Twenty-Three Years of the Same Lie: God’s Promises for Battling Habitual Sin

Whenever we come across the well-known Bible story of Abraham allowing Sarah to be taken as a wife by Abimelech in Genesis 20, I expect most of us are shocked primarily by the fact that this is the second time Abraham got himself and Sarah into trouble by lying about her being merely his sister. But in this essay, I want us to be shocked at something even more alarming in this story. We learn that Abraham and Sarah, at Abraham’s request, have been practicing this lie “at every place” they came to in their sojourns since leaving Ur of the Chaldeans (verse 13). The entire time they have been following God. For twenty-three years! They were only caught in it twice that we know of: the first time, when Pharaoh took Sarah into his harem; the second time, here, when Abimelech does the same. Of course, there might have been other times they got caught, but at least this much we know: for twenty-three years—out of fear, for self-protection and self-preservation, chasing safety and security—these two had been lying about their relationship. For twenty-three years, Abraham and Sarah have practiced this sin over and over and over again. They were stuck in habitual sin.

I suspect all of us struggle with a particular sin (or sin area) that tends to maintain its grip on us. Sometimes we experience victory over it; sometimes we experience long seasons where it seems we have finally mastered it. And then, seemingly out of the blue, it rears its ugly head all over again: bringing us under its thumb, beating us down, leaving us full of guilt and shame once more. Maybe it’s your sharp tongue or critical attitude; maybe it’s a fear you nurture—a worry or doubt. For some of us, it’s our broken ways of relating to others: manipulating or complaining or our passive-aggressiveness. For others, it’s gambling, pornography, or some other addiction. Nevertheless, we all have that sin or those sins that we just can’t seem to finally put to death and rid ourselves of them.

The story of God’s constant faithfulness to Abraham and Sarah can help us. In this final attempt at their decades-old deception, we, along with them, get help from God’s word for battling our own habitual sins. In addition to wanting us to be shocked by Abraham’s and Sarah’s habitual sin, I want us to be encouraged by how God deals with them, and therefore with us. In Genesis 20, we find three promises we can draw from God’s words and actions that will help us put to death—at least a little bit more, for a little bit longer—that sin which so easily besets us.

God Will Preserve Us Despite Our Sin

Genesis 20 opens with Abraham moving south. The Bible doesn’t tell us why, but perhaps he’s putting more space between his family and the valley where Sodom, Gomorrah, and the other cities had just been destroyed. As he moves south, Abraham passes through Gerar, where the king of the city takes Sarah for himself. This shouldn’t be surprising: a wealthy prince passing through his land gave Abimelech an opportunity to connect himself to Abraham (and to Abraham’s wealth) through a marriage treaty with his “sister.” Unlike Abimelech, however, we as readers know this marriage is based on shamefully false pretenses. Accordingly, God inflicts some sort of plague on Abimelech and his people: none of the women connected with Abimelech can have children, and Abimelech himself suffers something that seems likely to kill him. God then appears to Abimelech in a dream to explain the plague. He tells Abimelech, “You are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife” (Gen. 20:3).

Abimelech defends himself to the Lord, explaining that he acted in ignorance. He describes himself as acting with “integrity” and with “the innocence of my hands,” to which the Lord agrees. Then, the Lord goes further and explains, verse six, “it was I who kept you from sinning against me.” God tells Abimelech, I preserved you; I kept you from sinning; I did not let you touch Sarah. God not only preserved Abimelech, who acted in his ignorance; he also preserved Sarah who was complicit once again in this wicked ruse.

I think we all experience a particular kind of functional distortion in our faith that goes something like this: “I don’t do anything to gain salvation—it’s a free gift from God!—but now it’s up to me to keep that salvation and to grow in it. Jesus saves, but the rest is up to me.” Of course, most of us would deny this statement outright—yet our lives often look like we believe it to be true. Most of us spend our lives acting as though it’s all up to me: my spiritual growth depends on me; growing my prayer life depends on me; my victory over sin depends on me.

