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Sermons from the Book of Genesis |
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There are times in our Christian life that we find ourselves going forward and at times we find ourselves going backward. Sometimes we find that we need to go forward because we have gone backwards. Yet there are times that we find that the way forward is backward. Such is the case before us in the life of Abraham. We see Abraham going forward because he went backward. He had been going forward then went backward, thus he had to go backward in order to go forward.
Did you get all that? You may feel like the employees of a certain department store that received the following memo:
From: Marketing To: Sales Subject: Marketing Forecast
Sales and income figures show an easing up of the rate at which business is easing off. This can be taken as ample proof of the government’s contention that there's a slowing-up of the slow-down. Now, to clarify that, it should be noted that a slowing-up of the slow-down is not as good an upturn in the downturn. On the other hand, it’s a good deal better than either a speed-up of the slowdown or deepening of the downturn. Also, it suggests that the climate is about right for an adjustment of the readjustment to rate structures. Now, turning specifically to rates. We find a very definite decrease in the rate of increase. This clearly shows there should be a letting up of the letdown. Of course, if the slow-down should speed up, the decrease in the rate of increase rates would turn an increase in the rate of decrease. And finally, the inflation of the recession would turn the recession into a depression while a deflation in the rate of inflation would give the impression of a recession in the depression.1
If you are confused about Abraham going forward and then going backward, thus having to go backward in order to go forward, let's notice the story and the meaning will become clear.
First, we see:
1. THE FAMINE THAT WAS DISTRESSING
We read in Genesis 12:10, “And there was a famine in the land…the famine was grievous in the land.” Abraham had no sooner got started in his life of faith when a distressing famine struck the land. Days passed without rain. The sun seared the earth. Plants strained for water, until; finally, famine gripped the land.
Notice the:
A. Where of the Famine
This famine came in the land of Canaan, the place where God had sent Abraham. Abraham was in the will of God doing the will of God and suddenly he finds himself in a famine. We have the ideal that if we know the will of God and do the will of God, then nothing but good things will come to our life. The farmer thinks if he does the will of God he will have better crops. The salesman reasons that if he does the will of God he will have more sales. The pastor assumes that if he does the will of God his church will grow.
For some reason we think that doing the will of God eliminates us from adversity. Just because you are a Christian does not mean you want have to experience trials in your life. Just because you are obeying God does not make you immune from trials. When the "famines" of life come, we say to ourselves, "I must be out of the will of God." No, the famine may be a good indication that you are in the will of God.
Notice also the:
B. When of the Famine
This famine came on the heels of Abraham yielding his life to God and obeying God's call. His triumph was immediately followed by a trial. If I have seen it once, I have seen it scores of time. Someone gets saved, gives their life to God, and begins to live for Him, and then everything goes wrong.
I think of the Lord Jesus. John baptized him and as He came out of the water, the voice of Father was heard saying, "This is My Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased." Immediately after He found himself in the wilderness being tested. There was the blessing, which was followed by the battle.
Also notice the:
C. Why of the Famine
The famine was a testing of his faith. This was the first of many tests that would come in Abraham's life. This famine was a test designed to develop and mature his faith. Someone has said that a smooth sea never made a good sailor. Another has said that we learn the ropes of life by its knots untying. You see God is more interested in making us what we ought to be than in giving us what we think we ought to have.
Andrew Murray: "In times of trouble, God's trusting child may say first, He brought me here. It is His will that I am in this straight place. Next, He will keep me here in His love and give me grace in this trial to behave as His child. Then, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn and working in the grace He means to bestow.
When a storm comes, the lightning and thunder flashing and crashing around us can at times be a scary thing. But, did you know that lightning has a purpose? Plants would die if it weren't for the lightning! In order for the plants to grow, they need food from the air and the ground. The air is filled with a food we can't see, a gas called nitrogen. The plants can't use it until it becomes nitrates. What turns nitrogen into nitrates? Lightning! When the lightning flashes in the sky, the electricity makes the change. If there were no lightning, there would not be enough nitrates, and all the plants would die.
God allows us face the storms and go through the famines of life in order to build us and bless us. The famines of life may be distressing but they are for our good. The Bible says in 1 Peter 5:10, “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.” Most of the time when trials comes, we say, "How can I get out of this,” when we ought to be saying, “What can I get out of this."
There was the famine that was distressing. Secondly, notice:
2. THE FAILURE THAT WAS DISTURBING
As you all know, when the tests of life come, we don't always pass the tests. Sometimes the grade we get is a big "F". There are times when we find that our faith shrinks when washed with affliction. Every event that happens in life can draw us closer to God or drive us away from God. In Abraham's case, he failed the first faith exam of his life. Instead of allowing it to bring him closer to God, he allowed it to take him away from God.
We see:
A. Where He Traveled
We read in Genesis 12:10, “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.” This is the first time Egypt in mentioned in the Bible. Egypt in the Bible is a type of the world, and when a believer is in Egypt, most of the time, it is a type of a believer being out of God's will and away from God. We see Abraham turning to the world for help. We see him leaving the spiritual for the physical. Instead of looking to God, we see him leaving God.
