Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #3 of Genesis, chapter 20. Again, I will read Genesis 20:1-7:

And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. 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. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this. And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. 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.

I will stop reading there. We have been spending a little time looking at some of the Biblical language regarding the people of God journeying in this world, as we are just passing through on our way to the kingdom of heaven. We are following the path God has set for us and the pathway is laid out by the Word of God, the Bible.

For example, if we want to know the way to heaven, we open the Bible and as God opens up our understanding, we know that on Sundays we are to be involved in spiritual activities and not be involved in the things of the world. If an elect person is a woman, she knows she is not to teach or usurp authority over a man. If an elect man is married, he knows he is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. If an elect person is a child, he or she knows to honor their parents. If an elect person is a worker, he knows he is to work heartily as to the Lord and not unto man. We learn what to do if we are a husband, a wife, a child, a coworker or even a neighbor. We are directed by God how to conduct ourselves and how our conversation is to be honest as we live among the Gentiles or the people of the world. We follow the Word of God, the Bible, as it leads us.

For a time, God’s people sojourned within the nation of Israel. Then the Word of God moved on and God ended His relationship with Israel, and then God’s people sojourned within the churches and congregations throughout the church age for 1,955 years. Then God ended His relationship with the corporate church, too, and He called His people to go out into the world and sojourn there. This is where we find ourselves now. We are sojourning spiritually out in the world and we have fellowship with God through His Word. We are fellowshipping with Him in our homes, whether it be in a house or in a tent in a makeshift village somewhere. It does not matter, because our dwelling place on this earth – whether it be a mansion, a house, or a tent – is temporal and it will soon give way for the heavenly kingdom that God has prepared for His people.

Let us go to Ephesians, chapter 2 before we move on in this study. It says in Ephesians 2:10-12:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

I wanted to read this because every person in the world is a “stranger.” There are two types of strangers, but everyone is a stranger. We can be a stranger to this world and a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Through salvation we are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Or, we can be aliens to the commonwealth of Israel. I like that term “commonwealth. Iheard it often in the state I grew up in, as it is often called “the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” It is that which has been incorporated as the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. When God uses this word regarding “the commonwealth of Israel,” He is not referring to the country in the Middle East. God is referring to spiritual Israel, the new Jerusalem or Jerusalem above. So, when we were “without Christ” in our unsaved condition, we were “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.”

Today, we speak of aliens as someone that is not a citizen of our country – they are aliens or strangers to our country.

After saying that we were “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,” He adds that we were also “strangers from the covenants of promise.” We had no relationship to God’s promises. We had no relationship to the Word of God that speaks of heaven and eternal life and which gives promises of living for evermore in the glorious Promised Land of the new heaven and new earth, where God will be with us forever and never leave us or forsake us. These are the covenants of promise, the promises of the Bible. When we were unsaved, we were a stranger to these covenants, as the Bible is the Book of the Testament and it is by the death of the testator that the heirs receive the promises. When we were children of wrath even as others in our unsaved condition and before God had applied the atoning work of Christ to our souls through the hearing of the Word, we were aliens and strangers to all these things.

We had the love of the world, so to speak. Can you look back and remember when you did as others did in the world? They saw no problem with you and you were not a “stranger” to them when you went out drinking or when you used illegal drugs and when you were smoking your second pack of cigarettes in a single day. When you were carousing around and doing all the things the world does (the lusts of the flesh), you were their “buddy.” You were their friend – you were one of them. But God is saying that at that time you were a stranger to Him. You were a stranger to His heavenly kingdom. You were a stranger to His Word and to the things it says. The majority of people in the world remain strangers to God. The have their comradery and fellowship with one another and the things of the world, as they all seek the sinful pleasures of this life. They lust after these things that they deem to be beneficial to them, and so forth. The world has its “city” and its temporal inheritance that you can be a part of, but if you love the things of the world, you are far off from God.

On the other hand, if God brings you near and brings you into His family by redeeming you and translating you out of that darkness, He has taken you from the “bars” and the “street corners” and the pursuits of the world on Friday and Saturday nights. He has translated you into the kingdom of His Dear Son and you are now a citizen of the “commonwealth of Israel.” And now you have the covenants of promise that the Word of God declares are yours – they belong to you. You are now due to receive the inheritance. You are the seed of Abraham. But you are a “stranger” to the people of the world.

Remember what it says in 1Peter. By the way, 1Peter is a good book for “strangers” to learn about ourselves and our spiritual condition and to contrast it with the people of the world. It says in 1Peter 4:1-5:

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.

You see, we have become “strange” to them. They think us strange: “How can you live without partying? How can you live without taking the edge off with some drinks? How can you celebrate and have fun when there is a championship game? Come on! We all get together and have fun!” No – that is not for the elect child of God. We have done these things in times past in our lives (to whatever degree) and we understand how that made us fit into the world and how no one thinks it strange when we engage in those activities.

We also understand that as we read the Bible, talk about the Bible and want to know more about the Bible on a daily basis, we are viewed as oddballs and we are viewed as crazy by the world. They think we are lunatics. Of course, it is really the other way around and God speaks of the “insanity” of the people of this world that are running around and chasing their own tails for a short time before they die. That is what it basically comes down to. God speaks of the “madness” of the hearts of men. If you doubt it, look around or read the newspaper or listen to the news. It is utter insanity and chaos in this world. That is why they must drink and do drugs to stop thinking about these things, as they medicate themselves with alcohol and drugs and whatever else they can find to ease the burden of living in this insane, chaotic world. There is no sanity to the way the world conducts itself, especially in light of the fact that we are all going to die. The Lord moved Solomon to write, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” Yes – everything in this life can be brought down to the level of vanity. It is all emptiness because you are going to die in just a short while.

For example, if you have cancer and your cancer has gone into remission, the doctor says, “I saved your life!” But for how long? Ten or twenty years? It is still a fact that you are going to die. It is a matter-of-fact reality in this world that there is no eternal life here. It all ends. So, this is what lies before every human being.

Of course, God has already settled this question. We may not know how it has been settled in our personal situations, but God has settled the matter whether we are saved or unsaved. And, yet, the question has always been, “Will you be a stranger to the world or will you be a stranger to God and His Word, the Bible?” God takes care of it by drawing certain people out of the world to Himself, so we ought not think that some strange thing has happened to us, as 1Peter later says, because we are no longer accepted by the world or loved by many family members, friends and neighbors. We no longer fit in like we used to do. Of course, we do not. It is like being a “square peg in a round hole.” It is like light and darkness – the two do not agree.

And, yet, that is fine because we do fit in with God. We do fit in with the kingdom of God. We do fit in with the promises of God. And there will come a time very shortly where the strange world around us will be removed. It will pass away and it will never be seen again, and all the unsaved inhabitants of this strange world will also be gone. God will place us in a “city” whose builder and maker is God and we will be among citizens of like mind that are all desirous to serve our heavenly King for evermore. We will have a home. We will have an enduring home that is worthy of the name. It will never be removed or taken away. We will have a continuing city that will last forever.

This is the reason the Bible focuses on the idea that the people of God are journeying and sojourning through this world.

We do not have time to get in to the other things I had planned for this study. But, Lord willing, in our next study we will move on to verse 2. We find that as Abraham is sojourning, he is saying that Sarah is his sister. This happened before in the land of Egypt when they came and took Sarah. And, again, Sarah is being taken and this time it is happening in the land of the Philistines. We wonder what is going on. At this point, Sarah was getting to be an old woman – she was almost 90. Of course, we cannot relate someone that is 90 today to someone that was 90 in that time. At that time, they lived to be much older and, perhaps, she appeared like a 50-year-old woman of our day. However, she still must have been beautiful, for the King of the Philistines to take her into his house. We wonder why this keeps happening? Why does Abraham keep saying she is his sister?

What is even odder, is that in Genesis, chapter 26, Isaac and Rebecca are dwelling in Gerar in the land of the Philistines, and Isaac also said that Rebecca was his sister. Then guess who mysteriously appears in that chapter? It is Abimelech, King of the Philistines. He shows up over 60 years later, and he notices that Isaac is sporting with Rebecca. We are not going to jump ahead, because we are going to get to that chapter, but we are going to try to see what is in view (as much as we can). This is very difficult language and a difficult idea that God is presenting, but we will try to understand it as best as we can.