Don't Let Fear Overcome Faith - Pastor Tom Loghry
In Genesis 12:10-20, we see Abraham showing some doubts of God’s faithfulness. It is human nature to forget and not listen, but we must be careful to remember God’s faithfulness and listen to His promises.
Transcript:
This is from Genesis 12, 10 through 20. Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while, because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife. Then they will kill me, but let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake, and my life will be spared because of you. When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife, Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abram. What have you done to me, he said? Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister, so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go. Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way with his wife and everything he had.
I've been on a kick lately of watching shows with Sara that I enjoyed ten or fifteen years ago. If you told me I was going to be doing that, I wouldn't have really imagined it because I thought I would have remembered everything, but it turns out you forget everything. So I can enjoy them again, which is great. Right now we're watching 24, which if you don't recall is a sort of crisis anti-terrorist show. And in the most recent episode we watched, one of the main characters was being chased by an abusive father because she ran away with his daughter. She's the girl's nanny and is trying to protect her. Eventually at one point she hides the little girl in some boxes and tells her to stay there while she goes to get help. She goes off, but when she gets back to where she hid the girl, she's nowhere to be found. Now we don't know yet whether someone took her or if she just wandered off, because again I can't remember anything. But I kind of suspect that she didn't stay put. You see that all the time in TV shows. People are told to do something. Wait, stay put. And of course they don't. And some calamity happens. You heard what they were told, but it was like the character on TV wasn't even listening. Very frustrating. But not listening is not just a problem for TV characters. It's a problem for human beings in general. And in the remainder of Genesis 12, we see that it's a problem for Abram.
We remember what Abram was told by God in verses 1 through 3. God told them, go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse. And all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. And you'll recall that Abram said, alright, I'll do that. He pulled up stake and took his whole family from Haran down to Canaan, a journey of about 500 miles. When he got to Canaan, he found out, hey, turns out there's a bunch of Canaanites here. Lots of pagan worship going on. But Abram still trusted God and built altars of worship to him. He didn't stay in Canaan though. By the time we got to verse 9, He was heading into the Negev, the desert, which is pictured behind me. And he was heading into that desert because on the other side of that desert, one could find Egypt. And he was going to Egypt because there was a famine in the land.
Now it turns out archaeologists have studied this, historians have studied this and there was a drought ongoing during that time in which Abram was alive, which I believe was 2100 to about 1800. It was about a 300 year drought cycle that he was in the midst of. So Canaan got hit pretty bad by that. Egypt was often protected, not that they never went through drought. If you know the story of Joseph, you know that Egypt can go through a drought too. But their pattern is different than Canaan's because they have the benefit of the River Nile. the pattern of the Nile made it so that the Nile would regularly flood and by flooding it helped enrich the soil, irrigating it, and so the people would have plenty of food. So that's why Abram and his whole household is heading down to Egypt, because there's food there.
Now as they're going into Egypt... we do start to see the wheels of Abram's faith begin to fall off. It all starts with his wife, Sarai's beauty. He says in verse 11, I know what a beautiful woman you are. Now ladies, isn't that everything you want to hear from your husband? Just hear them say, I know what a beautiful woman you are. and then probably followed up by something like, and I'm just so lucky to have you in my life, and all that. He says, I know what a beautiful woman you are. Now, it is a little interesting, it kind of makes us think, because we know that Abram's fairly old at this point, so we're wondering, well, how old is Sarai? Well, you'll remember that when he left Haran, Abram, was seventy five years old. If we go to Genesis seventeen when Abram was talking to God when Abram is a hundred he says that his wife is ten years younger basically that she's ninety and so we could roughly estimate at this point that Sarai is at least sixty five maybe a little bit older depending on how long it took for them to get from Haran to Canaan and now on their way to Egypt. Given that, and I'm not saying anything about you older ladies, but usually when we think of like a beautiful woman that the Egyptians might try to steal, it's usually not a senior lady. You know, you're thinking about like a younger woman.
And there's probably a couple of things going on here. One, we've already mentioned about how it seems that people were having kids at older ages at that time, at least there were men fathering children at older ages. So perhaps their 65 isn't quite our 65. But the other thing to note as well is that standards of beauty can change, not when it comes to just basic physical beauty, but in the sense of that beauty can encapsulate more than what our sense of beauty is today. If you think about our sense of beauty as 21st century Americans, it's a pretty thin notion. It's about skin deep, and that's about all we consider as beautiful. But for ancient people, they would have taken into consideration things about maybe kind of a noble bearing, a woman that had wisdom, intelligence about her. I've heard that this said about Cleopatra for instance. I’ve heard suggested that she might not have been the most physically beautiful woman, but she was highly intelligent And so she was an attractive person and so if you think about it in that sort of way where you know Sarai doesn't need to be Miss Universe, basically. She can be a very attractive person, and by the standards of the ancient world, she is very beautiful in terms of the totality of who she is.
