SPIRITUAL SUPER-HEROES

Genesis 20:1-18
Bob Bonner
May 22, 2005

A few weeks back, while Becky was out of town, the first Superman movie starring Christopher Reeves aired. I decided to watch it since I hadn’t seen it for years. In case you don’t remember the contextual setting of the movie, Superman arrives in the large city of Metropolis, which has been overrun by criminals. People were living in fear, because the police department was undermanned and infiltrated with corrupt cops. Superman comes to town looking for a job as a reporter. In no time, he lands a job at the Daily Planet and uses his superhuman skills to right the wrongs of the city, helping the innocent and making Metropolis a better place to live. In turn, Superman becomes the target of every evil human being who liked the city the way it was.

As I thought about the condition of Metropolis, I thought of the world in which we as Christians are called to serve Jesus Christ. We are surrounded by evil, by people who live and act as though they have little or no conscience, or at minimum, a conscience that has been seared. Many Christians feel helpless to change the conditions around them. While other Christians are desperately trying to be super-saints believing they can make a difference. Pastors, quite often fall into that latter category.

I remember as a child wanting to be a super-hero, one who could make a difference in the world. As a young five-year-old boy, I dreamed of being Superman. I used to run around the house with a towel safety-pinned to my shoulders jumping off of furniture yelling, “faster than a speeding bullet...more powerful than a locomotive...able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!” One day, my older sisters aided me in my fantasy by assisting me to “fly” around the house. They ran around the house, carrying me above their heads with my arms outstretched. Wanting to increase the realism of my role, they began tossing me through the air onto couches in the living room and on to my bed and then their final throw came when they tried to toss me onto the window seat in their bedroom. Not knowing their own strength, they threw me a little too far and I went head-first through the window!! After that experience, our parents had to do very little to convince us that I would never be Superman, and I should think of a more realistic vision for my future.

As an adult, I have discovered that many of us wish we could be spiritual supermen and superwomen. We want to be people whose faith would astound those around them. People whose faith would never falter. People whose faith was so strong that we would never have a prideful thought; we would have perfect marriages, raise perfect kids and have no money problems because we have taken Crown Ministry at an early age and never made a foolish or unwise investment or expenditure. Many of us want to be super-spiritual so that we can help all those who are in trouble.

However, the truth be known, there is no such thing as super-spiritual people, just ordinary people, who serve a supernatural God. What it takes to be an ordinary person whom God will use and empower is revealed to us in Genesis 20. In addition, this chapter should make it very clear to all who read it that there is no such thing as spiritual super-heroes. All there are in Scripture is ordinary people who have learned how to deal with their sin and the importance of maintaining a clear conscience before God. These are the ordinary people that God tends to use most in everyday life.

To appreciate the significance of this chapter, as it concerns the life of Abraham, you must stand back and see it in light of the chapters that precede it.

Back in chapter 12, there was a famine in the land of Canaan. Not really knowing that God would be interested in providing for his needs, Abraham turned to Egypt for food. When he arrived there, he feared for his own life, and lied to Pharaoh about his wife Sarah being his sister. If Pharaoh had known that Sarah was really his wife, Abraham feared that Pharaoh would kill him so as to possess this beautiful woman. As a result of that lie, Abraham’s mistake brought negative consequences to himself (temporary broken fellowship with God), his marriage (Hagar was a slave that came from Egypt on this occasion who was in continual conflict with Sarah, and became the vehicle through which Ishmael was born) and eventually consequences that led to Lot’s downfall, as it was here that Lot became wealthy and addicted to the high life of the big city, which later led him to seek after a home in the “Las Vegas” of the area, Sodom and Gomorrah.

But after Abraham’s failure, he repented and began to move forward again in his walk with God, now understanding that God would protect and provide only if Abraham would check in with God. When we come to chapter 16, Abraham meets with another challenge to his faith in which he fails. He chooses to go along with Sarah’s recommendation to have a child through Hagar, rather than believing what the Lord had said specifically about Sarah being the mother of his child.

