Terror: When Fear Leads to Compromises That Hurt Us and Others
July 2, 2023
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
Genesis 12:10-20
10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” 14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
17 But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.
We have paper in the bulletins for drawing pictures during the sermon, especially the children who are with us all summer long. This morning we’re talking about fear. Fear is a powerful emotion. Maybe you could draw a picture of something that makes people afraid. I can tell you I’m so scared of flying insects. I’ve mentioned it before. Bees and wasps freak me out. Fear can make us do things we never imagined we’d do. Many years ago it happened to man named Abram. Let’s pray as we begin. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
The saddest song I’ve ever heard is “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin. You may not agree about it being the saddest, but you’ll probably agree it is sad. The song begins with a haunting acoustic guitar riff, followed by lyrics more haunting. Chapin sings,
My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talking ’fore I knew it, and as he grew
He’d say “I’m gonna be like you, dad”
“You know I’m gonna be like you”
Not too sad yet. After the chorus comes the second verse.
My son turned ten just the other day
He said, thanks for the ball, dad, come on let’s play
Can you teach me to throw, I said-a, not today
I got a lot to do, he said, that’s okay
And he, he walked away, but his smile never dimmed
It said, I’m gonna be like him, yeah
You know I’m gonna be like him
If you know the rest of the song, you know that the boy turns out just like his father, a man too busy. I’ve often wondered why that song hits us so deeply. Surely many women find the song sad, but it hits men hard. Why? Perhaps because of the collision of two fears deep in the hearts of humans, and I’d say especially in the hearts of men: fears about protecting and providing, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, fears about the legacy of our actions. I don’t know how you’d draw those on a picture—fears about protecting and providing, fears about the legacy of our actions. It’s easier to draw a bee or wasp. But these are the deep fears.
And like Harry Chapin’s song, this passage from Genesis that we before us this morning cuts deep. It touches on fears about protecting and providing on the one hand and, on the other hand, fears about the legacy of our actions.
You know this already, but let me just say it out loud. Fear can make people do crazy, erratic, and even sinful things they never expected they would do. [FCF] If you’ve seen someone drowning, you know it’s full of fearful, erratic spasms. They say that a drowning man might even plunge underwater, the person trying to save him so he can stay afloat. In a way, in this passage we might say Abram is drowning, and he’s afraid. Who will he plunge underwater just to stay afloat?
The inciting incident of a famine in the land of promise, v. 10
But he’s drowning per se. He’s actually starving. Look with me at Genesis 12:10. Here we have the inciting incident for our passage, the event that puts all the other events in motion. “Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.”
This is strange, is it not? Remember, God called Abram out of his pagan moon worshiping (Gen. 11:26–32; cf. Josh 24:2, 15). God saved him, provided for him, blessed him. God promised to show him a land. Then, last week in Gen. 12:4–9, life is good in that land. Abram built altars and called out to God, who hears and responds. That’s what we’ve seen the last few weeks. In summary: Abram starts out wayward; then God rescues him. Abram responds in faith, and God makes blessings abound.
But wait. Now the land of promise, the land of Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey, the land of bounty and blessings, has a famine? Wait a minute. The grass that just a moment ago looked greener has turned brown and died. In the famine, crops don’t come. Livestock dies. Among people, older men and women and the youngest children die first. Businessmen default on loans because they have no crops to sell. Abram had moved to the promised land from Ur in Mesopotamia, a place we now call the Fertile Crescent (see Joseph Cummings, Abraham, 84); Abram knew what prosperity tasted like, and this desert sandy land of promise wasn’t it.
John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath tells the fictional story of the Joad family and also the real story of a time of actual famine in America’s Midwest, a time when the breadbasket of America went empty. A dustbowl settled over the land. And Tom Joad and his family reluctantly did what Abram did: left.
Maybe you know something of a famine in the land of promise. You responded to God’s call with faith, you obeyed, you’ve done right by God and others—and life gets harder, not better. The last twelve months have felt full of curses, not blessings.
