Latest / Reformed Thinking / “But the LORD”: Fear, Failure, and Covenant Preservation (Genesis 12:10–20)

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“But the LORD”: Fear, Failure, and Covenant Preservation (Genesis 12:10–20) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is the show where we take a
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  deep dive into the source material behind the big ideas.
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  Our goal is to help you get informed thoroughly but also
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  quickly. And today we're looking at a
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  passage that's, well, it's a tough one for a lot of people.
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  It is. We're in Genesis chapter 12,
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  looking at verses 10 through 20. This is the story of Abram right
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  after he gets this incredible covenant call from God.
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  Right. And you'd expect, you know, the
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  next chapter in his life to be this story of a hero of the
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  faith. A perfect example.
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  The paragon of faith? Yeah.
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  Exactly. But the Scriptures just don't do
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  that. They immediately shatter that
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  kind of moralistic idea. The story isn't here to show us
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  a biographical lapse. You know, a simple mistake.
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  It's here to show that the covenant of grace depends
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  completely on God's sovereignty, not on the obedience of the
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  person who receives it. So we're looking at this first
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  great crisis of faith for Abram and what his failure actually
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  teaches you about how God holds on to his people.
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  The way the story is structured here is really it's abrupt.
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  The sources we're looking at call it the jarring
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  juxtaposition because in the 1st 9 verses of Genesis 12, Abram is
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  on a spiritual high. He leaves his home, he travels
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  to the promised land, he builds an altar.
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  He's doing everything right. He's a model of obedience.
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  And then boom, verse 10 hits. It's like a slamming door now.
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  There was a famine in the land. It really is.
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  There's no transition. And that Hebrew word Rahab, it's
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  not just, you know, a bad harvest.
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  This is a full blown disaster, a life threatening test.
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  And the fact that it happens right there in the land of
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  promise, the place God just gave him, that has to be intentional.
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  It's absolutely intentional. The land of blessing becomes the
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  stage for this immense trial. It shows you that receiving
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  God's promise doesn't mean you get a pass from the hardships of
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  this fallen world. So this isn't just bad luck, the
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  famine is. It's a tool.
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  Our sources call it a sovereign instrument of divine Providence.
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  It's a probe. It's designed to see how deep
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  Abraham's trust in God really is.
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  God just promised to make him a great nation and now he can't
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  even feed his own household. Exactly.
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  And that's the test, isn't it? When the things you can see, the
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  food, the water, when that all disappears, can you still trust
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  the God you can't see? He trusted God to leave his home
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  city of her, but this is a different kind of test.
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  It's a harder test. It's one thing to go somewhere
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  new on a promise. It's another thing to stay in a
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  place of suffering on that same promise.
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  And his response is immediate. He went down to Egypt.
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  Now, to us, that's not like a smart move.
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  Go where? The food.
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  Is it sounds practical and geographically it's correct.
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  He's going from the Highlands down to the Nile Delta.
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  But that phrase went down. The Bible uses it in a specific
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  way, doesn't it? It does that Hebrew word yarod.
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  It's often a spiritual signal. It means moving away from God's
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  blessing, from his presence. You see it with Jonah, who goes
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  down to chop it down into the ship trying to run from God.
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  So Abram's physical journey is mirroring a spiritual.
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  One, he's taking a step down away from faith.
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  He's trading the theology of that altar he just built for the
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  for the pragmatism of the world. And that gets at this core
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  contrast, the sources highlight Canaan versus Egypt.
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  This is so key to the whole story.
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  Canaan, the Promised Land, is described in Deuteronomy as a
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  land that depends on the reigns of heaven.
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  So it's survival is totally in God's hands, right?
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  It's a life of faith. Moment by moment.
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  You have to trust God to send the rain.
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  Egypt on the other. Hand Egypt has the Nile.
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  It has the Nile. It's predictable, it's
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  controllable. They had massive irrigation
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  systems, human engineering, their whole society was built on
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  a guaranteed abundance that they controlled.
