Sister Sarah?

Okay, what do you think of when I say two words, Pharaoh and plagues? Oh, the Exodus story and Israel coming out of Egypt. Right, but that's still 400 years to come in Genesis.

Well, why are we talking about it today? Because it's in Genesis 12, and we're going to read that today. On more than ink.

Well, good morning or afternoon or evening, whenever you're listening to us, because this is Jim. And I'm Dwythy. And again, this is More Than Inc. And we're glad that you've found us. This is our first non-broadcast program.

So this is our first program that's not being aired over the air in Salt Lake City.

So we're glad you found us here. And we are just continuing on like nothing has changed. And we're in the middle of Genesis because, hey, who can stop reading Genesis when you get up to chapter 12?

Well, it only starts getting really good. I know. I know. So we are zeroed in on the. On the life of Abraham and his descendants, which is a, that just started in the previous chapter in chapter 11.

So, anyway, we're in the middle of chapter 12.

So, why don't you bring us up to date about what was just prior to this today that we're going to look at?

Okay, so he's still going by the name of Abram, and the Lord called him out of Ur of the Chaldees, which we read about before. But now, this is when he has started again on his journey. His father has died, and Lot is with him. At the beginning of chapter 12, the Lord calls him.

So, now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

So, God calls him to leave his place, his family, his father's house, all the people in the culture he's ever known, and everything head into an unknown future in an unknown place. All he knows is that God has called him and promised to bless him and to make him a blessing.

So, God's made this extraordinary promise: I will bless those who bless you, and the one who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Yes, yes. Goes. He sets out on this hundreds of mile journey and he enters the land of Canaan from the north and goes as far south as Shechem.

Settles there for a little bit, and then he goes farther south again and settles for a while between Bethel and Ai, which are both historically very important places in the history of Israel. In episodes to come.

So, where we left off is just after that, he builds an altar to the Lord, and then he journeys on south, going toward the Nageb.

So, he's heading down into the desert. It doesn't explain why he would choose to do that. Right, but he is, he is. Kind of surveying the land. There is an ancient legal idea when it comes to.

You know, like we do it today when we talk about planting a flag somewhere, saying, You know, I declare this to be, you know, well, in ancient times, you would see a land and then you would traverse it on foot. And when you do that, in a way, you seal the land to yourself.

So he's actually walking the land, the extent to what God has shown him he's going to be occupying for his family.

So he's just checking it out. He's walking the back 40. And so he's going south from the middle of Israel.

Well, but it's interesting. If you head south from there, you head out into the desert heading toward Egypt. And so that's where we pick up the story today. Yes. Excuse me.

Starting in verse 10 of chapter 12. Are we ready to go there? Yeah, but just to mention, Egypt is not on the plan. No. For the area that God's called Abram's descendants to.

So this is a little bit of walking outside the land.

So he's heading outside the boundaries of the land he's been promised. That's right. Let's see what happens in verse 10. Chapter 12. Verse 10.

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. You want to stop there and talk about famine a little bit? Sure, sure. Because the question arises: you know, should he have hit it out there? Right, right.

But famine, I've done a little thinking about this in the Genesis stories. It appears that God uses famine to move people around. He moves them from one place to another, but it also is a form of judgment, which becomes clear later in Deuteronomy. God promises the people: now, if you listen to me and keep my word in the land, then you won't have any famine. But if you disobey me and don't listen to me, one of the effects of that will be famine.

So perhaps this is prefiguring that. Yeah, no. Could be. Could be. Because if you know your Bible history, it turns out that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his sons, they end up going down to Egypt to survive a famine.

Yeah, there's some really interesting foreshadowing here.

So we'll circle back and draw a line under those at the end. Yeah, and it also raises a question, and it's hard to answer at this point, is, you know, let's say that God is not calling them to go to Egypt to solve the famine. It brings you to this position of do I stay in the middle of God's call for me in the land, the land of promise, and then also trust by faith that God's going to solve the famine problem if I stay here because this is where he called me to? Or do I leave this place because it looks like God may not provide for me because of the famine and go someplace else?

So, you know, it's a hard question to answer, but that could be playing in right here as well. It could be that the famine situation is in itself foreshadowing Abram's heart that's starting to drift.

