turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 12, and I'll read the entire chapter of this portion of Genesis. Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Then Abram took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the turban tree of Moriah. And the Canaanites were then in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your descendants I will give this land. And there he built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel. And he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. So Abram journeyed going on still toward the south. Now there was a famine in the land, the neighbor went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land. And it came to pass when he was close to entering Egypt that he said to Saria, his wife, Indeed I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance therefore it will happen when the Egyptians see you that they will say this is his wife and they will kill me but they will let you live. Please say you are my sister and that it may be well with me for your sake and that I may live because of you. So it was when Abram came into Egypt that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful. The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh and the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house. He treated Abram well for her sake. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys and camels. But the Lord plagued Pharaoh in his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram and said, what is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me she was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister? I might have taken her as my wife. Now, therefore, here is your wife. Take her and go your way." So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. And may God add His richest blessings to this reading of this portion of His holy, infallible Word. You know, we read over in the Psalms, I believe it's in Psalm 119, that forever settled in, forever, O Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven. and that's very important for us to understand as we live in our present times even as it was very important that that be understood throughout the generations of mankind. We read in the opening verses of this chapter this word that comes to Abraham while he is at Haran and we know that they have already left Now the Lord had said to Abraham, get out of your country from your family, from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now Abraham lives a very interesting life. He starts out his father Terah and a family living in Ur of the Chaldees coming down to Haran. Both of these regions are regions in which was the prominent worship of the moon god. So that Abram comes from a family that knows not God. And God comes to him and he says, I want you to get out of this country. Away from your family. Away from your father's house. Now Abraham certainly has respect for his father, Terah. He has respect for his brother. And we find he has respect for those within his families and his nephews and so forth. But he hears the word of God and he does as God says. He leaves that country, he leaves that family. Later on we recognize in the scriptures it tells us about Tira, reminds us that lived on the other side of the flood. Well, that probably meant the river. But even if it does mean the flood, it means that he lived apart, you see, from the one true God. And so, we look at this and we see here's Abraham. He's about to start a journey. But what we notice, you see, as we come to the scriptures, and not just in the psalm which I have stated, that forever, O Lord, your word is settled in the heavens, but we find that continually. The word of God is truth, and it's truth as far as it goes. That is, it's truth throughout all the generations of mankind. And by the way, it's truth even in the heavens. It's truth as far as it goes. When God covenants, that is, when He comes to man and He makes a promise, He is always faithful in Himself. That's what the psalmist communicates when he says, well, forever O Lord, your words settled in the heavens. There is a sureness to what God says. In every word that he says, there is a sureness. There is a sureness with regards to the blessings which he promises to mankind, and there is a sureness to the curses which he pronounces against mankind. We saw that very early on with regards to Genesis. We saw it in the flood. He said, well I'm telling you, went to Noah who found grace in the eyes of the Lord and he told Noah, you build a boat. There's coming a time when there's going to be a great flood and I'm going to destroy that men that I've created and he did save for Noah and his family so that in the record of Genesis that sureness is in the creation account as well very very beginning two phrases you read in Genesis chapter 1 let there be and it is so. So the Lord said let there be light, there was light. The Lord said well let there be all the rest of the things concerning the days of creation and he saw and it was so. When he speaks it is so. and that's true throughout all the pages of scriptures when he gives to man a word it is so what he says will happen and what happens is not dependent on anything outside of God himself he has the power to bring it to pass and he has the power to cease those things which he brings to pass. He has both the creative power and the providential power to order events to the fulfilling of his purpose. There is also this certainty to his word. It is fixed or settled. His word will not change as he himself does not change. It is immutable. What is disclosed in the scripture record is basically the fulfilling of God's word. His word is spoken and men responding to it by faith are directed by God in the paths that lead to its fulfillment. Those things Or we would say these things are written basically for the benefit of God's people. They're written for the benefit of those that we see, for Abraham, for example, in the Old Testament, and those that follow. And they're beneficial to you and I as we live in this generation. And should the Lord tarry, it will be beneficial for those who follow. And so it's important that we understand this, this word is settled, this word is spoken, men respond to it by faith and that there may be in them the confidence