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  And their Pagan gods were tied to that abundance.
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  Exactly. So Abram is making a choice.
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  He's abandoning waiting on God for rain a life of faith to go
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  get a guaranteed meal in a place that runs on human ingenuity.
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  That's a trade. Faith for sight.
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  One of the most striking things in the text is what's not there.
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  The sources call it the silence of unbelief.
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  That silence is deafening. The Hebrew grammar in verse 10
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  uses this chain of verbs that just pushes the action forward.
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  And there was a famine, and Abram went down.
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  It's quick, decisive. He just acts.
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  He just acts what's missing? He doesn't go to the altar.
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  He doesn't ask God, should I go what you provide for me here?
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  There's no prayer, no consultation, None.
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  He's acting on pure survival instinct, driven by what he can
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  see, the famine, rather than what he's been promised.
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  The moment he decides God can't feed him in Canaan is the moment
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  the next failure becomes almost inevitable.
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  So that rapid fire language in the Hebrew, it's mirroring his
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  panic. It's the language of panic.
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  A man who is relying on sight doesn't stop to pray.
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  He's alone with his fear. And fear, when it's cut off from
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  God, is the worst possible guide.
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  OK, so he gets to the border of Egypt and that silence we talked
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  about is finally broken. But he's not talking to God.
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  No, he's talking to his wife, Sarai, and what he says is, as
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  one source puts it, a calculated conspiracy.
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  The fear of the famine has now turned into the fear of man.
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  It has, and Proverbs tells us the fear of man is a snare, a
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  trap, and Abram walks right into it.
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  His whole thinking process is laid bare.
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  He sees Sarai as a liability, not his wife.
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  He sees the Egyptians as a threat he can't overcome.
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  And he sees himself as a victim who has to come up with a clever
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  plan to survive. He's completely forgotten about
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  God as his protector. This is what the source is
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  called. Theological amnesia in action.
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  It's such a powerful phrase. It is because he can see the
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  physical facts perfectly. He knows Sarai is beautiful even
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  at 65. He knows powerful men will want
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  her. His worldly assessment is spot
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  on. But he has completely forgotten
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  the spiritual fact. He's forgotten the covenant God
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  literally just promised him in verse 3.
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  Him who dishonors you I will curse by thinking the Egyptians
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  can just kill him and take his wife.
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  He's basically saying their power is greater than God's
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  promise. So he's acting like a like a
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  functional atheist. That's the term.
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  He's making his decisions based on survival probabilities, as if
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  God is just absent, as if God's power stops at the border of
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  Canaan. And this leaves him to the lie.
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  Say you are my sister. The infamous lie.
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  Now we find out later in Genesis 20 that she actually was his
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  half sister. Some people use that to soften
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  what he did here. Yeah, but we can't let that
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  detail get him off the hook in this context.
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  It's an absolute deception. The intent is what matters.
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  He's trying to mislead them about her marital status, about
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  her availability. Exactly.
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  If she's just his sister, Pharaoh can take her and Abram
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  gets brought into the royal family.
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  He's protected, but she's his wife, the mother of the promised
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  nation. The lie is designed to protect
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  his own skin by putting her in jeopardy.
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  It's a half truth that functions as a whole lie.
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  It's weaponized, and it's the complete opposite of a life of
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  faith which calls for truth even when it's dangerous.
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  And his motive, I mean, he states.
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  It's so clearly, it's chilling. It's.
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  All about him, he says that it may go well with me because of
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  you, and that my life may be spared for your sake, My
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  well-being, my life. It's raw pragmatism, the end.
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  My survival justifies any means, even endangering the covenant
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  promise itself. And he uses his wife as a human
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  shield. It's a complete reversal of the
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  husband's role. He's supposed to be the
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  protector. It's an inversion of the
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  creation design. A total inversion and it shows
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  you just how necessary the covenant of grace is because
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  centuries later you get the true husband, Christ, who is
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  Ephesians 5 says save himself up for his bride, the church.
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  Christ steps in front of the danger.
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  Abram pushes his wife into it. The contrast couldn't be more
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  stark. Abram's failure here shows us
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  why we needed a better representative, a perfect
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  husband. It's just the blindness of fear
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  is on full display. He's risking the entire future
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  of redemption to avoid a potential temporary danger.
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  That's what fear does. The immediate threat feels so
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  much more real than the eternal promise.
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  It shows you that faith isn't something you achieve once.
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  It's a moment by moment reliance that Abram just completely
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  abandoned. So here's a crazy part.
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  The plan works. On a worldly level, it works
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  perfectly. Just like he predicted.
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  The Egyptians see Sarai as beautiful.
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  The Princess tell Pharaoh about her.
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  And verse 15 says the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
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  That word Laca taken or acquired, It's a business
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  transaction. This is the low point of the
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  story. He has just handed over the
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  mother of the promised seed. The whole plan of salvation is
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  now, from a human standpoint, in the hands of a Pagan king.
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  The text just lets that tension hang there.
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  It's a terrifying moment, and it's a stark picture of
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  depravity. Even the friend of God, the man
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  who heard God's voice, is capable of this, capable of
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  sacrificing the most sacred thing for his own safety.
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  And to make it even worse, he gets rich from it.
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  This is what our source is called.
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  The irony of material reward. Verse 16 says for her sake.
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  He dealt well with Abram. That phrase for her sake is just
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  dripping with condemnation. He's getting paid for his wife's
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  capture. It's essentially a bride price.
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  He gets sheep, oxen, donkeys, servants, camels, a huge amount
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  of wealth and the text shows him just accepting it.
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  No protest, no confession. He's counting his sheep while
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  Sarai is in the harem. And this is where a figure comes
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  into the story who will cause so much future pain.
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  Yes, the list of assets includes female servants.
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  The scholarly consensus is very strong that this is where Hagar
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  enters Abraham's household. Hagar, the mother of Ishmael.
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  The very one. So the blessing, this wealth he
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  got through his sin, it's a Trojan horse.
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  It brings the source of future family conflict and redemptive
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  historical conflict right into his tent.
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  The consequences of sin aren't always immediate punishment.
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  Sometimes they look like gifts. And those are often the most
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  dangerous kind. The very thing he gained for his
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  own security becomes the biggest threat to his family's peace
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  down the line. This whole section is just a
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  Wrecking Ball to any idea that material wealth automatically
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  equals God's favor. It is.
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  Abram is rich. He's safe from the famine.
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  He looks successful, but he's morally bankrupt and completely
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  out of God's will. He has the world's security, but
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  he's risked the promise. And God, in his patience, lets
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  the scheme play out. He lets the attention build to
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  its absolute maximum before he steps in.
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  It's a way of proving that our clever plans, even when they
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  succeed, can never actually ruin God's ultimate plan.
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  Only God can clean up this mess. And it's clear Abram can't fix
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  this. He's passive.
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  He's complicit. He's totally trapped by his own
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  success. The rescue has to come from
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  outside, and that's exactly what happens next.
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  All right, so just when it looks completely hopeless, verse 17
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  arrives and it's a sharp turn, but the Lord afflicted Pharaoh.
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  The whole focus of the story shifts.
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  It's the turning point, the hinge of the entire passage.
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  And the Hebrew grammar here is so important.
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  The subject, Yahweh the Lord, is put right at the front of the
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  sentence. Emphasizing that he is the one
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  acting now. He is the primary actor.
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  God doesn't wait for Abram to repent or pray his way out of
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  this. He acts on his own, and he does
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  it purely because he is faithful to the covenant he made, not
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  because Abram deserves it. This is pure, unconditional
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  grace. It's the definition of sovereign
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  grace. God intervenes because of who He
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  is, not because of what Abram has done.
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  And the way God intervenes it points to something much bigger
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  later on. It really does, the text says.
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  God sent great plagues. Nagain Ghetalim, that word for
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  plague, not a, is the same root word used for the plagues of the
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  Exodus. When God struck Egypt to free
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  Israel. Exactly.
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  So what we're seeing here is a proto Exodus, a small scale
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  version of the main event. God strikes this Pharaoh to
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  release Sarai, who is the mother of Israel.
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  So it's showing that God's power isn't just limited to Canaan,
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  He's Lord everywhere. His jurisdiction runs all the
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  way to Pharaoh's throne room, and it also shows us something
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  about the plagues themselves. We don't know what they were,
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  but they were severe enough to stop Pharaoh from consummating
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  the marriage. God supernaturally protected the
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  purity of the Messianic line. So God is protecting the promise
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  from the failure of the promise keeper.
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  That's it exactly. It's a miniature echo of the
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  Exodus. Just as God will strike a later
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  pharaoh to release the nation, he strikes this first pharaoh to
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  release the woman who carries the seed of the nation.
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  Without this act, the whole story ends right here.
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  For those of us who hold to reform theology, this is a
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  powerful example of what the Westminster Confession says
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  about Providence. It's a textbook case.
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  The confession says that God's Providence even extends to the
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  sins of humanity, which he limits and directs for his own
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  holy purposes. So God didn't make Abram lie.
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  Absolutely not. The text condemns the lie, but
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  God sovereignly controlled the consequences of the lie.
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  He allowed Abrams fear to create this crisis, but he put a
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  boundary on it. He didn't let it destroy the
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  promise. He's the master of the chess
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  board, as one source put it. He is.
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  He sees Abram make a disastrous move, but instead of flipping
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  the board over, he uses Pharaoh's own actions to
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  checkmate the situation and protect the queen Sarai, which
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  guarantees the future of the king.
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  It just demolishes any idea that God is just reacting to our
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  choices. He's sovereign even over our
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  failures. And that's why the covenant is
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  secure. If it depended on Abraham's
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  performance, it would be over. But because it's a covenant of
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  grace, God provides the solution.
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  When man creates the problem, our security isn't in our weak
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  grip on God, it's in his unbreakable grip on us.
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  The crisis gets resolved, but not in the way you'd expect.
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  It's not God speaking to Abraham.
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  It's the It's Pharaoh. This is one of the most humbling
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  moments in the whole book of Genesis.
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  The Pagan king calls in the prophet of God and gives him a
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  sermon. And it's a sermon full of moral
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  clarity. What is this you have done to
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  me? Why did you not tell me she was
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  your wife? The irony is just staggering.
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  Abram was called to be a blessing to the nation's instead
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  he brought a curse, a plague on Egypt and the unbelieving world
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  in the person to Pharaoh is holding up a higher ethical
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  standard than the believer. And Abram just stands there.
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  He says nothing. His silence is his confession.
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  What can he say? His clever plan has been exposed
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  for what it was, a selfish, wicked lie.
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  Pharaoh's questions What? Why?
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  Why? It's like a cross examination.
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  It functions like the law, it just exposes the sin and shuts
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  the mouth of the Sinner. Abram thought he had a good
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  strategy, but Pharaoh shows him it was just a violation of basic
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  truth. The man Abram was afraid would
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  kill him is the one demanding righteousness from him.
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  And that strips Abram of any claim to moral superiority.
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  It's a public shaming. He can never say he was chosen
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  because he was better than the nations around him.
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  So what's the consequence? Not execute, which he probably
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  deserved. In the ancient eries this was a
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  capital offense. You don't lie to a king like
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  that. But instead, Pharaoh says, here
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  is your wife, take her and go. It's an expulsion, A
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  deportation, but it's also an act of mercy, severe mercy.
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  A very severe mercy. And verse 20 adds that Pharaoh
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  gave him an armed escort to see him safely out of the country.
