Good to see everybody again Wednesday night. Um, we're continuing on in our study in, uh, on the life of Abraham, and if you would turn to Genesis twelve, we'll pick it up there. Genesis chapter twelve. Last time we covered the first three verses of chapter twelve. and tonight we're going to go from verses four through the end of the chapter. And what I'd like to do is read, start reading at verse four through verse nine to start off with. Genesis twelve four. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarah his wife and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the plain of Moreh, and the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there builded he an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And he, he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he builded an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. And we'll stop right there just for the time being. We see in, uh, the first three verses of Genesis twelve that God had made some incredible and wonderful promises to Abram. Uh, in those first three verses, we discussed that last time. And of course, we discussed the Abram's obedience to, uh, the call of God. And in verse four, we see that, uh, Abram did exactly what the Lord wanted him to do. He left the his his home in Haran. He took, uh, his wife Sarah, uh, his nephew Lot, and, uh, he departed and left Haran. Uh, we see in verse four that's, uh, Abraham was seventy five years old when he left Haran. Interesting to note that he had a hundred more years to go to live. Uh, as we s- uh, looked at it last time, we found out that Abraham is going to live 175 years. Yeah, a long lifespan, no doubt. But, um, they went forth, they, uh, uh, Abraham and his family, they left, and we see in, uh, as in verse six that he passed through the, uh, the region of Shechem, and, uh, in verse six it said that the Canaanite was in the land. And we have to keep in mind, uh, uh, something that, uh, many people in the world don't understand. That this land was n- didn't belong to the Canaanites, it belonged to Abraham and his descendants. The reason that it belongs to Abraham and decen- and his descendants is because God promised that land to Abraham. He didn't make the promise to the Canaanites. People, uh, who are critics of the Bible will say, well, you know, the Canaanites were there first, you know, that's their land. Well, no, it's not. You know, God didn't make that promise to the Canaanites. He made it to Abraham and his descendants. It's their land. It belongs to them because God himself gave it to them and his descendants. And we see in verse seven, we see an interesting thing in verse seven. It's, it's, uh, is not a whole lot of details involved in it, in, in there, in that verse. It says at the beginning of verse seven, and the Lord appeared unto Abram, and that's all it says. And, uh, I was curious about that. I, I believe that this is a, uh, or many Bible com- commentators, uh, and I agree with them, say that this is a pre-incarnate, uh, appearance of Christ to Abram. And we're not told the, uh, circumstances of this appearance. We're, there, there are few details available to us in the, in the, in the s- in the scriptures in this, in verse seven. There's, there's no description of the Lord. Did he appear as a human being? Did, does he appear, uh, as he appeared to John, as, as a bright shining light? Well, we don't know, because the scriptures don't tell us. But in verse seven, the Lord restated his promise to Abram and his, that his descendants will have this land. It will be their land. And, uh, you know, the Lord was telling Abra- Abraham or reiterating this promise, and I- I believe that the promise became real to Abram because he was in the land at that time. He was in the land of Canaan. He saw it, he was walking through it. And when he recalled God's promises in- in, uh, uh, Genesis twelve verses one through three, I believe the promise was made real to his heart. And it says at the end of verse seven that he built an altar to the Lord there. And we see that Abraham was a worshipper of the one true God. Not the Canaanite gods, not the gods of the surrounding nations, but the only one true God, that is the Lord God. That's the one that Abraham worshipped. And it says at the end of verse eight, he called upon the na- he built another altar there when he came to, uh, Bethel and Ai. He built another altar, and it says at the end of verse eight, he called upon the name of the Lord. And, you know, I, I believe that, that the Lord's appearance in verse seven had made an impression upon, uh, Abraham's heart, and, uh, he believed that, you know, this promise that God was making me, this is not a pie in the sky. This is a real covenant and a real promise that God will fulfill in Abraham's life. He believed that. He accepted that by faith. Now we turn that now to verses ten through twenty, and, uh, I'll start reading at verse ten. Now, well, before I do that, let me make some comments before we read verse- verses ten through twenty. Verses ten through twenty do deal, uh, with Abraham's disobedience, his failure to obey God. Uh, he did a lot of things he shouldn't have done. And, uh, I- I think that, um, you know, you and I need to take a look at- at these verses, and I believe that we can see m- uh, some of ourselves in that, in these verses. And I'll start reading at verse ten. And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sur- sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land. And it came to pass, when he was come near in- to enter Egypt, that he said unto Sarah his wife, Behold, now I know that thou art a fair or a beautiful woman to look upon. 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, that 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 behel- beheld the woman that she was very fair. The princess 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 menservants and maidservants, and she asses and cam- camels. And the Lord plagued the Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, 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. We see, first of all, in verse ten that there was a, a famine. It, it wasn't just a normal everyday famine, it was a very severe, crippling famine, famine in verse ten, It says the famine was grievous in the land. It was a serious thing. Now, in a famine, uh, as you probably already know, there's not enough food to eat. You got all these people, and they don't have enough food. Many times famines are, are caused by a lack of rain. The crops don't grow. You can't get any crops, uh, to eat, to use for food. You can't use any of the crops to feed your livestock. They die. So we see that the people in the land of Canaan were suffering because of lack, a lack of food. And we see that Abram, Abram made a decision. He made a decision in verse ten. He went down in the, into the land of Egypt. We might ask ourselves, did, did Abram make the right decision? Well, we're going to find out, no, he didn't. And another thing, uh, you, you know, in verse ten, that was this famine, was this famine an accident? Was it a coincidence that this famine just happened to happen at this time in the land of Canaan, just happened to be Sarah, Abraham and Sarah, uh, was just happened to be there when it happened to, that the famine just happened? Well, no, I, you know, this, this is a sovereign act of God that he was working in Abraham's life and in Sarah's life. And we see in verse ten that Abraham made the decision. Let's let, let me ask you a question. Could have Abraham have stayed in the land of Canaan and the, and had faith and dependence upon the Lord, and would the Lord have provided for Abraham and his family? Absolutely. Could Abraham have stayed there and in faith, Lord, I don't have any f- enough food to feed my family and m- and the people that work for me. You know, I- I- I've got to depend upon you. Could Abram have done that? Yes, he could have. Abram used something that we always use sometimes when, uh, the going gets tough. We rely on human reason. I've done that. You've done that. Abram did that. He relied on human reason. It sounded reasonable that there was no food in the land of Canaan, so, you know, I'm gonna move my family down to Egypt because they got a lot of food down there, and I can, I'll be able to feed my family. You know, that's reasonable. It's almost logical. But see, brothers, sisters in Christ, when we do that, we take God out of the picture, and we don't depend on him, you see. That's what Abram needed to do. He needed to, to, to go into, stay in the land of Canaan, and the Lord would have provided for him. And I've been there, you know, I've done stuff like this before, and I know, and I know you have too. We learn from these things. We learn that God will always provide for his children, always. So Abram, uh, in verse eleven, he was almost in the land of Egypt, and he, he told Sarah, his wife, you know, I know that you are a very fair woman, a beautiful woman to look at, and, and Sarah must have been a stunning w- beautiful woman for him to say this in verse eleven. And, uh, when the, he said in verse twelve, Abram said in verse twelve, since you are very beautiful, you know, the, the Egyptians are going to take you away from me, and they're liable, and they're going to see you as my wife, and they're going to take you away from me, and they're going to kill me, and they're going to take you to live with Pharaoh. But you see in verse twelve that, that Abram is planning and plotting and scheming. He's, he's doing all these things in order to protect himself and to protect Sarah. And again, we see that, uh, uh, Abram is relying upon that old, that old trick of human reason. Human reason can be tricky. Y- you know, you have to be careful. We must always put our dependence upon God first, human reason second, if human reason comes into the picture at all. So