So Abram's concerned. He has a beautiful wife. He's going to Egypt. And this is where the romance just completely takes a left turn here. He says, you know, I know you're a beautiful woman. And then he says, when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife. Then they will kill me, but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake, and my life will be spared because of you. Man, quite the romantic plan, right? Tell them I'm your sister, and let someone else marry me, basically. That's what's being suggested. It's not exactly I'd rather die than be without you. You know, to death do us part kind of thing. Now there is something interesting here, which we won't talk about it right now, but there is a grain of truth here because Sarai is Abram's half-sister, which I know is weird for us, but we'll look at that a little bit later because it turns out Abram has a tendency of repeating this pattern of getting really scared by kings and trying to throw his wife under the bus. But all that to say, like, Abram's not winning the husband of the year award at this point. And it's enough for him to just, you know, to earn him a good slap in the face.
But there's something more significant here in terms of what this is indicating on the part of Abram. Not merely that he's not loving his wife right, that he's disrespecting her, all that. But something much more significant. Remember what God said in Genesis 12, verses one through three, getting past the point where He told him to leave his land and everything he knew. Remember what God promised. He said, I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, whoever curses you, I will curse, and all the peoples on earth we bless through you. Now Abram's afraid the Egyptians are going to kill him for his wife. He's so afraid that he's making this whole plot. What is that indicating? What is Abram forgetting? The promise. He's forgetting everything that God said. Because if the Egyptians kill him, none of what God said can come true. It's like that promise from God never even happened. You can imagine God saying, though God doesn't confront him here, which is really interesting, you can imagine God saying, did you even listen to me? Because if God is with us, then we need to trust in God and his provision.
And this is something that God reminds his people of continually again and again, of his protective presence in their life. When we get to Deuteronomy 31:6, Moses says this to the people of Israel. He says, Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them. Talking about the Canaanites, they're heading into the promised land. For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Now something that's really striking about this whole, the circumstances in which Moses is speaking here is he's telling the Israelites, I'm not going to go with you. God said I'm not going into the promised land with you. You're going to have another leader take you in. You can imagine the people of Israel being pretty unnerved by that because Moses is the one who led them out of the land of Egypt. He's been a pretty reliable leader. But it's at this point that Moses is reminding them, it doesn't matter if I'm with you, it matters if God is with you because He will never leave you nor forsake you. Your faith needs to be in God, not in human beings.
This is what the psalmist says in Psalm 118 verses 4 through 8. Let those who fear the Lord say, His love endures forever. When hard pressed I cried to the Lord, He brought me into a spacious place. The Lord is with me. I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? The Lord is with me. He is my helper. I look in triumph on my enemies. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans. What a fantastic reassurance that is. And it's something that we have today as followers of Jesus Christ, as the children of Abraham by faith. In Hebrews 13, verses 5 through 6, the writer of Hebrews says, Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. So say we with confidence, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid, what can mere morals do to me?
This passage became so precious to me, I guess it was not this past summer, but the summer before. Many of you knew Rhoda Curtis and she passed away. And she knew that she was going to pass away because she was dealing with cancer. And this was a verse that we talked about. And it was a verse that brought her comfort, even as she saw death approaching. And it's interesting that the author talks about money. Because money is the sort of thing where we can rely on it in terms of greed and just wanting always more and more and more and trying to build up a hedge of protection around us that way. It can also be something that we desire just out of fear. And we can all understand what it's like to be in that position. Some of us, you know, you've been in between jobs, you're looking for work. The call to be content in those circumstances doesn't mean don't get a job, don't try to take care of what you need. But what it's saying is that don't make your security in that. Because you have something better than money. You have the God of all creation. He is your helper. And He will never leave you nor forsake you. So don't live out of greed or fear. Don't act out of greed or fear. Trust God.