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  The word first sent him away. Shalak, is the same word used
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  for Israel's release in the Exodus.
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  So even the release is a picture of grace.
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  It is God's grace working through a Pagan king to preserve
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  his servant, not with the reward he deserved, which was death,
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  but with the rescue the covenant required.
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  And then finally the restoration.
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  He has to go back. That's the bookend of the whole
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  story. Genesis 13 says Abram went up
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  from Egypt. The Hebrew is a law.
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  It's the direct opposite of when he went down Yared.
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  His geography is once again tracking his spiritual state.
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  And he doesn't just wonder, he goes back to the place, the
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  altar, the exact spot where he first worshipped.
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  This return is the physical sign of his repentance.
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  He's going back to the place of dependence on God.
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  So the restoration isn't him earning his way back into God's
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  good graces. Not at all.
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  God already rescued him. The discipline, the shame he
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  experienced from Pharaoh is what drove him back to the altar.
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  It's a picture of preservation. God keeps his people even when
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  he has to use painful means to bring them back to a place of
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  worship. So we've walked through the
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  story of failure and rescue. The big question at the end is,
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  what does the story of the Father of the Faithful failing
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  so badly? What does that mean for you, the
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  listener? It means we have to stop looking
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  for our Savior among flawed human beings.
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  The Bible is honest about the failures of its greatest Saints
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  for a reason to make us look beyond them.
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  The promise moves forward, but it's not because Abram is a
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  steady, courageous hero. It forces us to look for someone
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  better. It forces us to look for the
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  true seed for Jesus. And the contrast between Abram
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  and Christ here is just it's everything.
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  Especially in that role of the husband.
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  Yes, Abram's motive was that it may go well with me.
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  He put his wife in danger to save himself.
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  Christ, the true husband, does the complete opposite.
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  He loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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  He steps in front of the wrath of God so that his bride can
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  live. The gospel is the total reversal
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  of Abram's scheme. The husband takes the blow, so
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  the bride is spared. And even that pattern of descent
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  and ascent we saw, Christ fulfills that too.
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  He does, but perfectly. Abram went down to Egypt in fear
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  and sin. The nation of Israel went down
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  and became slaves, but Jesus as a child is taken down to Egypt.
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  Out of Egypt, I called my son. Right.
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  He is the true Israel who goes down into bondage but remains
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  perfectly sinless. And when he ascends, it's not
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  with wealth gotten through a lie.
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  Like Abram, he ascends from the grave, leading captivity
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  captive, winning righteous gifts for his people through a true
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  victory. So this whole narrative then
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  becomes this powerful argument for justification by faith alone
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  for a solified. It has to be, because if God's
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  covenant depended on Abraham's moral performance on his truth
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  telling, it would have ended in that harem.
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  The story is screaming sovereign grace.
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  God saved the messianic line in spite of Abram's failure.
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  Which means our standing with God rests on something much more
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  solid than our own obedience. It rests on God's faithfulness
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  and his oath, which find their ultimate expression in the
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  finished work of Jesus Christ. He's the one who never failed,
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  who never had to lie to protect himself.
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  So the final take away from the story isn't try to be a better
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  Abram, it's trust in the God of Abram because he is faithful
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  even when we are not #tag outro. And that wraps up our deep dive
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  into Genesis 12.10, Darrow 20. We've seen that the covenant
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  security doesn't rest on the shaky performance of a man like
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  Abram, who failed his first big test, but on the absolute
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  fidelity of the Lord, who stepped in to rescue his own
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  promise. So as you think about this, we
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  have to reject that Egyptian path, the path of fear
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  manipulation that Abram chose. Think about your own life.
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  How often does that instinct for self preservation make you
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  compromise or tell 1/2 truth, or just act out of fear instead of
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  faith? The great comfort here is that
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  you are secure not because you have a perfect grip on God, but
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  because He has a perfect grip on you, and by His grace, that grip
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  will never let go.