Now, should Abram have left? It’s hard to say. Like so many other parts of this passage, and really many parts of Genesis, we’re not told exactly how to process every detail. I feel like the double repetition of the word famine makes it seem like it was understandable, if not acceptable, to leave. “Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.” It’s like the narrator is saying, “I know you’re gonna ask if he really had to leave, so I’ll just tell you again that the famine was severe.”
But maybe he should have stayed. Back in v. 7, God promised to give him the land, and back in vv. 2–3 God has promised to bless Abram and protect him. “Abram,” God said, “him who dishonors you I will curse.” In other words, “I will protect you.”
Yet, Abram makes a plan to solve this problem of his. “Sarai, let’s go to Egypt,” he says. But his plan to solve one problem leads to another problem, which we’ll see leads to another problem. And you’ll be able to hear the cultural proverb, “What a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive.”
The plan to solve the problem, vv. 10–13
Look with me at the next few verses. I’ll read vv. 11–13.
11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”
Here we go, right? The narrator gives a sense that this was all so sudden, like Sarai didn’t have much choice. We read, “When he was about to enter Egypt . . .” It’s like the husband and wife get invited over to dinner. This dinner is a business dinner. And just as they pull into the restaurant parking lot and are about to get out and walk into dinner, they see the other couple standing in the parking lot and waving at them. And the man puts the car in park and says quick to his wife, “So tonight, that whole thing about me recently losing my job, yeah, that didn’t happen. I need to make this sale. We need this or we’ll lose our house.” He turns off the car engine, hops out of the car, opens his wife’s car door, and they are on their way to the business dinner. Not much of a choice for his wife, is there?
The famine led to them Egypt, which led them to Egyptians. Apparently, she’s a very beautiful woman, so this is their plan to deal with their fear. Perhaps you can relate. I mean, not with the specifics, but in principle. Perhaps you feel pinched financially, so you just have to do whatever can be done to not lose your job. Even if you happen to mess something up, you can’t tell people, especially your boss, because it could cause you to lose your job, and if you lose your job, you lose your house. Maybe your wife has diabetes or some other disease, and, you know that if you lose your job, then you lose your health insurance. Then what?
We start to fear, we develop in our minds this sequence of events that will proceed inevitably, like a sequence of events made of a titanium chain. This leads to this which leads to this; therefore I must do this or we’ll be living our own dystopian apocalypse.
If I don’t compromise in this way, then my boyfriend will leave me. And if he leaves me, then I’ll never get married. Or, if I don’t give my brother, who is an addict, money, then he’ll get upset, and that’s not going to be good. Or, inflation is up 10%, how can we be generous with others and our church? If we give money, we’ll have to pull our kids out of private school. Then what?
Or maybe you’ve heard some say, Look, our world is so bad and feisty and so antagonistic to Christians that if Christians don’t fight back with the same anger and snark, we’ll just get walked over and our school we’ll be overrun, and our children will get hurt. We can’t practice beatitudes like meekness because—let’s be real about this—they don’t work. And you know what else doesn’t work? The Sabbath. How will I get all the stuff done that God wants me to do if I rest?
Do you see what fear can do?
Note again what Abram says in vv. 11–12. “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.” Abram speaks as though his great plan will alter destiny. This will lead to this, which will lead to this; therefore, I must do this, lest they kill me. And if I die, what comes of God’s plan? Therefore we need a new plan.
The initial results look mixed, vv. 14–16
How does this plan work out? Let’s keep going. Let me read vv. 14–16.
14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
Well, he’s got more wealth. We see that. Let me make a brief comment on the camels, the last item on the list. There are scholars who question the truthfulness of this detail because, apparently, camels might not have been in Egypt at the time. But in recent years, more study has been done, and we do know that there were camels then, but that they were very new. In other words, to be given camels was to be given the latest in “new tech.” He’s given a team of employees and a house with a four-car garage, and in that garage, he’s got a Maserati and BMW and a brand-new Tesla, a self-driving car.
So the plan is working, no? This is the blessing of the Lord, no? You’re not sure.
The whole brother-sister plan seemed better in his head. In fact, it had worked well before. We read later in Genesis 20 that Sarai was actually related to Abram. And so it wasn’t a complete lie. Also, the two of them did this charade in other towns, and it worked. You can see this in Genesis 20:13. This brother-sister lie was their go-to plan.
And so, maybe Abram’s plan that had worked then and was working now. I mean, he was never actually going to give away his wife. In ancient times, you tried to butter up to the future father-in-law, giving him gifts for his daughter. And if the father was gone, the older brother would protect his sister. And, thus, people would butter up the brother. So, here, Abram can live in the same house as his wife; he can tell all the interested suitors that he’ll consider their offers but never give her away. A great plan.
But, oops, he didn’t account for something. The famine leads to Egypt, which leads to Egyptians, which leads to the princes of Pharaoh, which leads to Pharaoh. You don’t stiff-arm Pharaoh. Abram can’t protect her anymore. He’s plunged his wife underwater into the arms of another man to keep himself from drowning. This passage cuts deep because it cuts at the heart of what it means to be a godly man.
Listen to what Proverbs 20:17 says, “Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.” Again, “Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.”
You can imagine a modern man standing in his beautiful front yard, looking at his four-car garage, shaking his head. “I got a garage full of toys,” he says, “but my wife hates me, my children despise me, and I have no friends, no church, no religion, no God, no joy, no salvation.”
The last verse of the Harry Chapin song goes like this,
I’ve long since retired, my son’s moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, I’d like to see you if you don’t mind
He said, I’d love to, dad, if I can find the time
You see, my new job’s a hassle, and the kids have the flu
But it’s sure nice talking to you, dad
It’s been sure nice talking to you
And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me
He’d grown up just like me
My boy was just like me
Fear causes deception to ricochet through the pages of the book of Genesis.
· Three times we read of a husband telling his wife to pretend to be his sister. Two times it was Abram, and once it was Abram’s son Isaac (Gen. 12; 20; 26).
· Rebekah and Jacob deceives Isaac into blessing Jacob instead of Esau (Gen. 27).
· Laban deceives Jacob about marrying Leah before Rachel (Gen. 29).
· Rachel deceives Laban (Gen. 31).
· Simeon and Levi deceive the men of Shechem (Gen. 34).
· Jacob’s eleven sons deceive Jacob about the death of his favorite son Joseph (Gen. 37). (See Andrew E. Steinmann, Genesis, 153.)
Certainly, Abram raises children who love the Lord. They really, really do. He leaves a legacy of faith in the Lord. But he also doesn’t. Could Abram have looked into the future, he might have said, “My boy was just like me.” Just as inevitable as the plan was to fix things, so now it’s just as inevitable his plan will end badly. What will happen to Sarai? What will happen to him? I mean, many years later, a king named David kills a husband to take a wife. Will this Egyptian king now kill Abram? Who could possibly prevent Abram’s death? Abram can’t. Maybe you’re drowning in problems too deep, and you wonder if it will all end badly.
The plagues upon the plan, vv. 17–20
Thankfully, God intervenes for Abram—and for Sarai. This spiral of fear and human planning that led to more fear and more human planning, even scheming, which led to more fear, got interrupted by God. While Abram was still powerless against Pharaoh, while he didn’t know what to do or how to make it right, God demonstrated his love.
God sends plagues upon Pharaoh. Look with me at vv. 17–20. Like many details in this passage, it would have sounded remarkably similar to the recent experience of the first audience, those who had also just had an exodus from Egypt.
