Turn with me please in your Bibles to the book of Genesis. Genesis in chapter 12 and we're turning to the verse 10. Genesis chapter 12 and we're turning to the verse 10. Here in Greens we're committed to the book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse teaching of God's own inspired word. And for over a year now, with the odd break here and there, we've been traveling through the book of Genesis and Lord's Day mornings, and we've taken our time. We've gone slowly through the verses because we want to go deep into God's word. We don't just want to skim over the text. We're committed to teaching every detail of scripture as we believe here at Green's that it's inspired and it's inerrant and every verse is profitable for our souls. So we come with that in mind to Genesis chapter 12 and we're reading from the verse 10 here in this chapter. This is the word of the Lord and it reads, 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. And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said to Sarah's 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 will 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. And it came to pass that when Abram was coming to Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman and that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her and commanded her before Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. And he treated Abram well for her sake, and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and men servants, and maid servants, and she asses, and camels. And the Lord plagued 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 sayest thou she is thy 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 trust the Lord will bless the reading of his word to each of our hearts today. We're going to take on the topic this morning, when faith fails, when faith fails. We have already said a couple of weeks ago when we started to study the life of Abraham that when we come to study this character of scripture, we're dealing with a great man of faith. And I suppose we could have called this second volume on our studies in the book of Genesis, The School of Faith. Because really that's exactly what it is as we consider this character. We're learning from one of the greatest examples of faith in God as we study Abraham. But one of the greatest things about scripture is that it shows us both the great triumphs of Abraham, but also his great failures. I suppose we could say that scripture doesn't try to paint a pretty picture of this great man of faith. We get the warts and all. Pastor Adrian Rogers once said, the identity mark of a Christian is his faith. The identity mark of a Christian As a matter of fact, Christians were called believers before they were called Christians. Believers meaning people of faith, faith in God. And so faith is the identifying mark of the child of God. Not only is having faith a mark that you're a child of God, but it's your chief duty as a believer to have full faith and trust in God and His will. You've no greater duty than just to simply believe God and believe His Word. In John 6, 29, the Lord Jesus speaking, He said this, It's your chief duty as a believer. Now four times in scripture the Bible makes one particular statement of faith. So it must be a very important statement. It's found in Habakkuk 2 verse 4, in Hebrews 10, 38, in Galatians 3, 18, and Romans 1, 17. And all four of those verses say this, the just shall live by faith. Surely the Lord is stamping home the fact then that the Christian life, to live it, we need to have full faith in Him and all that is written in God's Word. So as we spend time considering Abram's faith, can I ask you this morning, do you have this faith? First of all, are you trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, the only one who can make you fit for heaven? And secondly, if you're a child of God this morning, I wonder, are you trusting God with absolutely everything in your life? I've got to say, we've got a big lesson on faith in this passage this morning. But rather than it being an example of strong faith, we're going to see an example of when Abram's faith falters. We're going to learn what happens when our faith gets weak. We're going to see what causes our faith to get weak. And I trust that we will see this morning that what it is to have a vital and vibrant and victorious faith. Now of course Abraham has been called by God out of the land of Ur. He's called by God to forsake his land, his family ties he's to leave, his friends and he puts full faith in God's promises. And last week, Abraham arrived in the land that God had promised him. He arrived in Canaan, and we considered the many obstacles that stood in his way, and things that could have prevented him from fully obeying God. And yet, with all these obstacles, he chose to set the eyes of his faith on heavenly things, and to trust God and obey Him, despite the cost to him personally. Subsequently can I say, I wonder did you march out of God's house last Lord's Day morning and say, well that was some lovely thoughts from God's word. Now let's get on with my life. Or I wonder if you thought about, even prayed for the Lord to show you the obstacles, the excuses that you and I make to prevent us from fully obeying the Lord. I hope you don't just come here on a Sunday morning and go through the motions. I hope you come and take seriously the exercise of meeting together with God's people around his word. I hope you come to do business with God. Now Abraham, he's in the promised land. But as we look at these