(Genesis) 35 - the Patriarch Practicing Deceit — S. Lewis Johnson

Genesis 20: Abraham’s Deception and the Expository Reading

Now let's turn to Genesis chapter 20 for the expositional reading, I should say, the reading of the passage that will be expounded in a few moments. Genesis chapter 20. One of the advantages of expository preaching is that we have to preach on the apparently good chapters as well as the apparently strange chapters, and this is one of the strange ones.

So we have to handle it, or try to at least. So let's read for our scripture reading the 18 verses of Genesis chapter 20. Now, Abraham journeyed from there toward the land of the Negev and settled between Kadish and Shur.

Then he sojourned in Gerar. Gerar, incidentally, is in Philistia. So this is the first contact of the elect people of God with the Philistines, and that's very significant in itself. And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, she is my sister.

So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night and said to him, behold, you are a dead man. That sounds almost like our language today, doesn't it?

You're dead. You're a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married. Now, just an aside to those of you who are men, the Hebrew text reads literally, for she is lorded over by a lord.

It's not a nice way to speak of marriage, lorded over by a lord. That's literal. Use it any way you see fit, men, for protection. Now Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay a nation, even though blameless?

Did he not himself say to me, she is my sister? And she herself said, he is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands, I have done this. Then God said to him in the dream, yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against me.

Therefore I did not let you touch her. Now, therefore, restore the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.

So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told all these things in their hearing, and the men were greatly frightened. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, what have you done to us, and how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin?

You have done to me things that ought not to be done. And Abimelech said to Abraham, what have you encountered that you have done this thing? And Abraham said, because I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.

Besides, she actually is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother. And she became my wife. So Sarah and Abraham had the same father, but different mothers. She was his half-sister.

And it came about when God, incidentally, this word God here is the word Elohim, but the verb that is used is a verb that is used of that which is normally bad, and it's used in a number that is rather different.

I cannot go into the details, it's not necessary. It's possible that this should be translated gods, and so Abraham even stoops to speak of the deity in the terms of the heathen. And it came about when gods caused me to wander from my father's house.

We'll leave it as God, but the other possibility remains. In that case, it would be even more culpable that he speaks as he does. But I said to her, this is the kindness which you will show to me. Everywhere we go, say of me, he is my brother.

Abimelech then took sheep and oxen and male and female servants and gave them to Abraham and restored his wife Sarah to him. And Abimelech said, behold, my land is before you. Settle wherever you please.

And to Sarah he said, behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. Behold, it is your vindication before all who are with you and before all men you are cleared. In order that I will not, I won't have time to say anything about this much in the message, let me say about verse 16 that there is a difference of opinion about the meaning of this verse.

It is possible that this is regarded by Abimelech as a kind of atonement. That is, he pays the money in the light of the fact that he has wronged Sarah. On the other hand, it is possible that he is being sarcastic because he says, behold, I have given your brother, not your husband, your brother, a thousand pieces of silver.

In other words, he's using the terms that she used in a sarcastic way, reminding her that she said that Abraham was her brother. In that case, it might be that the thousand pieces of silver, which is for a covering of the eyes, literally your vindication, that what he means is take the thousand pieces of silver and buy yourself a good hat or veil and buy a veil for the rest of the women who serve you so that others will know that you truly are a married woman.

In that case, he would be rather sarcastic in his language to her. And it's possible that that's the way that that should be taken. But we cannot be sure. Verse 17, and Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maids so that they bore children for the Lord had closed fast all the wombs of the household of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

May God bless this reading of his word. Our subject for this morning in the exposition of Genesis chapter 20 is the patriarch practicing deceit. I know that the first time that you read Genesis chapter 20, after having read the preceding 19 chapters, the impression that you get is, how is it possible for a man such as Abraham to practice the same form of deceit that he has practiced previously?

Was the father of the faithful a phlegm phlegm artist after all? A pathological liar, a phony, a faker, a Machiavellian patriarch's clothing, a jackdaw and peacock's feathers, or to use Bunyan's word, a saint abroad and a devil at home?

We know enough of the Bible, of course, to know that the answer is no, he was not these things. But how can we then explain Genesis chapter 20, which some evangelical commentators have called one of the most difficult chapters in the Bible to understand?

