Genesis 20:1-5 Bible Study | Episode #279

November 3, 2022

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Genesis 20:1-5  Bible Study | Episode #279

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, Applying God's Word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him.

And to know his will, that you might glorify him, and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name. Good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's Morning Bible study. We are all the way into Genesis chapter 20. We made it we made it to the halfway point of the Book of Genesis.

That's an accomplishment. I have since we've been doing these bible studies in the morning I've never actually been able to teach through the whole book of Psalms. It's a long book. It's 150 chapters. And we got to do that basically during the covid time. And now we've gone to the book of Genesis.

And the truth is I've never talked through the book of Genesis either completely because it's a long book and this format of gives us an opportunity to delve. Some of those longer books maybe some of the Old Testament profits and things like that, that we just if you teach them on a weekly basis, teach them a book of the Bible on a weekly basis If you were to delve into them, it would take years and years to go through.

And I know they've been done. Some of the great pastors in history have done that. But I have not. So I've got I've got, I've gotten an opportunity to do that and it's been very good, very exciting. And so we're we're still dealing with Abraham cuz Abraham is if you had to pick a a figure.

In the book of Genesis, who is the primary figure of the book of Genesis? You would have to say it's Abraham because the most chapters are dedicated to his life. And and his life is the beginning of the nation of Israel. It is, He is the man of promise. He's the one who received the promises of God and his his legacy, his.

Prodigy are the they're the children of Israel. They're the ones who who Jesus comes from and Jesus' line comes from. So obviously, he would be the most important figure in the Book of Genesis. As we get to Genesis and deal with Abraham as you see, Abraham is a great man.

He is a man with he's a. He's a five gift man. If you go by the parable of Jesus, where he came and to one of his servants, he gave five gifts to another servant. He gave three g two gifts and to the last servant, he gave one gift and then he went on a journey and they put them to work well.

The one who got one gift, he just hit it in the ground and he did not receive a he did not receive an attaboy from the master when he came back. In fact he received a it was not an attaboy, it was bad. But. The five gift person put his to work and got five more and the two put his to work and got two more and they both got the same reward.

He says, Well done. My good and faithful servant because you've been faithful a few things. Let me put you, come and let me put you in charge of many come and share your master's happiness and what he's saying there. That you use what God has given you by faith and the reward is equal in the sense of your reward is going to be based off of your faithfulness and not off of the results.

The results are. In many ways the results are determined by God. They they're determined by his will and his plan. And when I say in many ways and always really and you can trust God, You can trust God in the midst of those things. Abraham is a five gift guy.

He is he's a leader. He is wealthy, he is intelligent. He has everything going for him. He has that one thing that is an issue for his life and that he's not had a child with his wife. And and maybe in this, you can see why that is a problem. And maybe in this passage you can see why that's an issue, that being.

Even though Abraham accomplishes great things, even though Abraham speaks to God face to face, even though Abraham is a is a man of influence of power, even though he's a man that that does the right things all does the right things as far as faith is concerned and trusting God he is a.

Who at times has these lapses of faith and he has these lapses of character and that makes him in, in a real world sense that makes him such a, in a compelling figure. And the reason it makes him compelling figures, because we. We can walk by faith, we can have all the great blessings of God.

We can see God in his greatness and we can see him in his mighty power. We can see him at working our lives and yet still be flawed human beings. And Abraham is a flawed human being and he's, he is dealing with this king of. Who is a king along the coast of Southern Israel he is a king that rules an area down there we see in his dealings with aec.

He is, di deals with him. Really what he does is he deals with him wrongly, and he does he's not transparent and he doesn't tell the truth. And Sarah. In her younger years was a very beautiful woman. Woman. And so when she went down to Egypt Pharaoh wanted her as his wife. Now Sarah's an older woman and you go why does a bi want her as his wife?

And that's the issue. And I think you can tell why that is the case because of the r or the trick that Abraham tends to play on the kings that he deals with. It says in verse 20, verse one, and Abraham Journeyed from there to the south and he, Dr. Dealt and he dwt between Kish insurer and stayed in Guar.

