Well, we turn in the Bible this morning to Genesis chapter 12, Genesis chapter 12, we are continuing our study in the book of Genesis. If you are a visitor this morning, we are working through this book and that is found on page 11 in your pew Bible. We're looking at the second half of chapter 12, verses 10 through 20. Let's give our attention this morning, Genesis chapter 12, beginning of verse 10, to the word of the Lord. Now there was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai's wife, 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 may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake. When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the princes 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 Abram. And he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with the great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. So Pharaoh called Abram and said, what is this you have 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 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. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. Too often in this life, troubles come as a consequence of our lack of trusting the Lord, trusting him as to where he is leading us. And often what we find is that as we look through the scriptures, that our agendas are not the Lord's agenda. He is working in us and He is committed in us to bring faith that in every circumstance of life we would learn to trust Him. That in every circumstance we would come to Him and that we would believe and seek Him. I mean, this is essentially why Paul would say, I've learned in every single circumstance to be content. Philippians 4, that means therefore you shouldn't be anxious about anything in this life. You should come to the Lord, be anxious about nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Make your request known to God and He will guide you. He will surround your heart with peace. But when we become do-it-yourselfers, everything falls apart. The Bible shows us this repeatedly. Do you realize that? It shows us do-it-yourselfing, if you will. All of these people in the Bible are leading us and showing us this conclusion that, surprisingly, their lives were a mess just like ours. And that might be hard for us. I've heard many of you say, I didn't realize Abram was such a bum. And they did things, and they found themselves in circumstances that wrecked their lives. Completely. And the prevailing story throughout from Genesis to Revelation is that even in their failures, God was faithful. And that God pursued. And that God delivered them out of all of their distresses. Even when they wrecked it. And that's what we learned this morning with Abram. god had come to abram and had called him out of ur of the chaldeans to go to a land that he would show him and we saw right up right at the start a major trip up didn't we and looking at it carefully at the end of chapter 11 he leaves ur of the chaldeans stephen talks about that call he takes dad with him he was called to leave dad leave family he takes dad they stop at Haran and they camp for a while. They pitch the tent in Haran. And what we find is that last time the Lord came down after he had settled in Haran and we had the call in Genesis 12 at Haran. There were two calls. Stephen talked about the one in order of the Chaldeans. This one came in Haran because in verse 4, that's where he left from. He was struggling. He was struggling, and it wasn't that God was waiting upon Abram. What was overwhelming about Genesis chapter 12 in the first section last week is that God came after Abram in his timing because God had decided to bless him. God didn't look down and say, ah, that Abram, model character, that's the one, that's the one who has faith, that's the one I like. Abram has already failed. God wasn't saying, go and leave your land and then I will bless you. That's not how it comes. God was saying, go, because I've already decided I'm going to bless you. And now we understand the intention of the story. Everything about the Abram narrative, everything about this is saturated in grace. And this is why Paul would make the case. The law would come 430 years later to teach us this is the way salvation occurs. This is the principle upon which it operates. The law didn't annul this. This is where we look. And God did this because he decided to do this for Abram, completely irregardless of his failures. God called knowing everything that would ever transpire in the life of Father Abraham. And none of that would frustrate his will that right at the beginning God just said, I will bless him. I'm giving him the land. His multitude, his seed will be as the sand on the seashore. I'm giving him the shim, the name. The name is coming from Abram. It's coming from you, Abram, my Shem, and your name will be great because my Shem is coming from you. Everything that he had decided that in him all the nations of the earth would be blessed was as good as done, period. So, last time he gets up and he goes because grace is effectual. And we left off with this remarkable section of Abram passing through the land and everywhere he's going, he's building altars of worship. And the last place here we studied that we had come to at the end of the first section of chapter 12 is that Abram had come to a very special place called Bethel where God appeared to Abram. Well, as we come now to verse 10, this is where we are. I want everyone to look at verse 10 of Genesis chapter 12. Now, there was a famine in the land. It goes on to say that the famine was very severe in the land. I don't know if you felt the weight of this from last time, but think about the scenario. Abram leaves Ur. This is like leaving Hawaii. And he leaves all of the comforts and he leaves all of the provisions and all of the wealth of Ur of the Chaldeans. and he's come to this unknown God, to an unknown place, with really an unknown future. And the enigma to all of it, as we looked at last time, is that when we look at the New Testament and Stephen describes this, Stephen says, when he arrived to the land, God didn't give him a foot's length in it. Can you feel the struggle of this? The text tells us that Abram passed through the land this is where we left off last time in verse 9 the whole imagery here he has not rooted down yet and he is intense and in the end of verse 8 he's on this pilgrimage in other words the picture is this go abram i've got all of these wonderful things for you and he gets there and he has no place in it now the new testament commentates on commentary on this highlights that abraham went out by faith. He went out not knowing where he was going, and it commends that. But you need to go back and really get into the mind of Abram here. This was not a cakewalk. The first thing that happens as he gets into the land, the major thing that he gets hit with is a famine. That's no little situation. Can you imagine if a famine hit this region? Can you imagine if we got hit with a food famine and nobody was able to run down to the supermarket because all the shelves were empty? The economy is dead. There's no physical way that you are going to be able to provide for your family unless you have cows, I suppose. What would you do? I saw a map the other day and the map was titled, Where You Don't Want to Be When It All Hits the Fan. And guess where the blue region was? Escondido. When everything unravels, San Diego's not where you want to be because you're not going anywhere. Everyone knows that. Think about this. Abram gets to the land, famine. Here's what I'm struggling with this morning. Here's what I struggle with as I read this text and I was preparing this message. God had said to Abraham, go out of your land, your country, to the land that I will show you. And he makes this promise that from him, all the families in the earth going to be blessed. And so he goes out and he enters the land and lo and behold, he's in a tent. Millions of Canaanites are all around him. His wife is barren. It's already said that at the end of chapter 11. And now he's in famine. How is he going to even eat? How is he going to feed his family. And the first thing that the text provokes us to think about a little bit is the simple truth is that right up front in the calling, and this is important for you, Katie, this morning, right up front in the calling, faith is hit with a severe trial, isn't it? What was Abram really after? What are you after? What are you looking for? It's an important question. Nothing that God said seems to be corresponding to reality, does it? I mean, nothing. None of it is happening. I mean, think about this. He left all. He followed. He left dad. He went out and he goes out and he doesn't come to water. He doesn't come to springs. He doesn't come to some land of milk and honey. He doesn't come to blue skies. He comes out to a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. That's what we sing about in Psalm 63. Why would you call me and set me apart to this? Only to go through this. Is this your paradise for me? Motivations are really being tested up front, aren't they? Motivations. This just makes no sense. Makes no sense at all in the whole scheme. I mean, how many people make their decisions thinking they're following the Lord and then they go out and as soon as the going gets hard and God tests their faith, when it's being tested, it has everything to do with their following. What are they crying out to the Lord? Why, oh Lord? And the simple test is really, are they living by faith in the promise? Or is their following conditioned upon the ease and the comfortability of the trip, the pilgrimage. In other words, are they following the Lord or are they following their own will that they have imposed upon the Lord and using the Lord for to justify their own path? Motivations are always tested. It's a fascinating moment because Abrams now is faced with this grand choice. Here's the choice in the testing of faith. The Lord's test is a test of famine, and he's presented Abram now. Abram starts thinking in his mind, what am I going to do? And here's the choice. Down at the Nile, down in Egypt, there's always bread. This is a place of abundance. Egypt was a place of plenty. Yet in the land that God had brought him to, there's just stones. There's no bread. so the test is how will these stones be turned into bread right and your minds are all thinking right now about certain events in history aren't they will abram learn that man does not live by bread alone or by every word which proceeds from the mouth of the lord will he trust the lord god called him here now you might be saying come on pastor you know i think you're being a little hard on the man who wouldn't run elsewhere i wrestled with that this week you come to a test like this and you have to ask you know what is the intention of the lord here in this text and what is he really showing us and i asked myself is it okay when god calls and the going gets tough to abandon the calling and go elsewhere and that question is a very indicting question that i would They even ask it, isn't it? Is it when the going gets tough that the tough get going elsewhere? The Lord had asked, and the Lord had said, always in his word, that what should we do? We should seek the Lord. Seek ye first, we sing, the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these other things will be added unto you. I am not even to worry about where I'm going to get food in this life. I'm not even to worry about that. i'm not even to worry about the clothing that i put on and you see now you start to understand the larger story of the bible of which we are all aware of when things happen when we are faced with these tests the first thing that we do is that we begin to question is this the best the lord has is this the way that God works is this your blessing Lord do you bring me out into the land to die does that sound familiar it's the very thing that happened to Israel isn't it Israel gets taken out of Egypt and they come into the wilderness and they are going through and they're struggling with famine they're struggling with being fed and they're wondering and they say to Moses, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there's no food and there's no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread that you give. Take us back. What would God constantly show us throughout history about this problem? Choice. And when you open up the book of Isaiah, and you read something like this in Isaiah chapter 30, it's immensely convicting, isn't it? Woe to those who go to Egypt for help, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel and seek help from the Lord. How many, when faith is tested and tried, desperately try to solve problems their own way and they don't ever go to the Lord running around anxious and full of distress looking for deliverance their own way with their own wisdom with their own resources and looking to others on the phone to everyone else under the sun then bowing the knee to him Isaiah 30 if you want to solidify this and set it a little more in stone the Lord said look at these children they don't obey me they make plans but they don't ask me to help them they make agreements with other nations but my spirit does not want those agreements these people are adding more and more sins to the ones they've already done they are going down to egypt for help but they did not ask me if that was the right thing to do they hope they will be saved by pharaoh they want egypt to protect them but i tell you hiding in egypt will not help you pharaoh will not be able to protect you. Egypt is useless. It will not help. Egypt will bring nothing but shame and embarrassment. Pharaoh will not be able to protect you. It was a symbol, you see, of going to the world. It was a symbol of going to the world. And at this point, we're provoked because Abraham's faced with this choice, should he go, and the Bible's telling you all over, bow the knee, seek me. Do you ever bow the knee in times of testing and say the simple prayer, not my will, but your will be done? Or do we go and pursue our paradise without ever seeking the Lord and then using Him to justify our path? This is where we are. So what does the text show you? Here's Genesis. Here's your great father of the faith's choice. There was a famine in the land and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there for the famine was severe. So Abram packs up and he leaves the land that God told him to go to and he heads down to Egypt. And I want you to notice that the text is showing you a downward spiral here. He begins this downward spiral that lands him in an impossible circumstance, which is really fascinating. What's the first thing that's mentioned? Well, it's flight, it's flight. Where was Abram's tent pitched? Bethel, where God had appeared to him in the mountains there. But he leaves Bethel, and he pitched his tent before in Bethel. He comes out, and you'll notice that again, right after this whole event, he's right back at Bethel. So this is going to be a major point as we close the sermon. Bethel means house of what? God. And the text specifically refers to Pharaoh's house. So as soon as the test came, Abram's running to Pharaoh's house. He's not running to Bethel. And flight always takes you from where? Worship. Flight always takes you from worship. As a matter of fact, when you're tested, you can know the direction you're heading by this little litmus test. how valuable is the house of God to you? How valuable is this? In the course of your life and in the decisions that you make, is the direction away from it? Is it a burden? Or have you come? Because you know this is where God gives bread. Abram flees the other way. Look at what happens. Verse 11, when he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, 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 may go well with me because of you, so that my life may be spared for your sake. Abram enters Egypt, and he has got a real problem. His wife is a 65-year-old knockout. Now, this might and should give all the 65-year-old women a lot of hope here. It can happen. Abram knows this is a problem. If they see you, they'll kill me. And it needs to go well for me. So you, we're going to say this, and I'll be okay. See the spiral into a lack of trust here? He's a narcissist. putting it in our terms so he's run the other way and everything now is about him i i i i this is where the path leads and now it's about protection and prosperity and happiness and it has spun him into a life of deception it's true sarah was his half-sister but abram was playing off a common practice of the time where if there was no father, the brother would assume the responsibility of legal guardianship and whoever then would have to take Sarai, his wife, would have to come to the brother and negotiate. Abram would deal with that. But there's one thing he never anticipated and it's verse 14. When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was beautiful And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. Uh-oh. Abraham did not count on the fact that Pharaoh himself would be an arrest. And Pharaoh doesn't have to bargain. He just takes. Takes into bondage. Notice what's happened here. I want you to pause for a minute and I want you to remember the promise this morning. Think back to God's promise. I'm giving you the land. You will be a great nation. In other words, you're going to be a blessing to all the nations in the earth. You're going to be a blessing to Egypt. In one scene, right after the call, Abraham has completely wrecked God's promise. Do you see it? Where is he? He's outside of the land. He's run. He's thrown away the land, not trusting. And now, he's totally ridden himself of the possibility of a seed. He's dumped off his wife. And he's a blessing to nobody. Every bit of God's promise, Abram just failed with. Messed it all up. Do you see what's happened? Abram's in an impossible circumstance. He can't get out. At this point, as one pastor said, history would have taken its course and Sarai would have been married to Pharaoh and we would pull out her tomb today and there she is. Wrapped in gold. No land, no seed, no savior. Abraham has made God's promises, humanly speaking, impossible. He's wrecked it. Abram, Abram, Satan has asked to sift you as weak. He just sifted. Your wife is in the hands of another man and you are outside of the land. But hey, you scored. Verse 16, for her sake, Pharaoh dealt well with Abram. He had sheep and oxen and male donkeys and male servants and female servants and female donkeys and camels. Wow. Abraham is over at Ventanas picking out the best camels. He's getting the best Lexuses. Sounds like a bargain of the devil. These were the two humped camels, I think. He was cruising in style. At least Moses, when he went down into Egypt, he, what does it say about Moses? You know, he esteemed the reproaches of Christ greater than all the riches of Egypt, not Father Abraham of the faith. He took him. This is the worst possible scenario presented to you. And Abraham has single-handedly thrown it all away and he could do nothing to fix it. You know how many people have come to this point in life where they've stopped, they've gone through life and they've realized, they've had a moment of realization that they've wrecked their lives? You imagine the pain that set in right then and there when everything had been lost. I think one of the most moving scenes in the Gospels is when Jesus was arrested and was led away out of the praetorium. And as he was being led out, we read that Peter was warming himself with those who had just punched him in the face. And he had just said, I will never deny you. And it's a really interesting moment in Luke's gospel because this girl comes and she says, you were with him and he denies and he starts cursing as he's denying. And as this is all happening, the rooster crows three times and Jesus turns around, it says, and Luke, and he looks at him. Now it's always made me wonder what kind of look was it? Was it a look of disgust? Oh, was it a look of anger? I think it was a look of longing. its effect being that Peter went out and he wept bitterly. It triggered every realization in Peter he had absolutely no ability to keep himself. None. And that's why the Lord had come to release those from bondage. And I think Abram must have felt this. Think of it. What must have been the cry? Let Pharaoh, my Sarah, go. Let her go. And you see, what now is about to happen should drop us all in amazement in verse 17 because the answer is given. But the Lord plagued Pharaoh's house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. That is an overwhelming verse. Abram failed this badly. threw it all away himself, and guess who comes? Guess who comes storming out of heaven? The Lord plagued them with great plagues. The word is an interesting word. It can typically, it's been understood to refer to skin diseases that was thought, that often it was thought throughout history that the Lord plagued them so bad that painful boils hit their private parts so that Pharaoh could not lay a hand on Sarai. And I believe that. I believe that. Pharaoh comes out, what have you done? What have you done? Why did you not tell me she was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister? I took her as my wife. Take your wife, go. So Pharaoh commanded his men and sent them all away. Do we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God? Look at the heartache. We all try to control life. And I don't doubt that the Lord uses texts like this to show us often where we are. And that if it landed right here in God's providence at this time, we should all ask where we are. God wanted you to see something greater. What does God want you to see here? He wants you to see that all of this is the greater story of the Christian gospel. Do you see it? This was Israel's story. This foreshadowed the future when the bride of the Lord would be taken into captivity by Pharaoh for all those years and God would come down and what would He do? He would plague that nation and He would plague that nation and bring His bride out with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and the Lord would bring them to the land and He would give them the land of milk and honey and all of that story, Abram's story, Israel's story, is our story. We're all in a circumstance because of sin that we can't get out of and that we've created and that we are impossible to save ourselves. You can't deliver yourself. You can't save yourself from the wrath of God. You can't save yourself from the sin that holds dominion over you. And Christ stormed out of heaven for his bride. And at birth, it was said, out of Egypt I've called my son. And where would he go into the wilderness? And what would he face? He would face the temptation. He would face the temptation of Satan who said, you're hungry. Go get it yourself. Turn the stones into bread. And what was Jesus' words? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. and he esteemed his father's house greater than all the treasures of Egypt. And then, in the most amazing act of deliverance, he took the plagues for us. Took them on. Was hit with the wrath of God so that he would announce to all of you today that whosoever believes in him, I will set you free. This is the gospel truth and this truth shall set you free. and of His wonderful grace. He plunders this world and He says, I'm going to give it all to you anyways. I'm going to give it all to you anyways. It's all yours because of my Son. So that you might have assurance that you're going to enter the new heavens and the new earth, the eternal land that Abraham had learned to look for and not that land. Where does Abram go right away in chapter 13? Just read the verse. So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negev. Abraham was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold. Yeah, he plundered Egypt. And he journeyed on from the Negev as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first and there abram called upon the name of the lord wow you see when grace gets a hold of you you understand the wonderful deliverance the lord has plundered and pulled you out with and that he's freed you from sin's dominion and set you free by his grace here's what happens Let me put it all together for you. Show you tonight's tie. At the beginning, after the fall, you have a little phrase. Men begin to call on the name of the Lord. It shows up again right after the call of Abram. Abram, men begin to call. Abram called on the name of the Lord. He runs away. And now he's right back. And what's he doing? Calling on the name of the Lord. Romans 10. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Are you running to Bethel? We all stumble in many things. But as God tests us, He's testing us to believe His promises. And that even in our failures, He wants you to know today, He'll bring you back to Bethel. But why don't you come now and save yourself a lot of heartache? Are you running? Seek the Lord. And if you're feeling that God has abandoned you or he doesn't care about you or you're questioning why all this is happening to you, pause and thank him that he's trying and testing you that you would come to love his son and that he would bring you to this glorious land that he has for you, something so much better than anything this world has to offer. This is the path he has for you. Come to him and remember in all of your failures, he is faithful to his promise. He'll never abandon his promises. And all who comes to him, he says, I by no means will cast them out. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Let's do what Father Abram did after returning from Egypt. Let's pray. Oh Lord, our God, we call upon your name. And we ask that you would deliver us and save us. And that as you try and test us, we would learn to trust you in all circumstances, not imposing our will upon you, but denying ourselves, taking up our cross and follow. And when we stumble, would you give us the eyes to see? Would you lead us in the way everlasting? Show what offensive way is within us. And lead us in the right way that in all circumstances of life we might remain at Bethel, we might remain at your house longing to worship you, longing to praise you, waiting for the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness shall dwell. Thank you for fulfilling your promises in your dear Son. And thank you because of his glorious mediation that we have all of these blessings lavished upon us to the praise of the God of our life. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.