[Text: Genesis 12:10-20)

When God’s people were leaving Egypt in the Exodus, they were entering into an uncertain world. They were learning who YHWH, their God, was through Moses’ books (the first of which is Genesis). They saw YHWH’s goodness, his control, his steadfast love and the way he always kept his covenant promises in the past. But there were always new fears for Israel to face, new threats to God’s promises of redemption to them and they needed to know how God would deal with them. What should they do when they were afraid that God’s promises might not come through?

[Read text and pray]

While working at a summer camp for a number of years, I got to see fear up close many times. It most often showed itself when I ran the high ropes course. It is a network of steel cables anchored 20-30 feet above the ground in the massive pine trees of the mountains. The high ropes course is meant to push people outside of themselves, challenging what they believe they are capable of doing and a lot of faith is involved in the process. The climber needs have faith in their coach who knows the course and they need to have faith in their safety gear that keeps them connected to the cables and from falling. When their fear of heights is conquered by their faith in their coach and the safety gear, you could see amazing things happen…the timid and weak coming to the end of their course and joyfully jumping off the final platform to go down the 200ft. zip line toward the ground. As you can imagine, some people got up into the trees and were paralyzed by fear and the threat of falling. “What if the rope doesn’t hold?” One girl sat on that final platform for two full hours fearing the threat of a broken rope. Others tried to go through the course without listening to their coach. Their fear was overcome by over-confidence. “I’ve got this!” they would say as they got themselves into some incredibly dangerous situations. Their confidence was in themselves, but their confidence was severely misplaced!

Like on the high ropes course, some threats come from outside of us and can lead us into a few directions. They can either paralyze us with fear or we can take charge and put too much faith in our own ability to fix things.

Other fears come from within us, like when our sin darkens our minds and we fear being rejected by God and others, if they only knew the real “me.” This fear can be the most powerful, but it too, can lead in the same two directions as the threats that come from outside of us. The fear of rejection can lead us to either a place of paralyzed despair or into a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality that says, “I’ll try harder next time and then God and everyone else will love me.”

But this text teaches that both threats from without and fears from within are shattered by the faithfulness of God. His faithfulness endures even when his people’s faith falters and fails. He conquers all threats and removes all fears as he deals with our sin and unbelief through Jesus, His Son.

THE TEXT:

The passage opens with a real threat to the life of God’s people. Most of us don’t have categories to conceive of what a famine really means, but whenever famine strikes (for whatever reason; be it drought or political) death follows hard behind. It was not uncommon for famines during the Middle Ages to claim 10-15 percent of a nation’s population and leave the rest suffering with all sorts of grief and misery from desperate people becoming more desperate.

So picture the decisions in front of Abram. You can stay and lose dozens of family members (maybe more) to slow death or you can do something. But what do you do?

The text tells us that he decided to go to Egypt. The Nile River Delta would have provided plenty of fertile land for food and would have been the destination for all seeking to escape the famine. The question we need to ask is this: What did God think about Abram’s decision to leave the Land promised to Abram’s offspring in favor of some other land?

The text doesn’t tell us directly, but let’s consider what happened before this decision and what happens afterward. Before now when God called Abram listened and obeyed. He left everything behind to follow his God, entrusting himself and his people to the care of YHWH. As they passed through the land of Canaan God said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” And how did Abram respond to that grace? He built an altar to YHWH and worshipped and he did that again as he moved southward through the land. He worshipped and he called upon the name of the LORD. He walked by faith in His God and had faith that the God who called him would always be so close to him.

There is no mention of his calling on the name of the LORD in response to this threat of famine and the fear that must have come with it. Now look what happens after the decision to go to Egypt is made. Fear and self-confidence have overtaken his faith.

He tells his wife to “pretend” to be his sister so that he won’t be killed in Egypt by men jealous of her beauty. Gen. 20:12 tells us that she actually is Abram’s half-sister, sharing the same father but different mothers, so he’s telling half the truth.

And his plan works. He actually becomes wealthier because of Sarai and his half-lie. Verse 16 emphasizes the vast wealth that came to him for her sake.

But then reality catches up with Abram. Even though no one tells Pharaoh what Abram had done, verse 17 tells us that the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house because of Sarai with great plagues. Certainly we should take this as a prefiguring of the 10 plagues that would later come upon the Egyptians, but here it seems strange. Why should they suffer because of some lie Abram told?

When Abram was called by God in the preceding verses, he was called as the last person on earth to deserve God’s grace. And he was blessed by God and given promises by God for more blessing; offspring who would bless the nations, a land for them to live within, significance in the work of God’s redemption! But those blessings were meant to fuel and support the mission of God to bring redemption into all the earth. In Abram, God planned to bless all the families of the earth.

And here we see Abram putting his confidence in his own ability to deal with the threat of famine, lying to a king because he fears death and, instead of bringing blessing to this family of the earth, bringing curses upon them. His faith in the power of God to deliver him is nowhere in sight.

I think the text wants us to see Abram’s decision and actions here as deeply wrong. Listen again to a couple of phrases we’ve heard earlier in the Story. In Genesis 4:10, after Cain has murdered his brother Abel and tried to hide it from YHWH, the LORD says to him, “What have you done?” In Genesis 3:13, when the LORD confronts the woman for her rebellion against God, He says, “What is this that you have done?”

Now listen to the words of Pharaoh. He confronts Abram and says, “What is this you have done to me?” Like a mouthpiece of God, Pharaoh calls sin “sin” and is more noble than the man of God. He chews Abram out, gives his wife back to Abram and sends him away with all that he had.

Now I don’t know how kings normally worked back then, but that is NOT the ending that I would expect for a man who had come into another man’s land, lied to him, gotten all sorts of wealth through the lie, and ultimately brought curses down upon his host for his trouble, especially when that host is the king of Egypt! So why doesn’t this fearful, deceiving, unfaithful Abram get what he deserves and end up buried in the desert with his name forgotten and the blessings of God removed from him?

Why? Because the gifts and the calling of God is irrevocable. And he is faithful when we are faithless. The faithfulness of God shatters all fears and removes all threats to the blessing of his people.

Please understand that I’m not saying there are no consequences for sin. This text doesn’t specifically tell us what that meant for Abram and his relationship with Sarai, but I’m guessing that Abram burned a little bit of relational capital in this incident. What I want us to carry away from this text is that even when our sin and brokenness is exposed and we have no defense for ourselves, as I’m sure Abram experience as he stood before a rightfully angry Pharaoh, we believe that our God is still able to save us so that we do not ultimately fall from his grace and favor.

Listen to the silent protection of God that fills this passage:

- Even though the decision of Abram to go to Egypt was made without calling upon the name of the LORD and even though Abram went down with a lie on his lips and even though he brought curses instead of blessings with him to Egypt, we see God using even Abram’s sin to bring about the continued existence of God’s people as they not only survive the famine, but actually increase through it.

- The promise of offspring to Abram is protected by God not only through the relief from famine, but by God protecting Sarai from the threat of becoming another man’s wife. We’ll soon see that God has a part for her in particular to play in that promise.

- God protects Abram from the threat of a king’s wrath. We could expect a very different outcome were God not protecting Abram from such a threat.

- Through Pharaoh, God sends Abram back to the land of promise and back to his right mind. Through Pharaoh’s words, it sounds like God is restoring Abram to sanity.

And then let me read a little further into chapter 13 as we see where Abram goes from Egypt and how he responds to the unrelenting, undeserved grace again shown to him. [read Gen. 13:1-4]

In verse three Abram returns to his starting point; not Haran, not Ur, but near Bethel, in the land of the promise, “where his tent had been at the beginning.” Bethel means “house of God” and what does he do when he gets back to that altar that he had first made? He calls upon the name of the LORD who had shown him grace once again and brought him safely through the threat he faced and his own fear-filled and faithless response.

I want us to take to heart something here. When Abram calls upon the name of the LORD, it was after God had already blessed and protected him. It was AFTER. His worship, then, was not the condition of God’s acceptance of him, neither was his perfect obedience to what God had called him to do (which is good because he failed in that pretty miserably as we just saw). Yes, God desires worship as well as obedience, but those things must flow out as responses to the grace that has been shown. Like Abram, you cannot earn the favor of God by your work or your worship; your tears or your piety; your efforts or your intentions. The sin that lived in Abram’s heart lives in mine and yours as well, so if we are to be saved from all threats and fears, then it must be by the grace of a Gracious God who is able to conquer all threats to us and all fears that would take our hearts.

And what threat is so great as the sin and brokenness in our hearts that makes us run from God when fear or desire takes us. And what fear is so great as the fear of being rejected by the One for whom we were made only to remain a slave to sin and death forever?

It is for that very threat and fear that Jesus came to conquer. He is YHWH come in the flesh, putting on flesh and blood like yours and mine to destroy everything that would separate us from God. Hebrews 2 tells us that “he himself likewise partook of the same things [that is, flesh and blood like ours], that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Hebrews 2:14-18 ESV)

As a priest offering himself as a sacrifice for his own people, Jesus died to free us from the threat of our sins and guilt before God. And through that death he became a conquering King, subduing us to himself and protecting us, like YHWH protecting Abram in Egypt, from all threats that would come against us so that even the accusations of Satan or our own consciences may be silenced by the cry of Jesus saying, “It is finished!” And he helps us now, still. The passage in Hebrews says, “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” He has not left us alone. He knows our weakness just as the LORD knew Abram’s weakness as he fled famine and the presence of God to go to Egypt. And still he is able to help us when tempted by threats and fears and desires. He lives before God now interceding for us, praying for us, keeping us in Him. And by his blood once poured out long ago, we are cleansed of our sin before God once for all by our faith in him.

And that blood continues to protect us until Jesus comes again to make his forever home with us. There is nothing to fear anymore. If Christ has conquered the threat of our sinful and broken hearts, we have nothing left to fear. We have found acceptance with God in Jesus that cannot be removed from us. Will anything else separate us from him? As Paul says in Romans 8, “What then shall we say to these things [talking about the present sufferings of this world]? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 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.”

Looking at the present and future, uncertainty always stares us in the face and blinds us to what may be. But to go forward with our hope resting in Jesus is to follow him in faith that is not a blind faith because it is rooted both in the character of God as well as his proven actions in the past. God does not change. There is no shadow of turning in him. And so we may rightly look to the past to gain confidence in our God’s care for what is to come. The whole of Scripture is the work of God in history and the death and resurrection of Christ, inseparable in their glory, is his magnum opus, his crowning achievement in his work of redemption.

Illustration: Mr. Fearing in Pilgrim’s Progress (Part II, section 7)

In Bunyan’s work, Pilgrim’s Progress, in the second part about Christian’s wife’s journey to the Heavenly City, he writes about another pilgrim named Mr. Fearing, who was helped along the road by a great pastor. Unlike many of us, Mr. Fearing was not afraid of threats from outside of himself very much. Lions didn’t slow him down, but the thought that he would not be accepted by God nearly crushed all joy from his life.

- “When we came to the Hill Difficulty, [that was no problem for him], nor did he much fear the Lions; for you must know that his trouble was not about such things as those, his fear was about his acceptance at last.”

That fear did not leave him for his whole life, not fully. The doubt that the threat and fear his sin raised in him even paralyzed him at times, making him afraid to move even one more step. On the path, Mr. Fearing came to a place where he saw others who had been lost to sin and death and “he said that [feared] that that would be his end also. Only he seemed glad when he saw the Cross and the [Empty Tomb of Jesus].” The cross of Jesus and his empty tomb is our hope and joy that removes our fears. There is no threat that can prevail, no weapon against you that can forever harm you who belong to the risen Jesus. Though you truly suffer for a little while, your mourning and grief will give way to joy and peace that cannot be lost because Jesus will make all things new and right.

So what threat or fear would steal your heart today? (Pause to think.) If God has accepted you for Jesus’ sake, giving you the greatest gift to redeem you when you were an enemy of God, how will he not also protect you now that you are his child? Turn away, then, from your fear. That is unbelief in Jesus, your brother who died to free you from fear. Turn away, too, from your clever plans to save yourself made without calling upon the name of your Savior! Turn from those things and believe the good news of the Christ who conquers all our threats and fears by his death and resurrection and promises to bless and protect us, even from ourselves, so that where he is, we may be also.