Sermon Tone Analysis

Trusting God when the wells are dry.

I want to ask you something this morning.

Where do you go when you are in a tight place?

If someone in your home is having a heart attack you call the paramedics, if you have a fire you call the fire department.

But what do you do when there is no one who can take care of your problem for you?

What do you do if your spouse walks out of the marriage?

What do you do if you are accused of something that you didn’t do, and it cost you everything?

What then?

What if the doctor walks into the room and tells you things about your body that you thought would only be true about somebody else.

YOU HAVE CANCER....

What then?

Broken relationships and pain, lost loved ones, wayward children, sick children, where do you go?

I chose this topic because I think times will come at some point and sometimes during those times of struggle and some of you are in that place right now we wonder what to do and where to turn.

This morning we are going to look at a man who faced an unexpected trial.

What he did right, what he did wrong and where did he turn.

The man’s name is Abraham and his story is found in the 12th chapter of the book of Genesis.

Abraham was in a town called UR of the caldees and God called him and told him that he was to go into a land that God would show him.

He traveled without a map.

Genesis

Abraham goes and I wonder how he convinced Sarah to go.

I mean can you imagine?

Honey I have heard from the Lord it’s time to go…

ok darlin where are we going?

I dont know yet… God’s gonna tell us on the way.

So they leave and they come and God confirms that this is the land He is going to give Abraham now there are enemies there but God says this is the place.

Abraham journeyed on and he headed towards the desert.

Is he in the will of God? YES

Is he there by being obedient to God? YES

This land was a gift to him from God and he was obedient in following the Lord.

That’s why were surprised when we get to verse 10.

In the middle of obedience in the middle of doing God’s will right in the place of blessing there is a severe famine.

Maybe you have experienced that too.

You left one job and you took another and you prayed about it and you gave it over to God and now 6 months in the company is being downsized and you have been let go and you say to yourself...

“how can this be, I must be outside of God’s will, not neccesarily.

Abraham right in the middle of God’s will being obedient experienced a sever famine.

Remember the disciples Jesus said get into the boat and go to the other side.

were they in God’s will doing what Jesus told them to do? YES

In obedience to Christ they experienced one of the most devastating storms they had ever seen.

Don’t ever think that the most holy path is the smoothest path.

Sometimes the roughest path is God’s path for you and for me.

Well the famine came to the land and as trials often come they came with no warning or instructions.

There wasn’t a tag on it that said Abraham you have a severe famine and you have a wife and camels and servants to take care of I want you to do this.

No

Trials come without instructions without guidance.

God has a purpose but we sure dont know what it is while were going through it.

Now I need to say that it was wrong in this sense for Abraham to go to Egypt.

Abraham in the land that god gave him experienced a famine and what did he do?

He went down to Egypt.

He went down to Egypt, I think the writer not only means that he went down geographically.

I think he also means that he went down spiritually doing something in a panic that seemed reasonable to him, a better opportunity rather than trusting God.

So now we have Abraham in a land he is not supposed to be in and what does he do now?

He resorts to lying.

Well Abraham that’s funny you say your life will be spared for your wives sake…

Actually its a half truth, did you know that sarah was really his cousin.

He explained that later.

so in a sense it was a half truth, became a whole lie.

Abraham was willing to jeopardize his wife to save his own skin.

She apparently went along with it.

So Abraham knows that his wife is beautiful and the Egyptians will see her and they will want her.

So what happened now was that his lying became profitable.

You see if they said that she was his sister, now the custom was that the pharoah was going to have to negotiate with Abraham and give him some sort of dowry and buy him off so that pharoah could marry his sister.

That’s exactly what happened.

Abraham thought to himself my deceit is paying off.

Not all lies are immediately exposed sometimes they work.

It’s like the young boy said in Sunday school when he was asked what a lie was, he said “a lie is anabomination unto the Lord but a present help in times of trouble.”

Not all financial blessing is a sign of God’s blessing.

Pharoah gave all of those things to Abraham based on deciet.

So Abraham says to himself the lie seems to be working, but there is a shadow over Abrahams soul.

This shadow becomes very clear because the Bible says that he lost his testimony in Egypt.

Genesis 12:

Genesis 12:

Genesis 12:19

Abraham backslid when he was in Egypt he resorted to deceit and lying and panic.

He didn’t trust God, you’ll notice that there is no altar in Egypt.

There is no sign that he asked God for help in the midst of this famine, in the midst of these dry wells.

He did not seek the Lord but he did what seemed right and it invloved lying.

here he is being reprimanded by a pagan king.

The pagan king says, GET OUTTA HERE!

Can you imagine abraham turning around and saying to him you know you shouldnt believe in all of your pagan idols you should agree with and worship the God who I sevre could Abraham say that with integrity… NO

So Abraham leaves and it has negative influence on his family.

Remember this that when we backslide you and I may come back as parents but maybe our children dont.

This was true int he case of David, He bounced back from his case of adultery he recieved forgivness, but his kids never recovered.

So here you have an instance where Abraham was deceitful, it affected Sarah.

You can imagine what it did to her, as she had to become a casualty.

But it also affected Lot, he had to have gone with Abraham into Egypt because the text says they were together, they seperated later in the next xhapter.

Lot looked at the riches of Egypt and even though lot came out of Egypt, Egypt didn’t come out of Lot’s heart.

He had seen something that he wanted, and he never got over it.

you say well is there any evidence for that and the answer is YES

Genesis 13:

He said this is so good it reminds me of Egypt...

Lot made that decision, and he ended up in Sodom and Gomorrah, and what a sad story that turned out to be.

But theres something else that happened in Egypt, when he was there they brought back with him and Egyptian slave girl, and her name was Hagar.

The Bible refers to her as Hagar the Egyptian, and Abraham got her while they were there in Egypt.

You know the rest of the story how Sarah couldn’t have children at that time and she gave to him Hagar because she thought if I can’t give him children maybe my servant can instead and Ishmael was born and the middle east has been affected ever since.

So there are extreme consequences for Abraham’s sin.

But after he leaves Egypt he is back in right fellowship, he deals with his sin, and begins to listen to the Lord again.

Genesis

He had to go back where he made the wrong choice and make the right one.

The backslider is now worshipping god again and the backslider came home and was restored by God.

So whats the point?