Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #6 of Genesis, chapter 20. We are continuing to look at Genesis 20:3-7:

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 considering the typology or the figure God is developing of Abimelech, King of Gerar, as a type of Satan. Yes – it is a little difficult to see him as a type of Satan, as he said that he did this in the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands. But, keep in mind, these were not true statements of Abimelech as a man, were they? Did Abimelech possess integrity in his heart and innocency in his hands? No – because the Bible tells us the heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. A deceitful heart certainly does not possess integrity. Mankind is guilty of sinning against God, so there is no innocency in man’s hands because the hands represent the will, and man is corrupt and evil when it comes to the inclination of his will. So, this was true of the man, Abimelech, and it is true of all people, unless God had mercy upon them and granted them salvation.

You see, God is referring to a specific situation, which is concerning Sarah. The Lord is the one who was watching out for her. It says in Genesis 20:6:

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.

We saw this in our last study, but I want to read, again, what the Lord says concerning His elect and the threat of Satan, in 1John 5:18:

We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

The King of Gerar was a wicked man. In addition, he was a type and figure of the wicked one, Satan, but he did not touch Sarah. He said he did not come near her and God confirmed it: “Therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.” This is what we can understand, historically. However, spiritually, it points to the fact that Satan cannot eternally “touch” one of God’s elect, no matter how desperately he tried to do so. And, of course, he did. He had them burned at the stake. By stirring up wicked men and giving them ideas, many were thrown to the lions. By stirring up the minds of wicked men in this end-time generation, he perpetuates evil as they say, “It is such a good thing that a woman has control over her own body to decide to have an abortion.” It is just ugly sin when a baby is taken out of the womb and destroyed in that manner. Everything about it is filthy. It is filthiness in the spiritual realm – it is murder.

And, yet, even though Satan tried his best to destroy millions and millions of babies through abortion, it is a vain pursuit to (eternally) destroy the elect. What did Satan do about 2,000 years ago, when the Virgin Mary was about to give birth to the Lord Jesus? What did he put in to the mind of evil King Herod when Herod heard that a king had been born? Satan was working behind the scenes, but it was Herod’s sin and he got the idea to kill all the children that were two years old and under, since that was the timeframe he had learned from the wise men that came from the East. So, he murdered all the toddlers and little babies to try to destroy the “seed of Abraham,” who is Christ.

And, at the time of the end when God had completed His salvation program, Satan was still pursuing his evil ways by causing babies to be destroyed in the womb, in his vain and empty attempt to destroy even one of God’s elect. If he could only destroy one, it would mean that God had failed and had not done what He said He would do. And who knows what repercussions there would be in that scenario if Christ died for the sins of 200 million (let us say) and 199,999,999 of those elect became saved, but just one elect was destroyed by Satan before that individual was saved. That person died, but God had obligated Himself to save that person before he died, but that person died in his sins as a child of wrath even as others. You can see what a terrible situation that would create; it would mean that God was unjust in allowing that person to die because He had obligated Himself to save that person before death came.

Well, that was Satan’s hope as he went after the people of God, but Satan did not know which people God’s elect were, and he went about to destroy anyone he could destroy. It was just as we sent forth the Gospel so that all would hear the Word of God, because we did not know who the elect were that were scattered among the nations, so we shared the Gospel with everyone. On the other side of the coin, if you are the “anti-Christ” and in opposition to God’s salvation program, then you must try to destroy everyone. This is another reason why the world is so self-destructive, as it destroys itself with drinking, drugs, crimes, murders and abortions, and so forth. Man is killing himself and, of course, Satan was instigating these things to be done as he moved among those that are in submission to him as part of his kingdom of darkness.

And, yet, Satan was never successful in destroyed God’s elect in any eternal way – not one time. Christ protected His people and He would not allow that wicked one to touch them. For example, the elect baby that was aborted after eight weeks would have been saved in the womb prior to that. Perhaps, in the sixth week of her pregnancy, a friend of the mother came to visit and read a Bible verse. God used His Word to save the baby, but two weeks later the woman got an abortion. Or, there could have been an old man with a disease, but God would not allow him to die until the Gospel was finally brought to him. He heard the Word and God quickened His soul and then the old man died of his disease. It is just like the thief on the cross. That thief could not die in his sins as a thief. He could not die when he was caught robbing a man and the man pulled his sword and ran him through, because he was not yet saved. He was one of God’s elect and, therefore, God arranged the circumstances of when he would become saved, which was in the last hours of his life. That is how God protects His people. Salvation is the safety net that does not allow Satan to “touch” the eternal resting place of an individual, just as this King of Gerar could not “touch” Sarah.

Again, in verse 6 God is saying something very important, doctrinally, when He said, “I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.” God withheld this evil man who had an evil heart. Remember what we read back in Genesis 6 about the hearts of evil men. It says in Genesis 6:5:

And JEHOVAH saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

We read this verse and we read Jeremiah 17:9 where it says the heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. Then we read in Matthew where Christ speaks of that which comes out of heart – all manner of fornication, lusts, murder, and so forth. A long list of sins comes flowing out of the heart. We see this description of the heart of the unregenerate individual that is still in his sins, and we shake our heads and we wonder why the world was not worse than it was or why today’s world is not worse than it is (even though it is much worse than the world in past days). And that is another question: why is mankind so much more sinful today than in times past? But, as we read the Bible, man is not more sinful (in his heart) because God said that the heart of man was only evil continually seven thousand years ago in the days of Noah or about 2,600 years ago in the days of Jeremiah when it was said that man’s heart was desperately wicked. You see, nothing has changed. This is what the Bible calls “the mystery of iniquity.” How could the world function to the degree it did? How could people have a basic morality that was displayed through much of history?

How could this evil king Abimelech not touch Sarah and say, “in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this”? And God agreed with him. Even though God withheld him from sinning, God did credit him for not sinning against Him in that way. All these things are very curious and mysterious, but the Bible does explain to us why it is that the world was able to function while mankind that were still in their sins could show some basic morality and human kindness. Just look at recent history, even fifty or seventy years ago. It was like a different world. People were respectful. They spoke respectfully. They dressed respectfully. Going back fifty years, most of the women wore dresses and men wore suits and, yet, they were desperately wicked, too. But today, we do not see much respect. The language of man is awful. The ideas of man are horrible. We see it everywhere, in television, music and movies. The multiplication of the sinfulness coming out of the heart of man has grown to a proportion never seen in the history of the world.

And, yet, has man’s heart been multiplying sin? According to the Bible, the answer is, “No.” It is the same evil heart whose imaginations and thoughts were only evil continually, but something has changed today. The change is the degree to which God restrained sin in the past. God withheld Abimelech from sinning against Him. So, too, God has withheld many people from sinning against Him throughout the history of the world, until the time of the end. At the time of the hand, God’s hand of restraint has been lifted, and we are simply seeing the true condition of man’s heart in evidence all around us, but that evil heart had been there all along.

Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will look at God restraining the hearts of men and the lifting of that restraint in our time as an indicator that we are, indeed, at the end of the world.