God’s Passion for His Glory

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Have you ever overreacted before? Have you ever responded vastly out of proportion to the supposed threat in front of you? We've all had a piece of fuzz land on our arm that we thought was a spider. We've all been startled by the most innocuous things. Just this past week, I was alone working on the sound system deep in thought when I suddenly heard Keith's voice. I don't know why I made such a screechy, guttural sound in response, but it was out of proportion! We always feel a bit humbled by such an experience. 

What's worse is overreacting to something and thinking that it is what saved us from harm. There are people feeling safe only because they've washed their hands in the last ten minutes. There are people feeling secure in their work because they belittle their employees. Feeling secure in their parenting because of their harsh treatment of their children. Feeling like their marriage will only work because one is having an emotional affair online. Feeling confident because they got their morning drink in. Relaxed, because they got their fix. People will talk about needing an outlet, needing the help of some sin in order to stay sane, to stay ahead, and it works! For a while. 

This is what we see with Abram. Abram is terrified of interacting with the kings of the earth. The situation that we see Abram in happens twice in his life (once here and again in chapter 20). Twice he is presented with a situation that God has explicitly addressed. All the nations will be blessed or cursed based on how they respond to Abram. Abram has no need to fear these countries. One has to wonder how many times Abram needs to drastically affect other people's lives before he decides to trust God. One wonders how many times we need to learn the same lesson. 

Today we are going to look at two points: God is faithful to His glory even when you are faithless, and Sin never makes you safer; God's mercy does.  

God is faithful to His glory even when you are faithless 

It all gets started when Canaan runs out of rain. Unlike Egypt, Canaan is completely dependent on rainfall in order to have a crop. Egypt has the Nile river which means that there was always a source for water and thus food (Matthews, 127). With a severe famine in the Promised Land, Abram makes the journey to a place where the food is consistent. Commentators differ on whether or not Abram sins in the moment of leaving the Promised Land. One source points out that Hagar is an Egyptian woman (Genesis 16:1), likely acquired here in this visit to Egypt (Bible Talk Podcast). Obviously, this visit sets Abram up to make bad decisions about his telling the truth, and Hagar is set up here for what will come in Genesis 16. Genesis itself doesn't make a comment one way or the other on the rightness or wrongness of leaving the Promised Land itself. In Genesis 46, God explicitly tells Jacob not to be afraid to go down to Egypt, but that doesn't necessarily mean that God was forbidding Abram to go here in Genesis 12. 

What Abram is condemned for in this story is what he does when he gets there. Abram could have said, "Sarai, it is clear that we need food here, and it is equally clear that it is risky. Nevertheless, God has promised protection and a seed for us, so we will depend on him and be honest with the locals." We would have responded, "What a wise and godly man." However, once he was in this situation (both times, really), he folded on this matter of self-protection. 

We are in no higher a position. There will be plenty of times in which we do things that are morally neutral in and of themselves (having an internet connection, for example), but because of our personalities, set us up for sin. Sometimes those situations are unavoidable. Abram needed to eat. But he would have done well to seek out help from the Lord to help Abram stay faithful. We should do the same. There is a reason "and lead us not into temptation" exists in the Lord's prayer. One is not able to avoid every possible arena of temptation,  so we must go into the day expecting it and praying for help. 

Now, let's see what Abram actually does here. Abram's fears are not trivial. Women didn't have rights as we have them today, so the idea that if the king likes your wife, you can be dead is a real fear. As one commentator pointed out, King David does exactly this with Bathsheba. The beauty of this particular lie is that it is half-true (as Genesis 20 confirms). Abram and Sarai are from the same father (20:12) but have different mothers. However, a half-truth leads to a full sin as Pharaoh takes Sarai for his wife. The language used of the things that Pharaoh gives to Abram, at least according to one scholar, are more in line with compensation rather than a wedding gift (Matthews 128-9). I can only imagine what that interaction between Sarai and Abram would have been during, and especially after, this event! 

Beyond lying, Abram is also not trusting in God and actively putting the promise in jeopardy. While God hasn't explicitly said that the seed is coming from Sarai, that was clearly the assumption of the both of them as by Genesis 15, he is saying that God hasn't provided a seed. Humanly speaking, he would have known even better than we do that Sarai wasn't going to have kids unless God moved, so if he really thought that it wasn't going to be through Sarai, he had plenty of opportunity with his other servants to make that happen. So for him to willingly put Sarai into the hands of Pharaoh, indicates that he doesn't value the promise given to him. He gives it up at the first sign of danger. 

