But would you turn in your Bibles this morning to Genesis chapter 20. Genesis chapter 20 as we've been making our way through the book of Genesis and especially the last number of weeks we've been studying the life of Abraham. One of the things that we appreciate so much about these sorts of studies in the scriptures is that as we come to the life of a man like Abraham, who we recognize is a great hero of the faith in the New Testament. He's referred to as the father of faith and his faith is brought to our attention time and time again. But one of the things that's so encouraging to us is that as we study the life of Abraham, we realize that he was far from a perfect man. He had a lot of the same ups and downs, a lot of the same weaknesses and failures that we do as well. And many times if we were thinking about the way that a book might talk about a hero, a lot of times that hero's faults might be glossed over or forgotten about and just put the emphasis on the good things. But one of the things that we find in the Bible is that God is honest with us about the weaknesses of some of the greatest heroes of faith. Abraham, in particular, had some unique weaknesses. And we've already seen a point of failure in his life. Ironically, this morning, we're going to be looking at that same point of failure all over again. And it's interesting that this follows directly on the heels of the account about Abraham's great intercessory prayer, walking with God, interceding for the city of Sodom and for his nephew, Lot. Of course, God intervened in that situation to deliver Lot and his family before sending judgment upon the city of Sodom and the cities that surrounded. And Genesis chapter 20, where we'll begin reading in just a moment, is immediately following all of those circumstances. And at this point in Genesis chapter 20, Abraham has been walking with God, following the promises of God for something like 25 years at this point. So he's what we might refer to as a mature believer, as one who knows what it is to know the will of God. And you would think that when someone is that familiar with God and has been in fellowship with God knows what it is to be face-to-face with God, that at this point all fear of failure would be in the rearview mirror. No more failure. We can just be successful from here on, but that's not the way that it works. And in Genesis chapter 20, we come to this occasion in Abraham's life. In some ways, it's a shameful occasion, although that's not the main thing we'll emphasize this morning, because I believe there's great hope to be found in Genesis chapter 20 as well. So you direct your attention, if you would, to Genesis chapter 20, verse one. I'll read the entire chapter. You'll follow along with your eyes and pay attention to the text, reminding you this morning that what we're about to read is the word of God. What we're about to read are God's words to us, and this is the most significant part of the message, what's just about to take place. So please don't take a break of thinking and not paying attention for these next few moments, but really key in on the biblical text this morning. Genesis chapter 20, verse 1, 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. Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their ears. And the men were sore afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said unto him, what hast thou done unto us? And what have I offended thee that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? Thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, what sawest thou that thou hast done this thing? 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. And yet indeed, she is my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother. And she became my wife. And it came to pass when God caused me to wander from my father's house that I said unto her, this is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me. At every place whither we shall come, say of me, he is my brother. And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and men's servants, and women's servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said, behold, my land is before thee. Dwell where it pleaseth thee. And unto Sarah he said, behold, I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver. Behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes unto all that are with thee and with all other. Thus she was reproved. So Abraham prayed unto God and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants and they bear children. For the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. It's a puzzling passage. Puzzling because we don't expect a hero of the faith to behave in this manner. Especially we don't expect a hero of the faith to behave in this manner twice. When God has already dealt with him about this very area and God has shown him that he need not be deceitful. But what we find in this passage is first of all that there is the repetition of a failure. We find in the first two verses that as Abraham left the place where God had called him to and traveled to the south down to the area of Gerar, which is there along the coast and is found later in the New Testament as the territory or the land that belonged to the Philistines, And Abraham went down there. We don't know why he went to that area. The Bible doesn't give us any commentary. It doesn't explain to us his motivation. There are many surmisings about why Abraham might have gone to this place. It's not an explicit statement in the scripture, but there does seem to be an indication that in going to this area, Abraham had departed from the will of the Lord. That the Lord had not given him clear leadership to go to this area, and yet he went. And we realize and we recognize that it's possible for you and I in self-will to step out of the will of God. To begin pursuing after a purpose or a plan that is our own, but is not something that has been given to us by God. And we must be very cautious of this. Because inevitably we'll find ourselves in situations where we'll be compelled then to begin relying on the flesh, on our own strength to deal with the challenges that we may face in that place where God doesn't want us to be anyway in the first place. Be that as it may, Abraham went to this place. And then we find in verse two, that when they got to this place, once again, Abraham repeated something that happened before in Egypt. And he began to tell everyone about Sarah, his wife, she is my sister. She's my sister. And as we read in the text, that was partially true, but it was masking the real truth, which was that she is his wife. And he should not have been ashamed of the fact that Sarah was his wife. But I want to point out to you that the reason that he said this, he clearly says when asked about it in verse 11, that this was a response of fear. that he was looking at the circumstances, at the situation, and saying, I'm not certain if there are worshipers of God in this place, if there's people who fear God, and so I'm afraid, and therefore I need to protect myself by telling everyone that Sarah is my sister and not my wife. Now, just as a side note, I do want to point out to you that there must have been something quite remarkable about Sarah, that at 90 years of age, she would attract the attention of men by her physical beauty. And I'm not trying to be insulting, but we understand that age has an effect on our beauty, on our physical frame, and it tends to diminish that. And yet Sarah, at 90 years old, is still attractive enough that Abraham is concerned that someone might kill him to get his wife. She must have been quite an attractive woman. And in fact, when Abimelech heard about this, Abimelech said, as was common in that time, I want to add this woman to my harem. And he took Sarah to himself. Now back up to the response of Abraham and the fact that he was responding in fear. And I just want to point out to you a very important truth which comes out to us over and over again in the life of Abraham. And it's this truth that when you and I act in fear, we are not acting according to the will of God. It is never God's will for us to react in fear to the circumstances of life. We can certainly respect the things that might happen to us. We can have a healthy respect for the things that could befall us. But responding in fear, the New Testament tells us in 2 Timothy chapter one, that God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So we know that whenever we are reacting in fear, whenever we find ourselves having a response of anxiety and fear and worry, then there's something that's wrong. We're not responding according to the will of God in that situation. And along with that, let me point out to you that this seems to be a common malady of all people, but even the people of God. Because throughout the scriptures, not just in the life of Abraham, but throughout the scriptures, one of the most common admonishments, one of the most common commands to God's people is enshrined in the words, fear not. Over and over and over again, God's people are told, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, don't be afraid. Do you think that's because we have a tendency to be afraid? And here is Abraham, he comes into this place and he begins to start to think about what might happen, how things might play out, the circumstances that might befall him. and he says, you know, we've got to do something about this. He reacted in fear, and when he did, look at this, fear is set in opposition to faith. It is impossible for you and I to walk by faith and obey God when we are reacting in fear. You can't have both. Those two are so diametrically opposed to each other that they cannot coexist. So when we are reacting in fear, we always know that there's something at the root that is wrong in our relationship with God. We're not walking by faith in the promises of God. Abraham in verse 12 and 13 explained to Abimelech that the lie that he and Sarah told was a rationalization that they had worked out many years before. This was gonna be their explanation to preserve his life, which I can't even imagine how that conversation originally looked between Abraham and Sarah, but evidently it had become so familiar to them, this rationalization, that it was quite easy for Abraham and Sarah both to slip back into this way of dealing with this frightening situation. Oh, it's so much easier just to handle this the way that we always have. And as we're speaking about failure, I want to remind you that all of us as God's people have certain habits and customs and ways of thinking that are, before Christ, quite familiar to us. Quite comfortable. They're things that we learn from the time we were so big. And they become so easy to resort to that when we're not being careful to walk in the Spirit and walk in faith, we find ourselves easily resorting back to those habits. This is exactly what happened in Abraham's life. He knew better. He should