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Amen. Okay, so Genesis chapter 20, and it's been a few weeks now since we were in Genesis. We spent two weeks in Genesis 19 and first looking at the events of Sodom, the first part of Genesis 19, and the lessons that we could learn about Sodomites and compromises like Lot was kind of what we really focused on there. And then we looked the second week at the pictures of the Edd times with the two witnesses and the fleeing of Lot picturing the Great Tribulation. And hopefully I kind of showed that clearly from the word there. And for me, there were many great lessons for us to learn, and one of those with that safety in the house of God up until it's time to leg it, right? And that's what I believe we saw there. The chapter ended with Lot wanting to dwell in Zoar, but then fleeing to a cave in the mountains with his two daughters, if you remember. And when they seem to be sitting there thinking that they're the only people alive, don't they? I mean, these guys are such a bad example, aren't they? Genesis 19 and verse 31 says, And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth. And we saw some of the long lasting effects of dwelling amongst perverts with them getting their father drunk and eventually spawning the Moabites and Ammonites. So verse 37, it said, And the firstborn bare a son and called his name Moab, the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. And the younger she also bare a son and called his name Benami, the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day. And Genesis 20 then in verse one reads, And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur and sojourned in Gerar. And I'd like to pray before we get going with this chapter. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for this great chapter in the Bible where there's some great lessons we can learn, some great principles here. Lord, help me to just preach those just clearly and accurately. Lord, to everyone here, fill me with your spirit, please help me to preach boldly and accurately, in Jesus' name, pray with us. Amen. Okay, so between Kadesh and Shur is that desert wilderness part of now Egypt, the area that's between sort of the south of Israel and the Suez Canal. So I don't know if you kind of know what I'm talking about on a map here. You kind of got south of Israel, you got kind of Cairo just beyond the Suez Canal, and then you got this space in between, which is the wilderness. It's desert land there. He dwelled in the wilderness and sojourned or basically temporarily stayed in Gerar, which is just north of Kadesh. So Gerar being as we're going into then Canaan there from that area, from that desert area. It said in verse two, and Abraham said of Sarah his wife, she is my sister, and Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. So why is he at it again? Because if you've been following, you've been reading Genesis, you've read it before, you've been following our series, you're going to know that he's already said this previously as well. Several chapters back when he was in Egypt, he pretended that she was his sister. He's pretending that they're not married, resulting in his wife being taken by the king of the Philistines, Abimelech here. And before you say, maybe you will, maybe you won't, but isn't she near 90 years old? I don't know if anyone's ever read this or wondered. Remember that they were still living much longer. OK, so she died at 127. Abraham died at 175 years old. OK, we're still not a long time on from the flood from where people were living, you know, the best part of a thousand years, right? So you could theoretically, you know, just as a kind of idea here, nearly half their ages to put that into perspective. So rather than Sarah at 90 kind of hobbling around on a Zimmer frame, she more likely looks like a middle-aged woman. OK, so she just looks like a middle-aged woman. And, you know, and of course here, you know, look, that's just a kind of an assumption there, OK? But, you know, for me, look, she's an attractive woman that people are like, OK, wow, great. And bringing, you know, taking her into his kind of attempted harem, it seems like, right? And really, you know, for Abraham here, he's kind of, he obviously recognises this. So that's why he's pulling this weird stunt each time. Now, just on that as well, don't get me wrong, her conception was still a miracle. So if you look at that going, wait a second, wasn't it a miracle that she conceived? Genesis 18, 11 said, now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Now, that's not saying that she was kind of, you know, on her last legs. Basically, she's older, she's no longer a childbearing age, but she's got still 37 years left travelling and living in tents. OK, so I don't think that she's kind of, you know, like I said, it's not that she's as we would imagine a 90-year-old now, OK? Why is Abimelech taking her? Like I said, it's some sort of harem where the king seems to be rounding up likely the fairer women, OK? Now, don't forget here, they're nation building at this point, OK? We're still not a long way off from post-flood. So I'm assuming that these powerful men are trying to build and maximise their own nations through multiple wives, aren't they? They're just like, right, we're just going to keep building, they're all going to be over there, seeing they're trying to build nations themselves. Turn back to chapter 12. I'm not trying to say it's OK, but that's what I think is a mindset there where we see this situation that had happened previously when they were in Egypt. And we see the clear reasoning according to Abraham as to why he did this. So Genesis chapter 12 of verse 10 reads, And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down, of course he was called Abram at this point, went down into Egypt to Sojourn there. For the famine was grievous in the land. And it came to pass when he has come near to enter into Egypt that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon, so this is the reason, Therefore it shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife, and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee. Not exactly honouring his wife, is it? Loving her as his own body. Now, just in case anyone's ever been confused by this, and I know I preached this already before chapter 12, this was a low point for Abraham. Okay, this was a pretty wicked thing to do. Alright, this is low, this is sinful, this is a bad thing for him to do. And like I preach in Genesis 12, he shouldn't have been in Egypt in the first place. The famine probably represents your lack of the word of God, resulting in him sojourning in Egypt a picture of the world. That's what we looked at when we went through Genesis chapter 12. And when he repeats it in chapter 20, if you go back now, where, in fact, no, sorry, hold on for a second, because I think there's a couple of verses maybe we'll look at in verse 19. Go to verse 19, sorry, to chapter 19. But when he repeats in chapter 20, he's sojourning in Gerar, isn't he? Okay, he's in the wilderness, the desert between Kadesh and Shur. Why? So Canaan was the Promised Land, wasn't it? Not the desert south of there. And