Well, Abraham. And does he stay or does he not stay? It's actually. A question of faith.

Well, and this is early in the Abram story, and God is still showing Abram that he is trustworthy. Right. Because there are several instances in this story where Abram behaves as if God is not trustworthy or perhaps not even present in Egypt.

So keep watching and see about that. Also, we might bring up another parallelism, and that's the baby Jesus was taken down to Egypt because of the threat to his life. And it says explicitly that's so as to fulfill a prophecy that his son would come out of Egypt.

Well, his son Israel came out of Egypt and his son Jesus came out of Egypt.

So was that good or bad?

Well, it's just in the foreshadowing of God. Yep, yep, yep. He's giving us a glimpse into the fact that he is in control of all of these comings and goings, and they all have meaning and purpose. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's also another kind of a meme that's going on here. This is the fact that Egypt, because of the Nile River, is a place that always has water. It's got all the water from Africa coming into the delta there. And so it's kind of a consistent kind of picture of the world providing for you. Whereas when God calls them to live in Canaan, God says, well, you're going to live in a place where there's no Nile.

Right. Like in a place where I provide the water. Right. I'll provide you.

So there is that picture going on here, too, about the world providing for you. Are you willing to always trust in God to deliver rain and do when you need to? And that's going to figure on later on in the story of Lot when he makes his choice based on the water.

So that's next time. That's next week. That's all kind of mingled into this entire thing.

So there's a lot here in this little statement about the famine. The famine was severe in the land.

So Abram heads south. Verse 11. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, I know that you're a beautiful woman in appearance. And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife. wife.

Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.

so 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. Shall we pause there a second? Yeah, so this is a little bit of ancient understanding. You know, someone can take a woman as long as she's not attached to somebody else. But wherever did he get this idea that if she's his wife, they will kill him?

I wonder if that's something he had run across in Ur. Because he hasn't been in a big city in a long time. Could be. Well, in a way, you know, you can take a woman by force and you won't violate the ethics of the area if she's not married. She's not married if her husband.

And the way you can solve that is to kill the husband.

So that's also part of what's going on in the picture here.

So he says, you know, don't claim you're my wife because that puts me in danger of being killed.

So you're beautiful, so they're going to want to take you.

So what about her?

Well, yeah, no one's thinking about her. He's thinking about himself here. Which is clear that it's backfires, right?

Well, yeah, we'll see in a second. But it's fascinating because he says, look, you're beautiful. If anyone sees you, they're going to want to take you. They're going to want to kill me so we can sever the marriage relationship so we can do it in a noble way, noble with scare quotes on it.

So just say you're my sister, which actually is half true. It's half true. We don't find out until later in Genesis, but she is his half sister. Half sister, yeah.

So, in order that verse 13, it may go well with me, although as you say, what about her? Yeah. So, so, so, just, so he says, please, in fact, 13 says, say you are my sister. It's actually, I look to see if that's very imperative. It's sort of like, please, please say if this situation goes, get prepared to say it this way.

So, that's because I want my life to be spared. And then he says, that my life may be spared for your sake. What's that about? What? Is that just kind of double speak?

Like, you care for me, right? You love me, right? You don't want me to be killed, right?

Well, then claim you're my brother, my sister, and then they won't kill me, and you'll be happy to be able to do that.

So he can continue to be her protector. Yeah, I think this is kind of. You know what occurs to me here is where's the promise of God to him? Right, right, right. The promise of God is not even in his mind because God has said, I'm going to make you a blessing.

You're going to have generations are going to come for you.

Well, and generations are going to come for you. I mean, isn't this actually flying in the face of God's promise that his descendants would come for you? Operating like there is no promise. And now he's willing to let Sarah go? I mean, what?

And as it turns out, he almost does lose her. Right, right. So I'm seeing faithlessness popping up everywhere here in all of this.

Well, yes, but he doesn't know God very well yet. No, but if he took God at his word that his descendants would come, he surely wouldn't let her go to the past. And I'm not letting him off the hook. I'm just saying there's a big change in life coming for him. Right, right.