After all, we remember that the Holy Spirit has worked in initial movements in Abraham's life. He has made some early faltering steps, but then he has made some advances. But how can we explain this relapse into faithless scheming, and this relapse into faithless scheming for the second time?

And not only faithless scheming the second time, but it's the same kind of scheming, the very same scheming that he practiced previously, 20 years ago. In the meantime, he has been justified or announced as justified in the Bible.

He's been told, of course, that he's the father of one in whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed. He's just been told that his wife, Sarah, is to be the mother of the seed, and now he gives her into the hands of the Philistine king.

It's very difficult to understand if we look at it from the human standpoint. Now, without trying to answer that at the moment, I think we can say that Genesis chapter 20 illustrates several important truths, and if we gather these truths together, we'll have some answer to the question of Genesis chapter 20 as a whole.

The Difficulty of Laying Aside Besetting Sin

In the first place, we learn it's hard even for patriarchs to lay aside besetting sin. We live in days frequently in which, in evangelical circles, it is regarded as normal for Christians to live almost a sinless life.

We even have people suggesting that it is possible for believers to live sinless lives. And if that is not specifically stated, it is commonly taught in evangelical circles that there is a plane of life to which we may attain, and once we attain to that plane of life, then things go rather easily.

Thomas Brooks was one of the Puritans, and he did not believe that. He said of David, his heart was more often out of tune than his harp. And another Puritan said, a sheep may fall into the ditch, but it is the swine that wallows in it.

And I think there is a great deal of truth in that, because believers are individuals who may fall into the ditch at any time, and in the same ditch, as Abraham does here. But the difference between a believer and an unbeliever is not that the believer does not fall into the ditch, but the unbeliever does.

The difference is that the unbeliever does wallow in the ditch. He loves his sin. He likes to persist in it. He is perfectly happy in persisting in it. But the believer is a person who falls into the ditch and becomes very unhappy because of having fallen into the ditch.

Now that is one lesson that I think we need to learn. That is that even patriarchs find it difficult to lay aside besetting sin. Now this sin, as we shall see, was a besetting sin for Abraham and Sarah.

Another thing that we learn here is that character is not the ground of our acceptance before God. And it is well for us to remember that, because occasionally we forget. We tend to think sometimes that the reason that Abraham was the man that he was, and the reason that he had the position that he had was because of some merit in his own personal life.

But that is not true. Character is not the ground of our acceptance before God. The mercy that God shows us does not come from anything that we may have earned by the kind of life that we have lived. A few weeks back, Carolyn Custis, who often selects the material that we put on the right hand side of the inner part of our bulletin, put in a little section from Mr. Spurgeon on the text, I will remember my covenant from Genesis chapter 9 and verse 15.

You may have remembered reading it, but Spurgeon writes something like this, mark the form of the promise, and I will remember my covenant. God does not say, and when you shall look upon the bow and you shall remember my covenant, then I will not destroy the earth.

But it is gloriously put not upon our memory, which is fickle and frail, but upon God's memory, which is infinite and immutable. The bow shall be in the cloud and I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting covenant.

Oh, it is not my remembering God, it is God's remembering me, which is the ground of my safety. It is not my laying hold of his covenant, but his covenant's laying hold on me. Glory be to God. The whole of the bulwarks of salvation are secured by divine power, and even the manna towers, which we may imagine might have been left to man, are guarded by almighty strength.

Even the remembrance of the covenant is not left to our memories, for we might forget. But our Lord cannot forget the saints whom he has graven on the palms of his hands. It is with us as with Israel in Egypt.

The blood was upon the lintel and the two side posts, but the Lord did not say, when you see the blood, I will pass over you, but when I see the blood, I will pass over you. My looking to Jesus brings me joy and peace, but it is God's looking to Jesus which secures my salvation, and that of all his elect, since it is impossible for our God to look at Christ, our bleeding surety, and then to be angry with us for sins already punished in him.

No, it is not left with us even to be saved by remembering the covenant. There is no Lindsay Woolsey here. Not a single thread of the creature mars the fabric. I confess I had to look up Lindsay Woolsey.

And afterwards, several people came and said, well, that was very common expression, which only shows there are many things I don't know. But I looked it up, and Lindsay Woolsey was a textile material of mixed wool and flax.

And now it's a dress material, of course, inferior wool woven on a cotton warp. I'm reading that from the Oxford Dictionary. Now Spurgeon says there is no Lindsay Woolsey here. Not a single thread of the creature mars the fabric.

