Into Egypt

with you to be looking at Genesis chapter 12 verses 10 to 20 you don't have Bible I think the text is on the back of your order worship I say to hear the word of God but now there is famine in the land so apron apron went down to Egypt to soldier in there for famine was severe in the land when he was about to enter Egypt he says the sarah has white 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 might go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared for your sake when apron entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful when the princes of Pharaoh saw her that prays her to Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house for her sake he dealt well with Abraham and he had sheep and oxen male dogkeys male servants female servants female dogkeys and camels the Lord afflicted Pharaoh in his house with great play it's because of Sarah apron's wife so Pharaoh called Abraham and said what is this you've dealt with me why did you not tell me she was your wife why did you say she's my sister so that I took her from 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 let us pray while there are prayed tonight that you would come open our eyes to see the truth of the God's will I pray that as we consider apron and Sarah again that you have helped us understand ourselves more as even we understand Jesus more prays to be in my head and my thinking in my heart and in my understanding in my mouth and in my speaking blessing to pray this thing to the man any man well if you've not been to an evening service yet for one thing we're constantly experimenting we've had me been doing it for you but also I've gotten to where I'm doing I'm on a continuum of preaching to teaching I'm more moving in the evening at least for more teaching or in style and so tonight we'll be looking at Genesis 12 10 through 20 and if you remember we I'm big I'm knowing the background as we're heading into this to help understand what's going on what's the purpose of Genesis well the purpose of Genesis was to remind Israel and ultimately us of this thing called the gospel the guy came to them when they were in Egypt and made them a promise that really had two parts and part one was that I will deliver you from the land of Egypt and part two was I will deliver you into painting and all the problems came about when when not when they were refused to believe the first part because they really that was not there was nothing to believe there they had been delivered from Egypt so when where did all israel's problems come from they're failure to believe the second part of the promise in other words that God was going to finish the job and take them into the land and every time they sort of get discouraged and they would start complaining God would tell them to take another lap around the desert and so Moses wrote this book of Genesis probably either while they're still in Egypt or shortly after as they were on their way to the promised land in order to persuade them that God in fact is going to finish the job he's going to help you and tonight's is a pretty interesting story just in the fact that Abram has just received the greatest promises in the in the whole Bible and what is Abram do immediately after he receives the greatest promises of the Bible he blows it I mean he completely throws everything out the window what happens here let's see a little background of Abraham Abraham is life so far if you remember his a direct descendant of shem why shem important because remember when Noah came off of the ark he basically was a new Adam I mean everyone had been killed but Noah and his family and it was Noah and his three sons and their wives and his three sons were shem ham and japeth and shem was the good son japeth was sort of the the middle child I guess he didn't do anything necessarily bad he didn't really do anything necessarily good he was there I'm sure he's very funny like ours is hello flam and then you had had ham who is ultimately we know the father of canine and we don't know exactly what happened it was probably really bad but they're used to euphemism that Noah got off of the ark after basically a year and he immediately got drunk right we're almost understandable and he falls asleep in his tent and ham walks into the tent does something to him while Noah is naked and shem and japeth cover him and so he curses ham canine and so for Abraham to be a direct descendant of shem is pretty big because on while he curses canine he says the canine will always serve shem or the Hebrews and so Abraham is that one he's Noah's descendant and shem's descendant his name means the exalted father if you remember that's a practical joke because the the first thing you hear about Abraham and Sarah is that now Abraham had a wife named Sarah and she was barren I love if you hear this morning you know you you get these editorial comments in the bible you know this morning Goliath is sort of talking smack to Israel and it says and David heard it when we hear about Abraham and Sarah it says and she was barren it's almost there by itself and yet his name is exalted father so it's sort of a joke they can't have kids at this point and yet God has promised they would give them also he's a barren wife who's about 75 years old someone almost always will ask me after the service how was she 75 years old and the Egyptians saw her and just thought she was beautiful and and the answer is either Sarah aged incredibly well or the Egyptians were Egyptian women were not that attractive I have no idea so that's just if one of you wants to do a book report and come tell me next week why they thought she was beautiful but they did and then God calls him to go forth from from his country's relatives and his father's house to a land I will show you and most people we missed that the first time Abraham's called he wasn't called to go to the land of Canaan God just said I want you to leave everything you own and know and all your family and just go someplace where I'm going to show you you got to trust me I think I told you that's what I do with my children pretty often less often as they get older and they're not around the house anymore when they're little it always come on say everyone get in the car we're going someplace and they would always say where we're going I'd say do you trust me is it going to be good 100% of the time when I do that by the way it's good and yet they would ask is it going to be good gotta trust me that's what God does to Abraham he says you got to trust me so what happens next he gives him promises what is he promise him promises he says I'll make you a great nation I'll bless you I'll make your name great I'll bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you and if you remember as well the Abraham what you see starting to happen in Abraham is that God designates one person who's going to be his blessing bearer that that your relationship with God is really dependent upon how you deal with the blessing bearer do you receive the blessing bearer do you reject the blessing bearer and ultimately the blessing bearer is for us is Jesus and the question is what are you going to do with Jesus and he makes God makes these promises and then God tells him the purpose he's making of these promises he says that you should be a blessing and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed so right from the very beginning not just all the way from Adam but when when Abraham who's the Hebrew is called even he's called all the families all the nations on the earth might be blessed and that takes us to the tonight's text to Genesis 12 10 let me read that to you says now there was a famine in the land so Abraham went down to Egypt to soldier in there for the famine was severe in the land so the top is Abraham leaving this bottom is him getting there and the way I arranged this if you've seen me teach this class before he burned narrative almost always follows the same pattern and it's actually extremely cool because it goes from little to big so in every Hebrew narrative almost all of them they start out with a problem and then they have rising action they have a climax they have falling action and then they have a conclusion and then the the bigger story the the big section will be that same pattern and the whole book will be that same pattern that they're built very symmetrically and so the problem here now there was famine in the land so Abraham went down to Egypt to soldier in there now if you're in Israelite and you're hearing this story for the first time are you reading the story for the first time what do you think in right now there's a good thing or a bad thing that Abraham is going down into Egypt it's a bad thing would you not say if they were you know all the people in the crowd would be you know sort of saying booing and hissing when they heard Egypt name and hear their forefather is going to go down into Egypt nothing good can happen when you go down into Egypt and we see that happen with Abraham so the problem here is that he's going down because if there's a famine in the land can you think of anyone else who went down into Egypt because there was a famine into the land right it was all of Joseph's brothers and his father they went down into Egypt because of a famine in order to get food and that's how Genesis ends and Moses is telling that telling Israel that's not the first time you just came out of Egypt but it's not the first time our family if you will has been down there and the same thing God did with us now he did with Abraham before so what's the rising action here Genesis 12 11 through 16 I didn't put it all here because they couldn't fit it let me read that to you Abraham says when he's about to enter Egypt he said to Sarah his wife I know that you're a woman beautiful an appearance and when the Egyptian 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 then my life may be spared for your sake and when Abraham entered Egypt the Egyptian saw that the woman was very beautiful and when the princess 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 Abraham and he had his sheep his oxen male donkeys male servants female servants female donkeys and camels okay at this moment Abraham has to be the the most guilty feeling man in the world after Pharaoh takes his wife because the first thing he does is he says when we get there we need to basically lie to Pharaoh we need to tell him you're my sister and the plan it seems is that they would go into Egypt and he would say to Abraham I would like this woman and since he was her older brother then Pharaoh would have to cut him a deal Pharaoh would have to pay him dowry or whatever now we don't know what the end game was did they plan on sort of sneaking out at night what did they plan on doing he it doesn't seem that Abraham had thought that far ahead but either way as her brother he would have the power to negotiate just as her father would and so he says that and I imagine he thinks that Pharaoh is just going to let them pass through and yet the plan doesn't work like that because Pharaoh actually sees them or Pharaoh's princes do he comes and he takes Pharaoh to be his or takes Sarah to be his wife now we learn from later on that that Pharaoh apparently literally took Sarah to be his wife in other words he took her and he knew her and now you imagine your Abraham I wonder how good it felt for him to be a filthy rich because Pharaoh paid the dowry stuff he paid donkey's camels everything so that Sarah would be his wife legally and so how did Abraham feel at that time probably pretty bad the bigger question that comes out of this text you I'm big on asking questions is why did Abraham lie in the first place God just told him what he told him I will bless those who bless you I'll curse those who curse you and I will make your name great and and you all the families of the earth will be blessed why did Abraham lie and if you think about the reason that you and I lie you'll know the answer why does anyone lie okay I'm gonna tell you the answer the reason people lie is because you feel like telling the truth is going to be more harmful or more hurtful to you than whatever telling telling of the lie is in other words we all lie to cover our back sides we all think we have to take care of ourselves and if I tell the truth it's gonna hurt more than if I tell a lie and since I'm the only one taken care of me I've got to do everything I can to take care of me and so if you ask question why does a Christian lie Christian lies that for the same reason that someone is not a Christian lies they both are afraid that no one is there to to cover their their backside to take care of them and so what's the answer for the Christian when it comes to lying that there is a God who is promised to take care of you in fact there's a God who came in the person of his son and he bore all of your past lying he bore all of your future lying he bore all of your sin on the cross and then he gave you all the righteousness of Jesus and now that you have that he promises I'll never fail you or forsake you let me put it a different way he promises that I'll finish the job I promise you that I will get you into the promised land into the to heaven and so then in the moment of truth when you're at work or when you're with your spouse and and they ask you a question and you think to yourself should I tell the truth or should I tell a lie should I take care of myself or should I like God take care of me if you really believe the gospel you should be able to tell the truth because no matter what the consequences are you're trusting that God is going to take care of you and if you're not a Christian the question is who does who takes care of you there's a God who's willing to if you had just trust him Abraham didn't didn't trust God even though God had just come to him we know that Abraham was not probably Presbyterian because God apparently spoke to him audibly and so he had just heard these promises he had heard what God wanted from him and he believed them to such an extent that he was willing to leave everything and yet when when the first sort of crisis came to him he said you know what I need to take care of myself and I need to take care of myself so I'm going to buckle down Sarah here's what we're going to do we're going to strategize we're going to plan we're going to tell this lie but it's going to be okay because at the other end we're going to make it or any of you guys like that when troubles come and when trials come and the first thing you do instead of calling on God you immediately begin to strategize on how you can get out of this thing or how you can deal with it that's that's how I am and I'm a survivor I've been that way since birth I think and so when something happens I'm immediately thinking what do I need to do to get out of this mess or what do I need to do to circumvent problems and what the gospel says is Tommy you don't have to do that anymore I got it Abraham God promised Abraham that he would get him into the land of Canaan Abraham didn't believe and so now what does Abraham have to deal with well he has to deal with the consequences of his unbelief and what are the consequences of his unbelief the consequences of his unbelief for the most powerful man in the world now owns his wife and is probably no doubt sleeping with her and here you are sitting out in the tent by yourself not knowing what to do so what's going to happen how you're going to fix this Abraham and the answer is he can't fix it but the beauty of the gospel is that remember God promised that Abraham that he would finish the job and God's promise to finish the job isn't dependent upon Abram's obedience or disobedience Abram can make it a lot more messy for himself but God is still going to finish the job so what does he do I love this part the climax but the Lord afflicted Pharaoh in his house with great plagues because of Sarah Abram's wife Abram lied and schemed and got into this mess and did you notice how God initiates Abraham we don't even hear praying and asking God I imagine he's too guilty and yet what does God do he comes and proactively sends plagues upon Pharaoh and great plagues because of Sarah his wife now if you're Sarah and you hear God sending great plagues because of you that's probably a pretty good feeling can you think of any other time where God sent plagues on behalf of someone the original audience to the story we go hey that's what exactly what God did to us right what kind of plagues that he sent here I don't know I guessed you know maybe locust that's pretty nasty plague flies I can't imagine that brawg yeah we don't know what the what the plagues were but we know that they're apparently so bad that they got Pharaoh's attention but the point is is that God proactively initiated these plagues no one asked for them because because God promised Abram he was going to finish the job where does he go next to verse 12 18 through 19 this is the following action things are sort of calming down in verse 18 says so Pharaoh called Abram and said why what is this you've 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's your wife take her and go now I don't know I mean if Abram has to live with Sarah for the rest of his life now I can't imagine she ever forgot being given over to Pharaoh and whatever Pharaoh did to her but besides Sarah I imagine one of the the the arrows that Abram took with him his whole life were the words of Pharaoh right here Pharaoh's is a pagan Pharaoh is completely outside of relationship with God and Pharaoh is the hero of the story Pharaoh's the moral guy and Pharaoh doesn't even let Abram explain did you notice what he said to him he just said why didn't you tell me that she was your wife why didn't you just say she's my sister so that I took your wife now here's your wife just take her and go in other words Pharaoh saying you make me sick get out of here and Abram didn't trust he just immediately assumed the worst and I know I'm a person who almost always assumes the worst you can ask my family I'm maybe almost as it is an overstatement I do always assume the worst Abram assumes the worst and yet Pharaoh apparently if he had just told the truth would have let him go through he would have let him go and so here's Abram who is the representative of God on earth he is the blessing bearer and the blessing bearer before the unbeliever has made a mess of things to where the unbeliever even looks better than he is so what's the conclusion to this boom get out of here the resolution Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had you remember when Pharaoh released Israel from Egypt what they did the Bible says in a couple different places that they plundered the Egyptians they risked out all their silver and all their gold the Abram took all of his stuff I don't know we don't know how wealthy Abram was going into Egypt with no idea but we know coming out of Egypt Abram was extremely wealthy he was so wealthy that he and Lot together had too many animals to exist in the same geographic area so what did God do he takes in the providence of God he took what Abram intended for evil frankly this lie and ultimately made Abram an incredibly wealthy influential person is God going to do that with us absolutely not what can I promise you is that God will finish the job God promised Abram trust me go where I tell you to go and I will get you there and I will finish the job and I'm going to do that in spite of you so the question is you're going to submit to what God wants you to do or not think about that let me pray for us Father I pray that as we consider Abram and Sarah that you would you would grant us repentance where we need to be granted repentance where we need to trust you instead of trust in our self trust you instead of just be in survival mode all the time but also for other pray that we would thank you as we look back on our lives and see that how often it is that we have done the wrong thing and you have blessed us in spite of it how often we have done that the unbelieving the untrusting thing and come out the other end and have been blessed in spite of our actions and Father I just pray that you would help help us to not just understand the gospel of Jesus but to believe it as well in Christ's name we pray these things amen amen