and the assurance that all the promises of God in Christ are yes and in him, amen. and that's to the glory of God. That's Paul who speaks to us through the pages of Corinthians. To Abram there came a gracious word of promise. It was a promise of blessing. We noted that in sermons on Genesis in the past. There was promise to Abram, a threefold blessing. First of all he says I'm going to, a great nation is going to come from you. And then he also said that your name, Abram, your name would be great. There's a reflection in that, of course, on that which we found in the 11th chapter concerning the Tower of Bible. Remember the Tower of Bible and Great Post? Oh boy, we're going to make a great name for ourselves in building the Tower of Bible. No one makes a great name for himself in this earth. The only way a great name comes is from God himself and he gave that promise to Abraham, I'll make you a great name. And third, he says to him, all the families of the earth would benefit by the blessing to him. Let's not get confused here. We're not universalists in our faith. We recognize when God says all the nations of the earth will be blessed in you, it doesn't mean every family in the earth is going to be blessed. It means that all the families of the Earth, whether they're in America, or whether they're in China, or whether they're down in Venezuela, or down in Argentina, or over in the Ukraine, or in the deepest parts of Africa, that wherever you find families who have brought to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ by grace through faith, they indeed are blessed. And they are. And we, ourselves, as we come together as a congregation of the Lord Jesus, we recognize that blessing. We recognize it daily. We recognize the upholding of us in the faith by the power and grace of God. We recognize it in the blessings of our children and we see the covenant mercies of God that he has given us grace and blessings and we see it in the fellowship of the saints as we come together and worship him. We come with that common purpose. We come with the same goal. The goal is in essence to worship and serve God all the days of our lives. Abram's journey in the earth, you know I have some difficulties from time to time when I hear the phrase your faith journey because oftentimes they're looking at it as whether you're anything, whether you're Buddhist, whether you're a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon or whatever, your faith journey. Well there is a faith journey. Abram's journey in the earth began in the heavens. We want to understand that. He doesn't leave Ur of the Chaldees on his own. He leaves Ur of the Chaldees because that's where his father Terah wanted to take the family. And he doesn't leave Haran where Terah took them on his own. He leaves that country by the commandment of God and by the way our faith journey itself begins in heaven Apostle Paul makes that very clear in the early chapters of Ephesians when he speaks about having been chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world we want to understand that We want to understand it in the terms of what we find within the Scriptures. That our faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And so, Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him. Then we read, Lot went with him and Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Our interest, at least my interest, is somewhat piqued by this notation of Abram's age. However, there's one thing about age and God and that is this. God doesn't take age into account. He just doesn't. He called Abram when Abram was in his golden years. That's our phraseology. He would have been at 75 a lot younger than a man of 75 today because you know he's living in an age span not real old but he lived to be 130 so he still had a ways to go. But remember Moses was even older. Moses spent 40 years out in the desert, 40 years in Egypt under the household of Pharaoh, and then 40 years out in the desert. And then when he was a nice ripened age of 80, the Lord said, I want you to go and tell Pharaoh, let my people go. David the great king of Israel as we find over in 1st Samuel was but a young man well actually he was a young boy was about maybe between the ages of 13 and 15 at the time which Saul went to the house of Jesse to anoint him and then you had Miriam Moses sister who was also a young girl when she went down to the river and she saw what was taking place with regards to Moses out there floating around in the bulrushes and she did something about it as we know. Now age God doesn't take into account whatsoever And we find very early on that there are young men and young women or young boys and young girls who have a very great interest in their calling in Christ Jesus. And there are some older people who have lived their lives without acknowledging the greatness of God who are called by God to himself, drawing them through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul reminds us of this, he says, for you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God has chosen. As to the flesh, there's nothing significant in Abram. What is significant in him is his steadfastness to the Word of God. From Haran he took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son and all their possessions that they had gathered and the people whom they had acquired in Haran and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. What did he know about Canaan? Probably nothing. except it was south of Haran I want you to go there and he goes there and he continues toward the south Abram traveled through the land of Canaan and he came to Shechem there the Lord appeared to him and said to your descendants I will give this land And there he built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. Abraham considered the land as belonging to him when he didn't have a piece of land in that area which he had owned. but he considered it as belonging to him through him to his generations yet to come and he consecrates it to God. This act of Abram helps us in our understanding of a later event that we come across in life of Israel when they carried up the bones of Joseph from Egypt. You know where they took him? They took him to Shechem, this place where Abram consecrates the land to God. Now Abram we look at, we