Why Abram Failed in Egypt & God Restored Him | Genesis 12-14

Welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a 30-minute walk through the Scriptures, teaching in-depth Bible truths that change people's lives. Now, here's your host, Les Feldick. Again, it's good to see everybody, and I see you've got your Bibles open, and let's get right down to brass tacks and get back to Genesis chapter 12. Now, we're going to leave the Abrahamic covenant for a while, and we're going to move on ahead into the very life and travels of the man. Remember, everything is going to move ahead now to the bringing about of the fulfillment of this covenant. The nation of Israel is going to have to come on the sea. They're going to have to get to the land. And then, down the road, they're going to have the beginning of the kingly line with the appearance of David. All right, now in chapter 12, if we'll come on down to verse 4, we'll move on. And so, Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him. Now, remember, Lot is his nephew. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Haran. Now, if you remember, Haran was up in Syria, some few miles northeast of present-day Damascus. And so, Abraham and Sarah, or Sarai, or Abram and Sarai, and Lot and all their flocks, they come down into Canaan, which we presently know, of course, as the promised land or the land of Israel. Verse 5, So Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, up there in Syria. And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan. And into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sychum, unto the plain of Moriah, and the Canaanite was then in the land. Now, if you remember back a few chapters, the Canaanite was the offspring of Ham, the second son of Noah. And Canaan was the son of Ham, of course. And on that particular individual was the cursed place. So the Canaanites are going to be a wicked, ungodly people from the very time that Abraham comes into their midst, until finally they are more or less destroyed when Joshua and the children of Israel come in some 400 years later. But remember that the Canaanite is in the promised land, and Abram is going to have to move in as a… Oh, I'm trying to think of the word. What do we call these Arabs in the desert? I lost my word, huh? Yeah, they just moved from place… Nomad, that's the word I'm trying to think of. Thank you. As nomads, they just went from place to place. They didn't set down roots. Now verse 7, And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed, in other words, to his offspring, will I give this land, the land of Canaan. And so there he built an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him, and he re-roofed some fence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel. Now maybe I should put a makeshift map up here on the board again. That always helps, I think, to kind of see how these things are. There's your Mediterranean seacoast, and down here, Jerusalem, and Sea of Galilee, and the River Jordan, and the Dead Sea. Abraham has come from up here in Syria, up at Haran, and he has made his way down now into Canaan. And some more, I'm going to guess, about 20 miles north of Jerusalem, we find Bethel. Now if you remember from our study in Genesis 1, El is the first two letters of Elohim, so it's in reference to God, and Beth simply means house. So Bethel is what Abraham called, or Abram called, the house of God, Bethel. And there he built an altar and pitched his tent. And he called upon the name of Jehovah, but he doesn't stay there. He's nomadic. Verse 9, And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. And as he goes on to the south, time goes by, and remember that God uses famine in the Old Testament so many times as disciplinary as well as, I think, a vehicle to force people where He wanted them. And so now a famine is in the land, that is, the land of Canaan, and Abram went down into Egypt. Now some things help in overall Bible study, and that's, oh, I suppose we can call it nomenclature or whatever, but Egypt in Scripture is always a picture of the world. That's why Israel was always instructed to stay in the land of promise and not go to Egypt, as we were talking at break time. You see, all of these things in the Old Testament are a living example of New Testament doctrine or teaching. And the same thing holds true today. As a believer, as a child of God, we're admonished constantly by the apostle Paul that we're to separate ourselves from the world. Well, Egypt was a picture of the world, and so God had implicitly instructed them to stay in the land of promise and not go down into Egypt, as I said, which is a picture of the world. But Adam's faith probably weakened a little bit, and famine came in, and first thing you know, where is he? Down in Egypt. But he gets in trouble, just like a believer who goes into the world. It isn't very long until he's in trouble. Now, it came to pass, verse 11, that when he was come near to enter into Egypt, he's approaching the border, and he said, Now, here is this man of God, this man of faith. And again, as we were just speaking a few moments ago, had God depicted these great biblical characters as sinless epitomes of righteousness without any mistakes, how would that make us feel? Oh, we'd be hopeless. But the Bible doesn't do that. They were just as human as we are. They failed like we do, and it all shows that a merciful God is always ready to restore. And here we're going to see this great man of faith, Abram, fail miserably. Read on. And it came to pass, when