David Guzik continues in his study of the book of Hebrews. In chapter 11 we look at faith, which is the fundament and substance of the believer's life
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 4:07 pm
edited
I've been deliberating on whether or not to shine a light on something(s). Ultimately, if the tables were turned, and I were the one unfamiliar with the subject being presented to me, I'd like ample warning of danger so I avoid straying from what's sound to Scriptural fact. So, after deliberating, I decided to share because my conscience would not and could not rest if I kept my mouth shut...
What's true and the main point of his talk: it is true that God may not reveal all the consequences of stepping out in faith/in trust of something He revealed to you. But (and) to trust what He reveals is a reasonable and rational reaction/response based on His proven track record, His word / revelation has already proven reliable.
However, some of the things Guzik said here and there are demonic leaven (demonic teaching) and a sinful way of speaking that has wormed its way in to his talk and the way he thinks (I detected three):
[1] He said Noah didn’t know what rain was. That is a subtle lie.
As soon as Adam and Eve started working the ground, humanity knew what rain was (and there was rain as soon as a plant had sprung up).
Genesis 2:5 New International Version
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground,
Humanity knew what rain was since Adam and Eve. Before Noah.
You may think this is negligible, but it undermines the teacher's reliability to teach the truth. It made me—a believer reconciled to God already—not want to continue listening at all. And I'm already reconciled to YHWH, in trusting relationship with Him. How much more would an atheist who doesn't trust the text, mentally shut off and stop listening? Many of whom are more familiar with the texts than most believers who don't read it.
If he cannot be trusted with simple facts like these, his inferences cannot be reliable either—like the latter two things I detected...which are much more difficult to detect because they require high familiarity with a concept and thus affecting your mastery over it and ability to infer the opposite statement from what is spoken...
[2] Humans should not go out into the heavens out there on their own to explore anything...if He didn’t snatch you up (in body or in Spirit).
The concepts to know: the safe way, with God's actual permission, that you're allowed to see things beyond earth + the concept of how certain angels didn't keep their proper habitation (the opposite is true for humans; we were made to inhabit earth, not other planets, other orbiting bodies. I question whether we should even be entering our immediate heavens/our own atmosphere—let alone beyond our immediate skies into the black darkness that is space that our bodies were not made to handle entering on its own, hint that we shouldn't go there/dwell there, but we invent ways of doing evil).
2 Corinthians 12:2-4 New International Version
2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3 And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4 was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.
Ezekiel 1:1 New International Version
1 In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
Ezekiel 3:14-15 New International Version
14 The Spirit then lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the Lord on me. 15 I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Aviv near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days—deeply distressed.
Whether in body or in vision, it's the Holy Spirit of God showing you something, not mere humans deciding to just up and go somewhere (whether physically or trying to induce out-of-body experiences, or putting themselves into a a drug-induced trance, forcing themselves to see things they're not allowed instead of the Spirit of God snatching them up or showing them something in spirit/vision).
Which brings me to a subset of this point (that also relates to receiving spiritual direction and seeing/knowing information outside the abilities of their own body and God's Spirit upon it)...
Satan (and other deceiving spirits), sometimes even sent by YHWH Himself, can show you visions too.
Luke 4:5 New International Version
5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
1 Kings 22:19-24 New International Version
19 Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’
“One suggested this, and another that. 21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’
22 “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked.
“‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.
“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’
23 “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.”
24 Then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah went up and slapped Micaiah in the face. “Which way did the spirit from[a] the Lord go when he went from me to speak to you?” he asked.
So, two things: you have to test the spirits to see if [1] it's even the Holy Spirit (in contrast to Satan and his angels, the vessels of deception) telling you to do something, and [2] even when it's YHWH—and not Satan/a deceiving spirit/one of Satan's angels, but YHWH Himself or YHWH sending them on purpose—He may be testing you and want you to say "no" / reject information in certain cases (if it actually violates/nullifies a Command of His, He expects you to say no/reject)...
