Who Do You Fear? (Genesis 12:10-20)
Fear seems to be everywhere today. And it seems to me that Christians are afraid to publicly speak the truth. Even within the Southern Baptist Convention the phrase, “the world is watching’ has come to mean that we’re afraid of what society is going to say about us so we’d better be careful. And, to be honest, I understand this fear quite well. I think we all do more than we’d like to admit.
I have been told multiple times that preachers should not discuss certain topics. The reason is that we don’t want to offend certain portions of the population. And this advice has been taken for a while as gospel truth. But this statement, I have come to realize, is little more than the fear of people. So, the fear of people causes pastors to shut their mouths on certain topics. But Jesus is Lord over all things. There is not a topic or thing on this Earth that does not fall under the Lordship of Christ and that includes sexuality and government mandates. And if I am going to be faithful as a preacher then I am going to speak where God’s Word speaks.
If I am going to be a faithful pastor and preacher of God’s Word then I will say some things that are not allowed in polite society. And so, we have spoken on what is oftentimes called “political topics”. We’ve discussed when to disobey government authorities, abortion, and lgbtqabzdru…. And we have spoken on male headship and female submission in the sermons from the Book of Genesis. And I am certain that much of what has been said in those messages pushes me well outside the boundaries of what is acceptable in our society today. But, who am I supposed to have faith in and who am I to fear?
But I will also tell you something that you do not know. There have been times when I have not succeeded in this area. There have been times when I failed to say everything that should have been said because I feared what someone would think of it. There have been times when I should have entered the fray in an argument but chose not to say something. There have been times that I have not shared the gospel with someone because I was nervous and afraid in that moment. There have been times when I did not do what I should have done because of fear.
Today, more than any time in the last 100 years, American Christians have a good number of powerful people to fear. We do. Christian voices and concerns are mocked and ridiculed. And we understand that, unless something starts to change, the government is going to attempt to reach within our families and churches to tell us how we are to operate and what we are allowed to say and teach. This pressure, and many others, have probably caused us to falter on a number of occasions.
Now, this brings us to our text today. Abram was forced out of the Promised Land by a famine. Most of you have probably realized that this happens a few times in the Book of Genesis. Egypt was well suited to handle these droughts. And Genesis and other historical writings make it clear that Egypt was a destination for starving people. But going to Egypt struck fear into Abram.
If you’ll remember our text from last week, Abram was faithful in the Promised Land that was at that time foreign. He was faithful to lead his entire household to faithful worship of the Lord in a land filled with Caananites. But the powerful Egyptians struck Abram with fear. And he let his fear cloud his judgment and it was at this point that his faith wavered. In that moment, he failed to trust God to care for him. And his failure brought great danger upon his wife, who he was supposed to be protecting and providing for. His fear caused him to lead his family in a direction that nearly destroyed them. And it was all because he did not trust the Lord in this moment.
But Abram’s failure is not the point of the story. The point of this story is God’s faithfulness to keep His promise. God had promised a special protection of Abram. God said, “I will blesss those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse…” (Genesis 12:3 ESV) God protected Abram from the results of his own faithlessness.
The take away from this message is that we should entrust ourselves to our faithful Lord and fear not in the land of the powerful and wicked. My goal for this sermon today is for you to look at this story and the faithful love of the Lord and increase in faith and trust of Him so that you do not make the mistakes of Abram. My goal is for us to see that God is trustworthy. And then to understand, that for those that are truly His people, God is faithful even when we are not.
Entrust yourself to our faithful Lord and fear not in the land of the powerful and wicked.
Fear Causes Us To Falter (Genesis 12:10-15)
As we have already seen, the famine caused Abram to go to Egypt looking for food (Genesis 12:10). This was not a rare occurrence. It happened a few times in the Book of Genesis and you probably remember one of these instances very clearly. Jacob’s family went to Egypt looking for food and eventually ended up remaining in Egypt. That’s how the Book of Genesis ends and, of course the beginning of the Book of Exodus is at the end of their stay. So, this is not some abnormal occurrence that brought Abram to Egypt. But it was an occurrence that brought unusual fear to Abram.