The Bible says in Isaiah 31:1, “Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD!” Abraham should have remembered God's promises. He should have known that God would take care of him. But instead, he took things in his own hands, and found himself out of the will of God. He should have never doubted in the dark what God had told him in the light.
Notice Genesis 12:8: “And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.” It was at Bethel that he had pitched his tent and built his altar. Bethel means the “House of God." Abraham found himself out of the will of God and the House of God. Abraham is like so many believers that once served God that are out of God's House and God's will, and are now in the world.
We also see:
B. What He Told
There are some places that encourage one to sin. You get in the world and it want be long that you will be behaving like the world. Notice Genesis 12:11-13: “And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his a wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair 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, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.”
We see how dishonest he was. Abraham hadn't been in Egypt no time when he began act and behave like the world. His wife Sarai was a head turner. She was a 65-year-old knock out. Abraham was worried that they would kill him and take Sarai. So he came up with the ideal of telling them she was his sister. Actually, it was a half-truth, for Genesis 20:11-12, tells us that Sarai was his half-sister. But a half-truth is a whole lie. A lie is a lie no matter how you excuse it. Abraham the believer is acting like an unbeliever. He is out of the will of God and the House of God and behaving as if he had no God.
Abraham is like many who have been saved and were at one time living for God and are now out of God's will and God's House in living in the world and living just like the world. You couldn't tell by their behavior that they were not of the world.
Years ago a woman needed a new coachman. She advertised and interviewed 3 applicants. She asked each of them the same question: "You know that steep hill just outside of town and that narrow spot where the road drops into a gully? How close could you drive my coach to the edge without losing your nerve?" The first man said, "Madam, if the wheels of the coach came within six inches of the edge I would feel quite safe." The second man said, "Madam, I reckon even if one of the wheels went clean over the edge, I could hold those horses and recover the coach without harm." The third man said, "Madam, I would keep that coach as far away from that gully as I possible could." That was the man that got the job.
A believer must stay as far away from the world as they possible can. When we find ourselves away from God and in the world, we will find ourselves doing things that are unchristian and un-Christ-like.
We see how disgraced he was. We read in Genesis 12:14-20, “And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. The princes in 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 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."
Pharaoh took Sarai into his house. He compensated Abraham well. But then God shook Pharaoh's house to the foundation. Somehow Pharaoh knew that Abraham was behind the judgment of God that was upon his house. Pharaoh asks Abraham, "What have you done? Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you lie to me?" John Phillips said, "In all, Pharaoh the pagan cut a finer figure than Abraham the believer."2
Here is a believer standing in disgrace before an unbeliever. Donald Grey Barnhouse said, "It was not a pretty sight, but the effects of sin are never pretty."3 When Abraham should have been a witness he was a disgrace. I can imagine that when Abraham left Egypt, Pharaoh said, "If that is a Christian, I don’t want to be one."
There are many who once served God that got out of the will of God and the house of God whose testimony have been ruined. A biography of George Armstrong Custer, by James Warner Bellah, reads in its entirety: “To put it mildly, this was an oddball." To put it mildly, there are those who are a disgrace to the name of Christ. What is tragic is, it was not always so. Like Abraham they got out of the will of God and the House of God and into the world.
We see the famine that was distressing and the failure that was disturbing. Lastly, notice:
3. THE FELLOWSHIP THAT WAS DESIRED
After being disgraced and discipline for his failure, Abraham wants to be back where he used to be. He wanted to be back where God could bless him and use him. I am glad that our failures need not be final and they need not be fatal. We can come back to God. Notice what it takes to come back to God.
First, there must be a:
A. Renunciation of Where You Have Been
Notice Genesis 13:1, “And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.” In Genesis 12:9 we see Abraham going "toward the south." In Genesis 13:1 we see him going "into the south." Finally in Genesis 13:3 we see him going "from the south." He is forsaking the place of his failure. He is renouncing Egypt. He is turning his back on the world. He has had all of Egypt he wanted. He is leaving it heading back to God.
The first step in coming back to God is confession and repentance. It is turning your back on the world and all it has to offer. It is like the songwriter said:
"I bid farewell to the way of the world, to walk in it never more."
The Bible tells us in James 4:4, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” If you are going to be a friend of God, you must let go, say good-bye, and turn your back on the world.
Furthermore, there must be a:
B. Return to Where You Were
We read in Genesis 13:34, “And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai; Unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.” The way forward is backward; for Abraham went back to the very place he had left. He went back to Bethel where he had been at the beginning.
To get back in the place of God's blessings, you will have to come back where you left God. You will have to get back in the House of God and the will of God. He came back to the place where his altar was. He came back to the place where he had first worshipped God. He came back to the place where he had first pitched his tent. He came to the place where he had said, "Lord, I'll go where you want me to go."
You see the way forward is backward.
1. Michael Hodgin, "1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking" Zondervan Publishing House, 1994) p.68-69 2. John Phillips, "Exploring Genesis" (Moody Press, 1980) p.119 3. Donald Grey Barnhouse, "Genesis: A Devotional Commentary” (Zondervan, 1970) Vol. 1, p.83 |