Note: keep in mind that Ahab, who is mentioned in the above King's passage, was an idolater, didn't care for the true voice of YHWH (hence why he had Micaiah in prison)...nor cared for His Commands (hence having idols and tolerating prophets of Baal)...
Deuteronomy 13:1-4 New International Version
13 [a]If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.
Galatians 1:8-9 New International Version
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
1 John 4:1 New International Version
4 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
It is also possible for someone who formerly spoke the truth to us faithfully to have their mind/heart and mouth taken captive/kidnapped by Satan (hence Paul saying, “even if we”) in Galatians. And just like Peter who, after correctly identifying Jesus as the Son of God, got rebuked by Jesus later for being a little Satan in the mouth as documented in Matthew 16 (comparing verse 16 to 23).
Matthew 16:16-17 New International Version
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
Matthew 16:21-23 New International Version
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
So test everything to what the Word of God says.
Acts 17:11 New International Version
11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
The concept of proper habitation inferred from:
Jude 1:6 New International Version
6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.
Mark 5:1-13 New International Version
5 They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.[a] 2 When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. 3 This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. 4 For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. 7 He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!” 8 For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!”
9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” 10 And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.
11 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12 The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” 13 He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
Footnotes
a. Mark 5:1 Some manuscripts Gadarenes; other manuscripts Gergesenes
Matthew 12:43-45 New International Version
43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
Whether these angels are taking human wives on earth to live here permanently (and experience something only meant for man, not angels: marriage between a husband and a wife) or we're talking impure spirits possessing people in the first place, that is not their lot in life / their territory but overstepping the bounds of their territory, where they should be, they're encroaching out of their greed into territory that was never meant for them to inhabit; likewise, on the flipside, same implication: there are certain places we—as humans—were not made to inhabit nor enter out of our own will, forcefully out of our own volition and own curiosity, transgressing a limit YHWH placed for us not to cross (some of them natural limits: e.g. our own bodies naturally cannot go in there or our own spirit or mind/soul cannot go there safely, a trek initiated by us) in spite of YHWH not bringing us up there in body nor in spirit / by Spirit in vision. Only when He does that snatching up to a place / initiates is it safe. Otherwise to go there (e.g. the heavens) ourselves, forcefully, is to unnecessarily seek death and destruction (not to mention what in creation we contaminate by our forcefully going about it our own way). Only His way is perfectly safe. Not just physically entering the heavens in a body but out of a body, trying to have spiritual experiences; do not try to leave your own body on your own / initiated by unclean spirits who defile you and not initiated by Him who protects you.
Lastly (and this actually is related to the first point about our reliability as truthful witnesses of the text, but a point that is inferred, not explicitly stated as a fact like when humanity knew what rain was)
[3] Guzik, by passing on stories he outright said he cannot vouch to be verifiably true (the golfing story/anecdote), invalidates his own trustworthiness as a speaker of truth. What does passing on stories that you yourself doubt the credibility of miscommunicate to people about other things you say from the pulpit to believe and pass on as truth? about Scripture even? “Oh, so it’s just a bunch of unverifiable stories like what you’re also sharing from the pulpit that you said you couldn’t say was true or not but are still willing to pass forward”. If they even wound up at the video (because God actually put a curiosity in them to seek a sermon, hungry for truth) but they hear things like this, your mouth willing to spread things that are unreliable, possibly untrue, possibly even myth/legend, you bruise whatever little seed of faith/trust God gave them upon seeking you (and Him ultimately, you being His representative on earth that reconciles people to Him) as a source of truth so that they can trust in Scripture, in Him, the Word of God (written and living). You're functioning as a little bird that snatches the seed / faith in the Word that was thrown their way, even from your own mouth a second earlier, away.
Scripture touches on this concept in the inverse:
John 3:12 New International Version
12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
Jesus spoke of earthly things reliably. So, these people had no basis to distrust Him about the things they couldn't see/verify with their own eyes. If He has been trustworthy in the things that can be seen within His and their own lifetimes, then we can trust Him when He gives testimony about the unseen things. Things we will not be able to witness with our own eyes for a long time (or things that happened in the past a long time ago, on earth and beyond earth/beyond the physical realm under the sun). But again, the flipside of that, what you infer from it (if you can't be trusted with what is seen/with what can be verifiable by you even in your own generation, then why should we trust you with your opinion/ability to discern trustworthinesss with what is not easily verifiable by you generations/centuries/millennia removed?).
Not only is he, for the sake of humor, undermining his own reliability as a speaker of trustworthy information, but undermining Scripture's reliability as the trustworthy information itself since it came from his mouth, his mouth that showed disinterest/lack of care for sharing only what is truthful. Miscommunicating that Scripture is just as much unverifiable story as the anecdote he shared, because what he is willing to share from the pulpit includes stories that he outright doubts the credibility of.
“Passing on what he doubts is truthful”, in addition to how he's holding to outright false interpretations (and false inferences) about what Noah did or did not know about rain, heard by an atheist or even by a believer (such as myself), turns the mind off from finding him a reliable authority on Scripture (and to the unbeliever discredits the Bible outright); it's a useless and dangerous way of talking. I had to go back and watch it a second time (besides falling asleep because I was exhausted, this behavior and way of talking messes with my motivation to listen to more); an atheist has no incentive to do such a thing/give second chances. You've lost them especially if they're able to catch the subtle lie because they are more familiar with Scripture than the speaker and read Scripture for themselves thus know what humanity knew about rain since the beginning. Hypocrisy detected, “typical hypocritical Christian who doesn't read the text”; he's just an apologist talking in circles trying to defend something “indefensible/incredulous” that's why he ignores certain details instead of acknowledging them all; you don't take the Bible seriously, so why should I believe it, if you don't even believe it?
Demonic leaven and Pharisaical leaven does not help us make genuine converts.
Matthew 23:13-15 New International Version
13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [14] [a]
15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
Footnotes
a. Matthew 23:14 Some manuscripts include here words similar to Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47.
Passing on unreliable stories / unreliable accounts of history / unreliable depictions of reality (idols, myth, legends), is demonic, undermining true faith/trust in what God said. Not to mention is plain injustice to do.
1 Timothy 1:3-4 New International Version
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer 4 or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith.
Titus 1:13-14 New International Version
13 This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith 14 and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth.
2 Timothy 4:3-5 New International Version
3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
John 17:17 New International Version
17 Sanctify them by[a] the truth; your word is truth.
Footnotes
a. John 17:17 Or them to live in accordance with
If whatever comes from doubt is sin (not just ineffective / unable to do / achieve anything good nor receive anything from God), and you doubt whether something is true or not, then do not pass it on; that would be sin. If you still pass the information on, despite it's dubious truthfulness, you're saying, “I'm willing to speak something even if it turns out to be false” which is definitely sin and not what we're about. We're suppose to be true witnesses and witnesses of the verifiable and reliable truth alone, not of myths/legends.
Note: Romans 14, though specifically addressing disputable matters and preferences out of / amongst the things God defined as food for mankind (eating plant food alone or eating plant and animals, even ingesting wine [which He Lawfully allowed / thus out of what He defined to be food for man, people's conscience allowing them to do one and not the other], I'll provide context, but my emphasis is on v. 23 which enters into the concept of “doubt” being sinful):
Romans 14:1-2 New International Version
14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.
Romans 14:20-23 New International Version
20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.
22 So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.[a]
Footnotes
a. Romans 14:23 Some manuscripts place 16:25-27 here; others after 15:33.
James 1:6-7 New International Version
6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
Exodus 23:1 New International Version
23 “Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness.
False reports canbe Jewish (and even Christian) myths; so, if a report's truthfulness is doubtful, stay away. Do not pass it on as truth. What's untrue (and doubtfully true) should not be amongst us approved of by us / used by us. But attacked and separated from. Though the Bible mentions the Baalim and the Asherim, we do not use them, but attack their existence and dis-associate with them. They're not of us / of true YHWH worship.
We are to be holy, set-apart from the false ways of the nations. Their false ways of speaking included, undermining the truth / reality of a situation, and undermining trust in us and in YHWH as truthful witnesses of reality.