verses that are before us this morning, you quickly notice, first of all, that there's a disaster. There's a disaster. Look at verse 10. It says there, and there was famine in the land. So here we are. Abraham has obeyed the Lord. He's put his full life in the Lord's hand. He's arrived in the land that the Lord had promised him. His great faith in what God has promised has brought him into this place. Last week he's been building altars. He's been worshipping the Lord because the Lord had kept his promises. I suppose you would think this is the life. That this whole having faith in God thing is easy, maybe he's thinking. I'm in the land, God has promised the land to me and I'm now building altars. But then verse 10, and there was a famine in the land. This was meant to be the land of Canaan, the promised land. It was the land flowing with milk and honey. It was supposed to be a fruitful land. And it's become a barren desert. And here we are, Abram, he's in this land and there's a famine, and human life cannot exist without food, and neither can Abram. And this is the land where God had called him to be, the place where God had sent him, and now there's a famine. Can I say that by following the will of God, Abram was still in the right place? He wasn't out of the will of God. But he had been met with this difficulty. And it was God who had sent him into this famine. just the way the Lord Jesus sent his disciples out onto the Sea of Galilee that night when the storm arose. And what we must learn from this little line in scripture, and there was a famine in the land, that God never promised us an easy life. Dr. Steve Lawson says this, God who's all-wise and all-loving, yet all-sovereign, often sends his servants into famines and into times of difficulty within the very epicenter of his will. Now can I say that trials and tribulations are a part of living in this fallen world? And sometimes you and I can look at the situations that arise in our lives and we say, could I have done something differently? And we question our circumstances and sometimes we ask, well why is this happening to me? Well it has to be said that living in the center of God's will doesn't mean that these difficult situations won't arise. The truth is, if you and I knew what lay ahead, we mightn't be willing to go through with God. If Abraham had known that there was going to be a famine in the land once he arrived, he might have just stayed an hour. And so it was the wisdom of God not to reveal to Abraham what would be waiting for him once he arrived in the land, otherwise he may never have come to the land. And maybe, maybe this morning, none of us know, maybe there's an unforeseen difficulty that lies ahead of us today. And in the will of God, in the sovereign will of God, God may have directed you to a job or into that marriage or into a church or into a ministry. And in truth today, if you're really honest, at this very moment, you'll say, it's tough. It's really hard. But the reminder here, and the lesson from God's word is this, if you've been following the will of God, and seeking to follow His will, and seeking to live for Him, and you're in the place you are in, in life right now, you're there by divine appointment. And there's no place in this fallen world that's an easy place. Just understand that this morning. We're not in the millennial kingdom. We're not in heaven yet. We're not living in a world under... We are living in a world under the sway of the god of this age and the prince of this world, Satan himself. And so God has brought this famine into the land and Abram's faith is going to be tested. But we're going to see that he fails the test. And in this world, God is going to test your faith. Not because he doesn't love you, but he's going to test your faith because he does love you. And another quote that I read this week from Adrian Rogers is this, a faith that cannot be tested cannot be trusted. How do you know that you have the real thing? How can you trust what hasn't been tested? God is going to test us. Peter taught this in 1 Peter 1 verse 7, that the trial of your faith, the testing of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Now Peter says that your faith is worth more than gold. But you test gold to make certain that it's real gold and not fool's gold. Think about a man if he stumbles across a gold mine and he finds what he thinks is gold and he'll bring it to a person who will test the gold, the assayer's office, to see if it's real gold and if the man finds out that it's not real gold he's going to stop digging. And so God puts us through the fire to test our faith, to make sure that it's like real gold and to refine us and to strengthen us. And so Abram is in the will of God. He's in the land of Canaan where God had called him to go to, the land that God has promised him. But I want you to notice secondly the departure. There's a departure here. Look at verse 10 again. It says, And there was famine in the land. And Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land. So if you were to look at a map, literally, Abram travels down into Egypt, he leaves the Middle East and he enters into Africa. I don't want to add anything to the text, but there's a famine in Canaan, and we're told Abraham is going to Egypt, and I think it would be right to assume that then there must be food available in Egypt. He's going to Egypt because the end of the verse tells us the famine was grievous in the land. It's a very serious famine. Of course, the Nile River would have been a great source of water for crops, so we can assume maybe that's why they head there. So Abram he goes down to Egypt. Now some people would question this decision. And they say Abram should have stayed where he was. That the land God had promised him. He should have trusted God to provide for him and his family. Well should they have just stayed and waited for food to drop out of the sky? Matthew Henry, who's a Puritan commentator, writes on this passage, we actually contempt God and do not trust him in the time of distress if we do not use the means that he has already graciously provided for our preservation. In other words, sometimes we're called to use our common sense and the wisdom that God has given to us. We're in the middle of a famine. There's no food here. There's food over there in Egypt. So in order to survive, we need to go to where the food is. You put yourself in Abram's shoes. Common sense tells you bring your family to where the food is. The verse says that he went down to Egypt to sojourn there. Now that word sojourn is important. This is why I think it's important. Some people spiritualize this and say he went to Egypt and he was going out of the will of God. I don't think so. The word sojourn is important because it means he went temporarily to dwell there. That sojourn just means a temporary dwelling. Not to move in and stay, but just to sojourn there. The idea is to dwell for a period of time, then he would return back to where God had originally called him to go, to Canaan. And Moses gives us the explanation as to why this is happening. He says, because the famine is severe in the land. I want to say this carefully. You may be sure that God called you to where you are today, your job, your church. this church or he called you to a certain ministry, but things and circumstances can change and difficulties can come and force you into making some decision. I'm not saying the first difficulty that comes along you throw the towel in. If God's called you to it, you stick at it. And sometimes common sense tells you that you need to step out of a situation for a while with the intention of returning. Now, when I was thinking about this and thinking of an example of this, I remember the night that Maud Kells was here in the hall. She came to testify of her missionary work in the Congo. And there was no doubt that God had called this lady to work there. No doubt about it. But there were times where Maud spoke to us where she had to leave. There were times that Maud had to stay away because there were civil wars happening in the land and she stayed away. Did that mean that she wasn't called there? No. She was using her common sense and wisdom and the missionary board that she worked for kept her out of there. But she always went back. God had called her there. Maybe you listen today and you're at a crossroads of a big decision in your life. Abraham should be an example to you that it's possible to be sent by God to a place and then by necessity have to leave only to return again. You see he had to depart from the land, there was no food there. But then I want you to see this is where the faith begins to fail, there's the deception. Verse 11. It says there, and it came to pass when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said to Sarah's wife, behold now, I know 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'll kill me, but they will keep you alive. Say, I pray thee, that you're my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee. Now this is the first sign of his faltering faith, because Abraham starts to compromise. And he thinks about the place to where he is going, and he looks at his wife, and she's a beautiful woman. He says that. He says, you're a fair woman. This literally means in the Hebrew, to put it in today's terms, she's drop-dead gorgeous. She was stunning. And he knows that, and he He knows that the Egyptians will notice that, and instead of crying out to God and asking for protection during this test, this trial, and having faith that God will protect them in this land, he makes a cunning plan himself. He's afraid the Egyptians will mistreat him in order to take his wife from him. And so his plan is, tell them that you're my sister. Well the question is, is she his sister? Well actually she was. They both had the same father, but two different mothers. Abraham speaking later in the book of Genesis in chapter 20 in verse 12, tells us this, they had the same father but two different mothers. So she was his half-sister, but she was his whole wife. And it was a half-truth. And a half-truth is a whole lie. Abram had stopped trusting God at this point. His faith was faltering. And when a man of God or a woman of God stops trusting God, they will just act like the people around them in this world. Abraham really has compromised here with the world. He's not acting as if God is his guide anymore. And the lie is the first thing wrong here. But the second thing wrong is he's protecting himself. And to protect himself, what does he do? He throws his wife under the bus. He can well anticipate what's going to happen. Why is he thinking this way? She's so attractive and beautiful that they're going to snatch her up and she's going to end up married to someone else. So I want you to see that sin then led them into serious danger. There was a danger. Look at verse 14. And it came to pass that when Abram was coming to Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman, that she was very fair. The princess, also a pharaoh, saw her and commended her up before Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. So here's Abram and Sarah and all their contingent arriving in Egypt. Don't forget that Lot and his family are with them too. And as Abram anticipated the Egyptians would look at Sarah, as he anticipated the Egyptians do look at Sarah. And it says that they saw her and they don't just, the verse doesn't just say fair the way Abram said. The Egyptians saw her and they noticed that she was very fair. She was extremely beautiful. She was very beautiful. And the princes spy her and they recommend her to Pharaoh and she's put in an extremely compromising position. She's taken immediately away from Abram and she's put into Pharaoh's house. Which many commentators interpret as meaning that she was sent straight to Pharaoh's bed. As part of his collection of wives which puts her in the most difficult position. It will violate her purity. Now verse 16, it really does come with great irony. Pharaoh rewards Abram for his bad behavior. It says, and he untreated Abram well for her sake, and his sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels. Here is the danger, folks. Sin is attractive. And there is great worldly reward for Abram and his sin. Isn't that the way this world works? This world rewards sin. This world rewards sinful behavior. If a TV program wants to get its ratings up, just include some sinful pleasure in the screen and people will be quick to support it. And Abraham is getting all these possessions at the cost of his compromise with his wife and at the cost of not trusting the Lord with his situation. And can I say just because someone has possessions in this world does not mean that you're blessed by God. May be that you've sold your soul to the devil and caught a deal with the devil and now you have the devil's possessions and now this is what had been given to Abraham. What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Now there is something I want to say in passing here. Abram had lost his testimony. Do you remember, I reminded you a moment ago that Abram had brought with him his nephew Lot. And all that happened in Egypt, Lot was watching uncle Abraham. The rewards for sin, he saw it. The gifts in the country that Abram received and Lot was there down in Egypt, he saw the things that Egypt had and all that it offered and all that Abram got from it and it got into his heart and it never got out of his heart. You see, Abram got Lot physically out of Egypt but he could never get Egypt out of Lot's heart. And in a few weeks time we'll consider Lot's mistake in going to Sodom. And you read in Genesis 13 verse 10, listen to what it says, I heard a true story of a man who knew the gospel, was saved, married, wife, two boys. The man began to backslide. He was doing things that he shouldn't have done and wasn't in God's house for many, many years and his boys watched him. And eventually he repented and came back to the Lord and he asked his boys to start coming back to church with him. Do you know what they said? No. That's not for us, dad. And today, as best I know, his boys aren't saved. And they're out in the world. And here's the thing. Here's a saved man. who lived in the world for a number of years, his boys watched and they liked it, and now they're living it. And while he lived for the things of the world to please himself, he lost his testimony. But he came back to the Lord and he's headed for glory, but his boys are headed for hell. Backsliding. and leaving the Lord and not living for the Lord, you lose your testimony and people are watching you. Your children are watching you and listening to you. Listen folks, our young people are watching us and they need to see good Godly examples of what it is to trust the Lord at all times, in all situations. We see the disaster. There was a famine in the land. We see the departure. They left for Egypt. We see the deception. Abram compromised. Instead of trusting God, he planned and he lied and he compromised and he put his wife in danger. We see the danger, Sarah, with Pharaoh in a compromised position. Abram's rewarded by Pharaoh for his sin and loses his testimony before his nephew Lot. But then I want you to note the devastation. Up until this point in this section that we've read, there's been no mention of God. And at this point, we need to realize that actually this passage is not about Abraham. This passage is about God. And it's about God keeping his promise. It's about God being a covenant keeping God. And despite the famine in Canaan, and despite the dangers in Egypt, and despite Abram trying to jockey through this maze of difficulty, God nevertheless keeps his promise to keep Abram alive, and to keep Sarah alive, because she will deliver a son of promise. His name will be Isaac. And Isaac will be in the messianic line. The side story is, did Abraham do right, leaving Canaan? Did he do wrong? Did Sarah do right? Or did she do wrong? That's the side story. That's looking at it through human eyes, not through God's eyes. We need to understand how to read the Bible. Every passage of scripture is to teach us something about God. And what we're about to learn is, despite all the sin, God is faithful. And we've got to a stage in this passage where really God has to intervene. God needs to step into the situation and he needs to stop it from going the way it's going. He needs to stop the flow. Abram was to be the father of a great nation. Through the womb of Sarah would come, as we've said, the messianic line that would ultimately lead to the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. So God must step in and re-channel and redirect what is