for me, this is a picture of a backslidden Christian again. So we've got the same, in the previous one, he's gone to Egypt a picture of the world after there's a famine in the land, and he's suddenly in this sort of what's a picture of kind of worldliness and everything else, as we see as we go through the Bible. And here, he's living in the wilderness, and then he's sojourning in Gerar, which he then later describes in the chapters, there's no fear of God here. Why is he there? Well, he'd just seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the chapter before. Does he even know that Lot was rescued? I don't know, we don't know that, do we? We know that Lot was rescued, we don't know that he knows that. In chapter 19 of verse 27, it says, And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord, and he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld and lo, the smoke of the country went up as a smoke of a furnace. Then the next time we see Abraham is in Genesis chapter 20 in verse 1, which we've just read, And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. So he'd just been hoping that God would spare Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities. I believe he was probably sure there must be ten righteous people. Do you remember he had this sort of thing where he's kind of finding out if God would maybe have spared it if there were ten righteous people. He's like, yeah, peradventure there's ten righteous. And God's like, yeah, I'll spare it if I find ten righteous people. He gets up in the morning and the whole place is smoke. I mean, he's like, what on earth, right? Sodom and the surrounding cities, they're wiped out. Abraham is suddenly in the wilderness. And then he's sojourning in Gerar. So you can, for me, there's a clear picture there, right? He's looking at this, he's woken up, seeing this destruction of a place that he was probably thinking, ten people, surely not. He doesn't know that Lot's even survived, his nephew and his family. And now he's basically legged it down into the wilderness, and he's now hanging around in Gerar, which is, by all accounts, according to him, later on, an unrighteous place. So, what happens? He's in the wilderness, and then soon after he's back to the old sins, isn't he? And look, you can see the picture here, right? The Christian ends up in the spiritual wilderness, and they go back to the old sins. Because a lot of people think, oh yeah, you know you get these people, and of course you get those that put all their trust in this. It's like, I used to do all this, this, this, then I got saved and I gave up all those old sins, you know? Now look, if they got saved and they went on to give up sins, great. If they think that it was a result that they gave up sins to get saved, or it was some sort of intertwined with their salvation, and they ain't saved, right? Okay, but, yeah, many of us, many of us here who have, you know, started living for God, and reading the Bible, and getting into church, and all that stuff, I'm sure if you look back, you're like, yeah, I've given up a lot of sins. I hope you've given up a lot of sins, right? Okay, however, that door's always open, isn't it? And when you're out of church, when you're out of the things of God, when you're out in the Bible, when you're in that spiritual wilderness, you're more likely to go back to those old sins. And that's what we're seeing here with Abraham here. And isn't that often, you know, even just to siphon out, isn't it often a cause of backsliding what we're seeing here as well? Things didn't go how he wanted them to. Abraham didn't want that place to get ready. He was like basically just asking, like, well, what if there are 50 righteous? Are you going to spare it? Now, he, you know, really, maybe he should have said, look, do us a favour, get a lot out of there and level that place because it's wicked as hell, right? But he didn't. He was like, you know, look, please, if that could you spare it? Forty five could you spare it? You know, he kept going down. He got to 10 righteous. I don't think he expected it to get leveled. It gets leveled. And next thing you know, he's in the spiritual world. He's gone out of the promised land. He's gone out of Canaan and he's in the wilderness. And look, a lot of the time, isn't that when Christians backslide, when things don't go their way, when some hard truths of God, they start to dwell on them, some things, maybe a family member dies. And they're just like, you know, they start getting angry sometimes with God. They're just like, you speak to people on the door, don't you know, a lot of most of the time they just aren't the same. They're just trying to blame God for something. But there are Christians like that as well, aren't there? Christians who things don't go their way in one way or another. Something bad happens in life, something else. And they start giving up on the things of God. And then next thing you know, they're in the spiritual wilderness and then they start slipping into their old sins. So often the cause of backsliding here. I think that's what we're seeing here with Abraham. Abraham, he's not happy. He's late, he legs it. And then he's in Gira. And that's when the old sins start rearing their head, don't they? You're in the wilderness, you're out of the things of God. And I'll tell you what, those old sins will creep up on you quickly. Oh no, you know, you get these people, I don't need to be in church. You know, I read my Bible at home. I'll listen to some preacher at home. I tell you what, those people, the old sins start creeping up quicker than anyone else, don't they? Oh yeah, well, you know, it's all right. You know, you get these people, you don't need to be in church to worship God. You know, I do it all at home. You're like, yeah, it's funny because he knocks on their door and they're standing there in like their underwear on a Sunday at midday. You're like, strange worship. But people try and come out with that, don't they? But as we see here, he goes out of where he's meant to be, goes away from where he's meant to be, worshipping God. And he's now in the wilderness. And now next thing you know, he's back to lying about hope. It says in verse two, And by the way, let's just, while we're on that subject, husbands out there, and look, when you backside, when you head off to the wilderness, it's not just you it affects, right? Yeah, it's not just yourself. When you're a husband, when you're there to lead a woman and you go and head off back to the wilderness because you've got the hump with God, because you're annoyed about something, some judgment of God or something that's happened in your life, didn't go as you wanted it to go, you affect your wife as well and you affect your kids. And look, that's the wife that you promise to love and cherish, isn't it? Because doesn't that happen a lot? How often do you see families that will just give up on the things of God because the husband has? Because he's just like, I can't deal with this. He goes into wickedness. He goes into sin. And how hard is it a lot of the time for these women, for these wives to maintain the things of God when they've got some backsliding husband? A