he's come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know thou art a fair woman to look upon. Therefore, it shall come to pass, that when the Egyptians shall see thee, they shall say, This is his wife. They'll kill me, and they'll save you alive. Has the human race changed much? Not much. And so he says, I say, pray thee, that thou art my sister. Now, he wasn't a total liar, because what she is, she was a half-sister. And so he's kind of covering his tracks a little bit, but basically the man is certainly anything but honorable here. And so he said, Now, lest they kill me in order to have you, just simply say, Well, you're my sister, and they can take you, and I'll go my way. Now, imagine that. Imagine. But I'll let go on again. And he says, My soul shall live because of thee. Verse 14, And it came to pass, that when Abram was come into Egypt, sure enough, the Egyptians saw that she was fair to look upon. Verse 15, The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house, became part of his harem, in our English language. Verse 16, Oh, and he treated Abram well for her sake. Well, he might. Now, imagine, Abram was just almost grinning from ear to ear. And he had sheep, oxen, he asses, men servants, maid servants, she asses, and camels. But the Lord Sovereign. Now, remember back here in these Old Testament days, God dealt more directly than He does today. In fact, I was thinking the other day as I was mulling all these things over, getting ready for this afternoon. There's a good book, and it's kind of hard to comprehend. It's written in more or less in Old English. But it's a book by Sir Robert Anderson, the title of which is The Silence of God. And it seems like an odd title. But Sir Robert Anderson was a tremendous Bible scholar, as well as, I didn't realize until the other day, he was the head of Scotland Yard in England. So he must have been a layman. But whatever, he's a tremendous Bible scholar. And in his book, The Silence of God, he draws this analogy of God constantly dealing in an intrinsic way with the Old Testament characters. But when we get to our age of grace, God is silent comparatively, because, of course, we've got the book. God doesn't have to talk to us audibly. God doesn't have to appear to us in the miraculous and so on and so forth. Now, I always have to qualify that. That doesn't mean that I don't believe God can miraculously answer our prayers and so on and so forth. But Sir Robert Anderson makes such a point of the fact that when we enter into this age of grace, compared to His dealing in the Old Testament, it's as if God is silent. Now, think about that over the next week or two. We just don't expect angels to appear. I told somebody one night at a class, you know, if all of a sudden on my way home at 11 o'clock at night, I'd see a bunch of angels on the highway, you think I could take it? I don't think you could either. I know I couldn't. And what if all of a sudden God would just appear as He did back here in the Old Testament? Hey, it'd crack us up. We're not prepared for that. And God doesn't expect us to be. And so indeed, God is silent today compared to these days back here. But see, God even appeared to old pagan Pharaoh and revealed to him, hey, this lady out there is not what you think she is. She's a man's wife. I'll read on. Verse 18, And so Pharaoh called Abram, and he said, What is this thou hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me she was your wife? See, God told him, but Abram hadn't. Why did you say she's my sister? So I might have taken her to me to wife? Now therefore behold thy wife, take her and go thy way. You know what we call that today? Deportation. Abram was deported. He was just simply sent out of Egypt. He should have been embarrassed. He should have felt like two cents, and maybe he did. But what's the lesson? Well, God had told the man, stay in the land of promise and I'll bless you. But you see, things got tough. He got a little hungry, and he goes down to the world. Now one thing I want you to remember, who is with him besides Sarah? Lot. The young man Lot. You remember the old World War I hymn? Not that I lived that long ago, but I remember the music from it. You remember they had a song, how are you going to keep them down on the farm, if what? If they sing gay Perry? Keep that in mind when we look at the life of Lot. Now we say it smilingly, but really it was a sad commentary. But see, this also was Abraham's fault. He should have never exposed Lot to the world of Egypt. And he's going to reap the consequences in short order. All right, let's move on. Verse 1 of chapter 13. So Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him. That's why I know Lot was along. And they go into the south. Now when you talk of the south of Egypt, of Canaan, remember down here is Egypt. And almost due east, still in the land of Canaan, is the desert city, still there, of Beersheba. Now today it's a thriving university city of about long when we were there. My, that's a long time ago too, isn't it? We were there back in 75, and then it was a city of 300,000. So I shouldn't doubt that that Beersheba is probably a half a million people by now. But Beersheba of the Bible is the same Beersheba that's there today, at least in the same environment. Just down in the Negev part of the desert. And they'll go from Beersheba up north and back. And so he just sojourns up and down that land of Canaan. So verse 3, or 2, Abram was very rich in cattle, silver, and gold. Now remember, the closing comment I made on my land