happening. And so God brings great devastation to Pharaoh's house. Verse 17. The Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah Abram's wife. This word plagues, when you look it up, it means diseases and strokes and infections and wounds that are associated with leprosy. And that's how it's actually used for most of the Old Testament. And there's this barrage of devastation and it hits Pharaoh hard. It's this concentrated bombardment of affliction against Pharaoh and his house. Please note why. It says at the end of the verse, because of Sarah, Abram's wife. It's really in spite of Abram, not because of Abram. This is the grace and mercy of God in Sarah's life, and really, ultimately, in Abram's life as well, I suppose. It was because of Sarah that this happened, to protect her from the abuse that would have happened in Pharaoh's bed, to protect her in order that there would come a son of promise who would be Isaac. God will protect Sarah, which is something Abram had failed to do. We learn that sometimes God has to step in and change the course of history. I was reading this week, I found this very interesting. I read of a move of God that was like this in London in 1666 that wiped out more than a quarter of the population of London. Over 100,000 people died because of a plague. This happened throughout 1665 and 1666. Well, right before that, on the 24th of August, 1662, it was one of the saddest days in all of church history, when Charles II, the King of England, issued the Act of Uniformity and made every preacher in the Church of England sign this, that they would pray his prayers and preach his sermons. And 2,000 valiant Puritan preachers said, we will not bow the knee to Baal. And in one day, 2,000 of the greatest preachers that this world has ever known, the Puritan time, if you read of it, they were great preachers. 2,000 of the greatest preachers that this world has ever known, and probably the greatest generation of preachers, they were all put out of their pulpits. And in succeeding time, other legislation was passed and they weren't even allowed to come within five miles of their previous church. And then that changed again and they weren't allowed to come within five miles of any city. They had to live in forests and in fields and they weren't even allowed to be buried inside the city. Some of them, London where they preached, they weren't even allowed inside the city limits to be buried. And God said, enough is enough. And he sends this plague and it brings London to its knees. And they're carrying the bodies out of London like a parade. And sometimes God has to step in and say, you've gone too far with my people. You've gone too far with my preachers. And there's going to be a heavy price to pay. And that's exactly what happened in London. And that's exactly what happens in this passage. God intervenes. But I want you to notice finally with God's intervention there's a deliverance. Look at verse 18, And Pharaoh called Abram, and he said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why hast thou not told me that she was thy wife? Why did you say she is my sister? So I might have taken her to be my wife, and now therefore behold thy wife, there's your wife, take her, go your way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him and they sent him away and his wife and all that he had. These plagues happen and somehow, we don't know why, the truth comes out and Pharaoh rebukes Abram and sends him on his way. And I mean they literally, verse 20 means they literally escort him out of the country to the border. Whatever border you're going to, we're taking you there and get out of here. Now we've seen that this is the faithfulness of God in the midst of Abram's own faithfulness. Is that not true of our lives as well? If we're really being honest with ourselves this morning, there are times and seasons in our lives when we are unfaithful to God. When we've compromised, we've plotted and we've trusted our own wisdom the way Abram did as he told lies. We've tried to do the work our own way and we've told half-truths and we've drawn others into our plan. whether it's family or friends, and we've involved other people in our mischief and our unfaithfulness. Maybe others have suffered because of our unfaithfulness. Surely it's true of each of us to one extent or another. And yet through it all, God remained faithful to you and me. He's been unchanging in his loyalty and his allegiance with his people. And God continues to move us forward in the sovereignty and his providence and to override our wrong decisions at times. And there are times he lets us suffer for our wrong decisions to teach us that whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. But I just want you to note the first phrase in chapter 13, and we'll consider it next week. says this, and Abram went up out of Egypt. Really, for the rest of scripture, Egypt now will be associated with sin and the picture of sin. But God delivered Abram. I wonder today, dear brother, dear sister, do you need to get out of Egypt? I wonder, has your faith been faltering, failing in recent times? Maybe there's a need to repent this morning and get out of Egypt. I wonder, are you resting on God's faithfulness? Are you trusting his word? Or are you taking things into your own hands? Maybe this is God speaking to you through his word this morning. Maybe this is God's intervention in your life today. Hear his word. Return to Him today. Stop scheming. Stop planning. Stop telling the half-truths. And place all of your life's circumstances in His hands.