So this is an account of Abraham's
life, or from Abraham's life, where the patriarch goes down
to Egypt. So it's from early in his ministry.
Genesis chapter 12, and we'll read from verse 10 through to
verse 20, the end of the chapter. So perhaps you'll remember with
me that Abraham had travelled a long distance from his home
in Ur of the Chaldees up round what was called the Fertile Crescent
through Haran and down into the coastal region which is now Israel
or Syria, Lebanon and that area, the land of the Phoenicians and
ultimately the Philistines. And there he put his camp and
he dwelt and now we discover that he has growing challenges
in this land into which God had brought him. So Genesis chapter
12 verse 10 says, and there was a famine in the land. And Abram
went down into Egypt and to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous
in the land. And it came to pass when he was
come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife,
Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look at. Therefore it shall come to pass
when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, this
is his wife, and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my
sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul
shall live because of thee. And it came to pass, that when
Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman, that
she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw
her, and commended her before Pharaoh. And the woman was taken
into Pharaoh's house. And he entreated Abram well for
her sake. And he had sheep and oxen, and
he asses, and men servants, and maid servants, and she asses,
and camels. And the Lord plagued Pharaoh
and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram and
said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why didst
thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidst thou she
is my sister, so I might have taken her to me to wife? Now therefore behold thy wife,
take her, and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men
concerning him, and they sent him away, and his wife, and all
that he had. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading also. The effectual call to trust and
follow the Lord is a blessed privilege to all who receive
it. And Abraham was called to leave
his home and his family and by faith he obeyed that call he
travelled into a land that God had promised to give him. But this was only the beginning
and Abraham's faith would be tried and tested in the coming
years as we shall see. And this Experience that he had because
of the famine in the land of Canaan was the first of many
trials that he had to endure. We're told that this was a grievous
famine that was in the land. So grievous in fact that Abraham
and Sarah were forced to move. And I am sure that Abraham must
have felt very puzzled about this, because here was he being
obedient to the call of God, coming into the land that God
had promised him, seeing something of the goodness of that land
and hearing the promises of God and then finding that everything
turned, as it were, bad or sour for him and that the things that
he had hoped he would begin to experience were rather turning
around and becoming problems and challenges. And one might
imagine that he could be tempted to turn around and go straight
back home, back to his home, back to his family, back to the
things that he had known. The fruitful was becoming barren,
and he may well have been tempted to go back, to return to where
he had come from, What was he going to do? Perhaps it is a
mark of Abraham's faith that instead of going back home, he
decides that he will go further from his home and he heads south
to go down into Egypt because it seems that there is no famine
there. Let me just remind you of that
picture that we showed last week of how he had come from Ur of
The Chaldees are way over there on the right hand side of the
map, up right the way around that fertile crescent where it
is green dropped down into Canaan. And now we find that he heads
that little red line that goes down there through Shur and Goshen
into Egypt. And that is in the bottom left
hand corner, the country of Egypt. that Abraham went into during
this time of famine. But just as he was coming into
Egypt, we discover that he is overtaken again by doubts and
fears. And this is one of the enigmas
that we find, one of the puzzles that we find in Abraham's life. What was going to happen now?
And I think it's very interesting because Abraham is famous for
his faith. But here again, he shows a lack
of faith. Sarah is so beautiful. Let me
just come back off of that. Sarah is so beautiful. that Abraham realises that it
is very likely that the Egyptians will be jealous of him and he
thought that he might be killed and Sarah taken by another. And so he concocts this idea
to call his wife his sister And while that was not strictly a
lie, because she was in some senses a relative to him, it
nevertheless was designed to trick and to deceive his hosts
among whom he was due to go and live. And of course it endangered
Sarah also. It shows a lack of faith on Abraham's
part. A failure to trust God's care
and his providence and the promises that he had been given for the
land and the nation. And it shows us something important
here. You know, we sometimes talk about
faith in big matters. but we fail to have faith in
the small things of life. We talk about having faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life and for what's going to
happen when we die and yet we don't have faith in the little
things about our daily life and the challenges that we face in
it. Will we trust the Lord for eternal
life? and doubt that he is able to
look after us in this life? Because of this lie, Sarah was
taken into Pharaoh's house. And it seems as if that this
was part of a plan for Pharaoh to marry Sarah. And we find that God keeps her
safe by sending plagues, perhaps that's disease, on Pharaoh. Abraham's plan was to protect
himself but at risk of compromising Sarah. There's a lovely little
verse that I want to draw your attention to in Psalm 105. It's
verse 14 and it says this concerning Abraham and the psalmist there
is recounting how in the history of Israel the Lord provided and
protected his people. And it says there that God suffered
no man to do Abraham wrong. Yea, says the psalmist, he reproved
kings for Abraham's sake. And no doubt this is a reference,
at least in part, to Pharaoh. That the Lord suffered no man
to do them wrong. You know, the Lord suffers no
man to do us wrong, as his church and his people, beyond that which
is good for us. God cared for both Abraham and
Sarah despite Abraham's lack of faith. God was good to him
when he was weak and we can see God's goodness to us as well
when we are weak. But how ashamed Abraham must
have felt to be caught in this lie by Pharaoh. Here is the lesson
that I want to leave with us today. We do right to trust the
Lord and to follow him. And I hope that all of us, whether
we are older or younger, learn to follow the Lord Jesus Christ
and to trust in him. But there will be tests and trials
along the way, and there will be failures too. But while we
often let the Lord down, by our words and by our actions and
by our failures, He has promised always to keep us safe. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse
13, The Apostle Paul writes there to Timothy. Timothy was a young
man and perhaps we find Paul writing to Timothy particularly
aware of the challenges that Timothy would have to face in
the faith. And he writes, if we believe
not, even if we don't believe, if we doubt, if we have failures
in our faith, if we believe not, yet, he abideth faithful to us. because he cannot deny himself. Our God, our precious Saviour,
Jesus Christ, is faithful to his people even when we are unfaithful. The Lord Jesus Christ calls us
to follow him, but do not imagine that that means that everything
will be easy and everything will be pleasant and enjoyable in
your life. That is far from the case. But even when we fail, even when
we fall, when we deny, when we compromise our testimony, as
Abraham did here, yet the Lord remains faithful to us. Abraham
left Egypt with shame. but he discovered something of
God's provision and his mercy as well. I don't know how it
was that Pharaoh found out that Sarah was really Abraham's wife. Perhaps it was that God told
him in a dream or by some other way revealed to him. But woe
betide any who lay their hands upon the Lord's little ones,
because the Lord himself will preserve and protect his children
and his people, and we can trust and depend on the Lord even when
we feel the weakest and when we feel that we have let him
down. Amen.