It’s certainly true God calls us to effort: “make every effort,” the apostle Peter writes; “put off and put on,” the apostle Paul writes; “take up your cross,” our Lord Jesus says (2 Pet. 1:5–9; Col. 3:1–17; Matt. 16:24–26). Nevertheless, the Bible is equally clear that our growth in Christ depends on the working of God within us by his Holy Spirit. For example, that same passage where the apostle Paul tells us to put off the old self and to put on Christ begins with Paul rooting our work in our union with Christ: “If you have been raised with Christ…you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ” (Col. 3:1–2). Even more clearly, in Galatians, Paul goes so far as to say, in effect, “I don’t even live my own life anymore; it’s Jesus in me!” (Gal. 2:20). This “Jesus-in-me” life leads to the well-known description of the fruits of such a life in Galatians 5. Notice that love, joy, peace, patience, etc. are not the fruit of the apostle Paul’s efforts; they are the fruit of the Spirit’s powerful grace. The Holy Spirit brings about the fruit of Christ in us. It’s God working. It’s the labor of the Spirit of Christ within us. This is the preserving work of God, who works in his people to produce the fruit of the Spirit of Christ.

Our battle against sin—any sin, but especially habitual sin—must begin with prayerful dependence on God’s work for us and in us. Our fight with sin depends on our clinging to Jesus and crying out desperately for the help of the Holy Spirit. God keeps Abimelech from sin, God preserves Sarah in her sin, and God alone can keep you and me from letting sin rule over us. Putting to death our habitual sin depends on God’s own preserving power, which is ours in Christ Jesus, because he has sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts. In your struggle against habitual sin, rely on that preserving Spirit.

God Will Confront Us with Our Sin

Remember that Abraham has been caught in this lie before (Gen. 12:10–20). What a horrible and cowardly thing—to betray your wife into another man’s arms for your own self-protection! It’s hard to imagine, but this time with Abimelech is actually worse than the previously recorded episode with Pharoah in Egypt. In Genesis 19, the Lord with two of his angels comes to Abraham and Sarah to tell them that Sarah will have a son by the time the Lord returns at this same time the next year. This means Sarah is likely already pregnant—or will be very, very soon—by the time we get to Genesis 20. Accordingly, Abimelech taking Sarah into his harem risks bringing into question the paternity of Isaac. God’s promise was that Abraham and Sarah would have a child, and through that child, God would bless all nations on earth. But if Abimelech sleeps with Sarah, who then is the father of the baby? There were no paternity tests back then! Abraham risks the reputation of God, God’s promise, and this soon to be born child through whom God’s promises are supposed to endure.

We can see, then, how habitual sin doesn’t just continue, but escalates, even as we become more and more insensitive to it. The sin grows, and the consequences of our sin grow, as we continue to fall back into it over and over. Yet the more we practice it, the more it dulls our conscience and quiets the Spirit’s conviction within us, even as our sin’s destructive results keep escalating. That’s why God in his grace and love for Abraham confronts his sin: to keep it and its destruction from escalating unchecked.

God confronts Abraham through Abimelech. Abimelech gathers his people together in verse eight; this confrontation with Abraham will be public. That’s for God’s people’s sake. Remember, the parentage of Isaac is in question, so we need public affirmation that Abimelech really did not sleep with Sarah. This is part of God’s preservation of his promise and his people. At this public trial, then, Abimelech confronts Abraham through a series of questions: What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you? What did you see that you treated us this way?

Abraham—as most of us do when confronted with our failures, mistakes, and especially when confronted about habitual sin—looks for ways to excuse himself. He rationalizes his behavior, attempts to justify, makes excuses. Even worse, he blames God—just like Adam in the garden: “When God dragged me out of my homeland,” Abraham says in effect, “when he made us wander around, we had to find some way to protect ourselves.” We really don’t like being confronted with besetting sin, do we?

But this confrontation is actually grace from God. Being confronted about our sin—whether through the Holy Spirit’s work in our heart, through a friend who loves us enough to challenge us, or through the God-given spiritual oversight of our local church elders—such confrontations are a gift of grace from our God. Here are three specific benefits we see from God’s confrontation of Abraham and Sarah (and us):

It saves us from death. Sin always leads to death. Maybe not initially but always eventually (James 1:14–15).Of course, sin can lead to physical death when we put ourselves in harm’s way or risk the safety of others. Sin leads to relational death when our sin kills friendship and marriages or destroys families. Sin causes emotional death when we hold on to bitterness and resentment because we refuse to forgive. We can see that path toward death in Genesis 20 where Abraham’s lie threatens the lives of Sarah, Isaac, Abimelech, and the entire town. Being confronted with our habitual sin saves us from death by calling us away from the path which leads to death.

It grows our love for Jesus. The more we understand our own sinfulness, the bigger God’s grace grows in our estimation. The more we see our own sin, the more we marvel and wonder at God’s mercy to us in Jesus Christ. Confronting our habitual sin, then, helps us understand how serious that sin really is. Each time we sin and repent, realizing how serious our sin is, the more we grow in seeing how truly amazing God’s grace is. And that increases our trust in and love for Jesus.

It leads to life. God made us and knows what makes us thrive. We flourish in life when we live according to God’s word, God’s ways, and God’s design, which lead to peace and anticipation rather than fear and anxiety. Confronting sin in our lives calls us back to the Lord, which ultimately leads us to experience more of the life for which we were made, and which anticipates that eternal life yet to come.

If we want to increasingly put an end to habitual sin, it must be confronted. Commit yourself to reading the Bible and praying daily. The Bible teaches us God’s ways and design, and it also functions as a mirror exposing sin in our lives and driving us once again to the good news of God’s saving grace. Commit yourself to weekly corporate worship, especially in a church that takes time each week during the service to confess sin together as a people and receive assurance of forgiveness in Jesus. And commit yourself to godly friends who will speak truth to you, pray for you, and in whom you can confide your struggle with that particular sin.

God Will Restore Us from Our Sin

The apparent disaster of Genesis 20 is actually a redemption story. In fact, it ends with several restorations. After Abimelech confronts Abraham, Abimelech pays for Abraham’s restitution! Wait a minute, we say: didn’t Abimelech act in ignorance? Yes, but ignorance of sin doesn’t let anyone off the hook entirely. Abimelech is still implicated and liable for his actions. Part of his restitution serves as restoration, particularly for the reputation of God’s unborn heir. The parentage of Isaac is affirmed through Abimelech’s and Sarah’s testimony, sealed with the gift in verse 16. Additional restorations follow: Sarah’s reputation alongside of Isaac’s paternity; Abimelech is healed, along with the women of the city. However, the primary restoration I want to examine is Abraham’s.

Notice the reversal in verse 17. Abraham’s restitution came through Abimelech, but Abimelech’s healing—as well as the healing of all the women connected to him—comes through Abraham. Abraham prays, and God heals, and that’s that. All is restored. The next thing we hear, at the beginning of chapter 21, is that “the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised” and she gives birth to Isaac, the son of laughter.

Do we realize what this means? God really does not count our sins against us—even our habitual sins! So effective is Jesus Christ’s death that our guilt is totally and completely removed from us. So effective is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we are counted righteous, even as righteous as Jesus Christ himself.

We see a wonderful hint of this gospel assurance of restoration in Genesis 20. So sure is Abraham’s forgiveness that God tells Abimelech—before Abraham is confronted with his sin!—he will be healed through the prayers of Abraham. Abraham has not repented yet. Sarah is still with Abimelech. They are both still in the midst of their twenty-three-year-old lie. And yet, so certain is Abraham’s forgiveness in Christ that God speaks of using Abraham in the future and even calls him a prophet. God calls him a prophet while Abraham is still living in the midst of his habitual sin! That’s the mercy, grace, and restoration that we have in Jesus Christ.

Of course, our already forgiven status in Jesus is not an excuse to indulge or be complacent in sin, habitual or otherwise. “I’m already forgiven, so I might as well…”—such an attitude simply shows we don’t yet grasp God or his grace, and presuming on his grace simply results in greater judgment. On the contrary, God’s mercy and grace to us in Jesus drives us further away from our sin. Full forgiveness and assurance of restoration serves as motivation to put our sin to death. If God so treats me with mercy, grace, forgiveness, and restoration, I will want to do everything I can to live according to his ways. I will want to thank him, please him, show him how much I love him.

You and I will probably fail again in our battles with habitual sin. But God will continue to preserve, confront, and restore us. Christ already died and paid for your sins and mine. All of them, each and every time. And Christ has already accomplished our certain victory. This complete forgiveness, full restoration, and certain victory gives us the strength and courage to keep fighting. As with Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, the Lord will do to us just as he has promised.