Leviticus 20:26 New International Version
26 You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
Zechariah 8:3 King James Version
3 Thus saith the Lord; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain.
So in short,
1. He is heeding some kind of a popular yet deviant teaching about what Noah knew about rain or not, that denies the literal truth / fact written in Scripture about when rain started upon the earth. When humans first saw it.
2. Undermining boundaries YHWH set up, even in our own natural bodies, about territories we should not venture into / out to, just to learn information; if we must violate a Command or a precept / concept gleaned from the text (e.g. proper human habitation, violated), then no, that's not a matter that we need to know/explore. All that will do is cause unnecessary contamination (bodily, spiritually, etc) and cause death—whether in the immediate or in the long run as a consequence.
3. undermining his own reputation as a trustworthy witness of truthful information. And sabotaging Scripture as trustworthy information, in and of itself, for coming out of the same mouth that just said he doesn't know if a story is true or not, but is willing to pass it on anyway, trying to get us to believe the unreliable golf story / allow it to serve us as an example, as an illustration (an unreliable one). Information he says we cannot rely on as trustworthy, cannot have faith in, but still use it to to teach the truth from even though he doubts the truthfulness of it...? Is our faith built on a dubious foundation and lies? or is our faith built on a foundation of the truth?
We're of “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”, not of the legend, myth, and old wive's tale.
Demons mix a little bit of the truth (e.g. yes, it is true: you may not see all the consequences on the onset from the little that God revealed to you to obey, and may not even see the promise for a long time or within your life time, but still trust and obey His Command/His instruction; that is a truthful statement, but mixed) into the lie(s)—like the three I detected—to get you to stay under their demonic teaching/their false ways ultimately and not arrive at proper conclusions elsewhere, in how you should be, what you should believe, consider trustworthy, reliable, and what bounds you shouldn't transgress just to get at more information.
---
That said—what was true acknowledged and what was erring/dangerous exposed—I want to address something not mentioned but that adds value to the topic of Abram/Abraham's faith and what that looks like/just how difficult it can get (before he was tested with Isaac—that was actually barely a test in comparison to what they dealt with before and consequently his level of trust by then was high):
...considering Abraham was a man who obeyed God...
Genesis 26:5 New International Version
5 because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.”
...obeying because he had faith—trusted in YHWH, both in His existence and in His character/nature, that His ways are best, thus trusted in what God said and sought to apply it, submit to Him as ultimate authority / Lord / King, good counsel worth trusting/heeding—and knowing that he (Abram) was warned about the wickedness of the people in the land of Canaan (who were prophesied to only grow worse in wickedness/sinfulness as time went on, warned ahead of time by God Himself)...
Genesis 15:16 New International Version
16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
Deuteronomy 7:1 New International Version
7 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—
...I don't think we grasp and truly appreciate just how hard of a decision and test of faith that would have been for Abram. You're about to go live among wicked people (your future children will inherit the land after you, but right now you'll be living there [they arrived at Gen 12:5] amongst these people that "don't fear God" / didn't fear the wrath of God, didn't believe that there is a God whom they're accountable to, who unleashes divine wrath upon the earth, dispenses judgment morning by morning, thus people who will not restrain their behavior to what is moral) leaving the relative safety / familiarity of your homeland where ostensibly the fear of God is found.
But despite Abram knowing the people in the land of Canaan's track record beforehand, how risky that was to go out and live near them, amongst them, he also knew YHWH's track record that is worth confiding in—Him/His Word/His plans—even if YHWH led him straight into a place saturated in wickedness/wicked ways (and that was forecasted, by God, to only grow worse in corruption as time went on), and risk his life / walk to his death for obeying Him (the latter was especially difficult for Abram, actually, to submit to once in the land: the obeying “even to death”, death to your own life and even your wife's life, before Isaac ever entered into the picture.