What we see here with Abram is that he's acting out of fear. It doesn't have to do with money, but he's acting out of fear by coming up with this whole scheme. In the face of fear, Abram should have renewed his courage by remembering God's promise to him. But he doesn't do that. Instead, he played a coward, and he let the Egyptians take his wife. So we look at verses 14 through 17. He was right that they were going to find her beautiful. It wasn't just his opinion. And they do in fact take her. And there's a little bit of, there's a little bit of lack of clarity here in terms of whether they just literally went and took her or whether they had discussions with Abram first. It almost seems like they did just go and take her and say, okay, you're gonna be part of Pharaoh's harem. And then perhaps afterwards, Pharaoh realized, well, I wanna keep things good with Abram. I realized maybe I should have talked to him first. And so we see in verse 16, him lavishing Abram with all sorts of gifts. Abram was right that they would treat him well for her sake. He gets sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. But things are not right, this is not what God was calling Abram to do but rather than God going to Abram and saying something to him as he has done before, God makes his message clear by acting. And verse 17 says that the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife, Sarah.
Now this is clearly not a normal outcome. We're seeing the hand of divine intervention here because if this was just any other person, if this was John rather than Abram or something, he just gave his wife away, he would have just lost his wife. There wouldn’t have been diseases in various households. It's not like this was just a natural outcome. This was supernatural judgment at work, and what God is demonstrating is His divine power against this and He's demonstrating His faithfulness to His promise. Abraham might be unfaithful to it, but God's going to keep His word. Pharaoh and his household knew that this was a sign of disapproval from some god. We're not told how they figured out that Abram had told them a lie, but it probably didn't take them too long to figure it out because they probably recognized that Sarai was the only new factor in their house. So we get to verses 18 through 20 and we have a confrontation between Pharaoh and Abram. And Pharaoh does not give Abram a word edgewise. He just brings statements. Says, what have you done to me? Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here's your wife, take her and go. He's like, get out of here. What did you do to me? This is a working of God's grace. God showed grace and mercy on Abram. By the fact that Pharaoh didn't want to kill him because of what he did.
Pharaoh was probably a little bit afraid that if he did anything, touched them at all, that maybe something worse would happen to him. And he didn't even take the gifts back. Pharaoh didn't say, hey, leave the sheep here. Abram gets to take all that with him, even though he doesn't deserve it at all. Again, God is showing him so much grace here by bringing his wife back to him, bringing all these things that are valuable into his possession. And if we're honest about ourselves, we'll admit that God has shown us that kind of grace, that same kind of grace again and again in our lives. We say we have faith in God's care, in God's salvation, but how many times have you and I acted out in ways that suggest that we've forgotten God's promises? How many times have we forgotten God's promise, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you? Of course, it's not easy. Even if you know God will preserve your life in the case of Abram, it's not easy knowing people might want to kill you for your wife. God doesn't hide all the scary things of life. Instead, He calls us to trust Him. To say, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. because God is with me. We counter fear with prayer.
That's the instruction that the apostle Paul gives in Philippians 4 verses 6 through 7. He says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God. which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. God will give you peace if you ask for his peace. If you say, here's my trouble, Lord, I'm putting it in your hands. Thy will be done. If you believe in Jesus, this is a peace He offers you. Jesus says to His disciples in John 14:27, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. The peace of Jesus Christ is durable. It will hold up. Because it's something that is not only momentary, that meets us in whatever stressful moment we're in, it's something that God gives us today and which will be ours for all eternity.
Because death will not hold us down. We will be raised and we will dwell with God in peace. This is what enabled the deacon Stephen to stand firm when he was truly facing death. He testified that Jesus was the Messiah and he condemned the religious leaders for rejecting Jesus. In Acts 7:54 we find the response of those religious leaders. When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Look, he said, I see heaven open, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. At this they covered their ears, and yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. When he had said this, he fell asleep. That right there is a peace that transcends all understanding.
That right there is the sort of faith Abram should have had on this occasion, but didn't, despite God's promises. In the face of our fears, let us pray that God would help us be like Stephen and not to stumble like Abram in Egypt.
Let us pray.
Father, we confess that like Abram, we are apt to forget your word. We're apt to forget your promises. Like Abram, Father, we see things around us that make us afraid. And rather than trusting in You, we spend all kinds of plans. We wring our hands in anxiety, rather than enjoying the peace which is ours, because of Jesus Christ. Father, we pray that you would give us the peace of Jesus Christ. That in seeing Him, Father, we would be reminded of your promise that you will never leave us or forsake us. You made that clear to us, Father, by sending us your Son. Help us to believe that word remains true. that you will never leave us or forsake us, that you are our helper, and that we would trust in you, that we would remain obedient to you in all circumstances rather than resorting to the tools of this world. Father, we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us this Sunday as we continue our sermon series looking at the Bible's account of Abraham. It's our joy to welcome you into our community.
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)