Abram’s fear was because of the beauty of his wife. Though it is not stated in the story, it seems that Sarai’s beauty had been preserved by the Lord. At this point she was 65 years old. And apparently extraordinarily beautiful. Commentators have tried to explain this away, by saying things like, “Egyptian women were pretty ugly.” But I don’t think that this gets to the heart of the matter. God’s hand of blessing was upon Abram and his family in a special way. And I believe this extended even to the beauty of Abram’s wife. God knew that in 30 years this 65-year-old woman was going to give birth to a child. Therefore, she needed to have some vitality that the average 95-year-old woman probably wouldn’t have.
I also believe that people’s bodies didn’t break down as quickly as they do today. I don’t feel like 65 years old is extremely old, but these princes were noticing her amid the 20-year-old women in Egypt. The genealogy of the previous chapter lets us know that she was not toward the end of the normal lifespan even when she had her child at 95. Terah, Abram’s father lived to be 205 years old and a quick look at that chapter shows that it was not abnormal. I believe the testimony of Scripture and have no problem saying that, though she was outside of normal child-bearing years, 65 then wasn’t what 65 is today. And we also know that child-bearing does things to a body that she had not gone through yet. So, when I combine these natural circumstances with God’s blessing upon Abram’s family, it’s easy to understand how this woman caught the eye of the princes and Pharaoh.
And it’s also easy to see how Abram would know this is the case and be afraid. His fear was that she would be desired by rich and powerful men of Egypt and that he would be put to death so that his wife could be taken as their own (Genesis 12:12). I can’t imagine being so afraid of other people that I say such a thing to my wife, but Abram was. And there is likely more to the story than first meets the modern eye.
A brother had certain rights and privileges granted to him that were not necessarily given to a husband. A brother could approve or disapprove of a marriage. Proof of this being the case is that Pharaoh gave Abram a lot of things when he took Sarai. This would be similar to a dowry given to Abram. This opens a whole new set of questions concerning the cowardliness of Abram in this moment. Did fear cause Abram to just go along with Sarai being taken? Was he not willing to risk his life at all for his bride? It’s hard to imagine him accepting the gifts and just going about his day, but that kind of seems like what he did.
Are the women in the congregation fuming at Abram at this point for Sarai’s sake?
Are some of the women in the congregation going to ask their husbands what they would do in that situation on the drive home from church?
Anyway, the problem with Abram’s plan is that it didn’t work because Sarai wasn’t just noticed by some wealthy and powerful guy in Egypt. She was noticed by Pharaoh himself, who was the most powerful person in Egypt (Genesis 12:14-15). And his fear seems to have kept him silent even as the gifts from Pharaoh rolled in.
So, here’s what happened. Abram lied to save his skin, and in the process, he put his wife in danger. Apparently, he was so afraid that he never even tried to clear up the matter. And the whole problem occurred as it did because Abram got clever rather than trusting the Lord and his wife was taken into Pharaoh’s house.
You have probably laughed or grimaced at just how bad Abram’s fear caused him to behave. It’s probably caused a few knowing glances at your spouse, or funny conversation in the pew. But how many of us can say that we are completely immune to Abram’s sin?
How many stupid decisions have you made out of fear? I know that I have made a few.
I have spent money poorly rather than saved it because I feared not have a certain thing. And that certain thing was usually the approval of someone other than the Lord. I have spent more money on vehicles than I should at times because I didn’t think I’d have something reliable enough to get me to work otherwise. You know, I could have trusted the Lord to provide what I needed at the time.
There have been times when I have not spoken to people about Jesus because I had some inward fear rolling around within me. I feared their response more than I trusted the Lord to give me the wisdom and courage to speak what needed to be spoken.
What about you? How has fear affected you?
Have you been afraid to speak about important topics? Have you been afraid to stand for truth? Have you been afraid to speak about Christ?
We all need to be prepared for things that are happening right now. As I’ve already mentioned, I believe there is coming a day when the Church will need to stand against the government and be completely willing to spend time in prison and pay fines in order to be faithful to the Lord. Will we be found faithful? Will we trust the Lord in that moment? Or will we be cowering in fear, only being faithful to the Lord when the government says we can be faithful to the Lord?