In chapter 17, after thirteen years had passed, Abraham is once again moving forward in his faith. He obeys God concerning His directive of circumcision.

In chapter 18, he reveals his servant’s heart by preparing a meal for Jesus and the two angels, and he manifest’s a godly shepherd’s heart in praying for mercy for Lot’s life to be spared. In the same chapter, God made it very clear, to both Sarah and Abraham that Sarah would indeed, within the year, have her first child. Everything was going so well. One would expect that the next passage of Scripture that would deal with Abraham and Sarah would be about the birth of their first child. But that’s not what happens.

When we come to chapter 20, Sarah may or may not be pregnant. Because we are not told that she is, we can assume that this chapter takes place a very short time after chapter 18, at the most, within one year. In this chapter, we learn that on the brink of Isaac’s birth story, Abraham puts the very promise of God in jeopardy with another of his major failures in faith. Once again, with his life in danger, he thinks only of himself, lies and gambles with the promise of a son to win his own personal safety.

Let’s begin reading at verse 1. “Now Abraham journeyed from there toward the land of the Negev, and settled between Kadesh and Shur; then he sojourned in Gerar”.

For the next three chapters, Abraham and his family leave the Hebron area and move about the Negev, or the southern area of Canaan, in typical nomadic style. For a brief period of time, he settles in an oasis near Kadesh and Shur. It is a grazing area for his flocks. The area has an annual rainfall of less than four inches. After settling his flocks and servants by the oasis, Abraham and Sarah visit the nearby royal Philistine city of Gerar that is ruled by Abimelech, the King of Gerar.

Gerar is a town located about halfway between Kadesh and Shur. As Abraham and Sarah get close to Gerar, Abraham remembers that when the kings in these parts see a woman they desire, they typically will steal her to be part of their harem. Because of this we read in verse 2, “Abraham said of Sarah his wife, ‘She is my sister.’ So Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah”.

Remember, Sarah is in her nineties and the king eyes her and wants her for his harem. She must have been some beauty for him to want a ninety-year-old woman as part of his harem. Also, be aware, that according to verse 13, it appears that Sarah went along with Abraham’s plan.

Abimelech, a man who appears to have greater integrity than Abraham, is suddenly made aware of the ruse by a visitation from God. We read about it in verses 3 - 7. “But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married.” Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a nation, even though blameless? 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.” Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her. Now therefore, restore the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.” Abimelech arose early in the morning and called all his servants and told all these things in their hearing; and the men were greatly frightened”.

Note the immediacy with which the King acts. He promptly obeys God. This is a clear demonstration of what the text calls, “the integrity of his heart.” This expression refers to that which we call “living with a clear conscience.” Here is a king who does not know Yahweh, but has a desire to live guilt-free with a clear conscience.

Abimelech wastes no time in straightening out this mess. In verses 9 - 13, he confronts Abraham. “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 on my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done.” And Abimelech said to Abraham, ‘What have you encountered, that you have done this thing?’”

It is rare to find in an unbelieving world, men of integrity, men of high moral fiber, but they are there. And how humbling it is when they get in the face of a believer who knows better, and confronts him with his deceit in bringing harm or shame to the innocent.

Can’t you hear the frustration and righteous anger in Abimelech’s voice? “What in the world were you thinking, Abraham? What did you hear about me, see or learn about the way I rule or live that would make you think that I would kill you to get your wife? This is a horrible, dishonoring thing you have done to me, let alone a serious dishonorable move against your God!”

Imagine how Abraham, this hand-picked leader of God, feels at this point. He probably felt so low that he could have walked under a snake’s belly standing upright, and not even knocked off his turban!

Abraham responds to the king’s rebuke in verse 11. Abraham said, “Because I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. Besides, she actually is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife; and it came about, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said to her, ‘This is the kindness which you will show to me: everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”

The pact that Abe and Sarah made with each other was a sinful pact they shared everywhere they went. Instead of trusting God, they entered into this conspiracy, which was a half-truth.

Abimelech, realizing that ignorance is no excuse for sin and sensing the danger he was in, showed his repentant heart by gifting “the man of God,” Abraham, who didn’t appear to be too godly, with more animals, servants and silver, thereby proving that even sins of ignorance, as well as deliberate sins of disobedience, need to be atoned for.

We read of Abimelech’s compensation to both Abraham and Sarah in verses 14-16. “Abimelech then took sheep and oxen and male and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and restored his wife Sarah to him. Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; settle wherever you please.” To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver; behold, it is your vindication before all who are with you, and before all men you are cleared.”

As this scene ends, Abraham and Sarah leave the royal city of Gerar and settle in the royal pasture land around Gerar. It’s amazing that even with Abraham’s act of faithlessness and repeating the same lie, that God remains faithful to this one whose faith has failed. He even causes Abraham to be enriched with possessions, protection and quality pasture land

Sarah also receives a fabulous sum of money to restore her violated honor. One thousand shekels was a large sum of money. A Babylonian laborer, usually paid half a shekel per month, would have had to work 167 years to earn such a sum.

The word, “vindication,” in v. 16, literally comes from a Hebrew root word referring to an “eye-covering.” The intended picture of vindication is that Abimelech’s aim was to restore Sarah’s honor by covering the eyes of others from the situation which had wrongfully tarnished her reputation.

As the chapter ends, we find Abraham taking on the role of a prophet for the first time. We read, “Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maids, so that they bore children. For the Lord had closed fast all the wombs of the household of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife”.

This is the first place in the Bible that the word “prophet” is used. It shows us that prophecy is not just predicting the events of the future, but it is also speaking forth, sharing truth with others, as well as speaking forth words to God in prayer on behalf of others. In addition, it is the first place that we ever have mentioned in the Bible that one person prays for another.

In a world that is surrounded by evil--in a world that desperately needs ordinary people to be supernaturally empowered by God to reach out in His name to do good--what can we learn from this passage? What can we learn about God and what is necessary for Him to invest His supernatural power in someone so that person can be used by God?

Well, let’s first look at what we can learn about God. The first lesson that jumps off the pages of Genesis 20, can be summed up by one statement in the New Testament. In 2 Timothy 2:13, the Apostle Paul writes these words to his young disciple, Timothy, who is afraid, and has probably made some horrible mistakes in ministry and wonders how it is that God has put him in this place of leading the church at Ephesus. Paul writes, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself”, meaning, God will fulfill His promises and fulfill His purposes in spite of our failures. And even when we fail, it does not mean that we can no longer be used of God.

Although at times we are unfaithful, God is always faithful. Bottom line, the fact that Sarah one day has the baby God promised her she would have, had very little to do with either Abraham or Sarah’s faith or faithfulness! It is an act of God’s grace that eventually produces this child. It is God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promises that any of us ever have a Savior.

In addition, note that this is the second time that Abraham fails in this manner. After years of having walked with God and knowing him, both Abraham and Sarah together make this mistake. It almost seems unbelievable, that this man of faith could make such a mistake. But doesn’t it just go to show all of us how vulnerable we are to failure?

Alan Redpath once wrote, “The conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment, the manufacture of a saint is the task of a lifetime!” [(The Making of a Man of God (Westwood, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1962), p. 5] Even after we come to Christ and have been given the new name, “saint” rather than “sinner,” we often find ourselves committing the same sins over and over. Why? Because, other than our evil enemy and the temptations of this world, the Bible says we have in each of us, this thing called “the flesh,” this propensity to try to live independently from God. And because living in “the flesh” comes so naturally to all of us, we either forget how, or don’t know how, to appropriate the power of the life of Christ in us. Because we have an enemy, because of temptation and because of the flesh, none of us, this side of heaven, will ever be able to boast that we have arrived! Hence, as long as you live in this world, your flesh is still alive. Be on guard!