And now Abraham said to Sarah, his. She is my sister said of Sarah, his wife. She is my sister. Now, that was a regular thing for him to do because if the woman was his sister then then they would not kill Abraham and take her. They would marry her and they would have an alliance then with Abraham.

And in this situ. In this situation, and as Sarah gets older, that's an important thing, especially considering who Abraham is. Abraham is a man with of great wealth. He is a man of of a huge household. We've already seen many years before this. That with just a little over 300 men.

He defeated whole armies from northern cities of Israel, and then all up into a Syria in Mesopotamia. He is a man of military Mike. He's a man of wisdom and strength and The kings in that area wanted to be aligned with him. Even the King of Sodom wanted to have an alliance with him.

He wanted to give him all of his possessions and just take back the people. Even Sodom the King of Sodom understood that being aligned with Abraham was going to be an important thing, a good thing. And having a connection to him is important for his future. Same thing happens.

This king in the south of Vik. He wants to have an alliance with Abraham, and when he sees that Abraham has a sister, he takes her as his wife. He wants her to be his wife so that so that they can be brother-in-laws and so that he can have this key. Key person in the region be close to him.

This, the, these things still happen in many ways today. The align lining of families, the aligning of of interest, the coming together of people to not only. Build relationships between their family and friends, but build relationships so that they can pool resources to be greater and stronger than they are.

And that even happening in the church. That's one of the powerful things about the churches is God's people comes together and they they have these bonds, these spiritual bonds. Which caused them to be aligned, caused them to look out for each other's best interest.

Caused them to help each other in times of need, and ultimately that brings. The blessing and the increase of everyone in the body. And that's what the church is all about. And you need to get that you need to understand that lot of people say I can worship God I can worship God on my dock and I don't need to be in church and.

You're right. You can worship God on the dock. You can worship God anywhere you were made for worshiping God. The issue is, first of all you can't worship him in the power that you worship him in the body because when, where two or more gathered there, he shows up and he shows up in power. He shows up for purpose.

He shows up to build his kingdom. Second of all, you can't be totally within his will for too long sitting on the dock and you go why can't I? Because he said that you're not to forsake the assembly. What does that mean? That means that you're not to not assemble yourself for worship.

If you're available and it's time for, and you're able to make it and there are reasons why you can't at times in. But if you're available to make it, you ought to assemble yourself. You ought to be there for worship. And that's a commandment of God in the New Testament. And it's important that we assemble ourselves for worship because why?

Because there's power that shows up there, there is there's cleansing that happens there, there's strengthening that happens there, and there is purpose that is. Not only individual purpose, but group purpose kingdom purpose, the kingdom of God when it meets together has has real power that God comes down and gives us.

And so it is really important that if you are able to assemble yourself, that you do. And uh, not do it on the dock with the with the snakes and the frogs and ef you need to assemble yourself together with God's people because there's great power in coming together as a group of people.

And that's what happens here. That's what I do lik is wanting to do, He's wanting to align himself with Abraham. He has a. That Abraham be close to him, be his brother-in-law, because Abraham is a man of great power, great influence, and he's also a man of God, and he's a man of strength. And said, as he said he said so tell him you're my sister and a bi like the king sin and took Sarah.

What'd he do? He set four. He wanted her to be his wife, but God came to a bi in a drain. Now, God is speaking to a beak. God is speaking to a beak in a, in an important way here because he's speaking to him in dreams. Now that doesn't happen. God doesn't speak to those who are not His. God speaks to those who are His.

And especially when he is speaking warning or he's speaking instruction or he's giving them guidance. It's quite clear that Avik is a man of faith, a man who hears. And a man who will hear what God has to say and act upon it. That's important. God's definitely not going to cast his pearl amongst swine.

What does that mean? Pearls amongst swine. He's not going to give knowledge and insight and information to those who are not going to use it. For for his purposes, he's not gonna do that. He'll just let them deal with the circumstances of their life as it comes. But he's not gonna do that with with people.

He's going to talk to those who will hear him and will heed his voice and will act in faith according to him. And that's important for you to understand if you haven't heard from God. And while if God's not speaking to your heart in ways, if he's not opening doors, if you're not seeing him move in your.

It's likely because your heart is in such a place that you're not willing to do what God asked you to do. You're not willing to walk where God's asking you to walk or become who God's wanting you to become. And so he is, He's cut off the flow of information and he is cut off the flow of blessing.

And the reason he is done that is because you're not listening. You're not listening. And that is a dangerous place to. A place where you can't hear God because you're unwilling to listen to God. And that happens oftentimes a lot, even with God's people. God's not going to, God's not going to be give continually giving you the same information and the same advice, only to have you not use it and not act upon it fully as you opt.

And He says. He says, But God said to Ben Eck in a dream that night and said to him, Indeed, you are dead, a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken for. She is a man's wife or she has a husband. It can be translated both ways. What he's saying is, you've taken somebody else's wife and notice notice.

That was not something that was was uncommon for people to steal people's wives. Like I said that's one of the reasons Abraham had Sarah do this is so that he wouldn't be killed because what they did was they'd just take the woman and kill the man and then they'd have the woman.

And but I look, Avik did not do that. He sent for her, What does that mean? He asked that she come and be his wife. And she didn't kill, he didn't kill Abraham. He didn't just take what he wanted. And, there's some question as to whether or not he could actually got that done, but or accomplish killing Abraham.

But he didn't do that. He sent for Sarah to be his wife so that he could have this alliance or relationship with him. And and so he did it. That's what he did. He sent for he sent for him so that he could have a relationship with him. And. And that's what that's how it worked.

He did it. And so it says but Avik had not come near her. And notice why had he not come near her? Why had he not consummated the marriage? Because the marriage was not a marriage that was going to be a physical marriage. The marriage was going to be a marriage of alliance, a marriage of tying people together and putting them in the in the same place as family members and friends.

And That is what he's doing. He had not gone into her and he said, Lord, will you slay a righteous nation also, or a righteous leader or a righteous man? This is, that Word Nation has a little bit of, we're not quite sure what that word means in its full context there. But what he's saying is, Are you gonna slay thee?

Also you gonna slay me? Because I wasn't acting wrongly. I was acting rightly. I thought she was his sister, and I thought that I was doing something that was good. I was aligning myself with a godly man. And now I've been tricked. Are you gonna do that?

I'd like to stop for just a second and talk a little bit about oftentimes in our. We take we, as we're dealing with people, we assume things about people because they're a little bit different from us. When I was growing. I grew up in the Bible Belt back when the Bible belt was the Bible belt, and that this area of the world, you went to church and you you did write and you learned God's word and And in some ways, and in a lot of ways, you were legalistic about it or you were taught to be legalistic about things.

And there were just certain things that weren't acceptable. And certain lifestyles that were, we were told were wrong. If you, my granddaddy was heavy into not having long. And if a boy, if a man had long hair, there was something wrong with him.

And definitely. And I, definitely you couldn't have a tattoo at all. You couldn't, you could, if you had a tattoo, you must have been some kind of, he or you were in the Navy at some point in time. And I, and when I say that, I'm not joking. A lot of people in the Navy. During my grandfather's time and then after my grandfather served in the Navy during World War ii.

He didn't get a tattoo but people in the Navy did. And that was just something that was just not acceptable. There were just things back then that were not acceptable and allity. The book Leviticus says, Don't tattoo yourself as the haven does. But first of all first of all, that's dealing with putting on religious tattoos that were not associated with God.

They were associated with pagan gods. Second of all, and I was taught this as an adult, as actually as I got older, and I still was against tattoos. I was taught, you know that first of all, Chad, isn't that in the law? That's the Old Testament law. That's in the book of Leviticus. And I.

Yeah that's right. That's in the book of Leviticus. It is the law. And then I, and then they go. And secondly, isn't that taking that outta context, aren't you talking about religious tattoos? Not aren't you talking about tattoos that have to do with pagan gods? And I go Yeah, that's probably PE and God, See how I was in, in my raising, in my cultural position, I was making assumptions about people that wasn't true just because I didn't know who they were.

And I can remember going to Princeton and a lot of the football players were getting a Princeton tiger putting on, put on their. Their right posterior, I guess is the best way to describe it for bible study purposes. They were put having a tattoo there. And the guys that I knew that were from the south, that was just we wanted to cause it was cool, but we didn't want to.

