And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing?” Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.
Genesis 20:10-12 ESV
If it is not the whole truth; it is not true at all.
In a Court of Law, we put our hand on the Bible and say, “I do solemnly swear that the testimony I am about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” When we add to or subtract from what is true, it becomes a lie.
Sarai was his sister, but only his half-sister, and he failed to tell Abimelech that she was his wife. When we only partially tell what is true and the part that is true intent is to deceive, it makes it all false. To perpetuate this charade, Abraham had to continue in more falsehood. Once you start down the slippery slope of not being honest, you must tell bigger lies to cover your tracts.
Abraham understood that God knew everything, but to continue in his sin, he had to deny or ignore the omniscience of God, a character trait of God. Sin brings with it a measure of deception, denying reality. He got himself into this situation by believing a lie. “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ It never happened; Abimelech proved to be more righteous in this situation than Abraham. The people of the world can, at times, be more righteous than the children of the light. We can throw unbelief into the mix, he did not believe God would take care of him, so he created a false narrative to protect himself.
We all sometimes are a lot like Abraham. Yet, the first indiscretion does not usually bring us down; it’s the coverup. When confronted with our lack of cantor, we simply need to say, “Forgive me, Lord, and utter the three hardest words to say in the English language: I was wrong.”
Image used by permission from Microsoft.
Ken Barnes, the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places” YWAM Publishing and Broken Vessels through Kindle Direct Publishing.
Ken’s Website— https://kenbarnes.us/
Ken blogs at https://kenbarnes.us/blog/
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