It is not of man, neither by man, but of the Lord alone. We should remember the covenant, and we shall do it through divine grace. But the hinge of our safety does not hang there. It is God's remembering us, not our remembering him.

And hence, because it is God remembering us, the covenant is an everlasting covenant. So we are not accepted on the basis of our character. We are accepted on the basis of the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us never forget that. And when the time comes for you to pass into the presence of the Lord, you pass into the presence of the Lord clinging to the merits of the cross of Jesus Christ. Don't enter heaven talking about what a great member of Believer's Chapel you have been, or any of the other things that you may have done.

The only thing, the only thing upon which you can rest for eternity is the blood that was shed for sinners, such as you and I are. William R. Newell was a great Bible teacher of a generation past. He wasn't so far back that I didn't hear him.

I heard Mr. Newell, and in one of his books or one of his messages, he tells the story of some meetings he was holding in St. Louis in the noon hours. And businessmen were attending. One of the meetings, a businessman came up to him, he said, a keen appearing businessman, and said to him, you're speaking to the most ungodly man in St. Louis.

Mr. Newell said, why, praise God. He said, do you mean to say you're glad that I'm the most ungodly man here? He said, no, but I'm certainly glad to find a man that acknowledges that he's a sinner. Mr. Newell, I've been coming to these meetings for four weeks.

I did not sleep last night. I've had little sleep for three weeks. I've prayed. I've read the Bible. I've waited here today to have you tell me what I need to do. Mr. Newell said, let's turn to the Bible.

And he turned to Romans chapter 4 and verse 5. To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly. The man interjected, that's exactly what I am. But what do I have to do? He said, why, it's to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly.

He said he suddenly leaped to his feet and extended his hand to Mr. Newell and said, Mr. Newell, I accept that proposition. And he went off without another word. And next day at the meeting, he was introduced by Mr. Newell to the audience.

And the man stood up and said, I'm a businessman, as you know. I know a good proposition. And I found one yesterday that so filled me with joy that I could not sleep awake all night. This is interesting.

He couldn't sleep beforehand and he couldn't sleep after. But in the meantime, he had come to salvation. And I want you to know, if you have insomnia, it's much better to have insomnia over a good thing than a bad thing.

And it certainly is better to have insomnia over being saved than insomnia over being lost. Character is not the ground of our acceptance before the Lord. Now, one third thing, and I won't say much about this because it's so obvious.

The Unconditional Abrahamic Promises

I hope the Abrahamic promises are unconditional. And man tries to get in the way of the fulfillment of them constantly. And Abraham is stumbling along, getting in God's way. But God is accomplishing his promises through Abram and through his wife, Sarah.

There's a great deal of suspense here because you see in the preceding 17th chapter, God has said the child, the seed is going to come through Sarah. And now here in this chapter, we find Abram or Abraham giving Sarah over into the hands of the king of Gerar.

And so there would be a great deal of suspense what is going to happen if Sarah is to be the mother of the seed. The chances are that even at this moment, through the supernatural conception of the Holy Spirit, that Isaac is within her because he's to be born within the year.

Abraham’s Journey to Gerar and His Equivocation

Well, let's look now at the passage and we'll hasten through it as much as we can to try to get you out reasonably early. The first seven verses record for us Abimelech's taking of Sarah as his wife. We read, now Abram journeyed from there toward the land of the Negev.

He had been up in the northern part of the southern part of the land, and now he moves to the south. It is not said why he went. It may be that pasture was needed. It's possible hostility on the part of his neighbors was the cause.

It may have been because of what happened at Sodom, for he had been at the Oaks of Mamre, not too far away, and was able to see the destruction there. We do not really know the reason why he moved. It's possible that directed by the Holy Spirit, he was constantly reminded that the land as it was then was not his ultimate dwelling place.

He was a sojourner in the land, and would be until the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises. But he comes down finally into Philistia, to Gerar, and there it is necessary for him again, he thinks, to say that Sarah is his sister and not his wife.

He had deep suspicions of the king of Gerar, whose name was Abimelech. Incidentally, Abimelech is a dynastic name. It was not his real name, but it was a name like Pharaoh, or Czar, or Caesar. It was a title.

Now, Abram here is guilty, obviously, of unjustifiable equivocation and distrust of the providence of God. If it were really of the leading of the Lord that he should go to Gerar, then knowing that God has already promised him that from Sarah shall come the seed, and that from him shall come the seed, he should not have leaned upon scheming when he came into the presence of this Philistine king.

Now, why Abimelech took a liking to Sarah, we cannot be absolutely sure about. But it's possible he wanted to gain an alliance with Abraham, for Abraham was a very wealthy man by now. Or it may just have been that he was fascinated by the beauty of this 90-year-old woman.

Now, that is a problem to us today because we don't live the length of life that they live. But remember, Abram lived to be 175 years of age. And so, consequently, all ages, I guess, might be halved. And so, if she was 90, she really is a woman in her 40s, according to our way of reckoning.

Abimelech was fascinated by the beauty of Sarah. There's something amazing about this. It may have been she was rejuvenated because she is going to have a child. I know I can kind of sense in this audience right now a great, swelling, rising, silent prayer from the ladies 35 and over.

Oh, Sarah, tell me thy secret. But anyway, he was fascinated and took her when he learned that she was Abraham's sister into his harem. Now, Abraham had stretched the truth. Someone has said the trouble with stretching the truth is it's apt to snap back.

And it did in this case. It's also well to remember that in matters of spiritual things, the judgment should never be left to our own wits. That was Abram's difficulty. He really thought that he might get out of this by being wise.

We never do reach in our Christian experience the place where we can dispense with the guidance of God. Unfortunately, very often we do. We think we've had such great experience as Christians. Therefore, we know this.

And in the circumstances of life, we tend to rely upon our own wisdom. But in Scripture, we are taught that all through our Christian experience, all of our decisions are to be made through our personal relationship with the Lord.

We never get to the place where we do not need daily guidance from the Holy Spirit, moment by moment guidance from the Holy Spirit. When we repeat a sin, of course, the danger is to lie down in the mud and refuse to get up.

And that's the other side of the matter. But always, every time, in every circumstance of life, the appeal to the Lord is proper. That was one of Abram's mistakes, of course. Well, after Abimelech had taken Sarah into his harem, God, who is going to fulfill his promises, finds it necessary to work.

God’s Dream, Abimelech’s Responsibility, and the Prophet’s Prayer

And so he came to Abimelech in a dream. Dreams were often used, as you know, by Elohim for pagans. Dreams were means by which God communicated to Pharaoh. It was by a dream that he communicated with Nebuchadnezzar.

Abimelech evidently is a person who has a rather full view of the existence of God and of the nature of God. In fact, Martin Luther said that Abimelech was a believer. There is no evidence for that. But nevertheless, he was a man who had an understanding of the nature and existence of God, at least to some extent.

But as a result of this, he contracted from God a lethal infirmity. Now, we are inclined to think that what this means in this little conversation the Lord has with him is that Abimelech is not really to be blamed for what happened.

That's only relatively true. When he says integrity, that's only a relative kind of integrity, because Abimelech is a man who is already married. We read that later on in verse 17. He already had a wife, and so he was dishonoring the marriage bond by taking Sarah into his harem.

And furthermore, so far as we know, Sarah was not taken with her full ascent. Now, sure, she said, Abram's my brother. But nevertheless, it was a ruse, and if the facts had been laid out, she never would have chosen this particular form of action.

In addition, if Sarah was such a beautiful woman, would it not have been natural for Abimelech to say, why is such a beautiful woman not married after all of these years? There is no indication he made any inquiry to speak of at all.

And so consequently, we are not to think of the integrity of Abimelech as being an absolute one. It was only a relative one. But God nevertheless acted in mercy toward him, for he said, I've kept you from sinning against me.

That is with reference to Sarah. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. But in the fact that he requires Abram to pray for him, Abram, Abraham the prophet, is evidence of the fact that he was responsible, even though relatively ignorant of the consequences of the things that he was doing.

Now, in the seventh verse, after that little conversation, the Lord says, restore the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, and all who are yours.

The sin of Abraham was no doubt aggravated by his position. We should not incidentally think of the term prophet in the sense that we do today. He was the prophet, but Abimelech and others would have had a little different conception of a prophet.

They would have thought of a prophet as being something like a magician. And so when Abram did what he did, it was not quite the reproach on the name of God that someone who understood prophecy would see.