three, four weeks ago now, was that Israel is the earthly people with earthly promises. Do you remember that? The church are a heavenly people with heavenly promises. Nowhere in our church-age doctrine are we promised that simply because we're obedient to God and we're faithful in all the things that God will reward us financially, materially. That is not part of our New Testament teaching. Now if God sees fit, that's fine. I can show you two references of Paul where it's absolutely apropos to establish an estate and to have something for children. There's nothing wrong with that. Paul says in another place, a person that doesn't provide for his family and probably help the kids along is worse than an infidel. So don't ever think that when I say that there are no material promises connected with the church age, that that doesn't mean that we can't be successful and that you can't work hard to get ahead as we call it and so forth. But there is no promise in the New Testament that God will reward us materially for our spiritual effort. But in the Old Testament, that was part and parcel of it. The more obedient they were, the more God blessed them with physical and material things. So Abram was one. He was intensely wealthy. God rewarded him. We'll look at Jacob a few weeks down the road and how did he come out of Syria after 20 years of laban? With flocks and herds to no end. Job, what did Job have? Oh, he had flocks and herds by the thousands. See? All right. All of this is intrinsic to understanding the Old Testament economy. If they were obedient, God blessed them materially and they had no concept of a heavenly connection other than, of course, that's where God was. But they were an earthly people with earthly promises. All right. Verse 3. Now, I think this is also an interesting parallel. Abram, weak in faith, ends up down in the world. But after he's embarrassed in that worldly environment and he finds his way back to the place of his beginning so far as his walk and his worship, what's the parallel? Well, for a believer, the same thing. Oh, we may get down and we may be enticed by the world, but there's only one way back into fellowship. And where is it? Where we began, at the foot of the cross. And that's where sin and I'm not maintaining you have to have salvation over again, but the cross is always the place of a new beginning. And so Abram comes back to Bethel and he gets straightened out and he gets right with the Lord. Now, verse 5, "...and Lot also went with him." Verse 6, "...the land was not able to bear them, and they couldn't dwell together, because between the two of them their substance was so great." And, as you might expect, what happens? Strife. A lot of argument. Are you going to get that, Pastor? Am I? And, typical, human nature hasn't changed one iota. And so, finally, Abram, the more godly of the two, says, "...Lot, let's not argue, let's not have strife." Verse 8, and then verse 9, "...is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me, I'll take the left, and I'll go to the..." Or, you take the left and I'll go to the right. Or, if you go right, I'll go left, but let's go separate ways. Now, verse 10, the monkey falls on Lot's back, doesn't it? Abram says, "...it's up to you." Now, remember, where has Lot been? He'd been to Egypt. And he sees all the things of a material Egypt. And so, "...so Lot," verse 10, "...lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan." Now, remember, that before Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed, this beautiful Jordan Valley, and all the way on down, and the environs of which is now the Dead Sea, it was a beautiful valley. It wasn't the barren rock and desert that is now, as a result of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. But it was beautiful. And what does it say? Oh, it was well watered everywhere, verse 10, "...before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord." In other words, if ever there was an area on earth that was close to the Garden of Eden, this Jordan Valley was. And Lot looked at it, and boy, what did he say? Hey, that's for me. And so, he tells old Uncle Abram, hey, I'll take the valley. And Abram says, then I'll stay in the mountains. And so they parted. Verse 11, "...Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan, and he journeyed east, and they separated themselves one from the other." Now, verse 12, "...Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, amongst these ungodly, immoral Canaanites," now remember, "...and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent," what's the next word? "...toward Sodom." Now, he doesn't jump into Sodom with both feet all at once. But it's just like sin in the life of every one of us. It doesn't just all of a sudden engulf us. But what happens? Oh, we play with it, we toy with it, it toys with us, and then we just start slipping and slipping, and the first thing, what? It's got us. And so it did with Lot. Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. He didn't just go there immediately. But, you know, we won't have time to get there. Where did he end up? In Sodom. And he wasn't just a resident of Sodom, he was one of the city fathers. He was one of the wheels. All right, let's move on. And so, verse 14, "...the Lord said unto Abram, after Lot was separated, Lift up thou eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, southward, eastward, and westward." Now, I want to remember, down the center of the land of Canaan is mountains. And from this mountain view, God could literally tell Abram, just look all four directions, and all of it I'm going to give to you. And so from that high mountain area, verse 15, God says to Abram, "...all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed," for how long? Forever. Forever. And the word forever in Scripture means time without end. Now again, if only our world leaders would believe the Word of God. The land of Israel belongs to the Jew. And I always have to stress, I'm not a Jew, I don't even know one. I've only really known one, I guess, in all my life. But the only reason I have this feeling toward the Jew is because of what the book says. This land was given to the Jew, and it's theirs forever. Now verse 16, God promises again, "...I'll make thy seed," or your offspring, "...as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land, in the length of it, in the breadth of it, for God says, I will give it to thee." And so Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron. Now Hebron is about five or six miles south of Jerusalem. So that would put us right up here. I've got Jerusalem for this one, so Hebron would be right here. Now remember, Israel is small. Everything is so close. Like I said, Bethel is only about 20 miles north of Jerusalem. And now Hebron is about six miles there. And then off to the southeast, about five miles is Bethlehem. And then on down to Beersheba is probably only another 40 miles. And up here to Samaria, that's up in here someplace. Nazareth up in there. They're all packed right in there close together. There isn't that mileage that we're so accustomed to here in America. All right, now in the couple minutes that we've got left, let's move on into chapter 14 where word comes to Abram that some kings from the north and the east have come down and have defeated the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and have taken all the people captive. Now you know why Abram got interested because that involved Lot and his family. And so Abram puts together a small army out of his hired servants and he pursues this conquering king from the north that had overrun Sodom and Gomorrah and had Lot and his family with him. And to make short order of it, come all the way down to verse 14. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, now we know it isn't a brother, it's a nephew. But when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants born in his own house, 318. Now that just gives you a little picture of how big Abram's estate really was. He had that many hired servants that were fit to be men of war. And again, like I said, someday when you want to figure out the number of Israelites coming out of Egypt, remember they came out with enough people to create a 600,000 -man army. That's all the Scripture tells us. But you just sit down with pen and paper some evening and figure out how many people totally it takes to end up with 600,000 young men between the age of 21 and 26 unmarried. And you'll very easily come up with anything from 3 to 7 million people that came out of Egypt. Now that figure shocks a lot of people, but we'll repeat it again when we get to Exodus. So anyway, Abram has enough hired servants that he can come up with 318 of military aides. In other words, they were able to handle the sword. Verse 15, or 14, continuing, He pursued them all the way to Dan, which is up in northern Canaan. Verse 15, And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and he smote them. He just utterly defeated them. And he perceived them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. See how far north he's gone? And he brought back all the goods and also brought again his brother Lot and his goods, and the women also, and the people. He brings them all safely back. He utterly defeats the invading kings. Now I'm going to give you just a little bit of a tidbit for our next program, and that comes in at verse 17. This will be the next thing we're going to cover. That tremendous individual that has aroused so much discussion, at least, if not controversy, Melchizedek. You've all heard of him. Now here he comes. Verse 17, And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him at the valley of Shavuah, which is the king's dale. And now verse 18, And Melchizedek, the king of Salem, now all you have to do is look at that word, S-A-L -E-M. What's the word today? Jerusalem. Salem means peace. And so this Melchizedek was the king of the little village then known as Salem, which is Jerusalem in our reckoning. And so Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought forth what? Bread and wine, as he was the priest of the Most High God. Now we're going to pick that verse up next time, but I want you to be thinking about a few things. The bread and wine leap all the way to Paul's writing when he gives instructions for what? For the Lord's Supper. How God has got everything in mind. And then the other thing that is brought out here is that the term in the Hebrew for the Most High God is the God of the Gentiles. Now not that he's a separate God, but the name, El Elyon. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. Through the Bible is a partner-supported ministry. If this program has been a help to your study of the Scriptures and you'd like to see others enjoy the teaching, your support would be greatly appreciated. Write to us at Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, Oklahoma, 74552. Or call 1-800-369-7856. Remember, all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette, and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldick.