When Faith’s Father Lost His Way
Abraham the Believer: Part 4
Genesis 12:10-20
By Dave Redick

Whatever may have been the intention of Abraham’s scheme, who could have predicted that the one to take his wife would be the Egyptian Pharaoh himself? What a nightmare! Pharaoh could take any woman he wanted (and he did). He also could dispense with any kind of waiting period, if that is what Abraham was banking on. It would take no time at all for Pharaoh to get a dowry together either, which apparently he started doing right away with all the livestock and servants showing up outside Abraham’s tent.

Introduction

In 1989 Geoffrey Gorsuch was flying his small plane in the midst of a fierce storm. He reported later just what it was like:

"I could barely see 20 feet in front of the plane. On the ground, signals were being transmitted to the five radios and three navigational aids on board the aircraft. . . . These instruments guided us through the storm to the runway. There were moments when the confusion in the clouds could have been fatal, times when all our senses seemed to indicate that the instruments were lying, making panic and pilot error inevitable. But I had been trained to trust the instruments. And I did. . . . As we broke out of the clouds 100 feet off the runway and in a perfect altitude for landing, all that remained to do was to ease back the power and the stick and let her settle onto the runway. As the emergency vehicles approached with their blaring sirens and flashing lights, I knew they would not be necessary. I had trusted the instruments, I was a pilot -- and that was the day I knew it for sure." (1)

A good pilot trusts his instruments, not his instincts during a time of disorientation. Caught in a storm, he knows that he cannot gather enough information to adequately guide his plane by seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, or touching. The speed, altitude, and cloudy air will always confuse his five human senses. He needs instruments that can see through the storm, but he needs even more than that. He needs to have faith in those instruments or they will be worthless because he will abandon them in the crisis when they seem to be giving a wrong report.

As Christians, that is the kind of faith we need in our God. He can see what we cannot. He can see through the storms of life. He can see the past, present, and future better than we can even see the present. He knows all the right moves. He knows the consequences of all the wrong moves and He will always steer us right. Yet sometimes our five human senses seem to give us a different report than what He says is right. At that point we are faced with the same choice as the pilot of an airplane in a storm. Will we obey His instructions or will we follow our instincts? Will we trust our gut or our God?

We’ve been away from our series on Abraham for several weeks due to interruptions. This morning I want to back up and get re-oriented.

We saw Abraham called out of Ur of the Chaldees back in Genesis 11, and then we saw him called again out of Haran in the early verses of chapter 12. The destination was Canaan, that narrow strip of land on the east side of the Mediterranean Sea that would evermore bear the title, "Promised Land," because God promised that He would give it to Abraham’s descendents. He also promised that through His descendants, all the nations of the earth would be blessed – words that would prove to be a prediction of the coming of Christ into the world.

The faith in God that Abraham showed during those early days was very much like the faith a good pilot must have in his instruments. The writer of Hebrews put it this way: "By faith Abraham, when he was called…went out, not knowing where he was going."

Abraham trusted God, not his gut.

Then Genesis 12:6-9 describes Abraham’s arrival and early travels in Canaan, which will serve to set up our study for today. Let’s read them.

(Read Genesis 12:6-9)

Two things are important to note here in these verses about Abraham’s early travels in Canaan.

Everything about Abraham’s life up to this point is commendable. He broke away from the idolatry of his father’s house and followed the God of heaven. He was willing to pick up and move when God commanded it, even though he had no details about what would come next. God took care of him during these early years as Abraham was learning to depend upon Him – a kind of divine "flight training" if you please, where he was learning to trust his instruments over his instincts.

But one day, in the midst of a fierce storm (if you’ll indulge me to follow my metaphor of flying for just a little bit longer) Abraham completely lost it. Before the storm was over, his plane was locked into a suicide dive. Had God not seized the controls and pulled him out of the cockpit, he and his loved ones surely would have crashed and burned.

"OK, Dave, cut the theatrics. What are you talking about?"

That is the story I am going to tell you this morning: "When Faith’s Father Lost His Way." We’ll begin reading the account in Genesis 12:10, where we find the storm I spoke of.

1. Canaan’s Severe Famine

(Read v. 10)

A famine in the Promised Land? How could God allow that? I thought God took care of His people. Abraham had obeyed up until this point. Shouldn’t things be getting easier for him by now and not harder? Doesn’t God make things easier for those who prove a few times that they are willing to obey Him? In some ways He does, but He does not remove the trials of life – even from the faithful.

The land of Canaan was very dependent upon the early and late rains that fell upon it.(2) Whenever this seasonal moisture didn’t show up, those living in the land would suffer fairly immediate consequences. In a way, that was good. It provided a good tool to teach Abraham and his descendants to depend on God for their immediate needs - a sort of Old Testament "Give us this day our daily bread" lesson.) But famine is never an easy thing.

In one sense I think we could commend Abraham at this point. When the famine struck, at least he didn’t make plans to go back to Ur. While it isn’t hard to imagine him questioning God ("Lord, you brought me all this way to give me this?") no such questioning is recorded. In fact, if Abraham "called upon the name of the Lord" at all in the face of this trial, it isn’t mentioned and that would prove to be a problem.

We come next to what I’m going to call…

2. Abraham’s Faithless Scheme

You might not agree with my characterization here, so pay attention. I’ll explain myself in a moment. Let’s read the text first.

(Read v. 10b-13)

I think if Abraham could have had anything to say about what stories of his life God would include in scripture, I’m sure he would have wanted this one left out. I know I would if these things were written about me! There are two elements to the story: (1) The trip to Egypt and (2) This shameful scheme involving his wife.

I look upon this trip to Egypt as a lapse of faith for Abraham. There is no recorded command from God for him to go down to Egypt. Before this, when it was time to move, except within the confines of the Promised Land, God told him where to go. Here it seems he is grasping the controls of his life and moving out on his own. (I know for sure that the scheme involving his wife didn’t come from God!) Why didn’t he inquire to God for guidance? He called upon God at Shechem and Bethel before this.(3) Why didn’t he do so when this famine struck Canaan? God had sent him to Canaan, not Egypt. Did he doubt God’s power over the weather? Of course, nothing is said, but those are some of the reasons I believe this trip to Egypt was a lapse of faith.

But someone might object, "Yes, but God didn’t tell him what to do in the face of the famine. What was he suppose to do, sit there and starve?" It is probably true that God didn’t tell him what to do next, but didn’t Abraham already have sufficient reason to trust God and stay in Canaan in the promises that had already been made to him? God had promised to bless him and his descendants. Abraham wouldn’t have had any descendants to bless if he and his wife had died in the famine. Certainly inherent in the promises already made was the provision to keep them alive in the place where God commanded them to live!

Later, you might know from your reading of Genesis, when it seemed from human perspective that God was either slow or perhaps had forgotten that He had promised to bless Abraham with a son, Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands. Much like the faithless move Abraham was making here, they involved the servant girl, Hagar in their family plans. Abraham didn’t get a passing report card for that incident. Instead, the child born during that time of faithless human effort was later called the child "born according to the flesh,"(4) referring to their resorting to human means of solving their problems rather than trusting God. I think this trip to Egypt was just such a resort - a scheme that was also born according to the flesh rather than according to trust in God’s promises.

Further, you can search the record but it appears that Abraham built no altars in Egypt. When he got to Shechem he built an altar and called upon the Lord. When he got to Bethel, he built an altar and called on the name of the Lord. When he got to Egypt though, he built no altar. His worship stopped.

By the way, here is a test you can use to know whether a certain thing you are involved in is good for you or not: Can you build an altar there? Yes, I realize that in the New Testament age we don’t worship at a physical altar and that animal sacrifices are no longer necessary. We still worship though. Paul said in Romans 12:1, "I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." No, we don’t worship at a physical altar like Abraham did, but we still offer sacrifices to God and in order to do that we must have a clear conscience. We must be able to worship Him in full truth and disclosure. Those who worship God in the church age must do so "in spirit and in truth."(5)

If you find that your worship falls off when you get involved in a certain activity or with a certain person – if suddenly you can’t be open and truthful with God - what you’ve done is left Canaan and gone down to Egypt! You’ve ceased living by faith.

Getting back to Abraham now, there was also this thing he cooked up regarding his wife. Can you men imagine telling your wife to lie about her marital status to you and be taken into the King’s harem to save your own neck? It sounds like a cowardly act at best – sort of like Abraham hiding behind his wife’s skirt. Actually, it may not have been quite that bad, at least in the beginning.

Some suggest that what actually happened here was that Abraham, knowing the practice of the Egyptians in this regard, asked Sarai to pose as his sister so that when the men of the land asked for her hand in marriage, as her brother, he could draw out the betrothal time. The betrothal time was the waiting period before a wedding. With such a scheme in place, if pressed, someone might not try to kill him and take his wife. Thus, he could stall for enough time for them to get food and then leave the land with everyone safe and sound.

One writer put it this way: "It really was an ingenious plan. One of the local men would come to Abram to ask for his sister’s hand in marriage. Abram would consent but insist upon a long engagement (long enough for the famine to end). During this time Sarai would remain at Abram’s home where their marriage could secretly continue and the safety of Abram was assured. It seemed that the benefits were great and the liabilities of such a scheme were minimal."(6)

Put that way it sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it? After all, Sarai was a beautiful woman. Surely the Egyptians would notice her and try to take her, most likely by force if Abraham objected. Besides, she was his half-sister. There would at least be some truth to the story.

Yes, but a half-truth is also a half-lie. You don’t change the danger of a deadly poison by diluting it with half water. It remains a deadly poison. Abraham’s plans here were wrong. They were wrong because they were founded upon a falsehood and even more wrong because he was depending upon his ingenuity rather than God’s power.

That brings us down to what I have called…

3. Pharaoh’s Unforeseen Complication

(Read v. 14-16)

Whatever may have been the intention of Abraham’s scheme, who could have predicted that the one to take his wife would be the Egyptian Pharaoh himself? What a nightmare! Pharaoh could take any woman he wanted (and he did). He also could dispense with any kind of waiting period, if that is what Abraham was banking on. It would take no time at all for Pharaoh to get a dowry together either, which apparently he started doing right away with all the livestock and servants showing up outside Abraham’s tent.

I’m sure Abraham must have liked the relief from the famine he received in Egypt and all of this special treatment he was getting. I’m equally certain though, that in no way did it make up for the lonely, miserable nights he must have spent knowing that at any moment his wife was going to be taken into the King’s harem and he was powerless to stop it. What a predicament!

That is most often the way it ends up when we follow our instincts rather than trust the promises of God and it’s just as true today as it was back then.

I would like to be able to tell you that this event brought Abraham to his knees in full realization of his blunder and that he learned his lesson and called out to God in desperation for deliverance. That’s not what happened.

Abraham is remembered as a man of strong faith because he developed it over time, just like we must do. This event, early in his career with God, shows that he was not always the pillar of strength he would later become.

Actually, we find that Abraham pulled this same stunt of pretending that his wife was his sister years later with a man named Abimelech, king of Gerar, with much the same results. You can read the story in Genesis 20. We see then that not only were there times of faithlessness in The Father of the Faithful, but he could be a bit hard-headed to boot.

How frustrating it must be at times for God to work with the likes of us! How prone we are to trust in our own ingenuity rather than in Him! How quick we are to walk by sight rather than faith!

It reminds me of the words of Jesus in his exasperation with the faithlessness of his disciples on one occasion when he said, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?"

God has put up with a lot, even with His choice saints – a fact which you and I should note with gratitude, given that we are prone to the same kinds of lapses of faith. Which of us hasn’t, at some time or other, under pressure, even though we knew the promises of God, resorted to our own devices, only to have the whole thing blow up in our face to the extent that God had to bail us out? God certainly puts up with a lot!

As Jeremiah observed as he contemplated how far short of God’s ideal his people fell: "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed…"(7)

You and I need to thank God daily for His mercy. We need to be grateful that He doesn’t give up on us or give us what we deserve. Have you expressed your gratitude about that lately?

Had the story of Abraham ended here, this would have been the end of God’s plan to provide a Redeemer to mankind. But human conniving, well intentioned or not, cannot thwart God’s plans.

As Paul said in Romans 3:4, "Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar."

We see next then…

4. God’s Faithful Intervention

(Read v. 17-19)

Some suggest that the plagues mentioned here might have been some sort of sexually transmitted disease. That certainly would have been a punishment to fit the crime. In the case of Abimelech that I mentioned earlier, God prevented the women from having children as long as the King kept Sarai captive.

Whatever it was, it was a whole lot more affective than a cold shower in putting an immediate stop to Pharaoh’s amorous plans for Abraham’s wife. In much the same way as a later Pharaoh would beg the descendants of Abraham to leave Egypt after a series of plagues from God, this Pharaoh was very much ready for Abraham to leave his country.

(Read v. 20)

"Get him out of here!"

So God pulled victory out of the jaws of defeat. He pulled Abraham’s "airplane" out of its suicide dive – with every one of his promises to Abraham still intact.

Conclusion

Here are some lessons for us to take away from this passage…

Are you considering running off down to Egypt today rather than facing the difficulties you have been experiencing in your life as a Christian? I encourage you to think again of Abraham and what it nearly cost him. A pharaoh’s dowry isn’t worth the long lonely nights away from what is nearest and dearest to you. Stay in Canaan where God wants you to be. Be faithful to Him. Be faithful!

Footnotes: Use your "back" button to return to your place.

1. Geoff Gorsuch, The Christian Reader, Spring 1990
2. James 5:7
3. Genesis 12:6-8
4. Galatians 4:29
5. John 4:24
6. Robert Deffinbaugh, "When Faith Fails" http://www.bible.org/docs/ot/books/gen/deffin/gen-14.htm
7. Lamentations 3:22

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

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All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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