We find out what we value when there is a threat. There is a famous story of Sherlock Holmes where he needs to find a photograph of great value hidden inside a woman's house. In his surprising way, he stages what would appear to be a fire in the woman's home while she is there! As soon as the smoke rises, she runs to a hidden panel on the wall, revealing where the prized photo is. Here at this point in the story, Abram runs when his self-preservation is threatened. Later, of course, we will see him grow, as he is willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING that he has been following God for in Genesis 22. 

What do you run to protect when a threat is on the loose? It doesn't have to be a life-ending threat. It could be as simple as a threat to your peace and quiet. A threat to your schedule. What keeps you from being faithful to God? I hate it when my plans are interrupted. God so often doesn't check my calendar before asking me to do something. So often, I have JUST sat down after a long day. I prize my comfort. Do you prize your reputation? Your time? Money? Effort? 

Here, Abram is unfaithful to God, but God won't let His promises get thrown off due to the failure of His servants. Nothing would ever get done! God is about to move in this story. 

It is worth mentioning here, as one commentator noticed, that this whole story revolves around Sarai: "By virtue of Sarai's beauty, not Abram's ability, the family was enriched. Reportedly, the passage insists that the events turn on account of Sarai (vv. 13, 16, 17), though she is mute throughout the story" (Matthews, 122-123). The whole reason that Pharaoh gives things to Abram is because of Sarai. And the Lord moves *because of Sarai.* She doesn't have any power here to keep herself out of this situation. God is going to step up where Abram failed to. He protects and delivers her, but not without consequences on Pharaoh's part, including his household! 

Let's pause for a moment and ask, "Is this fair?" I mean, Pharaoh is a victim of Abram's deception. He operated on the assumption that he wasn't taking someone else's wife. There are no public records he could pull up. He didn't *have* to give Abram anything, yet he does. So why is the Lord punishing Pharaoh? I've got a few responses to that. One, this is a temporary measure to get his attention. Two, God doesn't owe us anything, nor is bound to rules we make up for Him. He is God and, therefore, not bound to our concepts of fairness. Three, God made a promise that He would curse those who dishonor Abram, and now we see that God takes that promise so seriously that even unintentional cursing on Abram will be dealt with severely. Fourth, this shows how seriously God is going to take marriage. Fifthly, there may have been other circumstances at the time the author doesn't make us aware of. Maybe Pharaoh stole Sarai! We are not owed a full explanation. We can't forget who we are in relation to God. Therefore, we do well to make sure that our lives are in conformity to God. God is very merciful, but we shouldn't presume on God's mercy. If God has something to say about a decision that we are about to make, we should be quite sure what He would want us to do. Ignorance doesn't shield from consequences. 

This narrative should also bring us some comfort. God is so committed to keeping His promises to Abram, He won't allow anything to derail it. God isn't some sort of overly permissive ruler that keeps ending up folding on His promises because someone found a loophole. God is a very strong and capable promise-keeper. He takes His word more seriously than we take it or take our own. 

Sin never makes you safer; God's mercy does. 

Now, after the plagues are over, Abram is sent out of Egypt. He leaves richer than when he came in. Does that mean that his path to this was right? Do the ends justify the means? No. As we will see, part of that wealth was made up with Hagar. Her being employed by Abram wasn't the problem. It was what he did with her later that was. But those consequences wouldn't show up for some time. For the moment, God bails Abram out of what he fears, but there will be further set up that will later turn out to be a sin that causes the conflicts that we have seen rage in the Middle East for thousands of years. 

What saved Abram was not his clever lie. What saved Abram wasn't even Sarai. What saved Abram was God's movement *despite* what he did. And the same holds true for us. We can think that we can patch over parts of our lives with sin. Now that patch will often (but not always) hold for a minute. That is part of sin's deceptive power. It doesn't always fail immediately. But it will fail. It is a promise in Scripture that your sin will find you out (Numbers 32:23). It is only a matter of time. Anything that goes well for you seemingly because of a sin is only the mercy of God giving you time to repent of that sin. If the world hasn't collapsed on you yet, take that as God's mercy towards you to make it right. Don't wait until lives are devastated. Abram's life won't be devastated by this until later, buy Pharaoh and his household sure felt it. Don't wait on sin. 

And because of Jesus you don't have to. You have been given promises that your sin can and will be forgiven if you ask. The promised Seed, Jesus Christ, took drastic action on Himself to free you from sin. Don't mock God and the sacrifice of His Son to sin. Don't say, "Well, how dangerous can this be? It only took the death of the Son of God to deal with." Instead, rest in what God will do. It might not be pleasant. God doesn't promise to remove consequences when your sin is dealt with. But He does promise to erase its guilt. One day, if you are in Christ, you will see heaven. And you will know that turning from that sin was worth it all.