The Gospel in Genesis: Faith, Famine, Failure

Introduction

Read Genesis 12:10-20

Genesis 12:10–13:1 (ESV)

Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.

So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.

Faith is Tested Through Famine

Following God Does Not Guarantee Ease of Life

We have been inundated with bad theology for the last 70+ years with the advent of the prosperity gospel.

This gospel teaches that if you have enough faith and do what you are supposed to do then God is obligated to bless you and give you an easy life.

This is a lie from the pit of hell. There are things that we can agree to disagree on. This is not one of them because Scripture actually gives the exact opposite teaching.

God does not promise an easy life for those who follow Him. Many come to God hoping for things to get better and then beat themselves up thinking they don’t have enough faith because life is still just as hard, if not harder than before.

But God calls us to Himself, not to give us lesser blessings, but to give us the greatest blessing of Himself.

God uses Troubles to Mature and Sanctify His People

Troubles are actually guaranteed in life.

Jesus promised His disciples they will have trouble.

John 16:33 (ESV)

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

So right off the bat, God begins to test Abram’s faith through famine.

Abram followed God’s call. He went when God told him to. And yet right after the blessing and Abram’s obedience, he is faced with famine!

Come on, God, surely this is not what you had in mind when you said you were going to make me into a great nation!!!

Remember -

Abram left a country of comforts

Probably had stone houses not unlike the stone temple to their moon god

He had a stable life free from hardship and uncertainty

God now calls him to a land of wandering

Abram is now living in a perpetual camping trip

And now there is a famine where they are not sure where their next meal is coming from.

God wants to show us His infinite value over having the blessings of this world

God wants Abram to see that there is a greater source of provision than the things of this world.

Abram has a chance to learn that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Abram is facing the temptation of hunger.

And he has the choice of whether to rely on God for his provision or on his own wisdom and cunning to provide for him and his family.

Note: The desire to provide for his family is a good, God-given desire. It is shameful for any man not to be concerned for the well-being of his family and to do what he can to work to provide. But where do we ultimately put our trust in how we will receive our provisions?

Abram has a chance to see and experience the goodness of God in the midst of this trial and hardship. He can see the goodness of God more clearly in the trial than he would have in the midst of prosperity.

God wants to free us from reliance on the world

Along with giving Abram the chance to put his trust in God, God also wants to free Abram from the curse of physical prosperity.

Physical prosperity in itself is not bad. But there is a curse to it because in our sinful fallen state, we can begin to trust in prosperity thinking that it can give us everything our hearts long for and if we stay there too long, we can begin to feel hopeless that there is nothing else to live for.

The preacher in Ecclesiastes says its all meaningless.

Tom Brady asked the question, “Is this all?”

Hoffmantown founder, Sam Hoffman, experienced physical prosperity during the 50s during the post-war economic boom as he began to build and develop the neighborhood of Hoffmantown in Albuquerque. But even after all the success and prosperity he experienced, in 1959, while he and his wife were living in Arizona, he killed his wife and then committed suicide. In spite of the prosperity he experienced, the meaningless of that prosperity led to despair and death because he had not experienced the true life and blessing that comes from Christ alone.

Dane Wilkerson from Hoffmantown BC - “Success without Jesus leads to Nowhere.”

Prosperity without Jesus is a curse because it blinds us to the infinite worth and beauty of Christ and it is one that God is fiercely fighting to free His people from.

The Consequences When Faith “Fails”

Sadly, Abram chose to rely on himself/the world.

Instead of praying and seeking God’s wisdom and provision, Abram decides to take matters into his own hands.

This was his first mistake. He chose to trust in his own wisdom. Again, his desire to take care of his family was not wrong. But where he placed his trust was a failure.

So instead of walking by faith, Abram walks in unbelief, unbelief that God could have provided for him and that God’s ways were better than his ways.

So he turns now to Egypt.

Keep your eyes open when you hear Egypt mentioned.

Moses is writing this account down for his people who have just left Egypt. Egypt represented rebellion against God. Egypt represented slavery and oppression. In most cases, Egypt represents the world in opposition to the one true God.

There were times when God told his people that it would be alright to go to Egypt. God can use Egypt as His means of provision. But we get in trouble when we try to determine God’s plans on our own without praying and trusting in God’s plan rather than our own.

Proverbs 3:5–6 (ESV)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

But as we go through this account, we see some fallout from this initial sin of unbelief.

The Sin of Unbelief Leads to More Sin

When Abram chose to make his own decision to go to Egypt, to trust in Egypt’s provision rather than God’s, he found a new problem waiting there for him.

Abram looks at his wife who is still very beautiful even at 65 and he fears for his life because others might want to kill him to take her as their wife. So he now proceeds to lie and even to put his wife in harm’s way to save his own neck.

He is sacrificing his wife on the altar of personal safety. I can’t help but think this put a damper on their relationship.

Of course, we can rationalize sin by saying its not really a full lie, because as we will see in chapter 20, Sarai is his half-sister. But it is still a lie because he is omitting the fact that she is his wife.

While it is sad that this scene is coming on the heels of the recent call of God and Abram’s obedience of faith in the first part of chap. 12, we have to realize this is not uncommon.

When a person receives Christ as Savior, not only are we guaranteed a life of trials, we are guaranteed a life of temptations and attacks from the enemy.

When Jesus was baptized and officially began His earthly ministry, we see him carried off into the wilderness to spend 40 days in the presence of His Father, fasting and studying the Word. At the end of the 40 days, Jesus is then tempted by Satan. Of course, Jesus perfectly resists the temptations of the enemy.

But we do not always do so well.

The evening of the day of my salvation:

I went home to excitedly tell my parents of the decision I had made at school through the encouragement of one of my friends. I was on cloud nine.

Later that evening, I was playing in our front yard and I was using sticks and stones as imaginary weapons. We had a electric lantern on a pole in our front yard that I ended up hitting and breaking. When my parents found the broken glass, they proceeded to investigate the situation. I knew I shouldn’t have been throwing sticks and stones around so instead of coming clean, I ended up lying about my role in this offense. Of course, my parents were smart enough to see through my lie. But the point is I sinned by doing something my parents told me not to do and then I had to cover that sin with another sin because I failed to trust the One who had already paid the price for my sin. So my self-reliance got me into even more trouble. My salvation did not make me immune to temptation. One could say it actually caused my new found faith to be tested and like Abram, I failed the test.

As we follow Christ, and the more closely we follow Him, the more we are called to be on our guard and to put on the armor of God because we will be attacked by the one who wants to see us fall.

But we will get to the hope of this story that this is not the end of Abram’s story, and it is not the end of our story, even when we fail. But it is something we need to be aware of.

The Sin of Unbelief Leads to Curse

Sadly, our sin leads to the curse of consequences.

For Ourselves

Because Abram chose to trust himself rather than God, we see the results of this account when he goes to Egypt, lies about Sarai’s relationship with him, and now we see him in a foreign land and with the king of that land taking his wife to be his own wife.

The one through whom God has promised to make into a great nation has now become the wife of another man.

Again, in my story, while I would have been in trouble for doing something I shouldn’t have done, I got in more trouble because I lied about it.

For Others

But the even more heartbreaking thing we see here is the result upon Pharaoh and his household because Abram did not trust God.

God afflicted Pharaoh and his house with plagues because he took Abram’s wife. God was not going to let his promise go down the drain because of Abram’s failure.

Abram’s lack of faith led to a curse upon those around him. First upon Sarai because here she was being seen as an object to be used and taken. Then upon Pharaoh because of God’s discipline upon him for taking another man’s wife even in his ignorance.

We are called to be a blessing, but our sin and self-sufficiency leads to curses

Remember, Abram was called to be a blessing to the other families and nations of the earth. And yet his lack of faith led to bringing a curse upon those around him.

In the same way, our sin and lack of faith never happens within a bubble. Our sin always affects other people. It is never contained to just myself. I’m never just hurting myself, I’m hurting other people around me.

And the last thing we want to happen is for my sin to keep someone else from experiencing the ultimate blessing of salvation in Christ.

Just as Pharaoh asked Abram, “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife,” there might be those around us who ask us, “Why didn’t you tell me that Jesus is your Savior?”

Maybe we are afraid to tell because we are afraid to be seen as hypocrites because we know our own sinfulness and the things we still struggle with. We are afraid of what our own testimony might bring.

But even when we do mess up and sin, we can always be honest about our sinfulness and confess our sin, not just to God, but also to those we sin against and pray that God would turn what we meant for evil and use it for good and for His glory.

Amazing Grace in the Midst of Failure

And this brings us to how God does bring a conclusion to this event. God still brings blessing and grace from this circumstance.

The Grace of Discipline

First, we see the grace of discipline.

Pharaoh - God disciplined Pharaoh to actually keep Pharaoh from falling into sin. Somehow, Pharaoh knew from these plagues what had happened. Did God speak to Pharaoh? Perhaps. Whether Pharaoh heard God’s voice or simply figured out what was happening, Pharaoh was actually saved from his sin because of God’s discipline. It very well could be that God revealed Himself to Pharaoh in spite of Abram’s sin and cowardice.

Abram - God disciplined Abram through Pharaoh’s reproach against Abram. Imagine the guilt and shame Abram must have felt when Pharaoh confronted him about what took place. And this led Abram to leave Egypt and to go back to the land God was giving him.

There is grace in the discipline of God. God demonstrates his love as He disciplines His children and we should not despise His discipline when it comes upon us. It is never easy, but it is always good.

The Grace of Repentance

There is also grace in repentance.

Pharaoh, when he realized his potential sin, gave Sarai back to Abram. He repented of his sin and presumably found relief from the plagues that had come upon him.

Abram also found the grace of repentance because we see that he does leave Egypt and heads back into the Negeb, which is the southern part of the land God has planned to give him. Abram is back in the place where God wants him to be.

This is the essence of repentance. Repentance is the act of turning away from our sin and headed back towards Christ. It is leaving the place of sin and death and going to the place of joy and life in Christ. Again, this does not mean that there will not be hardships to face and overcome by faith in God, but it is the place of life for Abram.

And when we repent, we find the life God has designed us for.

The life of the believer is the call of daily repentance. We are called to examine ourselves and to daily pick up our cross and follow Christ. And there is grace as we experience life abundantly as we live in this repentance.

The Grace of the Cross

Here’s the good news, whatever our past, whatever sins we have committed, God in His mercy and grace has demonstrated His love for us by sending Jesus to take on the penalty of sin for all those who would come to Him by faith and repentance.

Abram was a pagan idolator who found new life and joy in God because of God’s saving grace towards him which Abram received by faith.

But what happens when our faith falters and fails during times of testing? Does the cross still cover us when we stumble and fall in our walk with Christ?

The good news of Christ and the good news we see here with Abram is God’s grace does not simply justify us at the initial moment of salvation, God’s grace sustains and covers us even as we struggle with sin and even when we fail in sin.

God’s grace still covered Abram in this time of failing. When God chose to save Abram at the beginning of Chapter 12, he already knew the end of chapter 12. And this will not be the final time that Abram falls. We are going to see a completely imperfect man wrestle and struggle with sin, sometimes growing in His faith and obedience to God, and often times falling and giving in to sin. But we see a man, who through it all, has been changed by the power of God’s grace and is seeking to love and honor God and repents and gets back up when he fails to do so.

God did not choose Abram because he saw a righteous man. God chose Abram because of His own grace and He knew all that Abram would do.

If you are a believer here this morning, you and I will face times in which we fail in our walk with Christ wondering if God would still save us if He knew all that we would do. Would He still love us knowing what we know now?

And the answer is YES because our faith is not in how well we follow Christ or how much we believe or in the sincerity of our faith. Our faith is in Christ, His perfect righteousness, and His work on the cross, and when Jesus died, He took on all of our sin, past, present, and future.

The question is not whether Jesus would still save you in spite of what you have done. The question is, do you believe in Him to get back up when you sin and to keep seeking Christ with all of your heart? The blessing of the cross is that it is not just for the lost, it is for us as believers who are constantly fighting against sin and knowing that God loves us, even while we are still sinners!

let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through and when I can’t let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you - rich mullins