not have told this lie. This should not have happened, but Abraham was not in a place where he was evidently walking with God very closely. Which is shocking to us, because just a short time before, he's in the close, intimate fellowship with God, and you think, well, if he was fellowshipping with God so closely before, then how could he fall out of fellowship with God? It's amazing, isn't it, how that happens? How we can be walking so close with the Lord one day, and the very next day, it's as if the Lord is so far from us. And that's exactly what happened in Abraham's life. The hymn writer put it this way. Prone to wonder, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. And the hymn writer went on to talk about how he wanted God to seal his heart, to pull him close in fellowship because he recognized his tendency to stray from the path that God has prescribed for him. We all have this same struggle in our life. If you're here this morning sensing this idea, you know, Pastor, I fail, and I fail, and I fail, and it seems like many times I fail in the same way. I fail in the same areas. It seems like I slip back sometimes into things that I know better. I know I ought not to be doing that. Yes, we find this in the scripture. We find this in Abraham's life. failure is something that was a reality to him and even repeated failure. And this morning we need to understand that this is something that you and I will often deal with. And so as we are living our life, of course this is not the will of God. But this is the weakness of our flesh. This is the reality that we're dealing with. And so we find that Abraham failed. Now, we could say this morning, that's the main theme of Genesis chapter 20. And actually, as I was beginning to study Genesis 20, I was approaching it with that thought. The main theme is Abraham is a failure. Abraham's a failure. Look, he failed again. And it's there. It's true. We can't deny it. But you know, the more I studied Genesis chapter 20, the more I became convinced that is not the main theme of Genesis chapter 20. Abraham's failure is not the thing that God is saying, I want you to focus on this. In fact, throughout the chapter, there's just a couple of mentions of Abraham's failure. Yes, it's in the background. Yes, it's the thing that is bringing about all the rest of Genesis chapter 20, but that is not the thing God wants us to focus on. Which leads us to the second thought this morning here in Genesis chapter 20, and that is the restraint of the Lord. Because though Abraham failed, and we could say, this is gonna be a disaster. I mean, bear in mind this morning, there's a lot at stake in Genesis chapter 20. Sarah, in Genesis chapter 20, is currently expecting a child. That child is the child that God promised to Abraham 25 years before. This is the child they've been waiting for all this time. Clearly Abraham is not thinking spiritually. He's not viewing the situation through the lens of God's ability and God's promise. Sarah is carrying the child of promise, and at this point, everything is at risk. Everything. When Abimelech says, I want her to be my wife, and Abraham had lied and said that she's his sister, and this opens the door. Now all of a sudden, Sarah is absorbed into the harem of this foreign king, and Abraham must be sitting in his tent thinking, now what? By the way, same song, second verse. Now what? Again. I can't believe I did this again. I can't believe I made this same mistake again. And by the way, when you resort to the works of the flesh, it's always gonna work out the same way. Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results this time has been coined insanity. thinking that somehow it's gonna work out if you just keep doing it this way and it's gonna be different this time. It's never gonna be that way. And so Abraham realizes, okay, this is serious, but at this point, what is he gonna do? But what's interesting in the passage in verses three through seven is that Abraham in this case did not need to do anything because God intervened directly in the situation. Now God doesn't always have to do this, but it is wonderful to know that our Heavenly Father is often in the business of restraining us from sin, from withholding from us the potential to do the thing that we think we want to do because He realizes that it will end in disaster. Can you look back in your life and find times where God restrained you from something that you thought you wanted? And now with the benefit of hindsight and looking back, you realize, if I had actually gotten what I wanted, that would have been the worst disaster possible. And maybe at the time you were even frustrated that God restrained you, but that was the goodness of God restraining you from getting what you wanted. Praise God. There are times when God doesn't give us what we want. And here in this situation, God intervenes directly in the situation. The Bible says in our text that Abimelech had a dream. And God appeared directly to Abimelech. And God doesn't mince any words in verse 3. He says in this dream to Abimelech, who's a very powerful man, Abimelech, you better leave your hands off Sarah. If you touch her, you're dead. That's a dream. Boy, that would get your attention. And evidently in this dream, Abimelech is conversing with God about the whole situation. But the thing that stands out to me is that even though Abraham had failed, even though Abraham had resorted to the flesh, even though Abraham had told a lie, God