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Studies in Genesis, Abraham’s Walk of Faith, Lesson XXVIII, Genesis 12:10-20
We are in the midst of a study of the most amazing subject, the subject of faith, and a man of faith.
Faith is a realm wherein God dwelleth and without living in this realm there is no connection with God.
Faith is indeed the victory that overcomes the world.
So as we travel with Abraham through the scriptures God provides us a picture of a man walking by faith, but as a toddler learns to walk, in faltering steps at first but gaining in ability as walking is experienced, Abram also falters and fails as he learns this walk of faith.
All men, all women, whether or not they are listed in the scriptures are to learn to walk by faith for all men are with flaws, with sins and with failures.
Moses the writer of Genesis leaves nothing out in matters of Abram’s failure for his account of Abram’s initial steps toward and in Canaan left much to be desired as to a solid walk of faith.
Hebrews 11 speaks of Abraham’s faith when all was said and done but Genesis speaks of Abraham’s faith as it was growing.
Solomon wrote this in Ecclesiastes 7:8, Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof:
Yes, Abraham was a man of great faith but great faith after years and years of trials and testings by God.
Take this as the example as to how God raises His children and how you ought to raise your children.
We are all to be tested that our faith may grow.
For in our best moments our faith may be strong, but in the next we forget God and cry like a baby, weak and in great need.
So what can we learn from our father Abraham as we too walk this road of faith, a road whereby God grows faith by nurture and admonition?
One thing to learn is that faith is begun by the initiative of God.
It was God alone who sought out Abram and saved him.
His home was pagan.
There is nothing given as to any spiritual qualities which drew God to him.
But it was God alone in the act of grace who elected Abram to be our father.
And we also learn that God is sovereign in the process of sanctification, a setting apart for service.
Having called Abram, it was God who brought him to the point of leaving home and kindred and eventually entering the Promised Land, the land in which God would fulfill His promise to Eve.
For it was in this land he was to engage in a pilgrimage, which brought him to know that his ultimate promised land was in the city whose builder and maker was God.
We read of this important truth in:
Hebrews 11:9,10, By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Abraham knew that his permanent home was not to be found in this world but in the one that is to come, the one that Jesus Christ said he went to, to prepare for us a place.
Abraham lived in tents symbolizing to us his roots were not deep in this world for his heart was elsewhere and that elsewhere was near to the heart of God.
The great principle of faith is that we look not for our permanent home in this world, but in the one that is to come, that world where we will be fully in the presence of the Lord.
Those who walk the broad way, those who walk not the way of faith invest fully in what they see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.
Those who walk the broad way invest fully in what they perceive as their future but the walk of faith is not knowing what the future holds, but instead knowing Him who holds the future.
Those who walk the walk of faith choose only to rely upon God’s word.
Abram had no written word but he had the spoken word of God which told him: Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
Today we have no spoken word but we have God’s written word which is even better in that we can read and study it over and over and by this hear God’s word and deposit it into our hearts thus guiding us in this walk of faith.
Abram over time could have doubted the spoken word but to have God’s written word is to be able to hear God’s voice whenever we desire.
So as it says in Genesis 12:4, 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.
Did God provide an itinerary for the trip with all the details filled in, no, for we are told that Abram obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
Here is another principle of faith that we learn from our father of faith and that is faith leads us to simply do what God has told us to do and believing that He is leading us as we do so.
I remember my own walk of faith as a young man, newly saved, a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, married with two small children.
What does a man do after he is born into God’s family but ask the leader of that family for orders.
God told me in His word that all things become new, for I was a new creation in Christ Jesus.
So why would I assume that all things would remain the same?
Well I did not assume such things for I knew for certain that I was a new creation in Christ Jesus and as such beholden to the one who made me thus.
And so in faith I asked for guidance and God did indeed guide me and my wife to begin anew our walk of faith outside the Navy.
Outside of directing engineers and Seabees to lo and behold the direction of 30 fourth graders in a classroom down the hall in this very building and not only that to begin with my wife a boarding home for children.
God does indeed think outside the box so if you find yourself translated from the way of the world to the walk of faith watch out for God has plans for you and they might be plans totally outside your comfort zone.
So the walk of faith is not a walk where every turn, every rise or fall, every bump is clearly known but the Lord with whom you walk assuredly knows the way to the destination, so get abroad, for the trip will be exciting indeed.
Abram heard God’s call in Ur but it was many years later that that call was realized in Canaan, then it was another 25 years until his son of promise, Isaac was born.
And after leaving Haran Abraham lived one hundred years to the age of one hundred seventy five so the example to us is that faith is to grow.
God knows you cannot immediately walk at birth but He expects you to grow in faith in His time and His testing for He says the just shall live by faith and God will make sure that happens in His children.
A Bible Commentator named Stagers wrote this:
“Abram’s life is a growth in faith developed under delayed fulfillment of divine promises. He is promised a seed and when that seed is delayed, he must somehow see meaning in that delay and learn faith in God. When he is promised a land, and when that land is not given, he must look beyond the promise to its Maker so that he may understand. When he is commanded to sacrifice Isaac, he must obey with a willing heart of love, yet somehow see through to balance the command with the promise of the seed of a nation and leave the outcome to God and to find in God all sufficiency. Through all of his experiences he must come to see God as the origin of all that will endure.”
We have compared the walk of faith to our walk as men and women who first crawled, then stood up on two legs, finding that by putting one leg in front of the other and pushing, forward movement took place in a vertical position.
But at first that movement was one step and then a fall, perhaps the next the movement was three steps and then a fall but failure just led to continued trying and soon many steps were taken with few falls.
And so was Abraham’s walk of faith for in its beginning God gives us witness to its falls but God does not forsake His own, continuing to help Abraham get up to walk even more stalwartly in faith until he as last can entitle him our father of faith.
So we read of these falls in:
Genesis 12:10-20, And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. 11 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 upon: 12 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. 13 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. 14 And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. 15 The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. 16 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 camels. 17 And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife. 18 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? 19 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. 20 And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.
As I have said God brings His own along His road of faith and along that road are many testings and trials in order that faith may grow.
God is not satisfied with a stagnant faith and therefore if you walk by faith expect God’s hand in that walk for God is always looking to increase your faith.
So Abram’s faith is tested, by God bringing a famine to this Promised Land.
Now remember that at this time God had already said Abram was at this land and he built an altar as a seal of this truth.
This is where God intended for all the promises to Abraham to be carried out.
Egypt was not to be in the picture for Egypt was that place defining the world system, a place where famines were unknown because of the Nile River, a place where provision was by the labor of the hands, not by faith in the God of provision.
But it was natural thinking to look around and know as the leader of a multitude of people and servants that if a famine comes your way the natural thing is to depart and go where the food and grain is.
But this is natural thinking and natural thinking will always get you in trouble on the road of faith.
Did Abram have any idea that suffering and trials were a part of God’s curriculum in the school of faith?
Did Abram not believe that the God who called him was the God to whom all nature bowed in submission?
Did Abram consider that this God whose voice he heard brought the famine so that Abram would call upon Him for deliverance thus increasing his faith?
Abram looked around and saw the evidence of a famine, first mistake for faith does not walk by sight.
So what about logic, what does logic preach?
It preaches that all there is, is what you know by what this body tells you.
Second mistake for this body does not walk by faith for faith is walked in the spirit.
Logic turns up its nose and smells the waters to the south, and the crops and the grains and the food which will solve the problem but where is faith in this logic?
Abram did not read what God would tell his seed many hundreds of years later but it is so pertinent to faith.
It is found in:
Deuteronomy 11:10-12, For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: 11 But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: 12 A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.
God had brought Abram to a land whereby God was the husbandman who cared for it and that care was accessed by faith.
What a lesson this is where we learn that God places you in situations whereby your problems are to be solved by calling upon the hand of God for your hand will only reach so far.
So Abram’s decision to go to Egypt did not stem from faith in God’s hand of provision.
Isn’t it good thinking that if God calls you to a land that He will provide in that land?
Where did Abram build his altars?
All were in Canaan and none were in Egypt.
God will not get in your way when you choose to depart from the walk of faith but remember you are trading the provision of God for the provision of the world and the world will not endure.
So Abram chooses to depart from the walk of faith for it seems to him there is no provision upon this walk as he looks longingly at the caravans coming from the south.
For the world always entices along the walk of faith and shows its glittering things luring the eyes who take themselves away from the straight walk.
But again this choice argues against the consequences.
For Abram surmises, certainly there are none and this choice will bring all the needed goods into my storehouse!
But another lesson is hereby given for in all departures from the walk of faith there are consequences for it was near to the entering into Egypt that Abram began to consider the dangers he and his troop faced.
For God had given him to wed a very beautiful woman at this time named Sarai, whom we later learn in:
Chapter 20:12, And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
So we learn that Sarai is indeed his sister, half sister at least.
Later in chapter 17 we are told that she was ten years younger than Abram who left Haran at age 75 thus making her in her mid-sixties.
Sarai died at age 127 so in her day she was simply at the early stages of middle age so her beauty was probably at its peak at this venture.
And perhaps she did not look her age at least this is what Abram told her!
So faith being departed from, the natural visitor to knock on Abram’s door is fear.
For without faith, fear always has its reign and with that truth we close this lesson. |