Chapter 12

THEME: God's call and promise to Abraham; Abraham's response; Abraham's lapse of faith

 

The chapter before us brings us to the other side of the Grand Canyon which runs through Genesis. The atmosphere is altogether different here, and we are going to slow down to a walk. The emphasis turns from events, stupendous events, to personalities -- not all of them were great but all of them were important personalities. In Genesis there are four, and others will follow in subsequent books of the Bible.

 

In the first eleven chapters we have seen four great events: the Creation, the fall of man, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. In all of these tremendous events God has been dealing with the human race as a whole. Other than Adam and Abraham, God did not appear to anyone else. God was dealing with the entire race of mankind. There is a radical change at chapter 12. Now there will be brought before us four individuals. God will no longer be dealing with events, but with a man, and from that man He will make a nation. In the first section we will see Abraham the man of faith (Gen. 12 -- Gen 23). Then there will be Isaac the beloved son (Gen. 24 -- Gen 26). Next there will be Jacob the chosen and chastened son (Gen. 27 -- Gen 36), and then there will be Joseph's suffering and glory (Gen. 37 -- Gen 50). These four patriarchs are extremely important to the understanding of the Word of God. We will be taking up their stories in the rest of the Book of Genesis.

 

You see, God has demonstrated that He can no longer deal with the race. After the fall of man, we see the great sin of Cain. What was his great sin? Pride. He was angry because of the fact that deep down in his heart he was proud of the offering he had brought to God. And when his offering was rejected while his brother's was accepted, it caused him to hate his brother. His hatred led to murder, and the root of all of it was pride. Let me remind you that pride was also Satan's sin. Pride is the sin of the mind.

 

Then at the time of the Flood, the sin was the lust of the flesh. We saw that the actions and even the imaginations of man were to satisfy the flesh.

 

God had to bring the Flood to judge man at the time He did, because there was only one believer left -- Noah. If God had waited even another generation, He would have lost the entire human race. God had certainly been patient with the world. He had waited 969 years, the entire life span of Methuselah. I am confident that you would say that 969 years is long enough to give anybody an opportunity to change his mind. But instead of turning to God, the people were in open rebellion, asserting a will that was against God. Following the Flood, the Tower of Babel reveals that "none seeketh after God."

 

After the Tower of Babel, God turns from the race of mankind to one individual. From that individual He is going to bring a nation, and to that nation He will give His revelation, and out of that nation He will bring the Redeemer. Apparently, this is the only way that God could do it. Or let me put it like this: If there were other ways, this was the best way. We can trust God to do the thing which is the best.

 

When God chose Abraham, He chose a man of faith. Abraham, by any person's measuring rod, is a great man. He is one of the greatest men who ever lived on this earth. How do you measure great men even today? Well, to begin with, the man has to be famous, and certainly Abraham measures up to that. He is probably the world's most famous man. Even in this day of radio and television, probably more people have heard of Abraham than of anyone else. More have heard of Abraham than have heard of the President of the United States, or of any head of state, or of any movie star, or of any athlete. The three great religions of the world go back to Abraham: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. There are literally millions of people in Asia and Africa today who have heard of Abraham but have never heard of the ones who make the headlines in our country. One of the marks of a great man is fame; Abraham was a great man.

 

Another mark of a great man is that he must be noble of character, a generous man. Can you imagine anyone more generous than Abraham? I doubt whether there is a man alive who would do what he did. When he and his nephew came back into the land of Palestine, he told Lot to choose any portion that he wanted, and Abraham said he would take what was left. Do you think any man would do that in a business deal today? They don't even do that in a church, friend, much less in a hard-boiled business world. But Abraham was a generous man. Have you ever noticed how generous he was with the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah? He told them he wouldn't take the booty, not even so much as a shoestring, because God was the One to whom he was looking.

 

Thirdly, a great man must live in a momentous time. He must be, as Napoleon said, a man of destiny. The man and the right time must meet at the crossroads of life. That was certainly true of Abraham.

 

I believe the world would agree with me on the first three points we have mentioned. They might not agree with this one: The fourth essential of a great man is that he must be a man of faith. You will notice that all great men, even when they are not Christian, have something in which they believe. God said that Abraham was a man of faith. In the Bible record the greatest thing that is said about Abraham is that he believed God: ". . . Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:3). As we go through these chapters in Genesis, we will find that God appeared to this man seven times, each time to develop faith in his life. This does not mean that he was perfect. The fact of the matter is that he failed many times. God gave him four tests, and he fell flat on his face on all four of them. But, like Simon Peter, he got up, brushed himself off and started again. May I say to you, if God has touched your heart and life, you also may fall, but you are surely going to get up and start over again. We will see this happen in Abraham's life as we go through the chapter before us.

God's Call And Promise To Abraham (12:1-3)

The first three verses give us the threefold promise of God to Abraham (Abram), and actually this is the hub of the Bible. The rest of Scripture is an unfolding of this threefold promise.

 

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

 

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

 

And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed [Gen. 12:1-3].

 

The first of the threefold promise is the land. God says, "I am going to show you a land, and I am going to give it to you." The second part of the promise is the nation -- "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great." He also promises him, "And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee." The third part of the promise is that He would make him a blessing: "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." This is God's threefold promise.

 

Now the question arises: Has God made good on His promises to Abraham? God has certainly brought from him a great nation, and it has probably the longest tenure as a nation of any people on this earth. No one can quite match them.

 

How about the second promise -- has Abraham been a blessing to all mankind? Yes, through the Lord Jesus Christ he has been a blessing to the whole world. Also the entire Word of God has come to us through Abraham.

 

God has fulfilled all His promises to Abraham -- except the first one. God had said, "Abraham, I'm going to give you that land." And look at what is happening over there in our day. They are holding on to the land by their toenails, but they don't have it. Somebody says, "God didn't make that good." Well, let's not put it that way, my friend. Let's give God a chance. Two-thirds of the promise has been made good right to the very letter. But God said that He would not let them be in the land if they were disobedient and if they were away from Him. And they are away from Him today. As a result they are having trouble over there. Don't say that God is not making good His promise. The fact of the matter is that God is doing exactly what He said He would do. The day will come when God will put the people of Israel back in the land, and when He does it, they won't have only a toehold. They will have the land all the way east to the Euphrates River and all the way north as far as the Hittite nation was and all the way south to the river of Egypt, which is a little river in the Arabian desert. They have never really occupied the land God gave to them. At the zenith of their power, they occupied 30,000 square miles, but that is not all that God gave them. Actually, He gave them 300,000 square miles. They have a long way to go, but they will have to get it on God's terms and in God's appointed time. The United Nations can't do anything about it, and neither the United States nor Russia can settle their problem.

 

My friend, it is very comfortable today where I sit. I have come to the position that God is running things. It is nice to sit here without being frightened by the headlines in the newspaper and without being disturbed by what is going on in the world. God is in control, and He is going to work things out His way.

 

Now in the light of God's three promises to Abraham, what did he do?

Abraham's Response (12:4-9)

In verse 1 we read: "Now the LORD had said unto Abram." We know from other Scriptures that God had called Abram when he lived in Ur of the Chaldees: "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell" (Acts 7:2-4). Abraham obeyed God by leaving his home, his business, and the high civilization of Ur, "not knowing whither he went." Yet it was not complete obedience because we read that he took with him some of his family. He took with him his father, Terah, and God had told Abraham not to take him. Why was it that God wanted to get him out of the land and away from his relatives? We learn the answer in the Book of Joshua. ". . . Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor; and they served other gods" (Josh. 24:2). They served other gods -- Abraham was an idolator. The world was pretty far gone at that time. God had to move like this if He was going to save humanity. The other alternative for Him was to blot them all out and start over again. I'm glad He didn't do that. If He had, I wouldn't have been here, because I arrived here a sinner. The fact of the matter is, all sinners would have been blotted out. Thank God, He is a God of mercy and grace, and He saves sinners.

 

We'll follow the Scripture text now and call him Abram until chapter 17 where God changes his name to Abraham.

 

So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran [Gen. 12:4].

 

"So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him." Now he will follow God's leading to the land of Canaan.

 

"And Lot went with him" -- oh, oh! It is still incomplete obedience; he is taking his nephew Lot with him.

 

And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came [Gen. 12:5].

 

Abram took Sarai, his wife, and that was all right, of course.

 

"And Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran." The time Abram had spent in Haran was a period of just marking time and of delaying the blessing of God. God never appeared to him again until he had moved into the land of Palestine, until he had separated at least from his closer relatives and brought only Lot with him.

 

"And into the land of Canaan they came" -- now verse 6:

 

And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land [Gen. 12:6].

 

Here is the record of the fact that the Canaanites were the descendants of Ham's son Canaan. I want to add something very important right at this point. A great many people think that Abram left a terrible place in Ur of the Chaldees and came to a land of corn and wine, a land of milk and honey, where everything was lovely. They think that Abram really bettered his lot by coming to this land. Don't you believe it. That is not what the Bible says. And through archaeology we know that Ur of the Chaldees had a very high civilization during this time. In fact, Abram and Sarai might well have had a bathtub in their home! Ur was a great and prosperous city. Abram left all of that and came into the land of Canaan, "and the Canaanite was then in the land." The Canaanite was not civilized; he was a barbarian and a heathen, if there ever was one. Abram's purpose in coming to Canaan was certainly not to better his lot. He came in obedience to God's command.

 

Now he has obeyed, and notice what happens --

 

And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him [Gen. 12:7].

 

Abram builds an altar unto the Lord when He appears to him this second time. While he was in Haran, the place of delay, God had not appeared to him.

 

You see, one of the reasons that you and I are not always blessed in the reading of the Bible is because the Bible condemns -- we are not living up to the light which God has already given to us. If we would obey God, then more blessing would come. We see in Abram's experience that God did not appear again to him until after he had moved out and had begun to obey God on the light that he had. Now God appears to him again. Then Abram builds an altar, and we will see that he is a real altar-builder.