we see here in verse twelve that, uh, that Sarah, or he was asking Sarah, uh, to explain the situation to her in verse twelve. And in verse thirteen, he, he asked Sarah to do something. Tell the Egyptians, when they see you and see how beautiful you are, tell them that you're my sister. And which is a half truth, I think. Sarah was Abram's, uh, half, uh, that's a half truth 'cause, uh, Sarah was half sister to Abraham in, in, in the relations there. But, you know, i- i- I thought it was interesting here. Here, here's a man, uh, and Abraham was a man of great faith, you know, he, he believed God's promises. He had uprooted his family, he had left his country, and he was traveling into an unknown land, and he did it completely and totally by faith, and here he was not exercising any faith at all in God. And, um, and, and Abram was going to lie and deceive the Egyptians. And you, you may, we may wonder in our own minds, well, you know, what's going on with Abraham? I thought he was supposed to be a man of great faith. Well, you know, I, I remember telling you when we first started this study the last time that Abram is a lot like us. He's brother, sister, Christ, he is just like us. He's just like you, he's just like me. He has that old sin nature, just like you and I have. He has that old, that desire to depend upon himself and not upon God. You know, that's what Abraham was doing. And we see in verse fourteen, as we go along, it came to pass when Abraham was coming to Egypt that the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair, and the princes also of Pharaoh saw her and commended her before Pharaoh. You know, Sarah's beauty was noticed by the Egyptians. I tell you what, you know, Sarah, she, she must have been using that, what's that, Max Factor makeup or something like that. She had her hair fixed up just right, and eye- eye la- eyeshadow on her eyelashes or whatever. I'm kidding. But, and it sounds like I'm making fun of women, but I guess I am, but I'm kidding about that when I say that. But, you know, i- it's interesting to note here that, uh, Sarah was no ordinary run-of-the-mill woman. When you looked at her, you could see her beauty, her physical beauty. The Egyptians noticed that, a- a- and, uh, Pharaohs men in verse fifteen, they, they uh, they told Pharaoh, he said, listen, you know, here's a, there's a foreigner, a foreign uh, group, a family in our land who's come from the land of Canaan, and I tell you what, this woman is beautiful, you ought to come see her. In verse fifteen, And it says there in verse fifteen that Pharaoh's men came and took Sarah. She ki- they kidnapped Sarah, is basically what they did, and took her back to Pharaoh's, took her back to, uh, to live with the Pharaoh. And, uh, in verse sixteen, we see that, uh, uh, that Pharaoh, in verse sixteen, treated Abram well for Sarah's sake. You know, he got a whole lot of livestock from Pharaoh as a result of this, and I think Pharaoh was trying to pay back Abram, uh, for taking Sarah away from him. I can imagine, scriptures don't say this. We don't see it written. But, you know, I can imagine how heartsick Abram must have been at seeing his wonderful, beautiful wife, whom he loved dearly, taken away from him against his will. And, you know, Abram couldn't, he couldn't hatch another scheme. He couldn't tell another lie. He couldn't engage in another deception. There was absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, that Abram could do in a situation like this to get Sarah back. Nothing. He couldn't do anything. He was totally and completely helpless. And we may ask ourselves, well, uh, wait, where's the Lord at in all this? Don't he know what, understand what's, doesn't he understand what's going on? Doesn't he see all this stuff? And, and, you know, what about, what about God? Well, look at, let's look at verse seventeen. it'll explain it to us. Verse seventeen says, and the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abram's wife. We see here in verse seventeen how faithful God was to Abram. Abram was certainly unfaithful to God, but God was still faithful to Abram, and he plagued Pharaoh's house, that is his family. We're not told what those plagues were. It could have been some sort of physical ailment, possibly. But we see here God's faithfulness to Abram. You know, God had promised Abram that, uh, he made some incredible promises to Abram. He said, I'm going to make of you a great nation. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make your name great. You're going to be a blessing. I'm going to use you to bring m- uh, mil- untold countable numbers of, of people into this world to in- to inherit this land that I'm giving to you. This is a promise. You know, God was not through fulfilling his promise to Abram. He was not going to let Abraham die without his promises being fulfilled in his life. God is faithful. But I think, you know, I think I see, we see something else going on here. And we talk about God's faithfulness, and it's revealed in scriptures many, many times, over and over again. We see God's faithfulness. We see God's faithfulness in our own lives, don't we? Every day. And you know, this is part of God's divine attributes. This is part of God's character, that he is always, always, always faithful one hundred percent of the time, all the time, to his children. That's us. That's us. We may fail God. We may disobey him. We may sin against him. We may be unfaithful to him, but he is always faithful to us. Aren't you glad, brothers and sisters in Christ, that's true? That's the kind of God we have. And God was being faithful to Abram here, and he wasn't going to let Abram get away with, with, I mean, well, he's not going to let the Egyptians get away with hurting, harming, or killing, uh, Abram. So we see in verse eighteen, Pharaoh got, Pharaoh got Abram, and he said, what, what is, uh, what is this that thou shalest, hast done unto me? Why dost thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Well, we see here that Pharaoh figured out what was going on. Possibly Sarah told him that, uh, you know, I'm not really Abram's, uh, sister, I'm his wife. He prob- she, she could have done that. But we see that, uh, Pharaoh found out that Sarah was Abram's wife, and in verse nineteen, Pharaoh told Abram, listen, you know, I got these, all these plagues going on in my family, and we're suffering. Why don't you take Sarah, you take your family, take your servants, take all that livestock, livestock I gave you, and get out of my country. And Abram did. Verse twenty, it says, and Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him. They sent him away and his wife and all that he had. Abram left Egypt. I imagine that he was glad to be out of that place. And, you know, we hope that, uh, Abram learned a lesson from this, but we see that he, he didn't later on. But there, there's some conclusions that we can draw from that. There are, I came up with three. there, there could be more conclusions, you know. Number one is, is the faithfulness of God that I just talked about. When we fail, God is always faithful to us, even in our failures. The second conclusion we can draw is how God deals with our disobedience. You know, Moses, uh, was a great man of God, yet he disobeyed God. He had to pay the consequences of his disobedience. He, he didn't get to see the f- uh, the promised land. He didn't get to walk in the promised land. He died before the, uh, Israelites could get there. You recall David, a man after God's own heart, committed the sin of adultery. He was restored to God by the mercy and grace of, of God, but he had, David had to deal with the consequences of his sin. And we go into the, the New Testament, we look at Peter, and we see Peter had denied the Lord three times, and he thought, well, you know, my life, my service for, for the Lord Jesus is over, I might as well go back fishing. But the Lord restored Peter beautifully and wonderfully, and used him in mightily in the book of Acts in the early church. All these great men of God were restored to the Lord. God continued to use them. You know, brother, sister in Christ, if we fail God, if we're disobedient to God, God is not through with us. Do you realize that? I heard somebody, a preacher on the radio, say some time ago that, that if a pastor sins, like commits adultery, that's it for him. God can't use him anymore. I heard that, and I said, what in the world is he talking about? What about Peter, you know? What kind of, what kind of sin do you have to sin against God that he wouldn't use you anymore? But you see that God is always faithful to us. We may disobey him, we may fail him, we may let him down, but God never fails us, brother, sister in Christ. Never, never. And another thing I think we see in, in this passage is the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God. You know, the Lord was in control of Abraham's situation. There was no detail escaped his attention. He knew everything that was going to happen before it happened. God was supervising providentially all the events of Abram's, Abram's life. Lord knew what was going on in Abram's life all the time. The Lord knows exactly what's going on in your life and my life. He knows every single detail about us and our life, our hearts, our minds, how we think, what motivates us, why do we say the things we do, why do we do the things we do. God knows all that. He knows everything. And, and there's, there's something that we always, uh, can rely on about God, about the Lord. It even the times that we're suffering, even the times that are grievous, even the times that are painful, even the times that hurt, God is there. He's there with us through all these things. He's a faithful God. He is a God who is faithful to Abraham, and he is a God who is faithful to us. Praise God. Praise God. Well, we'll pick it up next time in chapter thirteen.