Stranger & Exiled

Genesis 21:23-34

The Scripture above is addressing a King and the commander of his army coming to Abraham and asking for him to deal kindly with them.  It is of the utmost importance to note that Abraham was very wealthy, and that he owned servants, cattle, and sheep.  We know that when his kinsmen were taken captive, he led 318 men who were trained in his house into battle.  That was many years earlier, so he is at this time a man of great wealth and power, in fact so much that King Abimelech who is a Philistine comes to him with this statement.

“God is with you in all that you do.  Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land were you have sojourned.”  And Abraham said, “I will swear.”  This is the same King that took Sarah to be his wife because Abraham had instructed her to say she was his sister, and God informed the king, in a dream that he was a dead man if he did not return her to Abraham.  I bet that the king kept a close watch on Abraham from that day until the day he showed up asking to be treated fairly.

It would be fair to call Abraham an Alien: belonging to another country or people, a

foreigner, strangers, and each of us who claim the name of Christ fall into that same category.  The apostle Peter gives this account of what happens to you and I once we enter into Christ; “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”  (1 Peter 2:9,10)  It is of the utmost importance to state that it matters not how you feel, God has said this is what you are, if you have entered into Christ.  In fact, it was God who has called you out of darkness, and many of us never knew we were in darkness, till God brought us into His marvelous light.  The Apostle Peter goes on to give us this word; “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.  Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (1 Peter 2:11,12)

Hebrews the 11^th chapter is very clear that Abraham was a stranger and exiled on earth and I’m sure that many times the enemy of his soul brought thoughts of returning to Haran or the land of Ur of the Chaldeans, where his friends and family lived.  But this is what Hebrews 11:16, they could have returned to the land they had come out of, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”   How often have the people who live around you said; I know that God is with you in all that you do.  It has not happened to me that often!

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice