Genesis 12:10-20
The Faithfulness of God

We have before us the first of Abram's many failures. They are set before us so we may know how completely our salvation depends upon God. We saw already that Abram was chosen when he was a pagan, serving false gods in Ur of the Chaldeans. It was not for works of righteousness that he had done. But entirely according to his mercy, God loved Abram and brought him out of his paganism that he should become what his name meant - an exalted father.

God made promises out of pure grace that Abram would be blessed, that he would give the land to Abram's seed, and that in Abram all the families of the earth would be blessed. And we saw that this was the preaching of the gospel to Abram - the land was a picture of paradise restored, of heaven, and the seed of Abram is, finally, Christ himself in whom all families of the earth indeed are blessed.

There were obstacles to the fulfillment of that promise. Abram was 75 years old. His 65 year old wife was barren. Discouraging when the promise was to Abram and his seed. Would he really bear a child at so late a date by his barren wife? And the promised land was occupied by Canaanites. Discouraging when the promises centered around the land.

Yet Abram believed God and set off for that land and dwelt in it as a stranger. And his wandering through the land we saw was a shadowy fulfillment of God's promise, for he walked over the land, covering the same territory that Israel would later conquer.

But now, his faith begins to waver. This story is a sort of anti-fulfillment of God's promises, showing us that Abram cannot by his own power accomplish anything that God has said will happen. Left to his own devices, he demonstrates that he would destroy God's plan in an instant. But God proves all powerful and his purposes are sure. Abram's failure serves only to accentuate the abundant grace of God and Abram's own need of the Savior who will descend from him.

This plan of salvation is being worked out entirely by God. If it depended on sinful men it would surely fail. But God has purposed the salvation of his people and so it must be.

  1. Abram's Failure of Faith - He Did not Trust the Lord
    1. He Leaves the Land
      1. To many this seems a harsh judgment
        1. After all, we aren't told that this represents a failure of Abram's faith.
        2. In fact, the Holy Spirit goes out of his way to assure us that the famine was severe (10)
      2. It is certainly understandable, from a human perspective, why Abram should leave.
        1. He is a stranger in this land. In times of famine, the natives feed themselves if they can. To a stranger they offer nothing. No price is high enough for them to starve themselves and their children by parting with their food.
        2. Even more serious is the lack of water. The crops of the land are watered by seasonal rains. If the crops have failed it is because the rain has failed. So what will Abram and his wife and nephew and servants and livestock drink?
        3. The temptation to leave is certainly severe.
        4. But we must regard it as exactly that - a temptation.
      3. Here are the clues that Abram's departure results from lack of faith.
        1. God promised him the land and so he left his country and his kinsmen to come here. To leave is to say he has lost faith that it will be given to him.
        2. The thrust of the story is to show Abram's folly and its results. Pharaoh's rebuke of Abram is God's rebuke. So Abram's decision to leave Canaan must be seen in the light of that theme.
        3. Abram goes down to Egypt (more on this in the next point)
        4. Abram leaves on his own initiative
          1. God does not speak to him as at the beginning of this chapter
          2. God does not say, "Get up, Go, leave the promised land for a land I will show you. You will dwell there until I have called you back to this place.
          3. Clearly then, we are meant to see this as Abram relying on his own devices rather than trusting the Lord.
      4. We may certainly sympathize with Abram
        1. we are meant to when we are told that the famine is severe.
        2. He is hungry. He is thirsty. He is surrounded by enemies. He is frightened. His family and servants are beginning to groan under his leadership and are crying out to him, "Have you brought us out into the land of Canaan to die? It was better for us when we were in Haran and had food and drink in abundance."
        3. In such a situation, the promise of God to give this land to his seed seems remote and impossible. He has more immediate concerns.
        4. Faith requires that he set his heart steadfastly on these promises of God and believe against all appearances that God will provide everything necessary for their fulfillment.
        5. And who can manufacture this kind of faith?
        6. God must give it to us or we are lost.
      5. Aren't we in the same predicament?
        1. God has come to us as he came to Abram.
        2. And he has preached the gospel of Christ to us: Get up! Leave this world and take up your citizenship in heaven. Come and suffer with Christ and you will surely be glorified with him.
        3. God has sworn to us by his Son that he will certainly bring us into heaven at last, that our present sufferings are unworthy to be compared with that glory, that we lose nothing of value in this life even if we lose everything we possess.
        4. He has sworn that neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities nor powers 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
        5. And oh how are hearts thrill to hear this and long to believe.
        6. And we do believe, but fitfully. Like Abram we go forth in faith, but this or that trial comes, and we begin to doubt and must be called to faith again in the work that Christ has done - that it is perfect and finished and worth all that we have.
      6. So Abram leaves behind what God had promised him to seek as good a life as he may provide by relying on himself in these desperate times.
    2. He Goes down to Egypt
      1. Egypt! Again and again, a picture of relying on one's own strength rather than God's
        1. I pictured Abram's household earlier as complaining against him that he has brought them into the land of Canaan to die.
          1. If this sounds like the children of Israel under Moses, you get the point.
          2. The children of Israel in the desert are the first audience of this book of Genesis, and they are meant to see in it their own situation.
          3. They cried out against Moses saying "At least in Egypt we had enough to eat and drink. Now we're in the wilderness and we're going to die.
          4. Yet when they cried against Moses, Moses did not take them back to Egypt where there was water.
          5. He inquired of the Lord and at the Lord's command struck a rock and life-giving water poured out.
          6. And, Paul says, the rock was Christ.
          7. But Abram does not inquire of the Lord and receive that life-giving stream from the rock which is Christ. Rather, he attempts to solve the problem in unbelief, as Israel wanted to, going down to Egypt where the arm of flesh will help him.
      2. The children of Israel were warned against relying on Egypt in times of trouble
        1. Now it's true that Abram lived before that warning had been made.
        2. But how can Israel, who had heard the warning, fail to hear the ominous music in the background at this point?
        3. Ex 13.17 - When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer; for God thought, "If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt."
        4. dt 17.16 - Even so, [the king] must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the LORD has said to you, "You must never return that way again.
        5. And in later days the land of Judah (all that's left of faithful Israel) will commit this sin
          1. The Babylonians will be coming against them
          2. And they will make an alliance with Egypt rather than returning to the Lord. And Egypt will fail them.
          3. And God will say in Isaiah 30;1ff. -
            Oh, rebellious children, says the LORD,
            who carry out a plan, but not mine;
            who make an alliance, but against my will,
            adding sin to sin;
            2 who set out to go down to Egypt
            without asking for my counsel,
            to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh,
            and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt;
            3 Therefore the protection of Pharaoh
            shall become your shame,
            and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation.
          4. Isn't this exactly what Abram's doing?
        6. Abram's in trouble and tries to solve his problem by seeking help from Egypt.
    3. He Jeopardizes the Godly Line
      1. Immediately, Abram begins to worry.
        1. All the time he was wandering in Canaan, he did not worry.
          1. Canaanites to the left of him, Canaanites to the right of him, Canaanites before and behind him.
          2. Yet he seemed in 12:1-9 scarcely aware of them.
          3. He walked calmly through the land, building altars to the Lord.
          4. He knew that if God had promised him this land, then God would surely bring it to pass.
        2. But now he has taken his life in his own hands and he realizes he is insecure.
        3. He's trying to provide for himself by going to Egypt rather than trusting in the provision of God.
      2. So he concocts an elaborate plan to save his own life in the midst of great danger. (11-13)
      3. He understands that the Egyptians will see his wife's beauty and wish to kill him so they may have her.
        1. This, on its own, should have deterred him from entering Egypt.
        2. He is jeopardizing his own life and that of his wife by doing so.
        3. Yet on her and on him all the hope of the world has come to rest.
        4. From them must come that godly seed who will crush the head of the serpent, overturn the curse, take away sin, and restore his people to paradise and fellowship with God.
        5. It is unconscionable that Abram should endanger this plan by taking his wife into danger, where he may be killed and she abducted and married to another.
        6. Yet Abram, faltering in his faith, has no such glorious concern.
        7. He only wishes to save his own neck.
      4. No doubt, as well, he expects as Sarai's brother to be able to protect her from potential suitors
        1. Those who wish her hand in marriage must negotiate with him
        2. And he will drag those negotiations out until he and Sarai can escape.
        3. What a tangled web he is weaving! How inadequately he is making provision for himself and his wife.
        4. Yet still he does not cry out to God for protection and direction. He relies on his own plans and strength and ingenuity.
      5. Do we not do this as well a thousand times a day?
        1. We trust in money or jobs or parents or friends to provide for us what we need.
        2. The result? When these things seem about to fail us we search frantically for replacements.
        3. We worry because we have forgotten that all that we need has been secured by Christ Jesus.
        4. Our very lives are hidden with him in God. What harm may come to us?
        5. Abram had the sure promise of God, and he should have been secure in that.
        6. We are even more secure; our salvation has been accomplished, finished by Christ who has sat down at the right hand of God.
        7. Stop this foolish doubting!
          1. Put no confidence in princes or in the sons of men in whom there is no help
          2. What can governments or employers or doctors or even officials of the church do for you?
          3. Your hope is not in them but in Christ! (And the purpose of the officers of the church is to direct you to Christ and to exemplify him before you.)
        8. Stop this foolish worrying! What do you need that God has not promised you? What has he promised that is not already laid up for you in Christ?
      6. And so the best laid plans of this mouse of a man are about to go terribly awry.
  2. The Frightening Result - His Works Cannot Save (14-16)
    1. He Loses Sarai to One More Powerful
      1. He had been hoping, as we said, to stall any of Sarai's suitors by negotiating with them a bride price while making secret plans to flee.
      2. He was relying on himself to be strong enough to stall these suitors and smart enough to outwit them.
      3. In a moment, all this self-reliance comes to nothing.
      4. Pharaoh himself, the king of Egypt, takes an interest in Sarai.
        1. And so Abram's plans come to nothing.
        2. He cannot negotiate with Pharaoh. What Pharaoh wants Pharaoh gets.
        3. So Pharaoh sends men over to Abram to confiscate Sarai and as an afterthought to give Abram a bride price to which he would be entitled as her brother.
      5. Abram's strength has become weakness and all his plans have been frustrated.
      6. We may thank God that Abram is not the one responsible for making sure that our Savior is born.
      7. For Abram is weak like us; their is no strength or ability in him. His plans come to nothing and all his purposes are thwarted.
      8. If salvation is to come through this man, it must be entirely the work of God. Abram cannot save us. Nor can we save ourselves, for we are like him.
    2. He Receives in Exchange Great Wealth (16)
      1. Small consolation for the loss of his bride and the seeming end to any possibility of God fulfilling his promise.
        1. How can God make of Abram a great nation now?