guy that doesn't want to be in church, doesn't want to be in the things of God. Here it's his wife that he's affecting her. And we're meant to lead our wives in the paths of righteousness. And it is a thing. If you're a husband and you lead your wife into the wilderness, shame on you, right? Shame on you. That's wicked, isn't it? I mean, that's the responsibility given as a man. Because turn to Ephesians chapter five, because you expect your wife to submit, don't you? OK, again, look, maybe some of you, like some of the men here, maybe aren't married and maybe in the future thinking, yeah, I want a submissive wife, right? I want a submissive wife that's going to submit to me. OK, sure. Yeah. You know, the Bible is very clear about that. And praise God for all those submissive, godly women out there, right? Praise God, because that's hard nowadays. Nowadays, you know, the full on propaganda trying to convince them that that's somehow weak, that's somehow a bad thing and everything else. Praise God for godly submissive women. But rather than an ego boost, rather than it being so that we can feel a bit more manly and a bit more alpha because we've got submissive women, or maybe you will in the future or something else, the whole point is that you can lead them in the right way. The whole point in a submissive wife is so that she can be led by her husband. It's for you to lead. It's not just submissive so you can be like, great, I feel even more manly now because she does what I say. No, it's so that you can lead her. Because you should be spiritually a little bit higher. You should... Look, Adam was not deceived, but Eve was deceived, right? The woman being deceived was in the transgression, OK? Because they need, ultimately, they do need leading. So the whole point is that we can lead them. What's the point in a submissive wife if her husband leads her into the wilderness? What's the point? Some godly submissive woman, yeah, I've got this godly submissive woman and then I'm just leading her to just the spiritual wilderness. What a waste, right? What a disgrace that is when that happens. Look at Ephesians 5, he says, Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. So, look, wives need to submit, yeah, all day long. The Bible's clear as day about that, right? However, there's a massive responsibility that goes with having a submissive wife, isn't there? It's no good having a submissive wife. Then just being a useless leader, a useless husband, and not leading her in the right things. You've got a submissive wife, great. You need to lead her to the right things. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. So our goal, like Jesus Christ's for the church, is for us to sanctify and cleanse our wives with the word of God. So you can't separate the two because you get all these clowns out there, aren't they? They're going on about, I need a submissive wife, submissive wife. But they ain't sanctifying no one. They ain't gonna be cleansing her. They're not gonna be leading her to the word of God. They want a submissive wife to cook them cookies every night. And that's about as far as it goes, isn't it? But that's not the point, is it? The point in the submissive wife is so that they're able to be led by that spiritual head. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church who gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. That's our goal for our wives, men. And if you're unmarried here and you wanna get married, that should be your goal. Your goal is that you're leading her to holiness. You're not gonna find the ultimate 100% only wife out there. So any single guys that are like, ah, you know, she hasn't read the Bible 20 times, she ain't for me or something else. Yeah, you ain't gonna find that. But what you are gonna find, hopefully someone that you're able to lead to that, right? However, it's a big responsibility. He said, so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. Nowadays, that's raising the bar, isn't it? Nowadays, to love your wife as your own body, because nowadays there's a lot of men that love their own bodies, but don't seem to love their wives, right? As their own bodies, for no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church, for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. So it's quite clear, isn't it, how we're to behave with our wives. We should nourish them, cherish them, cleanse them, sanctify them, wash them with water by the word. Yet so many men sadly out there, I'm not saying we have that here, but so many men out there seem to have, they like the idea of the submissive part, right? But they don't do the other part. And look, they don't go hand in hand, okay? At the end of the day, if a wife has a guy that is doing none of those things, she should still submit to him in the Lord. Obviously, unless she starts telling her to do things out of God's will. But in the same way, if you ain't got a submissive wife, or in the future any of you men now have a wife that's not being submissive, you're still to love her as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it. We should nourish and cherish them. We should try and make them holy and without blemish. And different wives are gonna respond in different ways to that. And I've said this many times to single men looking for godly women, okay? You should be trying to impress your heavenly father, yeah? I wanna paint this picture here. If look, if some guy came in here with some probably a bit older than me with a load of sort of nice godly young ladies, I'm sure some of the single men might be like, right, you know, dress a bit smart or something like that. I better do this, I better act like that, I better do this, right? Okay, but it should be more than that because you're ultimately, if you are a single man out there, and the same if you're a single lady out there as well, and you hope, well, one day I'm gonna find a godly man, you should be trying to impress their father who's up there looking at everything you do, everything you say, everything you think. And if you're just like, well, yeah, where's the great woman, but you can't even get to church? Where's the, I can't even, I can't even read my Bible. Do you think her father's impressed? He ain't impressed. Because ultimately, what do you want? You want a godly woman who, God's almost given that to you and God gnats the woman for you, right? That's what you want, don't you? Well, for that, you need to kind of show yourself to be who God would wanna give you, right? And look, that's like, that's a scary father, to be impressing us. And that's an all-seeing one as well. That's like, you know, dating some girl and, you know, her dad's kind of just everywhere. You'd like, look out your window and he's just there. But... You all right? But that's how it should be, right? And you know what? But here's another thing, it doesn't stop once you do get married. So for us married men, it's like, dad's still watching. He's still there. He's still at the window. He's still outside. He's still watching everything you do and how you treat them. And look, and we made vows, didn't we? We made vows to love our wives, to treat them that way. And look