17 But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.
How did Pharaoh figure it out? We presume he talked with Sarai. Perhaps the plagues afflicted him and the rest of his house in the sensitive areas of their sin. And so that helped him figure it out. Or perhaps, Sarai was not afflicted with the plagues; perhaps she didn’t have some visible affliction like boils—and so that helped Pharaoh figure it out. We don’t know. But we know Pharaoh rebukes Abram when he does figure it out.
In some ways, we might say that the moral voice of God in this passage is on the lips of Pharaoh. That’s strange, isn’t it? To have the secular world rebuking believers for their sin. This same thing has happened all too often in the last decade with all the reports of abuse in churches.
But don’t miss the important thing. Don’t miss that God spares Abram’s life. Fear made Abram do erratic things. But it wasn’t Abram’s plan and efforts that broke the unbreakable chain. God broke the unbreakable chain. And when they leave Egypt, they leave Egypt together as husband and wife. After all that they went through, for better and now worse and now better again, God kept their marriage alive because he can.
I do wonder what that camel ride back was like. Did two days go by in silence, and Sarai had to eventually say to Abram, “So, we gonna talk about this?” I’ll leave that to pastor David for next week. I think there are clues in the next passage about what happens.
Conclusion
Let’s move to the close. It should be clear to you now, if not before, that the Bible is not a book about heroes but instead a book about one hero, namely, God. Too often we come to church thinking every other person and every other family has it all together. It can seem like no marriages here have been rocked by adultery, no one here has ever lost their job through negligence or moral failure, no one here ever struggles with same-sex attraction, no one here has an uncle they don’t talk about, no one here ever lost a loved one to suicide, no parent here ever heard their children yell at them, I hate you.
But it’s not true.
In last week’s sermon, I said that it was the promises at the beginning of chapter 12 that were to carry Abram on in humble confidence. God told Abram that he would bless and protect him. And when Abram forgets this, he loses his way.
If you know that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and you believe he rose again, and that you have been made a child of God by faith, you also receive many promises. You don’t have to fear the same fears the world fears. Christians are not spiritual orphans. Listen to these words and promises from Jesus to you in Matthew 6.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:25–33).
When Abram forgot who he was and what God had promised him, he lost his way. When we forget God’s promises, we lose our way.
There’s an old Kevin Costner movie version of the Robinhood story. In it there is this scene where Robinhood first meets Little John, and they fight in a running stream of water. Finally, Robinhood gets the best of Little John and holds Little John sideways in the water. Little John is worried he’s drowning in the stream and flaying about and yelling for help. Robin yells back, “Do you yield? Do you yield?” Little John eventually says, “Yes,” and so Robin says, “Stand up.” Little John is at first confused, so Robinhood yells again, “Stand up.” Little John stands up, and he sees the water is only up to his waist. He won’t drown. The ground was right there all the time.
For Abram, at the end of this story, he realizes that God’s promises are right there all the time. And even when Abram wasn’t faithful, God was faithful. And that’s the message of Genesis. That’s really the good news message of the Bible. There is no fear too big a promise from God can’t conquer. We can stand in God’s love today without fear because God holds tomorrow.
Those of you who drew a picture of something that makes people afraid, you need to know that you can’t draw any fear too big for God. When the storm rages or the famine comes, we have only to be still and know that he is God (Ps. 46:10). Because he is and will forever be.
I’ll invite the music team forward so we can have a time of response through singing. Let’s pray. “Dear Heavenly Father. . .”
Sermon Discussion Questions
In v. 10 we read twice of a famine, indeed a “severe famine.” Have you ever followed God, and your life got worse? What might God have been teaching you in that season?
What sins might you be justifying as okay because the outcome isn’t so bad yet?
Egypt becomes a metaphor for the temptation to fix problems by avoiding trust in God and God’s ways. Right now, what temptations do you have to create a plan to fix your problems that avoid trusting God?
Read Matthew 6:25–34. In light of God’s love for you, in what ways do you need to “not be anxious about tomorrow”?