        2. Abram's old barren wife hadn't represented much of a hope, but certainly the situation is more hopeless now.
        3. How will this promised seed be born?
        4. How will Christ come now?
      2. Abram's unbelief is further demonstrated in accepting these gifts.
        1. Was it not God who had promised to bless him and make him a great nation and make his name great?
        2. Yet here it is Pharaoh who is blessing him and making him rich.
        3. Two chapters later the king of Sodom will offer Abram great riches and Abram will refuse - "I have sworn to the LORD, God Most High, maker of heaven and earth, 23 that I would not take a thread or a sandal-thong or anything that is yours, so that you might not say, 'I have made Abram rich.'
        4. But at this point, no such faith is his that he should trust in God only for the fulfillment of his promises.
        5. He takes - perhaps feels forced to take - this wealth from Pharaoh, thus implicitly denying his faith in the promise of God.
      3. And one of these gifts will be the setup for a later fall
        1. Hagar, Abram's maidservant, was an Egyptian woman, undoubtedly acquired in this event.
        2. And she will be the occasion of demonstrating a future episode of Abram's unbelief.
          1. Sarai, still barren, and quite aged, will tell Abram to have a child with Hagar so that God's promise may be fulfilled.
          2. So Abram does this, expecting that this son, Ishmael, will inherit the land.
          3. But Abram is again trusting in his flesh and his own strength.
          4. It is God's intention to bring a miraculous birth through Sarai, Isaac, who will inherit the promise of God.
  3. God's Intervention - Undeserved Grace Restores Abram
    1. Pharaoh's House is Cursed
      1. What has Pharaoh done wrong?
        1. Perhaps he has been a bully in taking Abram's wife, but the story says nothing of that.
        2. He has not been told, "This woman is Abram's wife. And, further, it is upon her that all the hope of the world rests. Therefore do not touch her."
        3. His sin is one of ignorance.
      2. These curses ought in justice to come down upon Abram
        1. It is he who has lied and taught his wife to lie
        2. It is he who has knowingly jeopardized the godly line
        3. It is he who has turned from the Lord to trust in himself.
      3. Yet God's promise was gracious; it was unconditional.
        1. And part of that promise was "I will curse him who curses you."
        2. Even though Pharaoh's curse against Abram was unintentional, still God curses Pharaoh.
      4. As well, God is strong where Abram was weak
        1. Abram cannot protect his wife's chastity and the integrity of the godly line
        2. But God can, and so he does.
    2. Pharaoh rebukes Abram
      1. And, really, this is God's rebuke to Abram through Pharaoh's mouth.
      2. Why doesn't Pharaoh come and kill Abram, as Abram had feared would happen if anyone knew Sarai was his wife?
        1. Because Pharaoh has seen what God does to those who curse Abram
        2. And so he fears the Lord
      3. Can Abram doubt any longer that God would have protected him if he had told the truth?
      4. Pharaoh says, "why didn't you tell me she was your wife? I almost violated her and took her as my own.
      5. And Abram may doubt that Pharaoh had that much integrity
        1. After all, it's a scared Pharaoh talking now
        2. But he might have been whistling a different tune before the plagues came.
        3. But that's exactly the point. If Pharaoh had sought Abram's life, God would have brought the plagues and preserved his servant.
      6. Abram need not have lied or trusted in his own ingenuity which failed miserably.
      7. God would have taken care of him.
      8. And even though Abram did lie and falter in his faith, God still took care of him.
    3. Pharaoh expels Abram from Egypt
      1. And so Pharaoh becomes God's instrument for sending Abram back to the land of promise
        1. Even as a later Pharaoh, stricken by plagues from God, will drive the children of Israel out of his land to Canaan.
        2. God is demonstrating ahead of time the great salvation he will bring in that day.
      2. And he is showing that all salvation is of his grace alone
        1. Abram's failure cannot thwart God's plan
        2. Pharaoh's great strength as well is nothing to God though it seemed so much to Abram.
        3. The king's heart is in God's hand and he turns it wherever he wishes.
      3. The result of this is to increase Abram's faith
        1. By the next chapter he will be back in the promised land, building an altar to the Lord.
        2. That is, he will again be expressing his faith that God and God alone must give him this land.
        3. And God will bring it to pass.
      4. Take courage, believer!
        1. This is not here that you should sin that grace may abound.
        2. But it does tell you who like Abram falter in your faith - even when you sin, even when you doubt - still grace abounds.
        3. God is determined to save his people - to save you - and nakedness and famine and peril and sword cannot stop him. Not even you can stop him.
        4. When you see how God saves his people even when they doubt and sin, is not your faith as well increased?
        5. You begin to realize that God will save you.
        6. You will not go back to sin, taking advantage of this grace. How could you?
        7. But you will be put in awe all the more of God's mercy and his power which has been poured out upon you by the Spirit of Christ.
        8. And you will seek to do good works not by your own feeble efforts - you know where those get you - but by entrusting yourself to the one who alone does great wonders.

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