here, this has all come from Abraham, right? I've got off on a bit of a tangent here, but ultimately he messed up here, didn't he? He didn't do that. We want, we want those, as men, we want to basically have a godly wife, don't we? And yeah, we can have part of that, but we want God to give us a woman that's able to be a godly wife. And if you're single here, that's what you're looking for. And if that's, look, you need to be impressing him here. And here's the thing, it's no good if you're already living in the desert. Abraham had a backsliding moment, okay? But it's no good if you're already in the desert, is it? And there are a lot of men out there that are in the desert and still going, where's the wife? God, there's no godly women around. It's like, are you impressing your spiritual father there? Now for Abraham, it was another backsliding moment, okay? And this should be a reminder to all of us that even the great men of God had failures, right? First Corinthians 10, 12 says, wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Okay, we can all, let every single person that's capable of backsliding, every single one of us, right? We need to take heed. Don't ever get too puffed up and think, I'm all right, yeah? Don't wander off into the wilderness. Don't run away from God. You're going to have times in your life where you're like, I just can't believe I didn't get that job. I can't believe this didn't happen. I can't believe that didn't happen. That ain't a time to run away from God. Sometimes you can have some heartache in life, won't you? Heartbreak. You're going to have times you're like, I just can't believe this. Horrific things happen to family sometimes. Godly Christian families, Godly Christian people. Yet that ain't the time to go to the wilderness because that's when you're more likely to backslide, isn't it? Now, Abraham is in a bad spot here, but God intervenes. Look at verse three where you are in Genesis 20. It says, but God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, behold, thou art but a dead man for the woman which thou hast taken for she is a man's wife. And isn't that the case for many when they backslide, right? They see God's hand there wanting to pull them back. I don't know if you've ever had moments in your life or you know people that have talked about, they say, look, I was, I pulled away from the things of God, but like, he just like, something worked out in this situation. I'm like, and he pulled me back in a way, you know? God still wants you back. Now, and I'm not saying, look, he's just going to stop your sinning, but some intervention sometimes, things could have been worse. Some of you might look back and go, yeah, I remember doing that and like, God managed to just kind of, I got a whipping, but it didn't get as bad as it could have been, right? And look, it's not a license to do what you want. I don't think, look, and here, like, you could read this because they're like quick verses. I don't think that Abraham's plan was that she was taken though. Now don't forget, Abraham's just said, say that you're my sister. I don't think his plan was that the king would come and take her into his potential home. I don't know how long that went on for. I mean, maybe he's kind of sitting in Kirah going, I want my wife back. I don't know what to do. Cause I've said, she's my sister. I don't know. I can imagine it's probably a pretty rough time, however long it lasted, right? That she was taken away and obviously it's his own fault, but you could argue, maybe that was a chastisement. Maybe he got chastised with that. Maybe the fact that they were lying and then suddenly the wife gets taken again, like what happened in Egypt, right? And it's like, what on earth Abraham? God intervenes. How did he intervene? He told Abimelech that he was a dead man. Why? Because he was about to commit adultery. Abimelech was just about to commit adultery and God said, you're a dead man. Cause that is that woman, which thou has taken for she is a man's wife. And I say that because the law prescribes the death sentence for adultery, okay? Now I know this is 500 years earlier, but the law is written in our hearts. He doesn't go, well, it's only, he didn't go, oh, it's just a little affair though. Oh, it's just a bit of fun. What's the problem? No, he knew that, wait a second, what you've done? He's like, what on earth? You let me take your wife? Look, that is serious stuff. I don't care how much the world tries to change that. This is serious business. Adultery is wicked as hell, okay? It's wicked as hell and they know that and it has a death penalty prescribed 500 years before the law. He's going, you're about to get killed for taking another man's wife. That's something you sometimes, I think, look, we living in this day and age, we need to remind ourselves of that stuff, right? Because it's serious business and the world literally has turned it into like a joke almost, haven't they? Like where there's so-called movie heroes committing adultery with other men's wives. I mean, it's wicked. But he said, he said, thou art but a dead man for the woman which thou hast taken over. She is a man's wife. But Abirilek had not come near her. And he said, Lord, will thou slay also a righteous nation? Now, I suppose it's, look, he's saying nation probably where he's a king. Said in verse five, said he not unto me, she is my sister. And she, she herself said, he is my brother in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this. And by the way, Abraham has also coerced his wife to sin too, okay? So it's not just that, you know, he's, you know, he's the only one that said it. She said it as well, because we see after, he said, said he not unto me, she is my sister. And she, even she herself said, he is my brother. So look, just another along that old point and the previous point, I won't harp on about that too much. Men, it's a big responsibility, isn't it? Leading a wife is a big responsibility. You better take it seriously. Can't be leading a wife and leading her into sin. That's wicked, right? And husbands could do that in various ways, can't they? I mean, whether it's to lie, to cover for them in one way or another, or to partake in some sin or another, because most people want someone to partake in a sin with them. So especially when it's a wife, it's much easier or you feel much happier about your sin if you've got someone else partaking it with you. Just an obvious one, forsaking the assembling. How many husbands are responsible for their wives not being in church, for their wives not soul winning, for their wives not leading a spiritual life? And they're big sins. They really are. They're big sins, right? Let alone, you could think of 100 different ones, right? So he's responsible here. And God said unto him in a dream, yeah, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of the heart, for I also withheld thee from sinning against me, therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. So what is it that prevented Abimelek committing adultery? The word of God. And now this is pre the physical penning of the Bible. Okay, the first five books are written by Moses, who comes after obviously