 

And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai, on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD [Gen. 12:8].

 

Abram does two things when he gets into the land. He pitches his tent -- that is like buying a home in a new subdivision and moving in. He "pitched his tent" -- that's where he lived. Then "he builded an altar." That was his testimony to God, and everywhere Abram went, he left a testimony to God.

 

My friend, what kind of a testimony do you have? To have a testimony, you don't need to leave tracts in front of your house and you don't have to have a "Jesus Saves" bumper sticker on your car (then drive like a maniac down the freeway, as some folk do). That is no testimony at all. May I say to you that Abram quietly worshiped God, and the Canaanites soon learned that he was a man who worshiped the Lord God.

 

And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south [Gen. 12:9].

 

South is the right direction to go for warmer weather; so this man is moving south. He has itchy feet. He's a nomad.

 

Now we come to the blot in his life, actually the second one.

Abraham's Lapse Of Faith (12:10-20)

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 [Gen. 12:10].

 

Abram was in the land, and this was the place of blessing. God never told him to leave. But a famine was in the land, and I think one morning Abram pushed back the flap of his tent, looked out, and said, "Sarai, it looks like everybody's going to Egypt. There's a famine, you know, and it's getting worse. Maybe we ought to think about going down." And I suppose Sarai said, "Anything you want to do, Abram. I'm your wife and I'll go with you." After a few days had gone by and Abram had talked to some of these travelers (probably coming from north of where he was living and bringing the news that the famine was getting worse and was moving south) I imagine that he said to Sarai one evening, "I think we had better pack up and go to Egypt." So Abram and Sarai start down to Egypt.

 

Notice that God had not told him to do that. When God had appeared to him the last time, He had said, "This is it, Abram, this is the land I am going to give you. You will be a blessing, and I am going to bless you here." But, you see, Abram didn't believe God. He went down into the land of Egypt. In the Bible, Egypt is a picture of the world. You will find that all the way through. I think it is still a picture of the world -- this was my opinion of it when I was there. But Abram went down to Egypt.

 

It's amazing how the world draws Christians today. So many of them rationalize. They'll say, "You know, brother McGee, we're not able to come to church on Sunday night because we have to get up and go to work Monday morning." Well, almost everybody has to do that. And it's amazing that those same people can go to a banquet on a week night and sit through a long-winded program with lots of music and lots of talk and not worry about getting up for work the next morning. It's amazing how the world draws Christians today and how they can rationalize.

 

I think that if you had met Abram going down to Egypt and had said, "Wait a minute, Abram, you're going the wrong direction -- you should be staying in the land," that Abram could have given you a very good reason. He might have said, "Look, my sheep are getting pretty thin and there's not any pasture for them. Since there's plenty of grazing land for them down in Egypt, we're going down there." And that's where they went.

 

However, immediately there is a problem, and it concerns Sarai because she is a beautiful woman.

 

And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his 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 shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive [Gen. 12:11-12].

 

As you probably know, over along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, ancient scrolls were found in the caves there, and they are known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. At first the unbelieving scholars thought that they had found something that would disprove the Bible. But have you noticed how silent the higher critics have become? They just don't seem to have found anything that contradicts the Bible.

 

Among the scrolls was a set which couldn't be unrolled because they were so fragile -- they had been wrapped so long that they would just shatter and come to pieces. One name could be seen, the name Lamech, so they were called part of the book of Lamech and said to be one of the apocryphal books of the Bible. Boy, how incorrect that was! The nation Israel bought them, and in the museum the experts began to moisten and soften them until they were unrolled. The scholars found that they contained Genesis 12,13,14, and Genesis 15, not in the Bible text but rather an interpretation of it. In the part that deals with chapter 12, it tells about the beauty of Sarai, actually describing her features and telling how beautiful she was. It confirms what we read of her in the Word of God.

 

The same scroll gives a description of Abram's exploration after God told him to "walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it" (Gen. 13:17). The scroll gives a first person account by Abram of his journey. It confirms what the Bible has said about the land's beauty and fertility. The eyewitness (whether or not it was really Abram, we do not know) certainly confirmed the Bible record. A great many people who visit that land today can't understand how it could be called a land of milk and honey. Well, in the Book of Deuteronomy we learn what caused the desolation that is seen there today. But it was a glorious land in Abram's day.

 

However, there were periods of famine, and Abram left the land and went down to Egypt during such a time.

 

As Abram neared Egypt, he recognized that he would get into difficulty because of the beauty of his wife. So he said to Sarai,

 

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 [Gen. 12:13].

 

"Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister." That was half a lie, as we shall see. Half a lie is sometimes worse than a whole lie, and it certainly was intended to deceive. Abram's fears were well founded because Pharaoh did take Sarai. We know from the Book of Esther that in those days there was a period of preparation for a woman to become a wife of a ruler. And during that period of preparation, God "plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues," and let him know that he was not to take Sarai as his 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 saidst thou, She is 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 [Gen. 12:18-20].

 

God, you see, was overruling in the lives of Abram and Sarai, but God did not appear to him while he was in the land of Egypt.