But for us, as we look at it now, we say, well, what a reproach this is to the name of God that this prophet of God, and he was that, should give his wife over into the hands of this heathen king. Now following this little dream and the interview with the Lord, the text now turns to a study of the restoration of Sarah to Abraham, and it's a remarkable expression of humility that comes out of Abimelech.

But then he was very fearful because of what had happened. So Abimelech arose early in the morning and called all his servants and told all these things in their hearing, and the men were greatly frightened.

He was terrorized by the word of God. So he calls his servants, confesses his fault, tells the whole story before them, announces the amends that he's going to make, and the servants were greatly frightened, which suggests that they too had some sense of the fear of God.

And so it was natural to call for Abraham. And Abraham is called for, and when Abraham comes into the presence of Abimelech, three questions are asked which humiliate Abraham as he lays the blame at his feet.

This humiliation of Abraham is the kind of thing that we experience when we do not pay attention to the word of God. There's a great deal of difference, incidentally, between humiliation and humility.

Humility can never be humiliated. To be humiliated means to be lured in condition. I know that some of you are thinking, well, in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ, was he not the object of an act of humiliation when he came from heaven and came down here and took to himself an additional nature, a human nature?

Well, yes, we do speak of the humiliation of our Lord Jesus Christ, but that word has no reference to our Lord's personal character. When we read of the humiliation of the Lord Jesus, we mean simply he was in the form of God, and he came here and then was, as a result of the incarnation, in the form of a servant.

That is not a luring of his personal condition, but when we use the term humiliation normally, we mean it's a luring of condition in the sense of being mortified. And that is what Abram, or Abraham, must experience as a result of his sin.

Abraham’s Threefold Failure: Facts, Values, and Motives

And so he comes into Abimelech's presence, and Abimelech asks him three questions that were very, very humiliating. What have you done to us, he said. And then he said, and how have I sinned against you that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin?

You see, he recognizes that it is a sin. You have done to me things that you ought not to have done. And then he adds the third question. What have you encountered that you have done this thing? Isn't it interesting too that this wriggling that we engage in as believers, Abraham, that's what he's done, he's just wriggled because he was in a difficult situation and appealed to something that he thought would get him out of it, is something that the Lord Jesus Christ never does.

There was never any element of fear, of cunning, of diplomacy in our Lord in any shape or form. He was never suspicious of anyone, nor did he ever trust anyone except his father. Consequently, he was never vindictive, and he was never humiliated.

It's only possible to be humiliated when we are serving our pride. Most of us know what that is. We know what it is to serve pride, and we know also what it is to be humiliated. Well, Abraham answers with a threefold reply himself, and the three pleas are a pattern of mistaken choice.

They really tell us a great deal about this patriarch and his failure to follow the will of God. First of all, he's faulty in the recitation of the facts. He says in verse 11, because I thought surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.

That was faulty. That didn't turn out to be true, and so consequently that idea was fallible. In addition, there is a fallibility in his values. Besides, she actually is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.

Now, of course, that's a verbal untruth. True in one sense, false in another. Untruth comes so easy for us, does it not? We can constantly lie. That's what we do. We lie by the things we don't say, and often lie by the things that we do say, and even put them into sentences that are...

We can try to rationalize as being true. How wonderful it is to meet a person who is frank and open and truthful. And finally, he is fallible in his motives, too. Notice the 13th verse, and it came about when the gods caused me to wander from my father's house that I said to her, this is the kindness which you will show to me.

Everywhere we go, say of me, he is my brother. Now, mind you, take a look at that sentence carefully, and you will see that this pattern of telling people that Sarah was his sister and not his wife is something that goes all the way back to Ur of the Chaldees.

It goes back to the time when God caused him to wander from his father's house. As they left Ur of the Chaldees, he anticipated he was going to have difficulty. He had this beautiful woman by his side, and he knew he would be out in territory that was strange to him, and he knew the characteristics of the men of that time.

If they saw a beautiful woman and you were helpless, they would take the woman and often slay the man. And so he made a little compact with Sarah right in the beginning, God having called them out of Ur of the Chaldees to go into this land.

Mind you, after the great revelation that God had given to him, he makes this little agreement with her, one of his schemes, in order to save his neck. Isn't it striking that after this manifestation of God to him, he can stoop so low?