Abraham. However, it's still the word of God here. It's God speaking a dream at this point. And it's God telling him that prevents Abimelek committing adultery. And that should be the result of hearing the word of God, shouldn't it? That should be the result. You hear God say something, and look, you all are hearing God say something today. And you'll all be hearing God say something every week that you come to this church. But you should be hearing God say something every day when you open your Bibles as you should do every day. And when God says something to you, the result should be that he's withholding you from sinning against him. That's what should happen, right? You've heard the word of God and it's like, wow, okay, now I don't have, it's not like, oh, well, oh, well, the Bible says to do this. No, he's withholding you from sinning against him by showing you what his will is in his word. And that's how we should look at it, shouldn't we? But so many others are like, oh, well, yeah, but that bit, but I like this bit. I don't mind this bit. I don't like that. Well, no, he's trying to withhold you from sinning against him. Read your Bibles. It's a reason to read your Bible more, isn't it? Then you can be withheld from sinning against him. Verse seven says, Now therefore restore the man his wife, for he is a prophet and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live, and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine. Yeah, Abraham was a prophet, by the way, and he's saying, you're going to die if you don't let this woman go. Therefore, Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears, and the men were sore afraid. He didn't have a lion to mull it over, did he? He didn't lie in bed feeling sorry for himself, going, oh, man, I'm in a tough spot here, and just bury his head back in the pillow. I try to sleep for another hour, and hopefully it'll all go away. No, he did what we should do, right? You hear something from the word of God. You open your Bible and you read something, and you know that God wants you to do something. We should rise up early and get on with it, right? We saw, obviously, Abraham give this example before, where he's told to do something, he just gets on and does it. And here, Abimelech, fortunately, he does the same thing. He rose early in the morning, and he told them as well. And look, I wouldn't say necessarily a picture of soul winning, however, look, when you know there's clear things in the word of God, and you want to be telling people around, you want to be telling your family, at least, right? You want to be telling those around you when you know clear things, clear things that are going to make difference to lives. And again, that's not preaching on the sin to the unsaved, by the way. Then verse nine says, then Abimelech called Abraham and said unto him, what has thou done unto us? And what have I offended thee that thou has brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? Thou has done deeds unto me that ought not to be done. Fair response, really, right? And he didn't just call it a little affair, did he? He said, no, a great sin. You have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin. And by the way, I don't know, I mean, that's probably the potential adultery, but even the fact that he's got a man's wife living with him, he's like, you've brought on me a great sin here, right? And again, just again, just because we need, in this day and age, you need to remind yourself how serious this is. Okay, this is a massive big deal. This should never be. Look, men out there, this should be the furthest thing from your mind ever. This is death penalty sin stuff, okay? This isn't like, oh, well, yeah, you know, she's quite attractive, shame she's married. It's like, get that thought out of your head. Never even in your head. Just get rid of it straight away and ask God for forgiveness, right? Everyone can have a foolish thought now and again, but that should not be anything ever to dwell on. That is serious stuff. And you know what? It starts with a thought with these things, right? And that is a death penalty sin. We need to make sure that is as far away from any of us as possible, right? And Abimelech said unto Abraham, what sawest thou that thou hast done this thing? And Abraham said, because I thought, surely the fear of God is not in this place and they will slay me for my wife's sake. So again, it begs the question, why was he so journeying there? Why was Abraham in a place where he said the fear of God was not? Why is he in the wilderness and so journeying in Gerar? Because, I'll tell you why he's so journeying in Gerar, because he was living in the wilderness. And for me, clear picture there, he's in the spiritual wilderness, he starts so journeying in a place where there's no fear of God. And we don't want to be around these people. Look, next thing you know, you go in the spiritual wilderness, you start pulling away from God. And look, you could be sitting in church and still be in the spiritual wilderness, just to make that clear. Okay, it's not, oh, well, you go to church, it's all right. No, you could be sitting in church and right now your mind is wondering already, you're already planning tomorrow, you're not in the things of God, you're not in your Bible reading, you're not close to God, your sins creep you out, you're already going into that spiritual wilderness, you're just ticking a box, you're in your routine, coming to church. And next thing you know, you're hanging around when there's no fear of God. And next thing you know, you're being drawn towards the ungodly, you're being drawn towards these type of people, and that's when the sin starts happening. That's when the old sin starts resurfacing, like we see here. It's the slippery slope, isn't it? And when you're around people, when you're around people where there's no fear of God, the sin just seems that bit more acceptable, doesn't it? That's reality. Now look, we have to live in the world, okay? I'm not telling you to go and live in a commune somewhere. Okay, we do have to live in the world. However, we don't want to be of the world even, and you don't want to be just like, they shouldn't be your best buddies. They shouldn't be the people you're getting counsel off. They shouldn't be the people you're hanging around with all the time. That could be hard for those who are out in whoever knows where, where there's not even a good church, there's hardly any believers. But for the people I'm preaching to here, this church here, okay, we have a church. We have a church. We're going to be doing more events as a church. We have times where we meet up as a church, where we do the things of God. We've got services. We've got so much to prevent you from having to go and hang around with the worldly people, going and buddying up with the ungodly, because the more you're around those people, the more acceptable that stuff starts to become in your mind. Then it's like, well, at least I don't do all the things they do, it's only these couple of things, right? He said in verse 12, and yet indeed she is my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. Now, we assume that this is true, and you have to bear in mind, just in case you're thinking, what on earth? He married his half-sister. Well, we're not a long time off the flood, so the genetics are still very varied, I think, even amongst family here, and ultimately, when it came to Shem, Ham and Japheth, I mean, that's what would have had to have happened at the beginning, right, for all those branches to go out from there. Anyway, we're not a long way on from that. However, I don't, you know, obviously now things are much different, and the law has been put in to stop all of that as well, for good reason. Verse 13 says, It came to pass when God caused me to wander from my father's house, and said unto her, This is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me, and every place whither we shall come, say of me, He is my brother. Now, it's still deceit, okay? In case anyone looks at this, goes, well, it's not that bad. I mean, you know, it is like, they are at least, you know, brother and sister, so he wasn't actually lying, was he? Look, it's deceit, okay? He's deceiving people. Job said in, you don't have to turn to him, Job 27, four, My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. And it's easy to start to slip with that, okay? And look, we can all have that temptation, where it's like, well, I'll just say that, or I'll just give that impression to someone. Well, I'm not saying an out-and-out lie. I'm just kind of, it's just a little bit deceptive, but should we be like that? Job said, My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. And you got it? Look, I was saying this to someone before, and I've said this many times to people, and sometimes we deal with some difficult situations in life, don't we? It's not just all a bed of roses, is it? But whatever you deal with, when you're making a plan for anything you're gonna do, just cut out, make sure it doesn't involve lying and deception, right? If you can cut out the lying and the deception, look, if you don't cut that out, it ain't God's will. You're not in God's will. Now, look, things might work out in the future, but you're not in God's will. So it's never, it should never be your plan. You shouldn't be like, well, I'll just say this, I'll just, and when you do that, you need to like, you need to say that, sorry God, you know? Because you will, sometimes people will automatically, just a little lie here, a little ah, just a little bit of deception there, but it's wrong. It's wrong and it causes trouble, doesn't it? And here we see that. And look, believe me, yeah, this is one I find interesting because when it comes to deception, there are a lot of fake holies out there like this, aren't there? You probably have come across, I've been at them around these people in previous churches before where like, they appear to be so holy. Everything they say usually ends with something to do with the Lord or Jesus or bless you or, you know, anything like that. They speak, they're speaking everything else, but you also could just see that little bit of deception all the time, a little bit. Well, they'll stand there and go, we just love you so much. You know, we're going to be praying for you guys because we love you so much. I was talking about this with a previous pastor where it was all like how much we love you. And then I remember we went round the house for something to eat. And then as we drove out, we could just see them at the door, going like this, and they're like, I couldn't even wait for us to go. And like, it was pure, like, you can just, you know, like when you just know, they are literally just, just cading us, you know, under the, all of this stuff, all of that. You know, it's just, it's just deception, it's deceit. You know, look, I'm not saying you have to be mean to people that maybe you don't like that much, right? However, they're people that are just deceptive. They want to act like they got, you don't have to tell someone you love them so much when you don't, right? Okay, and there's people that are much worse than that. They'll speak in the holy language, but they're full of deceit, yeah? And obviously, false prophets being the worst for that. Abraham is being deceitful, okay? She is his wife and he is her husband, okay? There's no getting out of that. Verse 14 says, and Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and men servants, and women servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said, behold, my land is before thee, dwell where it pleaseth thee. So that's what obviously the fear of God does, okay? Verse 16 says, and unto Sarah he said, behold, I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver, behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes, unto all that are with thee and with all other, thus she was reproved. Yeah, I don't know, anyone ever looked at this guy? What's he actually saying there? What does he mean, he's a covering for her eyes? How was she reproved? So what is he saying? Well, bear in mind that she had been taken to his home, okay, and she was claiming to be Abraham's sister. Now, here's the thing, is should she have done that? Anyone think she should have done that? I don't think she should, because now I know it's an awkward situation for her, and ultimately Abraham's responsible. However, wives should be obeying their husbands in the Lord, right? And he's telling her to lie, and this is a pretty wicked lie as well, right? And it doesn't sound like she's kind of like, I mean, she seems to have gone to his home and everything else. I mean, this sounds pretty horrendous, this situation, doesn't it? And he only finds out because of God telling him in a dream, so it's not like she's kind of making all these excuses. I mean, it sounds like probably the worst was just about to happen here, right? Now, God intervened before anything happened, but here he says that he's paid Abraham money, hasn't he? So he said, behold, I've given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver. Behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes unto all that are with thee and with all other. Thus she was reproved. Well, it says that she was reproved. Now, I may be wrong here, okay, but it made me think of Genesis 38. If you just turn to Genesis 38 quickly, and again, I might just be wrong, just I'm gonna share these thoughts with you, and this is one of those, you know, tell me if you've got any thoughts in it afterwards, I'd be interested. That an interpretation of verse 16, back in Genesis 20, but we look at Genesis 38. When Judah's daughter-in-law, Tamar, she's badly treated by him after his sons die, if you remember, they're meant to like take her on, and then she, eventually she disguises herself as an harlot, okay, because it's like, she's been left as a widow. She's meant to, like, she's meant to be raised unto, you know, the former, her former husband by the next son of Judah's, and he's just kind of left her, and left her to it now, okay. So verse 13 says, and it was told Tamar, saying, behold thy father-in-law goeth up to Timnath to shear his sheep. And she put a widow's garments off from her, and covered her with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which is by the way to Timnath, for she saw that Sheila, this is his third son, was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife. When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot, because she had covered her face. So this was clearly the attire of an harlot, or at least part of the attire of an harlot, was covering yourself with a veil, yeah. Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot, because she had covered her face. You can understand why, because what a shame it would be. Nowadays, obviously not, but you know, in normal society, that is a shameful job, right? That's a shameful thing to be. Well, back in Genesis 20, he says he's paid her brother, in inverted commas, he's like, I've given thy brother, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, yeah, perhaps as if she's some sort of harlot, hence she was reproved. Maybe I'm wrong there, but he's saying, I've given my brother a thousand pieces of silver, behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes, almost as if like, you know, he's treating you like some sort of harlot, unto all that are with thee, and with all other, thus she was reproved. Maybe I'm wrong there, I don't know, that's what I thought about, covering with a veil, covering of the eyes, given money, et cetera, but I might be wrong. We're going to keep going anyway. Verse 17 there says, so Abraham prayed unto God, and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants, and they bare children. For the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. So maybe that was part of the way as well, that God withheld him from sinning against him in verse six. So of course we saw it as a word of God, but where he said, therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. So maybe the other women weren't pregnant, preoccupied, I don't know. But regardless, God put the responsibility on Abraham to pray for them. He had said in verse seven, now therefore restore the man his wife, for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live, and if thou restore and not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine. And then here we see that Abraham prayed unto God in verse 17, and God healed Abimelech. And that's something to remember, okay? And I said I was going to get to this when we talked about the prayers earlier. Prayer isn't just a fallback, okay? It's not just a fallback plan. It's not just, oh well, you know, if it's really important, you know, if it's something really serious, then I'll pray. Look, we're given a lot of responsibility through prayer, aren't we? Okay, look, God wants us to pray, and God answers prayers, and God expects us to pray. In fact, God charges us to pray as well, okay? That's something we're told to do. And there's nothing wrong with asking for prayers either. Because, look, if people who never want any prayers, is it because perhaps you don't really believe that prayers can do much? I mean, turn to James 5. We have a responsibility to pray for each other. And it's something that for myself as a pastor, I'm trying to get more of a structured routine with, okay? I want to be like just structured with my praying for the church. That's part of the job here is to pray for our church. But this night here, this Wednesday night, isn't just a prayer night because it mixes it up a bit, okay? It's not like, oh, well, we add a bit of prayers because it just makes it a bit different to a Sunday. It's because of the power of prayer, and also it's because of the command to pray for each other. We're commanded to do it, so let's make an evening where part of the service is praying for each other. It's not, you know, really ultimately, you know, it's a great thing, isn't it? Yeah, it's a great thing, like, we want to pray for you, and look, and you might, well, you know, it's a bit personal. It may be like somebody a little bit more embarrassed about things like that. Look, you don't have to exactly name exactly what it, you know, there's ways of asking for prayers. Some people might want to, but verse 13 says, is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way, okay? Doesn't have to be on stage in front of the whole church, all right, and we don't have to get some fake in where he's pretending that he can't walk, and then we pour some oil and do some prayers and bring him out, okay? We're not going to do that here, okay? However, there's nothing wrong, I have anointed someone with oil before, with our past, our previous pastor, and look, there's nothing wrong with doing that, right? Okay, and to someone who's sick and someone who's ill and prayed over them and everything else, the Bible says to do that, doesn't it? Yeah, or did I just read something that wasn't biblical? No, that's what the Bible says. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, okay, they're the pastors, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick. Look, if there's faith in that prayer, now, depending, it's not, right, it will definitely, 100%, if you're sick, you're going to get saved by this prayer, because sometimes there's other reasons and other things, and, you know, for example, Timothy wasn't told, right, get some passes over you. You know, he said, drink a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities, yeah? And others we see, he said, he'd left someone in my liter sick. I'm trying to remember the name, and, you know, there's times where, look, maybe there isn't a reason why that will work, but for whatever reason, but sometimes it will. Sometimes there's a reason that someone will be prayed for and will be healed, okay? And I'll tell you what, it's worth trying, right, because is it much of a hardship to pray for someone? Bit of oil? Bit of, you know, cheap sunflower, no, actually. We used some good olive oil when we did it, right? Look, regardless, right, pour some oil over and pray for him, yeah? Nothing wrong with that. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, there shall be forgiven him. So remember that sickness and illness can be due to chastisement. So here I think we're talking about the link here, right? And it can be, it's not always. So in case you're like, right, I knew they were wicked. You know, I saw them sneeze. Yeah, get in here, right? Can be, not always, right, can be. But here he said the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. So again, for me, this is talking about when it's sickness due to chastisement. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another. Are we not told to pray one for another? Yeah? James, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Basically, he said it profits. Availeth means profits, has affected, advantages. He didn't just say it advantages a little, it availeths a little. It availeth much. Look, and I wholly believe that, right? Prayer, look, prayer is massive. Prayer's a big thing. Prayer is a great resource for us. Prayer is, you know, it's not there to just be like, well, I suppose, you know, now and again. You should be praying every day, yeah? You should be praying every day, in fact. You know, our pastor was preaching about this, just that clear precedent we see in the Bible for holy men of God praying three times a day, and that's like, for me, getting down on your knees, set pray time, right? But let alone, give thanks for your food, pray for your food. And also, there's nothing wrong with just praying unceasingly throughout the day. Just pray. Pray when you have something come up. Pray, pray, pray in your head, pray. You know, there's many ways you can pray, right? Doesn't all have to be like, you know, on your knees, and you don't have to be like the Muslims that want everyone to see you turning to Mecca five times a day. It doesn't have to be a public prayer, yeah? And look, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man of faith is much. Or is God lying? No. So I hope everyone has it. And, you know, for many of us here, we would probably say, look, you know, maybe the prayer life is something that many people say that they need to work on, right? Maybe, yeah, I don't get as, I don't maybe pray as much as I should. But we should, shouldn't we? And we should all make, if you take nothing else away from the sermon, take away, I need to improve my prayer life. I need to set some times. Hey, you put an alarm on your phone, on your calendar, you know, prayer time. You know what, you get a routine out of it, you're going to do it, aren't you? If you do that, do me a favour, pray for me. Pray for all of that. Pray for your church, right? Pray for all of us. We all need prayers, yeah? We all need prayers for various areas of our lives. And the more that we then, and the other thing is, is that if you're sending in prayer requests, you're not only going to get prayed for here, but we're going to pray for you in the week as well, right? And does the effectual prayer of a righteous man sometimes help or does it avail as much? Avail as much, right? Don't pray for each other. So this is verse 17, Elias, and let's talk about Elijah, was a man subject to like passions as we are. Okay, Elijah was a sinner like you and I. Anyone think that Elijah was sinlessly perfect? Anyone think that? No? Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. It's a funny thing to think, isn't it? Elijah had similar temptations and similar issues and similar sins in his life and other things as you are, right, as everyone here. He was subject to like passions as we are. He wasn't some magic semi-god, okay? He was a prophet. The power came from God, didn't it? And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the safe space of three years and six months. Wow. Okay, that's just a normal man, yeah? That's a normal guy but he was a man of God, yeah? Who, yeah, obviously he was a great man of God as well, right? But he prayed and it didn't rain on the earth for a space of three years and six months. And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth thought forth her fruit, okay? So look, that's an amazing guy, isn't it? But you know what? That's the power that every single person here has at least some access to as long as it's God's will, obviously, right? It might be that you pray for something that's a bit, look, people will pray for things that maybe when you get up to heaven, you'd be like, wow, I didn't know that prayer actually worked. Maybe we prayed earlier, didn't we, for some sort of change in maybe some of our leaders and government's minds to be able to carry on doing things here and you know what? You might just, you'll never maybe really know what happened but maybe tonight some wicked sodomites, some wicked, you know, you know, look, I don't even want to go into what probably half of these politicians and these people making, or maybe not even them, maybe whatever like banking cartel people are on the phone to them and everything else. Maybe one of them has just had something happen that's just changed the course of some wicked law they were going to push and try and get implemented over years in here to be able to basically clamp down on churches. You know what? Does anyone think that that's not what some of the goal, that's the goal, isn't it? They want to stop us doing the work of God and they don't want it to appear like that, do they? But that's what they want and we need to pray for that stuff but we don't, look, so many of your prayers aren't just bouncing off the ceiling. Your prayers are going to God and God is acting upon those prayers because he wants you to pray. Elijah prayed again, the heaven gave rain, the earth brought forth the fruit and you know what, he wants us to pray and it's not just he wants us to pray and oh yeah, we get some extra Brucey bonuses because we prayed. He gives us a lot of responsibility with our prayer, doesn't he? He gives us responsibility to do things, to change course of events, to affect things with our prayers and that's what we just saw in Genesis 20. He's giving Abraham that responsibility to heal the whole of Abimelech's household to be able to stop this guy getting put to death and it's all down to Abraham and that's a lot of responsibility to a man of God there, isn't it? But you know what, we have a lot of responsibility to pray for others, to pray for things, to pray for events, to pray for situations, to pray for many things. It said, so Abraham prayed unto God and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants and they bare children for the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. So look, that point again, serious business, right? And that was just potential adultery with serious business. However, Abraham was given that responsibility. It was Abraham's prayer that then resulted in God healing them, yeah? Okay, so yeah, we're going to finish up there but for me, look, prayer isn't just, and it's not just for me, the Bible's clear, right? We're given prayer, let's pray. And hopefully, look, we're going to make this night into light and not just, it's not a good prayer night but I want to have a church of people just praying, right? Praying regularly, having a routine with it, having a system with it, just praying, praying, praying, praying for each other, pray for those around us, pray for things to work out for these churches. We all need each other's prayers, you know? Let's pray for each other, right? On that, we're going to finish in a word of prayer. Father, thank you for your word, thank you for, well, just in great lessons we can get there, Lord, and great lessons from Abraham's life and obviously that wanting to avoid the wilderness to not kind of, you know, make hasty responses to how we perceive things should or shouldn't go in life and Lord, and just how dangerous it is to kind of pull away from God and just help us to just appreciate that, help us to learn from that and also, obviously, to just, you know, really, really appreciate what responsibility we're given with prayer, help us to have a strong prayer life, everyone in this church, Lord, help us to be inspired by what we see there to understand that we have responsibility in prayer, that we need to take that responsibility seriously, to use that gift of prayer to help those around us. Help us, Lord, to also just get home safe and sound tonight to just have a week where we just kind of keep you at the centre of it for the rest of this week now, Lord, and to eternal Sunday for Sunday services, in Jesus' name, Amen.