Stealing God's Glory!

Then God said to him in the dream, "Indeed, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also held you back from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

Genesis 20:6

In Genesis 20, Abraham moves his household from the region around Mamre south toward the border of the land of Canaan. Scripture does not tell us the reason for this move. He settles his people in Gerar, between Kadesh and Shur. Gerar was south of Gaza, near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and within the borders of the Promised Land. It was the land of the Philistines.

While there, Abraham again does what he did when he went to Egypt. In Genesis 12, we see that Abraham had moved his household into Egypt because he was forced out of Canaan by famine in the land. At that time, he was afraid someone would notice his wife's incredible beauty and kill him to get her (Genesis 12:12). So again, he asked Sarah to tell a half-lie for him: Say you are my sister. She was, in fact, his half-sister. They shared the same father but different mothers (Genesis 20:12), so now we see the mere man Abraham acting out of gear and lacking faith in God. Abimelech then took Sarah to be his wife.

However, God steps in so Sarah does not become the wife of Abimelech: "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.) Then he said, "Lord, will You kill a nation, even though righteous? Did he not himself say to me, 'She is my sister'? And she herself also said, 'He is my brother.' In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this. (Genesis 20:3-5)."

Notice that Abimelech takes credit for his innocence but pay attention to how God responds to him: "Then God said to him in the dream, "Indeed, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also held you back from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her (Genesis 20:6)." God, not Abimelech, prevented him from sinning.

Have you ever overcome the temptation to sin and praised yourself for not yielding to it? As He did with Abimelech, God is the one who delivers us from our temptations. If we believe we do this alone, it can lead to spiritual pride and the idea that somehow we are more spiritual than others. The fact is that we are stealing God's glory when we take credit for resisting temptation. In everything, we are to give God all the glory and honor.

Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.

Revelation 4:11

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark