17_Faith drives out fear Ps 56:3 When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. 1 John 4:18 Perfect love casts out fear Ps 34:4 I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. On January 22, 1999, an Australian missionary to India, named Graham Staines, was brutally murdered with his two young sons, Philip and Timothy. Devoted to serving destitute leprosy patients in Orissa, they were burned alive in mistaken religious fanaticism. In the face of such profound loss, Staines' widow, Gladys, stood before the charred remains of her loved ones and sang unshaken faith: "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow, Because He lives, all fear is gone; Because I know He holds the future, And life is worth the living, Just because He lives!" Her faith in the depths of grief gave her courage to move ahead in the Lord’s will for her. She stood in shining contrast to the fear and failure that result from human frailty. Faith and fear are incompatible. This is the central theme of Genesis 20, which highlights the cost of fear and magnifies the faithfulness of God to his faltering people. Scripture calls Abraham a friend of God and the father of all those who believe. Yet it also records his stumbles through fear. Genesis 20 tells us that during his migration into Gerar, he pleaded with his beautiful wife Sarah to pass herself off as his sister and not his wife. He feared that the men of Gerar might lay violent hands on him to carry away Sarah for their king because of her magnificent loveliness. Abraham forgot God and his righteousness because of his fear. He fell into lying and selfishness. He did not believe that God could protect them all. Instead, he bartered his wife’s safety and honor for the sake of his own survival. Just as he feared, Sarah was taken into the harem of Abimelech, the king of Gerar. Yet before anything more could happen, God intervened. He warned Abimelech of the truth and of the serious consequences if he violated Sarah. He also revealed his impartiality, telling the king, “I knew that you did this in the integrity of your heart; therefore I kept you from doing evil.” Truly there is no respect of persons with God, as the scriptures repeat no less than six times. All those who seek righteousness in his ways are called and accepted by him into the grace of Jesus Christ. Confronted with the truth, Abimelech immediately restores Sarah and rebukes Abraham for his deception. The irony is that Abraham, chosen by God to inherit great promises, succumbs to fear, while Abimelech, a pagan and an outsider to God’s covenant, acts with integrity. Yet God does not mock or shame Abraham before Abimelech. This is not because he is partial, for he has recorded Abraham’s failure for all generations to come. Rather, he stands by Abraham to underline his own faithfulness and to reveal the truth of righteousness before him. Through the riches of God’s grace, God honored his covenant, not because of,