still intervened in this situation to stop it. To keep this from going any further, why? Because Abraham is God's man. And God is going to care for his own. What a wonderful consolation to us this morning that while we may fail, God always remains faithful. Even though you and I are never going to be perfect, at least in this life, we can have the consolation that our God is perfect and our God is able to intervene in our lives. Do you know when God was talking to Abimelech about Abraham, did you pick up on this in the text? God spoke to him and he referred to Abraham as a prophet. He said, Abraham is a prophet. Now, you know, at this time Abimelech is not that impressed with Abraham because he's thinking, this guy lied to me. This guy put me in a very difficult situation. But God is saying to Abimelech, Abimelech, Abraham is a prophet. Abraham is my man. By the way, Abimelech, you need to ask Abraham to pray for you. Wow. Wow. You know, the irony of this is You and I, looking at Genesis chapter 20, we're thinking Abraham is nothing to be impressed with here. Abraham is a sorry excuse for a Christian. Abraham, you shouldn't be living this way. You shouldn't be doing this. This is not how a believer should be behaving. Do you all agree with that? And yet, what does God say about him? He's my man. He's a prophet. He's a man of God, Abimelech. You see, there's something about God that he sees us as we are in Christ Jesus. He sees us in the light of the declaration of justification of righteousness which he has made about us. You and I so often see ourselves in terms of our performance. but the Lord sees us in terms of who we are in Christ. And if we can adjust our thinking, not that we should ever get proud or that we should have a big head about who we are. You see, that's why it's important to say who we are in Christ. Yes, by ourselves, left to ourselves, we are failures, left to ourselves, we do make a mess, but in Christ, God has made a declaration about us In fact, in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 13, the scripture says, but now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. And it's amazing to me in Genesis chapter 20 to think about the way that God protects his children and the way that God works to get his children back on the right path. Is Abraham where he's supposed to be? No. Is Abraham doing what he's supposed to do? No. But God is going to go to work now to intervene in this situation, to get Abraham back to the place where he needs to be so that God can fulfill his promises. Have you ever seen God do this in your life? Boy, I look back on my life, and I see times where there are situations, and I see it so clearly now, where God stepped in, and He stopped something from happening, or He changed the circumstances, and He removed any possibility of me making a mess out of my life. He was gracious to me. Now, left to myself, left without the strength of God, left without His guidance and His Holy Spirit within me, I might have made different choices. But God intervened in that situation and he spared me from great difficulty and from things that could have changed the direction of my life. I think all of us could see this if we look back and we see God's goodness in our life. And that's really what Genesis chapter 20 is all about is the fact that God is able to restrain. God is able to work in our life to keep us from things that would cause disaster and difficulty. If you've experienced the restraint of the Lord in your life, this morning you ought to breathe a prayer towards heaven and say, thank you God. Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for keeping me from the thing that I thought I wanted. Thank you for restraining in my life and being gracious and merciful to me. Incidentally, it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. And his goodness is seen in many different ways. So the Lord restrained here. He intervened in this situation. He stopped this from going any farther. And then that leads us to verse number eight, because when Abimelech woke up in the morning, he was pretty upset. Because he realized this is a serious situation and verse 8 tells us that he got up early in the morning. He must not have slept too well after that dream. He gathered all of his servants together and he told all of these things in their ears and the men were sore afraid. Now I do want to point out to you that At this point, everybody that is gathered around Abimelech is going to know about Abraham's failure. Everybody is going to know that Abraham made the wrong choice. And while God is gracious and He's good and He restrains us There's also the reality that our reputation can be affected by the choices that we make, by the times that we fail, by the times that we slip up. And you say, if to you the most important thing is your reputation and what people think about you, you're gonna live a tortured life, because you are gonna fail. There's gonna be times when you're gonna do things that are not exactly what God wanted you to do, and people are gonna find out about it. You're not gonna be able to hide the failures that are there, and people are gonna have an opinion. Incidentally, we don't like people to have an opinion towards us, but we always have an opinion towards other people. Oh, that person shouldn't have done that. Oh, I wouldn't have done that. Oh, but when it's our turn, Nobody should even know about this. Nobody should talk about it. Nobody should have an opinion. Isn't that interesting how it works out that way? Well, Abraham or Abimelech's servants knew all about Abraham. And then Abimelech called Abraham. He said, Abraham, I need to talk to you. And when Abraham came before him in verse nine, he said, what has thou done unto us? How have I offended you that you've brought on me this great sin? This could have been a great tragedy. This could have been something that would have caused a great calamity in our kingdom. And here is Abimelech rebuking Abraham for what he had done. This is the same thing that happened in Egypt with Pharaoh, isn't it? and how humbling it is for you and I as the children of God when people who don't even know the Lord are used by the Lord to communicate that we have sinned, that we have done wrong. Has this ever happened to you? Where an unbeliever said something to you like, I didn't think Christians talk that way. I didn't think that Christians did those things. I'm surprised you're here. I thought you were a Christian, like a knife to the heart. And you might in that moment react and say, who do you think you are to judge what a Christian should and shouldn't be doing? You might just put your spiritual antennas up and say, if a lost person knows better, maybe I ought to know better. So here is Abraham in this uncomfortable position, and obviously he's being rebuked. And of course in this case, Abraham's sin didn't just have an effect on himself. which is a good reminder to you and I. Sometimes we think, well, I can choose whatever I want. I can do the things that I want to do. I can live however I want. Just bear in mind that your decisions have an effect on all the people that are around you. So when you make a decision to do something, you say, well, it's my right to do whatever I want, to live however I want. Just bear in mind that other people are going to bear the consequences of your decision. Abraham made a very foolish decision. This could have caused not only calamity for himself and Sarah and all of those who were gathered around him, but also for Abimelech, for the entire kingdom that was here. And yet, what we see, this rebuke of the believer was all part of God's correction in Abraham's life. And this is the follow-up to that idea that God intervened in Abraham's life and he stopped this from taking place, but God also intervened to correct Abraham. One of the great principles that we find in the New Testament in Hebrews, the book of Hebrews chapter 12, is that those who belong to the Lord will experience the correction or the chastening of the Lord. God deals with us like he deals with a son. This is an important principle, right? You know, as I go about in society and culture, I might be at the store. In fact, I was at the store not that long ago, and I saw a little boy who was giving his mom a hard time. And she was really, I mean, he was giving her a run for her money. She was having a difficult time with him. And there's a part of me as a dad that wanted to just walk over there and say, can I speak a word? Can I say something? You need any help? But then I also realized this is not my child. This is not my place. So I need to step away from that. This is not, however, if that was my child, This is not only my place, but this is my responsibility. And so as dad, if this is my child, I need to step into that. I need to speak into that situation. I need to bring some correction. I need to bring some training to that situation because as a dad, that's my responsibility and I love my children enough to correct them. I've told my children on more than one occasion, I love you too much to let you get away with this. I love you too much to behave in this way, because I know if I let you keep behaving this way, it's going to create patterns in your life which will bring you to destruction. I love you as your dad, that's why I correct you. The same is true of us as God's children. If you are God's child, he loves you and he is going to correct you. This is one of the marks of sonship. If you're a child of God, God doesn't just let you live however you wanna live. He doesn't let you just get away with whatever you wanna get away with. He's gonna intervene in your life and he's going to correct you. And many times that correction will be quite uncomfortable. There's not a one of us that particularly enjoy correction, but the truth is we need it. We need correction. I remember when I was a child, I never enjoyed being corrected by my dad or my mom. I never particularly thought, boy, I hope I get in trouble for this. But with the perspective of time, as I look back now, I am so very grateful that I was raised in a home with parents who loved me enough to correct me, to say, no, you're not gonna behave that way. No, that is not acceptable. No, we will not tolerate that behavior. I am a better person for that correction, and I recognize that it was given in love, even though at the time, I may not have particularly enjoyed it." And the scriptures speak about this very thing. No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but afterward it worketh the peaceable fruit of righteousness. When we're being corrected by God, when God is administering correction in our life, we think, why are you doing this to me, God? This is unpleasant. I don't like this. But God has a good purpose. And that is in full view in Genesis chapter 20 because God has a good purpose for Abraham. God has a good purpose for Sarah. But in order to get them there, there needs to be some correction take place. Now, if you're here this morning and you think, well, I'm a child of God who has grown to the point of maturity where I no longer need correction. Oh, is that so? My friend, you've not reached your destination yet. You're not yet in heaven. You've not yet come to the fullness of the image of Christ. So I suggest that if you're a child of God, it's very likely that you're going to continue receiving the correction of the Lord in your life. And you ought to develop the habit of thanking God for it. Because God is in the business of restoring his children through correction. So there's a rebuke. Praise God, God restrained Abraham and Sarah so he stopped the situation. He allowed a rebuke to be administered so that there would be a lesson that would be learned and incidentally Sarah was part of this as well. Did you pick up on that in the text that when Abimelech spoke to her She was corrected. She was reproved. That's the word that's used in verse 16. God used an unbeliever to speak into Sarah's life to point out to her that she should never have cooperated with the scheme that Abraham had. But then the thing that is remarkable to me that actually is almost difficult from a human standpoint, from a human perspective, very difficult to understand and explain, is that in this passage, not only is Abraham restrained and rebuked, but he is fully restored. And what's amazing is that in Genesis chapter 20, Abraham comes away from this experience with even more wealth. There's even more that is given to him. There's more blessing that is coming his way. Verse 14. And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, men's servants and women's servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife." Not only did he give Sarah back, but he gave to Abraham all of these riches, all of these things which were very valuable. Now Abraham was already a wealthy man. Abraham was already greatly blessed by God. But God used this situation where Abraham went astray and God restored him through correction to bring even more blessing in Abraham's life. And the only explanation I have for that is only God could do that. Only God can take the mess that we make, the foolish decisions that we make, and add blessing upon blessing in that situation. So you might be here this morning thinking, you know, pastor, I've really done some, I've really failed, I've really made some bad decisions, I've really walked some bad paths and I see that. Isn't it incredible that God can take that and he can add his great blessing in your life? to the degree that that experience, which is completely because of your willfulness, because of your sin against God, where the result of that is that God brings great blessing in your life. And you can look back on that and not say, oh, I'm really glad I did that, because you'll always have that regret. But you can say, I'm really glad that in the midst of that, God was both merciful and gracious. Merciful meaning he didn't judge me when I deserved it or in the way that I deserved it, and gracious meaning he piled benefit upon benefit when I absolutely didn't deserve any benefits at all. Isn't it incredible how good God is? Listen, this is what I'm trying to communicate here in Genesis chapter 20. Often our attention is drawn to the failure of Abraham, and certainly it's there in Genesis 20, but the real focus of Genesis 20 is the goodness of God. It is God's ability to restore, God's ability to prevent us from pursuing after a path that we may want to go after, God's ability to correct, and God's ability to bring us back to the place where we need to be. Yes, it's true that our hearts often want to wander, but it's also true that God is greater than our heart. God is greater than our desires and God has an intention which He intends to carry out in our lives. Do you know the irony in verse 17 is Abraham was asked to pray for Abimelech. There was evidently some judgment that had come upon Abimelech and his harem, his servants that were around him. And God had told Abimelech, you have Abraham pray for you. And so Abimelech humbled himself and he said, evidently, I need you to pray for me to lift this judgment off of me and my kingdom. And so Abraham prayed for him. And the result is in verse number 18, that now blessing comes upon Abimelech and his because of the prayers of Abraham. Think how powerful that is. Do you think, is this because Abraham is such a great man and therefore his prayers are so powerful? I think not. I don't think the emphasis here is on the greatness of Abraham. I think the emphasis is on the greatness of God. The ability of God to restore his servant, and then, as God's purpose always is, to bring his servant to a place where not only is he blessed, but he becomes a blessing to others who are around him. This is God's intention. God wants to give us his blessing, and God wants us to bless others. And the thought that should captivate us this morning from Genesis chapter 20 is that you and I, though we may fail, Though we may struggle, though in this earthly journey we may make some wrong decisions, we may go some wrong directions, yet God is able to correct, God is able to restore, God is able to put us back on the right path, and God is able to add blessing upon blessing when we deserve absolutely nothing. All praise and all glory ought to go to God. The emphasis overwhelmingly in the life of Abraham is that all the praise and all the glory ought to go to God.