In fact, what he could have done, if I rewrite this section from my perspective, He could have been saying to her, Look, we're going into a strange land where people have weird ethics and they might want to take you because you are beautiful, even though she is check this out, 65. Even she is beautiful. What you could do, he could say, is just tell them that you're married to me and God will protect us and everything will be fine.

So don't fear. Don't fear. Yeah, but he didn't do that. But he doesn't do that. That would be the godly faithful word.

So we get a little view into Abram here. Right, right. Okay. 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.

See, see, it's going to happen.

So, like, he, it's like he didn't reckon on the fact that they would just take her because she's clearly unattached. Right. Right. Right. That was not what he'd planned.

Okay, verse 16. And for her sake, Pharaoh dealt well with Abram, and he was given sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. Right, right. So. Which is kind of dowry-like.

Right. They enriched Abram because they had taken his sister. Which was a standard operating procedure. If you brought a woman in to be your wife, you pay the family. Right.

And so he's paying the family, which is Abram. Although we don't have any recording here that she actually said, well, he's my brother. But that's clearly how Pharaoh is taking it. It's true. Uh, hm.

Yeah. And it's interesting that Because he's paying Pharaoh and he's paying Abram like he would like Sarah's father. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I want to believe that Sarai would have.

kept her held her tongue until she was Really thoroughly in danger, I would think. I would hope. Yeah. Because, you know, Peter in 1 Peter 3 makes a really interesting comment about Sarah submitting to her husband because she feared the Lord. Right.

So, you know, there's an argument to be made, the fact that she was trusting God, even though her idiot husband was not. Exactly. No, that's exactly right. And Peter just makes that so clear. He does.

She's an example. She's an example of her faithfulness. toward God. Yeah. And I actually have that passage open in front of me.

He's picking it up kind of in the middle of his thought. But he says in 1 Peter 3, 6, thus Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear. Yeah. Right. So the question is, what would Sarai have had to be afraid of at this point if she's trusting God?

Right. Whereas just the naked narrative makes it look like she's being abandoned, and yet she knows she's. Really not. She's really not because God's got her.

So she's taken into Pharaoh's house. Yeah, and I might ask you to mention too: it says, you know, in 15, the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. It doesn't necessarily mean that he had sexual relations with her. No. Because I checked out some other passages in Genesis, and it's quite explicit when that actually happens.

Like in Genesis 34 with Dinah and stuff like that, it says he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her.

So it's clearly a two-step thing. And in another case, with Judah, Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, and he took her and went into her.

So just this taken right here doesn't necessarily imply any sexual contact.

So she's taken into his house, but not into his bedroom apparently. Right. And for her sake, the Pharaoh dealt well with Abram and enriches him. Interestingly enough, he gives him male and female servants.

Well, this may very well be where the Egyptian slave Hagar came from. It could be. Figures later on in the story. I mean, it's really interesting the amount of detail that is kind of between the lines here. Because we don't know where Hagar comes from, but we do know she's Egyptian.

That's right. Okay, so Sarai is in the house of Pharaoh. Verse 17. But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with 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?

Well, how did he find that out? How did he figure that out? Yeah, God could have told him during the plague, it's true, or Sarai could have told him. Sarai could have told him. We don't know.

Or it's possible that the plagues had to do with fertility. That could be suddenly, no one could make babies. Yeah, that very well could be. But what we do know is Pharaoh knows that she is married to Abram and he's getting the afflictions from God because of it. And he's offended.

And he's offended by that. Why didn't you warn me this could get me killed by God? Yeah. So, verse 19: 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 go. And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.

So they didn't demand back the bride prize. No, they sent them all. Fascinating. Fascinating. And you know, and technically, Pharaoh could have just come and killed him.

I know, I know. He said, you know, you didn't tell me she was married, but in a second, she's not going to be because I'm going to kill you. Right. But I think what stops him is the plagues from God. Right.

Because if he, you know, if he stepped, he has stepped over the line with Sarai because she's married and God's, you know, protecting her. God's protecting her because she will be the mother of Isaac. Right. So what will God do if I kill her husband? Right.

So I'm pretty sure he knows the plagues are telling him, you know, do the right thing here or else.

So this is a Pharaoh that at the first sign of plague respects the God who sends him. Yes. Again, there's a little foreshadowing of Israel in Egypt 400 years later. 400 years later. But actually, there's a lot of interesting foreshadowing.