And I'm not telling you whether I did or didn't but you just didn't. You just didn't you just didn't do that. But the truth is there's nothing scripturally wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with having a tattoo that's legalism. And we don't live by the law.

We live by the spirit. And there's a lot of cultures where tattoos are very important to them and very important to who they are. And in our culture in the south, a lot more people have tattoo. Today than they did back in the day. And it's not an issue, It's not a scriptural issue like it was back then is in fact it's not a scriptural issue and it never really was.

And I made assumptions about people who had tattoos. That's not true. Or people that had long hair. That was not true. The reason men are were, are closely shaving and. Have short hair in the military is because your face mask won't seal to your face if you have facial hair or you have long hair in the backend.

That's why you'll see women when they're in service, they don't have their hair down. Why? Because their gas mask doesn't seal properly. They always have their hair up when they're un in uniform. The reason they do that is because It's not, it has nothing to do with some rule or some righteousness or goodness that comes from, it has to do with practicality.

If somebody attacks with gas, you wanna be able to get your gas mask on. And trust me I've had those gas masks tear me up and not get 'em on at the right time and suck in a whole lot of whole lot of gas. In my face and cough and I thought I was about to die.

So you definitely want your gas mask to seal. And I'm going through this for a reason. There was an assumption about lik that Abraham made, and that was that he was not a man, a godly man. And I don't know why he made that assumption. And he thought he needed to lie to him. In order to to protect himself.

And the truth is he didn't. Cause it's quite obvious it's quite obvious. In verse five, he said, Did he not say to me, she is my sister? And she even herself said, He is my brother in the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands, I have done this. He, what he's saying is, He's talking to God.

He's saying I have not done wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing. And you're gonna see, we're gonna talk about this tomorrow. God said you were doing the right thing. You weren't wrong. And excuse me. And uh, And that's that's an important truth that we have to learn.

Don't make assumptions about people until for sure. There's some clear things in scripture that God says that we should and should not be. And and they're generally found in the New Testament. Romans chapter one has. Has a lot of that in it. And there's several other passages both put, written by Peter and written by Paul.

And there's obviously the clear teaching of Jesus. There's things that clearly we can't be involved in as believers, but the things that are legalistic, the things that are The things that are quite clearly not in scripture. And you have to sw you have to choke down a elephant to swallow nat.

You're just doing whatever you can to to create some rule for somebody to live by. We can't live by those rules and we can't make assumptions about people that come from different, whole different areas of the world, because even whole different areas of the United States whole different areas of the United States have people that that have cultural and family and even some of 'em religious.

If you come from a Catholic background or you come from some other Protestant background, that's a lot different than what's around here. You may even have other practices that are just. The same is around here, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it because it's not forbidden by scripture.

And it's not it's not it's not a issue. We have freedom in Christ and that freedom is not a license to sin. But the New Testament will tell you the things that are against God's will and the Holy Spirit will also. And those things are clear and obvious and everything else.

Everything else is permissible. The Bible says, And you have to just, you have to make sure that you don't you don't assume things about people that are not necessarily true, especially in the times and the place that we live in, where there are many people who come from many parts of the world that that are moving in.

And looking for a place to worship God. And the way they do things and their idiosyncrasies that come from the places they come from are a healthy addition to the body of Christ and they're they're something to build the body of Christ. Now if they're involved in something that quite clearly, Is spelled out by scripture as something that we shouldn't be involved in.

We'll deal with that and we'll deal that biblical way. We'll deal that one on one and then take a brother and then deal with it in the church. But we're not gonna deal with things that are Old Testament legalism. We're not gonna build deal with rules made by men who. Who that by the way we come up with those too.

We're gonna deal with things that are quite clearly scripturally, is scriptural issues. And we're gonna be truthful about 'em and we're gonna be straightforward about 'em, and we're gonna let God with all the other things we're gonna let God add to us in our numbers daily, because that's what the church is all about.

The New Testament Church in the Book of Acts, he said he said they added to their numbers. Each and every day, and as you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Je