How many times have you heard the reproof, “Quit jumping to conclusions!” A few chapters ago, I’d commented about Abram, who became Abraham, figuring he could issue a white lie based on a technicality that we would learn about in this chapter here. In both instances when this lie is recorded, God steps in with discipline and reproof, and Abraham gets reprimanded both times. Even as God calls Abraham a prophet when conversing with King Abimelech, He is having to teach Abraham that truth is of far more worth to him and those he comes into contact with, than fabricating a white lie based on a truthful technicality.
But an interesting observation can be made of King Abimelech’s kingdom. Note that he is not the only Abimelech we will encounter in the Scriptures. When God comes to Abimelech in a dream and informs him of what has just happened, Abimelech responds in Genesis 20:4 But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?
For some reason, we like to think that when Abraham lived in the land of Canaan, that there were no other righteous nations in the area. We know there was great sin in the area as already observed in God having to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah, and due to God telling Abram that the sins of the Amorites had not fully come to fruition yet but would do so by the time his descendents would come up out of Egypt from slavery. So the commonly held understanding and conclusion then, is that this area has no righteous nations.
Even Abraham makes this assumption in response to Abimelech’s confrontation: Genesis 20:11 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.
Talk about jumping to conclusions! Perhaps Abraham forgot about King Melchizedek in the area, to whom he’d paid his tithes and from whom he’d received a blessing. This alone should have given both Abraham and us as readers of his story millenia later, a hint that maybe there were other God-fearing kings and nations in this region. But no, both we and Abraham continue to think that such is not possible and we jump to the same conclusions Abraham did!
There most definitely was at least a second righteous nation in that area outside of King Melchizedek’s reign. Clearly King Abimelech was a righteous king determined to lead a righteous nation and a bit aghast that God would discipline him and his people for the sins of a stranger in his land.
But God, being the ever-patient God that He is, knowing full well what His own plans were for Abraham, refuses once again to let Abraham derail them through his apparent inability to trust God with the integrity of his marriage, actually tells the king to go to Abraham to be prayed over! This too goes against modern thinking, let alone ancient thinking. Would God actually tell me to go to someone for prayer, who had outright lied to me? Would God reveal their untruth and then tell me that I am to accept being ministered to at their hand??? Actually dear reader, this author has had this happen to her. In fact I am still under the leadership of one of the pastors on staff at my church, who has no problem with white lies, seeing them as a way of protecting ministry members from situations that could, in his mind, conceivably cause more trouble than they would if hidden. I have been in prayer meetings with this leader, although because I confronted them on a lie that hurt me deeply, I am not welcome in certain areas of ministry under their leadership. Is it hard to accept that God would allow such a person to remain in leadership when they seem to have such trouble with white lies? Yes, it is hard! It isn’t easy submitting to such a person! But here we find God telling King Abimelech to submit to Abraham’s prophetic role, and let him pray over himself and his kingdom.
This is a continued lesson to me that God will insist on using the less perfect to get His plans accomplished. Abraham’s apparent tendency to lie, and now jump to conclusions, tells me that there are times when my own standards of ministry and office in the Kingdom of God, are actually higher than God’s standards. When I refuse to submit to another’s leadership because in my personal opinion, they have fallen short in an area that I know God frowns on, I am telling God that I know better than He does how that person should behave and engage in his ministerial role, and that God has made a mistake allowing that person into that role.
But three fingers are always pointing back when you point one forward. I have my own faults and failings. Others can no doubt look at me and accuse God of putting someone into a position of ministry that they wouldn’t put there because of some fault or sin that seems glaring in that person’s eyes.
How many times have we looked at others and thought God could never use them? How many times have we looked at a given area of downtown, or a given region of our country, or even another country and thought that surely there was no righteousness to be found there? Didn’t Nathaniel make that same assumption when Phillip told him about Jesus being from Nazareth? Nathaniel’s response was, “No good thing has ever come from Nazareth”.
It seems that God is out to smash human-held assumptions, expectations, and understandings about who He can use and where they can come from. God doesn’t care what our background is, where we are from, or what we have done. Nor does He put as much weight on our current faults and failings as much as we put on each other. The next time you are tempted to rail on another brother or sister in Christ and shake a fist at God wondering how He could use such a person, take a good hard look at yourself, and thank God for His longsuffering patience with you.