Even before receiving warning / prophecy of their growing into the full measure of sin (in Gen 15), which they received after entering the promised land of Canaan, so rewinding to even before getting to Canaan, Abram had set off with a premeditated plan of a lie instructing Sarai about how she should identify herself to spare Abram's death. But despite the lie [and the direct consequences that happened because of it, plague on the gentiles' households who took Sarai for not knowing better], how God wrathfully responded to men taking on a woman who was already married unbeknownst to them (even if they didn't touch her, they and their households plagued, even with serious diseases) because it was adultery in the heart and would be adultery in body if they wifed her, those difficult unforeseeable experiences and how God responded purified the doubt of obeying to death. God can protect you if He wants. Okay, so God is holding up His end of the deal; there was no need to resort to the lie / loopholing out of the Commands. So, by the time Isaac rolled around, Abraham just simply obeys.
But on the way to that point of full trust, Abram did resort to a lie, not just once but twice, to avoid death upon himself and possibly (?) on Sarai (though it seems like he didn't care what happened to her as a consequence of them thinking she's just his sister...) when they made detours in Egypt and in Gerar but how God responded in each instance solidified their trust in Him more. So by the time Isaac comes around, he's like "sure, whatever. If you tell me to sacrifice him, I know you're going to do something, because that's the son of promise, you've made it very clear it's not Ishmael from Hagar or any other woman, but the son that came through Sarah. I'm resting secure now then because I see how you've been protecting us, in response to the promise that said I'd be a father; If I sacrifice my son, the son of promise through whom you said you'd fulfill this promise, that would nullify Your promise, so, go ahead, God, surprise me: whatever your will is [ultimately God provided a Ram and he didn't have to sacrifice Isaac, but by then his faith had been tempered and doubt beaten out by the experiences of walking in trust of God through these very difficult situations and overcoming the limitations of what they thought was possible]).
To bring these examples I'm alluding to into the fore: in Egypt [Genesis 12:10-20] and in Gerar [Genesis 20], Abram knew something about their lack of fearing God that tempted him to resort to a lie about who Sarai/Sarah truly was in relation to him (his wife, not merely his half-sister. I'd say that was wrong to do), in fear of his own life...not caring what happened to Sarai/Sarah in regards to purity (though possibly thinking God could impede it or misguidedly that she wouldn't get hurt [even emotionally and psychologically, to be handed off to some other man] nor anyone else get hurt as long as he gave her up, but it would be adultery, marriage bed defiled, even adultery of the heart alone for allowing other men to openly desire after her not knowing she was taken as a wife; thus, it would result in hurt / divine wrath unleashed from God just like physical adultery has consequences and why there's a Command against adultery] ...not caring [or not knowing?] about what would happen to Pharaoh's household [and later to Ahimelek's household in the land of Gerar, despite by then—now called Abraham, name change, reassured of promises and a peaceful death on top of that—Abraham still resorted to that same lie / dishonest tactic once more, hiding the fact that Sarah was his wife, not merely his sister; a half-truth is a lie especially when you know what they're really asking to verify is: is she single? can I take her?] not caring what happened to the gentiles households as a consequence of that lie as long as he saved his own life. But, in the same way that we cannot foresee the full consequences of obeying God, Abram could not foresee the full consequences of the lie beforehand. So, since we're not omniscient either way / in either direction, whether to know how disobeying God will fully work out nor how obedience will fully work out in the end, just obey / choose the path that demonstrates faith/trust in what God said/what God promised you).
Genesis 12:10-13 New International Version
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”
Genesis 12:17-20 New International Version
17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
Genesis 20:1-3 New International Version
20 Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, 2 and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.
3 But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”
Genesis 20:4-7 New International Version
4 Now Abimelek had not gone near her, so he said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? 5 Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘He is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.”
6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. 7 Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all who belong to you will die.”
Genesis 20:8-12 New International Version
8 Early the next morning Abimelek summoned all his officials, and when he told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid. 9 Then Abimelek called Abraham in and said, “What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.” 10 And Abimelek asked Abraham, “What was your reason for doing this?”
11 Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife.
Genesis 20:13-16 New International Version
13 And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”
14 Then Abimelek brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him. 15 And Abimelek said, “My land is before you; live wherever you like.”
16 To Sarah he said, “I am giving your brother a thousand shekels[a] of silver. This is to cover the offense against you before all who are with you; you are completely vindicated.”
Footnotes
a. Genesis 20:16 That is, about 25 pounds or about 12 kilograms
Genesis 20:17-18 New International Version
17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelek, his wife and his female slaves so they could have children again, 18 for the Lord had kept all the women in Abimelek’s household from conceiving because of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
Clearly, some of his decisions along the way were not perfect (lying about Sarah, half-truthing her identity/relation to himself, hiding the fact that she was his wife not merely his half sister); that is a testament to how terrified Abram/Abraham was, even fearing for his life (which he shouldn't have done, but we're weak and we don't know YHWH's full foresight, so understandable, though not right), but despite his stumbling on occasion/along the way, he kept walking the path to move away from Babylon/Ur of the Chaldees, where his father's house lived [did not go back], kept living and going about the promised land, trusting in the direction YHWH was leading him.
And stumbled despite having God's reassurance along the way: if you open up Gen 15, that's in the midst of Abram being promised to die in peace even though his descendants would be enslaved and mistreated. In Genesis 17, he gets his name changed from Abram to Abraham (father of many). But even still with that doublereassurance that he'd die in peace and after becoming a father, which he hadn't become yet, he didn't obey completely once again (Gen 20 in the land of Gerar); the reason he resorted to lying once more (about who Sarai/who Sarah really was in relation to him) remained unchanged: because he feared the wickedness of the people out there, before [and after] this promise / reassurance to him that he himself would die in peace. And still, wavered a second time. It wasn't easy.
So, YHWH might lead you to traverse some very terrifying circumstances, even life-or-death, but knowing what He promised you, obey His Commands in the midst of it even when it's difficult (because when Abram didn't obey, he endangered not only himself, but his wife and the surrounding people's households even more, even gentiles, instead of being a blessing to them). Abram did not need to resort to the lie because knowing God had promised him descendants (plural) and he hadn't had any yet, there was no need to fear for his life. All the more after the reassurance that your death would be a peaceful one, for him to resort to the lie again? I don't know what Abram/Abraham was thinking except maybe his faith in God wasn't that deep yet; his faith had not been tried-and-tested by life afflictions to already be pure gold, removed of all impurities of doubt and doubt removed by many fiery trials and seeing YHWH's favor and His Word prove true, and these two occasions (in Egypt and in Gerar) in and of themselves would each be a fiery trial in that process that would deepen the trust / purify that faith in God and in what God said to him/promised him, proving that He was there guiding along the whole way, His promises and His Way of doing things are worth confiding in—despite what you naturally expect amongst certain people and despite not seeing the end goal/promise, just scary obstacles after you stepped out in obedience to something He provoked (though, before stepping out, you anticipated some level of danger hence his premeditated plans to keep Sarah saying the same lie before they ever crossed Egypt or Gerar, her script to be said no matter where they went [Genesis 20:13]; which was unnecessary, that sin just led to more sin that endangered the lives of blameless people who had no intention to sin against you in the first place, just brought calamity and plague).
All that to say, Guzik did not need to resort to stories he himself doubted the validity of, unknowingly equating Scripture to be of the same dubious caliber that the golfing story anecdote was to him, which added no true value to having faith in God and in His reliable, trustworthy Word, but risked the hearer's [even atheists in the audience] trust in the reliability of his own words and of YHWH's Word / the Scriptures, just to teach the truth of actual Biblical concepts (i.e. that you may not see the end goal promise in its full fulfillment [though yes partial] in your own lifetime nor see all the future obstacles that will present themselves along the way beforehand, but stay faithful to His Word despite them when they happen). There are deeply-enriching, reliable, clean examples already in the Bible, which has proven to be historically trustworthy and accurate. And all without sullying the reputation of our own mouths as sound fountains / sources of unhypocritical truth, and truth alone. Not to say that you can't use modern-day examples but not when even you doubt its credibility. So, a note to him and a note to all, keep it to what's truthful—not doubtful, legend, myth or old wive's tale/fables. We're not allowed to associate with those things for very good reasons.