One of the best ways to be on guard against the flesh, is to make sure that you are doing everything that you can do to maintain “the integrity of your heart” or to keep an active and clear conscience.

I find that there is very little being mentioned these days about the importance of having a clear conscience. I’m not sure that some of our youth even understand what it means to have a conscience. So, before we go further, allow me to skim some basic thoughts about conscience

The New Testament Greek word translated “conscience” comes from a root word that means to see. Long before its use in the New Testament, this word had the idea of looking back on one’s past and evaluating it. Over time, “conscience” developed into the notion of an innate moral sense that approves or disapproves of one’s personal actions and thoughts. (p. 59, So That’s What It Means, by Don Campbell, Wendell Johnston, John Walvoord and John Witmer. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. 2004). Hence, one’s conscience is something that gives you “a basic sense of moral insight.”

According to the Bible, all human beings are born with a God-given moral conscience. It matters not whether you are a Christian in the U.S., or an Arab in the Middle East. Furthermore, when we disregard our consciences, the Bible teaches that we immediately feel guilt or shame. If we don’t respond appropriately and immediately to the guilty feelings, the Bible says that we can “sear” (1 Timothy 4:2) or “corrupt” (Titus 1:15) our consciences, leaving them desensitized to what is right or wrong. Seared or corrupted consciences are what allows a society to drift away from God and leads to its downfall, as we saw with Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Maintaining a clear and active conscience is mandatory if you want to experience God’s blessing in your life and avoid the perils of doing what is wrong.

Here are three suggestions to keeping an active and clear conscience.

First, regularly confront your mind with the truth found in God’s Word. This will supernaturally enliven your conscience. This is one of the reasons that we strongly encourage you to read the Word of God. It’s not so much that I read the Word of God so as to get an emotional buzz from being with God; but rather to keep His truth before my heart and mind. Over and over in the book of Proverbs we are told that wise is the person who studies, meditates, seeks after the truth found in God’s Word, and that it will bring life to one’s heart, soul and mind.

A second requirement to maintaining a clear, active and sensitive conscience should be obvious, but let’s just state it to be on the safe side. Obey the principles and truths found in God’s Word. James instructs us, in James 1:21-25, “Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.”

Obviously, if I want to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s voice in my heart then I must not continue to sin or do that which the Word of God clearly spells out is wrong.

This third requirement for maintaining an active and clear conscience, so that we can enjoy God’s ongoing desire to bless our lives, is the requirement that both Abraham and Sarah ignored and that led to their failure. In chapter 12, Abraham clearly confessed his sin of lying to the Pharaoh in Egypt, but he did not judge his own sin.

What do I mean by “judging his own sin?” To judge our sins means to see them in their true light (as God sees them), to hate them, and to put them out of our lives--habits, hang-ups that should stop or be dealt with for good. In verse 13 Abraham admitted that this sin came with him out of Ur of the Chaldees. This pact with Sarah to lie about their relationship was established at the very beginning of their travels from Ur. But even after it led to failure in chapter 12, they had not judged it, turned away from that wrong practice, until now. Hence, this third requirement is one we need to practice: Don’t just confess your sins, but judge them as well!

By not judging this sin, think of what could have happened, had not God stepped in and confronted Abimelech. It would have altered God’s plan for the birth of Isaac the very next year. Abraham’s selfishness and unbelief almost wrecked his own life and the future of the Jewish nation, not to speak of the prospect of us having a Savior.

Friends, biblical heroes were never superhuman; their great acts of faith were often surrounded by failings and fears. Maybe your past is littered with failings and wrongful acts based in fears. If so, grab some hope from Abraham. Your usefulness to God is not over because of those failures. He can and still wants to use your life. Draw near to Him, confess your sins, judge them as wrong and turn away from them when you see that they are wrong, and receive His cleansing. Grasp, through His forgiveness, a cleansed conscience, and confidently step back into the service of your King.

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