01-45 Famine, Fear & Faithfulness
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Genesis 12:10-20
Genesis 12:10-20
August 25, 1869 Andrew Jenkins (“Professor Jenkins”) attempted to ride over Niagara Falls on a bicycle that was turned upside down. 10 years earlier (at age of 15), he had seen “The Great Blondin” a frenchman, walk across the falls on a tightrope and was fascinated. He went home, stretched out a rope b/t 2 trees in his yard and began to practice. He was interested in trying something different so devised the bicycle stunt. Word travelled about the stunt and on the day of the ride there were as many as 50000 people watching.
Before starting, the crowd had the opportunity to critique the machine and many were left unimpressed, thinking it was going to be a regular bicycle. Instead, while there was some danger, it was virtually impossible for him to have fallen. so he began his ride across the falls—taking only 11 minutes.
Apparently when he got to the other side, he met a man that wasn’t impressed so Jenkins asked if this man if he believed the daredevil could ride it back again. The man agree that he could. So Jenkins invited him to to ride with him and of course he declined the invitation.
Its a simple illustration about faith…the man believed about but not in Professor Jenkins.
As we’re beginning to study the life of Abraham, perhaps the most important aspect about him is his faith. We discovered last time that saving faith is more than simply understanding the content of the gospel, or believing it to be true, but must also have the component of trust, reliance upon the Lord. This is what distinguishes Abram’s faith from that of the demons (Jas 2:19).
Now, the lesson for us is extremely practical and summarized in the question, “What do you trust in?” For many, it is in their ability to do good (with the hope that good outweighs the bad). For others, it is in following a set of rules, regulations, laws to gain acceptance with God and maintain approval by God. But for those who are justified, it is about trusting LJC—ALONE.
In our vv today, we see how often the man who is justified by faith, does not always, consistently live by that faith—though it is a general principle that is found:
4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.
There are times (and will be times) when believers are faced with difficulties in life that aren’t handled the best way by us. Instead of fully trusting God, we begin to look to our own wisdom and strength for answers to those difficulties. This can be disastrous b/c of the greatness of our inability to trust in anything of ourselves.
Psalm 118:9 (NASB95) (middle verse of Bible)
9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord Than to trust in princes.
The thought of “taking refuge” in the Lord stresses the insecurity and helplessness that every person faces. The term lit means “to hide” and begins to express the help, security and rest that comes to those whose refuge is the Lord (YHWH).
12 Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!
11 But let all who take refuge in You be glad, Let them ever sing for joy; And may You shelter them, That those who love Your name may exult in You.
7 Wondrously show Your lovingkindness, O Savior of those who take refuge at Your right hand From those who rise up against them.
But when you begin to lean on yourself—you’re neglecting the help, security and rest that comes from God alone.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.
In our passage today, Abram (for a moment) began to lean on his own understanding (not the only time). There could have been disastrous consequences for doing this, but the passage (as much as it focuses on Abram’s failure) is much more about God’s faithfulness—even in the midst of the failures of His own people.
I want to draw your attention to 3 divisions in vv 10-20: Famine, Fear, and Faithfulness
Famine
Famine
vs 10
We are told that during Abram’s so-journey (meant to dwell as an alien, to live among those not your blood relatives), he encountered a time of great difficulty in the form of a famine. Moses indicates that it was “severe” (heavy, oppressing, weighty). The famine was a heavy weight upon the people bringing profound hunger to those in the region.
Famines were experienced on occasion in biblical times. For the nation of Israel, the most likely cause was reduced rainfall. Other places, like Egypt and Mesopotamia—they would generally escape these catastrophes b/c they had rivers to water their crops. The only irrigation for the land of Israel would be wells and small tributary streams that came from the hills.
We understand that God controls nature and the seasons, that He provides for all:
45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
9 You visit the earth and cause it to overflow; You greatly enrich it; The stream of God is full of water; You prepare their grain, for thus You prepare the earth. 10 You water its furrows abundantly, You settle its ridges, You soften it with showers, You bless its growth. 11 You have crowned the year with Your bounty, And Your paths drip with fatness. 12 The pastures of the wilderness drip, And the hills gird themselves with rejoicing. 13 The meadows are clothed with flocks And the valleys are covered with grain; They shout for joy, yes, they sing.
12 “The Lord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
Under the OT God uses famines to accomplish His own purposes. Now, sometimes famine is the result of God’s judgment—listed with pestilence and warfare (2 Chr 20:9; Jer 14:12; Ezek 6:11; Rev 6:8). During King Ahab’s reign and as a response to Israel’s worship of Baal there was a drought on the land for 3 1/2 years.
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.
But not every famine was God’s punishment for sin. Sometimes famine was to bring people back to God. Other times, like here in Gen (Abram and Joseph Gen 41-47) the famine accomplished God’s purpose for these individuals and for His chosen people.
Here is a present difficulty for Abram. God promised Abram many blessings, including that a great nation would come forth from him—meaning lots of descendants. When Abram went forth he had no children but trusted in the God who promised. God sent him to Canaan—directly into the famine. Directly into difficulty—and the adversity is very great (severe famine). There was a massive shortage of food and yet God was calling to move forward in faith.
Living in a fallen world, under the curse is something we all have to face. You cannot escape until the Lord calls you to be with Himself. And while there will be tribulation in this world (Jesus promised), we are called to walk by faith. That faith which resulted in justification is the faith you are to practice moment by moment—trusting God in the midst of difficulties.
Whatever it is that you are facing, the life of Abram should strengthen your heart and give you encouragement—not b/c God keeps us from difficulty but that He keeps us in our difficulties. He is a God of compassion, lovingkindness and rich mercy.
17 For the arms of the wicked will be broken, But the Lord sustains the righteous.
23 The steps of a man are established by the Lord, And He delights in his way. 24 When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.
8 My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.
14 The Lord sustains all who fall And raises up all who are bowed down.
You can trust God in the difficulties (and though we don’t understand the high ways of His plans—we do know His character is unfailing—and you can trust Him).
Fear
Fear
Abram does what any responsible person would do, when there is no food—you go to the place where there is food. This wasn’t doubt. Abram wasn’t denying that God would sustain him and fulfill His promises by whatever means was necessary. God could have opened the heavens and produced food. But we are responsible, moral beings—and this was wise on Abram’s part.
Matthew Henry:
Abram’s prudence made use of the opportunity; for we tempt God, and do not trust him, if, in the time of distress, we use not the means he has graciously provided for our preservation: We must not expect needless miracles.
Now, God would have preserved Abram’s life—otherwise He would have denied Himself. But Abram goes down to Egypt (where the food supply was ample). There is a theology that surrounds Egypt. Egypt is where the descendants of Ham went after they were scattered from Babel. Sometimes God permits and even commands His people to go to Egypt.
3 He said, “I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there.
After the birth of Jesus God told Joseph:
13 Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.”
Most of the time, Egypt—b/c it stands for the world in the wrong alliance against God, God’s people are admonished to stay away from it.
1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help And rely on horses, And trust in chariots because they are many And in horsemen because they are very strong, But they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord!
Egypt was just as pagan as the rest of the world (where Abram had come from) but it stood for living without God. There was pride in the strength of Egypt, its horses, chariots, warriors—but still no match for God:
3 Now the Egyptians are men and not God, And their horses are flesh and not spirit; So the Lord will stretch out His hand, And he who helps will stumble And he who is helped will fall, And all of them will come to an end together.
But here, Abram chooses to go where the food was and would sustain them. As they were travelling, Abram began to fear what the caravan would encounter in Egypt and from Pharaoh.
vs 11-12
His fears were not unfounded. He was married to a very beautiful woman (even at least 65 years old—this may have been more middle aged for those who lived well into their 100s—Sarah lives 127). Some might dismiss this thinking that beauty is in the eye of the beholder—and every husband here (at least it should be our conviction) has the most beautiful wife. Still, her beauty could not be dismissed and it was not lost on the Egyptians (vs 14).
Abram may have been aware that the Egyptians had the reputation for wife abduction. And as a foreigner, he would have been at great risk, but in a moment of fear, he stopped trusting God and having confidence in Him—and began to rely upon his own understand—setting him up for failure.
Abram’s Scheme
Abram’s Scheme
vs 13
This was a half-truth, b/c Sarah was his 1/2 sister.
12 “Besides, she actually is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife;
Moses does not condemn nor condone the lie Abram told. A 1/2 truth is still a lie. Abram (for the moment) stopped trusting God and His Word. He began to lean on his own wisdom.
18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless.”
Abram’s Selfishness
Abram’s Selfishness
Abram was acting/scheming out of fear. He had no idea how the Egyptians would have responded had they simply told the truth. But Abram is more concerned with himself than he is with his precious wife. “They will kill me but they will let you live…that it may go well with me b/c of you…live b/c of you” This is self-centeredness at its core. Abram took his eyes off the Lord and put them on himself—of course he’s going to be self-centered, self-interested, self-minded, self-promoting. When you begin to lay aside trust you will fear.
2 “Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For the Lord God is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.”
40 And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith?”
25 The fear of man brings a snare, But he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted.
Now disaster strikes: She is indeed taken by Pharaoh (14-15). And he takes her for his wife (vs 19). horrible things begin to happen at this point.
Pharaoh is the king of Egypt—that’s the title given to those who were political rulers but also held to be the go-between men and the gods. Egyptian were sun worshipers (Ra). Egyptian history is very rich and the timelines are again a little fuzzy when compared with extra-biblical records. And if you try to harmonize those secular records with the Bible—it’ll drive you mad. What is most likely is that the secular history (accurate for the most part) is a bit more compressed than what those records suggest. Anyhow—this Pharaoh is most likely Khufu (built the great pyramid of Giza). He had complete rulership over his kingdom.
Visitors would have been forced to embrace Egypt’s gods and even a deified Pharoah and jailed or killed if they refused. Pharaoh had all power to take wife (wives) for himself—the practice polygamy was quite pervasive in antiquity. So he “takes” Sarai to be his wife. That word means to “grasp, seize or snatch” and implies taken by force. Now, we don’t anything know else about how Pharaoh treated Sarai. We don’t know (and not healthy to let the mind ponder) what happens in Pharaoh’s chambers, in his harem. I can believe that Sarai was filled with fear herself—on account of the scheme her husband devised.
While this is happening to Sarai—notice what happens to Abram:
vs 16. Abram was greatly enriched on account of Pharaoh’s pleasure. Abram gives up his wife and receives all sorts of livestock. This would become a source of contention later on.
2 Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death.
And yet the Lord has been faithful.
Faithfulness
Faithfulness
This entire account is more about God’s faithfulness than Abram’s failure. The fulfillment of God’s blessing depends not on Abram’s conduct but on God’s character. Up until this—God has been silent. But on account of Pharaoh’s defilement of Abram’s wife:
vs 17
“Great plagues” also translated diseases (same word describing 10 plagues in Egypt later on). It may have been a skin diseases like leprosy or boils. The point is that they were inflicting great agony on Pharaoh and all that was his (and his house). Pharaoh somehow understood the cause and effect—vv 18-19.
So he—vs 20.
What is behind Pharaoh’s protective envoy is the God who is faithful to Himself.
1 The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.
God moved Pharaoh to send Abram away alone with Sarai so that He could continue to bless Abram (BTW Abram should have been a blessing to Pharaoh and the Egyptians—instead his actions brought judgment upon them).
Steve Lawson: “What does the faithfulness of God mean? It means the reliability of God to always do what God promises and pledges to do. The faithfulness of God is the fidelity of God to keep His word no matter what man may do or not do. The faithfulness of God is the loyalty of God to support His people even in the midst of their trials and difficulties. The faithfulness of God is the trustworthiness of God to honor His covenant.”
9 “Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments;
5 Your lovingkindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
13 No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.
24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
3 But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;
11 By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.
I wonder if perhaps Sarah had a greater faith at times than her husband.
God intervened and everything He did to protect, guard, guide, move in the hearts of people—everything was to guarantee the protection of the Messianic line that would bring forth JC and provide salvation to those who trust Christ. JC is the Savior of sinners and it is God’s promised blessing that all who trust Him will be saved.
You’re going to find difficulties in this life. As believers, you can put your trust and hope in the Lord and follow His leading as you navigate the difficult waters of life under the curse. Or you can take your eyes off the Lord and like Abram, follow the wisdom from the world and your own understand. That always invites disaster and even when we are unfaithful—God remains faithful.
Be encouraged, strengthened, may God give you greater hope as you cling to the One who is always faithful—trusting Him to direct your steps.