because Christ is God’s salvation. Christ is the answer to man’s inability to stay faithful to God.
So you see, if we are in Christ, if we have placed our faith in him, this text should, above all else, give us assurance. Because if God protected his covenant with Abraham, if he honored his covenant with Abraham, he will do the same for us. God does not play favorites, and he does what he says.
This is one of the most precious and glorious truths in all of Scripture, and it is not only a truth that fits this particular moment in time. We talked about the uncertainty that came with COVID; in reality, COVID didn’t change anything except our awareness of it. Things were uncertain long before COVID came, and we’ve always been looking for ways to give the illusion of assurance. We have apps that give us notifications if we’ve got an email signaling a problem at work, apps that tell us what the weather’s going to be (down to the hour), apps that tell us who’s saying what about whom, so that we can know what side we want to plant our flag on.
So how difficult has it become for us to have assurance about anything that doesn’t fit into an iPhone notification? to have assurance about anything that an app can’t measure? Like, what is the point of this pain? Why am I struggling so hard with this sin? Am I following God’s will? How can this situation be good for me? Will I make it?
We’ve got to come to grips with the reality that there are a great many things God doesn’t want us to control, because he wants us to trust him. There are a great many answers God doesn’t want to give us, because he wants us to trust him. I guarantee that on the road back from Gerar, Abraham was slapping himself, thinking, Good grief, why did you do that? What were you thinking? How could this have happened AGAIN? That experience didn’t just get passed over as an unpleasant bump in the road. In the chapters that come after, we see the extent to which Abraham has grown to trust that when God makes a promise, he makes good on that promise.
There are a lot of things God will not tell us. He may never show you the point of your pain. He may never show you why he doesn’t simply remove the temptation to this particular sin from your life. He may never give you detailed instruction on where you should live and what job you should do. He may never explain the details of how this situation could possibly be good for you.
But we can know—without a shadow of a doubt—that he will protect his covenant, and he will honor his covenant. And not only his covenant with Abraham.
Do you remember what Jesus said at the last supper? It’s what we repeat every Sunday when we take Communion (which we’ll do in a moment). He took the bread, and said, “This is my body, broken for you...” And then he took the cup, and said (1 Corinthians 11.25):
This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
When Jesus Christ came, he fulfilled God’s covenant with Abraham, and brought it to a close—because he perfectly fulfilled all of the conditions required of God’s people.
And in its place, Christ established a new covenant with his people—a people not limited by biological dividing lines or lineage, but a people defined by faith. And what is that new covenant?
We find it in Jeremiah 31.31-34. (And keep in mind that when he talks about “the house of Israel” here, he’s speaking of all those who have placed their faith in Israel’s promised Savior—he’s speaking about us.)
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
This is the covenant God has made with us. And he will keep it. He will protect us from sin. He will convict us of sin when we fail, and cause us to obey more and more, the closer we come to him. He will prove that we are his children. He will listen to and answer us when we speak to him. No matter what.
Brothers and sisters, the Old Testament is full of stories of incredibly imperfect saints. Noah. Abraham. Moses. David. Heroes of the faith, and each one more flawed than the last.
These flawed men are telling us that we need a better Savior. Our hope does not—and cannot—lie in our own ability to follow God. Our hope lies in God’s faithfulness to his people; not in our faithfulness to him.
We break his covenant every day. But he keeps the covenant for us. He puts his law in us, and writes it on our hearts. He forgives our sin, and remembers it no more. And he will bring us home. He will make us holy. We will know him, from the least to the greatest.
Nothing we do, no mistake we make, will get in the way of God’s plan. And he will use the unlikeliest means (even through those mistakes) to bring us closer to him.
He is our God, and we are his people. And we can trust that this will not change, because God is faithful to protect and honor his covenant with us.