Here. I mean, there's the specific mention of plagues. Plagues. There's the Pharaoh sending him out with the riches, right? Which is what happens later.

Right. So, and in a sense, Sarai is enslaved, right? She's in prison. She's taken and has no choice in the matter. Right.

Just like Israel became enslaved.

So it's just, it's not specific, but it's very interesting parallelism. Yeah, the foreshadowing is profound in so many ways, so many ways. You know, what another thing I found interesting as I stood back and looked at this 17 to 20 is that did you notice how many times Abraham speaks? Abraham speaks? He doesn't say a word to this entire thing.

And in fact, Pharaoh lobs in all what is it? Three or four imperatives at him. What is this? Why did you do this? Why did you say, you know, and just go.

So he's extraordinarily passive in the face of Pharaoh and really has nothing to say. He can't excuse himself. Busted, right? He's totally guilty. Right.

Now, you know, it turns out Abram's going to try this again in chapter 20. And at that point, he does have a snappy comeback. That's when he brings up, well, she kind of is my sister. But in this case, he's so gob-smacked by it all. He doesn't say a word, doesn't say a word.

And God's the one who's the initiator and the rescuer. He's the one that fixes all this. And Pharaoh actually bends the knee to God himself. in this entire process. It's really interesting that the writer of Genesis, who we traditionally believe is Moses, makes no moral judgment on Abram at this point.

He just describes what he does and the effect of it. And we are all left to just with our mouths hanging open in horror. That the one whom God has chosen as the heir of the promise would do this, would endanger the promise, which really was never in danger at all because God rescued Sarai. Right, right, right, right. But what does it tell us about God, right?

God is able to rescue. even out of stupid errors well and in the case of of abram technically like i said before coloring outside of the lines of the promised land you would think that if he left the promised land which he's now surveying that's going to go to all his descendants that once he goes outside but goes to egypt you could say well you know god's protection is off at this point well that may have entered into his thinking because at that time in history gods were connected to locales yeah right in people's thinking and so abram is outside the land that god has promised him so maybe that's the land god lives and he's down here in egypt god doesn't live here so he can't he doesn't have any power here right right but clearly what this is is god god has made a promise to abram and sarai right no matter where they are no matter where they are and god's going to see the plan through even if they walk into egypt yeah so it's really you see that on the one side uh you also see in a real sense that uh abram's detour that's what i call this this detour into egypt this detour into egypt kind of denies God the opportunity to glorify himself. You know what I'm saying? Because he's taking things into his own hands.

So I'm solving the famine by doing something I can do. I'm covering myself by having Sarai say something to. To keep me from getting killed. I mean, it's really a detour away from the faithfulness of God. But think what God could have done if Abram stayed inside, colored inside the lines of the promise, how different that would really be.

And waited on God for deliverance from the famine. And God would have glorified Himself in circumstance if Abram had just stayed put in the place of the promise.

Now, He's not going to make that error.

Well, He's going to do it again in chapter 20. But in terms of the land, right, inside the borders of the land. And it's going to be an important theme from this point on. The promise made to Abram is something, this promise is like a thread that goes through to his son and to his son and to his grandsons. I mean, this is going to work out that is God's promise good?

And in this case, this is his first test to say, well, I don't know. But now that I know God, God's going to follow through with his promise about my descendants, regardless of whether I'm standing inside his promises or not, God's still going to have his way. God is still sovereign over this promise. Isn't that glorious? though and gracious of the Lord who will follow through on what he has promised, even in the presence of Abram's morally ambiguous behavior and perhaps his unbelief.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's a nice contrast between God's faithfulness in the face of Abram's lack of faithfulness. Unfaithfulness. And yet still God is still gracious toward Abram. He's still going to have his way. He's still going to work out this thing that completely relies on God and not on Abram, even if Abram tries to solve God's problems.

Like he gave us this land, but what's in a famine?

Well, yeah, but he gave him the land. You know, he should have stayed.

So it's an interesting detour. Another kind of thing, you know, as we've come through the promised land, come through Canaan up to this point, Abram keeps making altars. Yes. There is no alters in this detour. If you notice.