find the expression many times over of Abraham, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We find the expression Father Abraham, Father Abram, Abraham my father, Abraham our father. We look to Abraham, we say well Abraham's a great hero. Well, he's in the cloud of witnesses over in the book of Hebrews. But they're heroes not in the sense in which we look at heroes today. They're heroes because of their steadfastness to the promise of God. Abraham's weaknesses do show up. And there's one thing that we recognize as we live in our lives, as we live and examine our living in itself, as we see it in our families, in our homes, as we see it in our societies, among our friends and so forth, we are men and women of great weakness. Abram had great weaknesses. He's gone through this land, he's traveling southward and these weaknesses are evidence in Abram's life as they are in our own because we have inherited a fallen nature. The remaining verses of chapter 12 disclose Abram's weakness in contrast to the faithfulness of God. A famine in the land ensures that Abram goes the length of Canaan. You know, it may have been that when he got to Shechem, he thought, well, this is a pretty nice place, maybe we'll remain here. But by famine, he's driven to go down into the land of Egypt. Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land. It's not a mighty man going into Egypt. It's a man somewhat fearful for what's ahead. Somewhat fearful for his life. Willing to compromise as he was the honor and purity of Sarai that no harm would come to him. There were indeed rough edges in Abram's character even as there are rough ages in yours and mine. The testimony of God to us remains constant. There is none righteous, no not one. No one stands before God by his own strength nor by his own merit. Abram may have rationalized. You know his men and women were good at rationalizing. Very good at it. Abram may have rationalized, as we're so good at it ourselves, a rationalize away our sinfulness. We speak of them sometimes as mistakes. We speak of them sometimes as misgivings. We speak of them in other euphemisms. We're good at that too. Abram thought it better to risk losing his wife rather than losing his life in order that God might fulfill his promise to him. However, when God promises, he is always faithful to himself. Sarai was Abram's wife. It was not Abram's prerogative to arrange things in a manner that would disrupt the bond formed in marriage. It may be the case, as it certainly is indicated in this record, that Abram thought he dealt quite intelligently and cleverly in this matter, for he received royal treatment by Pharaoh for the sake of Sarai. Pharaoh gave him sheep, oxen, donkeys, servants, and camels. By the way, all these in the time of Abram were symbols of wealth. So Pharaoh gave Abraham wealth. From a mere practical standpoint, Abram was prospering. This was not God's design nor his desire that is this was not God's will for the life of Abram. God's will belongs to the promise. God's will was I'll make you a great nation. I'll give you a great name. I'll give you a blessing. His promised blessing to Abram took Sarai into account. The two shall be one. What God has joined together, let no man separate. We forfeit an awful lot of peace and needless pain we bear when we fail to bring all of our troubles and difficulties to the throne of God's grace. for it was the protecting hand of God that hovered over Abram and Sarai in Egypt. It is interesting that Abram takes truth but he bends it to his benefit. He asks Sarai, please say that you are my sister that it may be well with me for your sake and that I may live because of you." Now it is true that Sarai was basically Abram's half-sister. She was the daughter of a wife of Terah, but not the same wife that Abram. was the son of. They had different mothers but the same father. Note first Abram and Sarai were born into an unbelieving family and second the time period is long before we have the laws of consanguinity. The protecting hand of God comes to us in simple words, but the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah. The words are simple, but there is a complexity in God's intervening hand in all the affairs of men. There's that complexity in our own lives, is there not? If we never see it, we really haven't experienced the greatest blessings of God. That He truly is our Father in Heaven. And that we can come to Him before His throne with all of our troubles and all of our sorrows, all of our griefs and all of our pains. One of the most difficult lessons in life is learning to lean, not on our own understanding, but learning to lean on God. That trust in the Lord. God watches over his people. You know that Peter writes in his epistles that he knows how to deliver the godly out of those troubles, out of their temptations, out of their sorrows, out of their griefs. Through the plagues brought against himself and his house, Pharaoh got the message and he wisely sent Abram and his company away. And Abram wisely went away. Such accounts as found in Genesis 12 and 13 are not placed in the scriptures to show us the greatness of Abram's character. They're not there to disclose his weaknesses and frailties. They are here that we may know that when God covenants his promises are certain and sure and that none can stay his hand. We are not by such accounts directed to Abram rather we are led by this testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have the prophets words confirmed which we do well to heed as a light that shines in a place of darkness. That's the word to us from Peter. in the New Testament and New Covenant. Praise God for His goodness and grace. Praise God for the love and the compassion and the care that He gives us as we live in this veil of tears. Amen. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your blessings. We thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you for your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who has made that one and only atoning sacrifice for sin. Deliver us, O God, from evil. Deliver us, our Lord, from the darkness of the world. into the beautiful and wonderful light of your grace and of your care and of your love. And do this, our Father, for the sake of your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.