Fear of the World Makes Us Walk in Wickedness (Genesis 12:16-20)
Fear of the world moves us to walk as the world does, or sometimes worse than the world does. That is exactly what happened to Abram in this moment.
Pharaoh gave Abram “sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels” for Sarai (Genesis 12:16 ESV) These were very expensive gifts and some of these gifts were rare. So, Abram knew exactly what was going on. And in that moment Abram didn’t speak up and say, “she’s my wife”. He just accepted the gifts.
When the Lord afflicted Pharaoh’s house with plagues and he found out what had happened, he was very upset with Abram. And this anger did not subside. He sent Abram away rather angrily (Genesis 12:20). Pharaoh, in that moment, was more concerned about righteousness than Abram was. He was also more concerned about not defiling her with an act of adultery than Abram was. And he was more concerned about the protection of Sarai than Pharaoh was. This should never be.
Abram’s fear caused Abram to walk wickedly.
Fear does that to us. It causes us to abandon the Lord and His ways. And when we are afraid we sacrifice our righteousness out of fear and we walk in unholiness.
I have watched our former SBC President, J.D. Greear say that the Bible “whispers about sexual sin” because he wants to be politically correct in our wicked age. He’d rather say something wicked than upset the wrong people. And when the current SBC President, Ed Litton plagiarized Greear’s sermons he said the exact same thing. And I would guess he had no problem saying it for the same reasons.
The culture has shifted. And it’s not so easy to stay on the side of righteousness. But to falter here is to walk in the way of wickedness. It’s plain and evident that Scripture shouts about sexual sin repeatedly. An entire city went up in flames from Heaven over sexual perversion and fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals are repeatedly in lists of those who will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Greear and Litton cower in fear and find themselves speaking wickedly. They wish to remain silent where God has spoken, and it is wicked. And that is how things have always been.
During the Nazi regime there were pastors who spoke out against the atrocities in Germany but they were few and far between. Two that I can think of immediately were Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer went so far as to be involved in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. It almost worked. But the vast majority of Christians, pastors included, just went along with the government mandates and did what they were allowed to do. And because of that, we look at them today and say, “why did you not speak out or do something?” We understand that it was wicked for them to remain silent.
Fear causes us to walk wickedly.
We also understand that fear of not disappointing people will cause us to do things that we should not do. Fear of the powers that be will cause us to remain silent in areas that we should speak out in. Fear of what others will say will cause us to spend too much money or prioritize the wrong things.
Fear causes us to walk wickedly.
And if you are a person given to fear, then when the powerful people in our society tell you what to do, you will just go along with it like Abram did.
We need to fear God more than we fear people and walk in faithfulness to Him. He is trustworthy. And so, we should entrust our lives to Him.
The Lord Is Completely Faithful Even When We’re Not (Genesis 12:17-20)
Abram royally screwed up. He acted faithlessly toward the Lord. He endangered his wife. And his time in Egypt is not something we should emulate in the slightest.
But the Lord was with him. The Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his family with plagues (Genesis 12:17). We are not told exactly how Pharaoh came to understand what was happening, but he did. And he promptly returned Sarai. It is safe to assume that Sarai was returned before any harm was brought upon her because of the way the text reads. And we see this as God fulfilling the promise that He made to Abram.
“I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse…” (Genesis 12:3 ESV)
The Lord protected Abram. The Lord kept His promise even when Abram acted like a fool. And God went even further. God used Abram’s foolishness to enrich him with a lot of Pharaoh’s stuff.
Notice that Pharaoh didn’t take back his stuff. He gave what amounts to a huge dowry for Sarai when he thought she was Abram’s sister (Genesis 12:16). And then he let Abram run off with all of it when he returned Sarai (Genesis 12:20). God not only protected Sarai in this situation, but He enriched the household and allowed them to safely escape the famine they were running from.
It has often been said that, “the weakest faith holds on to the strongest Savior”. And this exemplifies that very thing. We were rebel sinners in need of a Savior, and God gave to us His son for our redemption.
God created the world and everything in it. And at creation everything was good, even us. Human beings existed in perfect harmony and fellowship with God and all of creation. But man sinned and everything, including man was devastated. The fellowship that man had with God was ruptured when sin entered the world. And all people, everywhere, earn for theirselves death and Hell. But God didn’t leave us in that situation. He sent His Son to take on human flesh and dwell among us. He lived a perfect life and accomplished everything that human beings are supposed to accomplish and He did not sin in the slightest. He then went to the cross where He died as the punishment for sin. And He rose from the grave three days later. Jesus completely accomplished our right standing with God, our right to be in fellowship with Him, and our being adopted into God’s family.
And because of that, we can trust the Lord. We can entrust our entire lives to Him. And we understand that God is more faithful to us than we will ever be toward Him.
“The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful– for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:11-13 ESV)
But the Christian does not look at this and say, “okay, I can do whatever I want then.” They are emboldened by this to take on hard things understanding that the Lord is with us.
This emboldens us to stand against our wicked leaders who believe that murdering babies is a good thing. It emboldens us to stand against the government calling sodomy good and even saying they can call what they do marriage, even though it is not. It emboldens us to preach and teach the truth of God’s Word to our families and to lead them in a courageous way in an increasingly dangerous age. And it causes us to boldly go out into the world and proclaim that Christ is the only way of salvation.
We can look at the faithfulness of God in the life of Abram and have more courage than he did.
Conclusion
When we fear man it can cause us to behave in seriously awful ways. But we should fear God, not man. Even the most powerful of people do not compare to the Lord. And we should live and walk in that truth.
The Lord’s faithfulness should embolden us to live and walk by faith in an increasingly hostile world. Entrust yourself to our faithful Lord and fear not in the land of the powerful and wicked.
I want to end with a story of faithfulness in incredibly difficult circumstances.
John Bunyan was the man who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. He wrote Pilgrim’s Progress and his autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners from jail. Bunyan could have been let free had he just agreed to stop preaching the gospel. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and he could be let free. He would then be free to work and provide for his wife and six children, one of which was blind daughter, Mary. He described in his autobiography the different fears that he faced and how he gave himself courage to be faithful to the Lord.
In it he described his fear of not being able to encounter death if that were to be his fate. He described how Colossians 1:11 moved him to deeper prayer in prison which made his suffering sweet. And 2 Corinthians 1:9 moved him to “pass a sentence of death upon everything that can properly be called a thing of this life”. Then, he was greatly helped in his fear by living “upon God that is invisible”. .
“The second was to live upon God that is invisible, as Paul said in another place; the way not to faint is, To look not on the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.”
So Bunyan would cast all of his hopes and faith in God that cannot be seen, even as the prison sentence and possibility of death stood over him. These concerns seem to have been relatively easy to get over. But it was care for his family that overwhelmed him.
“But notwithstanding these helps, I found myself a man and compassed with infirmities; the parting with my wife and poor children, hath often been to me in this place, as the pulling the flesh from the bones, and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but also because I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family was like to meet with, should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all besides: Oh! the thoughts of the hardship I thought my poor blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces.
Poor child! thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should blow upon thee. But yet recalling myself, thought I, I must venture you all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you: Oh! I saw in this condition I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children…”
But that which helped me in this temptation, was divers considerations, of which, three in special here I will name, the first was the consideration of these two scriptures, Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive, and let thy widows trust in me: and again, The Lord said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant, verily, I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil, and in time of affliction. Jer. xlix. 11; xv. 11.”[1]
He had tremendous fear there in prison. He had fear for his own life. He had fear for the lives of his family. But he endured because he entrusted himself and his family to the Lord.
Let the faithfulness of the Lord do that to you. Let it embolden you to live and by faith in an increasingly hostile world. Entrust yourself to our faithful Lord and fear not in the land of the powerful and wicked.
R. Dwain Minor
[1] https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/bunyan/Grace%20Abounding%20to%20the%20Chief%20of%20-%20John%20Bunyan.pdf Pp. 97-98