Right. Well, may have been the fact that there were lots of altars to other gods in Egypt. But it's Abram's way of saying, you know, this plan is good. This is right. I'm thankful I do an altar.

He did one up in Bethel. Up in the land, but God's not here anymore. Right. Right. So the lack of this altar is a way of really highlighting the fact that he's really walking outside of relying on God and God's promises.

God's not in his view. Because he's not thanking God for the process. In fact, in this particular case, he kind of gets his hand slapped. You know, that's a question that I ask people, and actually you do too, quite frequently when we hear a tale of woe. You know, where is God in your view?

Where is God in this? Yeah. Right. And really, if Abram had stopped to ask that question instead of assuming. We might have been able to avoid this entire Debacle.

Exactly. And it would have, again, given God an opportunity to glorify Himself in a wonderful way. But when we take things into our own hands, we short-circuit that opportunity.

Now, it doesn't mean God still can't do it because He does bless them and He does bring Him back and He does rest and He enriches them. Yeah, He does that. But God could have done something even greater had He stayed. But we have this. History of taking things into his own hands, which is going to continue to play out for the next several chapters in Genesis.

And so, you know, shortly we're going to see Abram go back and camp again between Bethel and Ai, which is interesting later on in the history of Israel, Bael being the house of God, the awareness of the presence of God and the neighboring place I, the place where Israel took matters into their own hands and failed dramatically. Right. And this is a gigantically strong theme all the way throughout this point as we follow Abram, Abram and Sarai, because the issue is the promise. The promise with a capital P. You cannot distance the promise from this lineage of Abram.

The promise, even when you get down to someone like Jacob, the son of Isaac, who's a real scallywagon very mindful. Oh, in so many ways. And he, you know, he works against his brother Esau. And the thing about Jacob is that although he's a Scaliwag, he believes in the promise. He believes where this promise is going and uses subterfuge to kind of insert himself into it.

But he does believe that God's going to come good on this promise. And that's where he gets in the way of Esau, who's the firstborn. I mean, so many things.

So the promise. When you read Abram in the Old Testament in Genesis, you gotta think about the fact that God made a covenant promise to Abram, and now we're gonna follow the promise. Not so much just the lineage of Abram going to fall the promise.

Well, in a sense, the promise is a character in the story. It really is. Yeah, it really is. And it's gigantic. And here, the promise is to be in the land, and he steps outside the boundary of that promise by going to Egypt and look where it lands him.

So this will be the dynamic from here on out: people who believe the promise stay inside the promise, even when it looks like the circumstances are going south, even when it says there's a famine that's severe in the land. But do you stay inside the promise or do you fix the problem with the promise? Right. And do your own thing. And that's going to be the contrast from here all the way through Genesis.

Well, through most of the Bible, in fact. You know, is God's promise good? Will He make good on His promise? Or when things look a little rough, a little untidy around the edges? Do you kind of step in and help God with his promises?

And that's sort of solve it for yourself.

Solve it for yourself. Take things into your own hands because clearly God's not going to fix this because, hey, there's a famine of great severity in the land. Yeah. So that's a contrast that's going to happen all the way. Is God's covenant promise good?

Can you rely on it? Can you stand within it? Even when the circumstances look like God might be asleep at the wheel? Yeah, so that'll be a thing throughout all of this.

So next time, next time they're going to be back in the land and they're going to find out that they don't have enough space. Who?

Well, Abram and his animals and his nephew Lot. And Lot has been with them in each of the people. Lot has been with them. And they're going to find out. Yeah, yeah.

So they're going to realize that in this land that's God given them, we don't think it's big enough for the two of us.

Well, this town's not there. They're so rich and have so many animals. They can't continue to live together.

So, we're going to fast-forward to where just herding the flocks is going to be difficult.

So, surprisingly, Abram and his family separate from Lot and his family.

So, we're going to see that next time we come together here on More Thaning. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note.

So I'm impressed by the arrival of Egypt and Pharaoh. Yeah, suddenly we have Pharaoh. This is the first place Pharaoh appears in the scripture, and he's going to be a major player. Yeah, it's not going to be the last time. We'll see more of these people, so just keep your eyes out as we go on.

Bye. Bye. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.