And so all through the years, he has been doing this. Now we have two records in the Word that are two occasions on which this was done. It's possible that there are many others that are not recorded in the Bible.

So Abram and Sarah both are afflicted with a besetting sin, deceit, lies. It's no wonder that one of their grandsons should be Jacob. It runs in the family, and of course it runs in the human family. So it was really cowardice.

Abimelech’s Restitution and Abraham’s Prayer

Now, having been found out and having been humiliated, Abimelech takes the noble position and so he gives offerings, and even invites Abram to stay in the land and pick the place that he wants. He gives Sarah a thousand pieces of silver as a kind of an atonement, or else a kind of twitting of her sarcastically, telling her to buy a veil so that others won't make the mistake that he has made.

And finally, we read in the last two verses of this chapter, and this too closes on a rather noble note because you would rather think that Abraham is not on praying ground to use the kind of language that we use today.

He was surely not on praying ground if one prays only if he's in a kind of total fellowship with the Father. But fortunately, the Bible doesn't teach that. Being a prophet, and since one of the offices of the prophet is to pray, he prays.

And he prays to God, and God answers his prayer and heals Abimelech and his wife and his maids so that they bore children, for the Lord had closed fast all of their wombs. Did you notice the change of name for God?

All through this chapter it has been God, Elohim, the term that is fitting for the heathen as well as for the saints. But now, the covenant-keeping God for the Lord, Yahweh. That is so fitting because you see, it is Yahweh who is fulfilling his covenant.

It is he who is preserving Sarah from any problems so that the seed shall surely come through which all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And so it is just an indication of the faithfulness of God and how even when we get in the way of the Lord, he is going to fulfill his word.

Perseverance, Sanctification, and the Believer’s Besetting Sins

Let me close by suggesting just a few things to try to tie up some of the things with which I began the message. It is clear that Abram is not a phlegm-phlegm artist. What he really is, is a man of like passions with you and me.

He is the object of grace, but he is a sinner. And it is hard even for saints to lay aside besetting sin. When you read this chapter, did you say to yourself, I just cannot understand how Abraham could do it?

Did you think that? Do you know what led you to think that? Self-deception. That's what led you to think it. Because if you can look at this chapter and you can honestly say, I cannot understand how Abram could do it, you're deceived.

Because if you look inside your heart, providing you don't love yourself too much, you'll never say such a thing. Because it's obvious. If you know your heart and know what it's really like, you'll understand exactly how Abram could do this.

And the chances are you'll understand how he could do it from the time he left the War of the Chaldees to the present time. Because you'll recognize that in the human heart, even the heart of the believing Christian, there is besetting sin.

In fact, if you were able to see my heart and I were able to see your heart, we would see our own besetting sins. And they do not leave us, unfortunately. Now, when we speak of sanctification in the Bible, we do not mean that a person reaches the state in this life where he is not troubled by besetting sins.

In fact, while we're in this life, we shall be troubled by besetting sins. When the Bible speaks of sanctification, it means simply that there is a growth in grace. That there is a measurable or observable to the Lord, observable plane of life in which there is advance.

But it does not mean that at any point in this line of advance, the Christian does not fall into the ditch. It also means that when he falls, he's very unhappy. He doesn't wallow in his sin. He cries for deliverance.

Because that's the attitude of a Christian believer. It is Peter after he falls who goes out and weeps bitterly. It is Judas who after his sin commits suicide. All the difference in the world between the two.

Do not for one moment think that when we talk about the perseverance of the saints, we mean that once a person has been converted, then everything is on the rise and there is no besetting sin any longer.

That's very confusing. Very untrue. One of the things that has afflicted evangelicalism has been the tendency to teach that once a person has been converted, it is possible to attain a measure of spiritual life in which things are relatively smooth sailing.

The two great errors result from this. The idea that there is such a standard of life at which you're never exposed to failure and humiliation because of sin, leads on the one hand to pride and arrogance.

And Christians full of pride and arrogance abound in our evangelical churches. And then on the other hand, those simple hearted souls told frequently by preachers who stand behind the pulpit that there is such a thing as a victorious life, a plane of life to which you can attain, and therefore everything is going to be wonderful thereafter.

And they honestly listen to that and then look at their lives and see the besetting sin that is there and the difficulties that abound and the result is despair and defeat. And it's not long before some of them are making their ways to those who want to counsel them.