Clough Manhood Series Lesson 8

Abraham: Divine Guidance – Genesis 12-16

Last week we dealt with Abraham in three aspects. We dealt with him as spiritual pioneer in the order of Noah, the second founder of the human race. Abraham was the founder of the divine viewpoint culture in history; he was undoubtedly a great spiritual pioneer. And we mentioned in connection with that that he was undoubtedly a great spiritual pioneer. And we mentioned in connection with that that these great men who are spiritual pioneers are always cast in this role and never a woman. Women are never cast in the role of spiritual pioneers of Scripture. This is not to demean the woman; it’s simply to show that it’s the man’s responsibility to take this position.

Secondly, to back up and underscore that same truth, we said that God so arranged the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant to be circumcision, to guarantee the fact that the parties to that covenant would be men and only men. And that when God made the covenant agreement it would be with a man and through the man the covenant is administered; and this therefore, the sign of circumcision argues against the equality of the man and the woman in the eyes of God’s covenant. They are not equal in His covenant; not in their value but in the covenant arrangement.

And then we looked at it from the standpoint of election. We said that the basis for a male’s true courage and his confidence is his basis and his sensation, his perception, of his own election. There are some four callings explicitly stated in Scripture; there’s the calling of creation to subdue the earth, Genesis 1:28-30, and all men have been called, even the non-Christian has been called, though he disobeys, he has been called to that calling, to subdue the earth.

A second calling given in Scripture is the call to believe on Jesus Christ, the call of the gospel. That goes out to all men. Then there’s the third, the call of sanctification, which goes out only to those who have first trusted in Christ. And finally, the fourth call, which is explicit in Scripture, is the call to the ministry of the Word and that goes only to some men with a certain spiritual gift. So we have these four callings explicitly given in Scripture. And wherever one faces these callings or touches them, that’s his election, you might say, that’s his what God wants him and that’s the platform that he has to have.

We said there are two sides of the man’s character that come out of this. There is a toughness, but then there is a lack of harshness, or what we’ll say, a tenderness. And both those qualities in the man can only exist if he has his feet standing on the covenant of God. He can have a toughness because of the sovereign decree of the covenant, and by toughness we don’t mean crudeness; by toughness we mean he is able to keep on with the job until it is finished, over against every adversity that is thrown into his path. That ability to persevere and sustain all the way to the goal, regardless of the distractions and the impediments and the attacks; that’s toughness. And that kind of toughness is available only to a man who has his feet standing on the solid ground of God’s sovereign Word. A man who does not do that can pretend he is tough and put on a show, but ultimately that’s all it is, it’s an outer show, it doesn’t mean anything. And it’s because he doesn’t have that confidence that comes, that almost inner arrogance that comes from full confidence in God’s sovereign will.

The other quality, the tenderness, comes about because all of the covenants and all the calls of God, apart from the first one, are calls issued in the voice of grace, and the man who therefore perceives that his relationship with God is built on grace, knows that there’s nothing within him that merits God’s blessing… nothing! And that if there were no grace in history he would be damned forever. And therefore, it cuts him out from looking down his long spiritual nose at someone else. No man who is truly tough in the sovereign sense of the word can avoid also being tender in the gracious sense of the word; not sentimental but tender. He is therefore, by tenderness we mean he’s sensitive to his own depravity as well as other people’s depravity.

So those two qualities are exhibited in the great men of Scripture. Since we’re studying Abraham we’re going to see this tonight, but before we do, there’s one little verse in the book of Joshua I came across recently that shows this in Joshua; Joshua 7:19, it’s the famous situation involving Achan. Achan, you remember, had sinned against the camp of Israel and had caused the defeat and death of quite a few of the great Hebrew warriors. Joshua was the general, the C.O., and finally he located Achan, and in a moment of confrontation the C.O. faces down this traitor, for that’s what he is. The word “sin” in this case means treachery; he is a traitor, he has betrayed the army. He’s betrayed the loyalty of his fellow men.

Now at this point Joshua, in verse 19, comes to him and is about to order his execution. He doesn’t give Achan the chance to sell tickets to his own execution either. “And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD God of Israel, and make confession unto Him, and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.” Now this is the voice of a guy that’s shortly going to order this guy executed, but you’ll notice how he treats him; he treats him as another creature before God. Before Joshua wields the sword of execution, or he orders the stoning of it, before he does that and issues that order he treats Achan as a fellow creature. Joshua, because of his position has to execute judgment or he would be disloyal to his own rank, and he has to carry out his own rank, but when he carries out his own rank there is also, besides the severity, a certain tenderness, “my son.” He doesn’t relish in crushing Achan into the ground. There’s a sensitivity to Achan, and that’s why he says “make confession unto Him,” in other words, I’m giving you a chance to get spiritually straightened out, Achan, now take advantage of it while you’ve got time. That’s what a tenderness is; it doesn’t compromise the toughness of Joshua but it shows the fact that he accepts Achan as another creature under God.

Now in the study of Abraham we’re going to study four incidents tonight in a certain deliberate structured pattern. What we’re looking at is Abraham’s relation… I’m still following out that feedback card that one of the men sent in, basically talking about this tension between the wife and the job. And that’s what we’re looking for as we go through text after text. There’ll be some other problems that will come in but we’ll watch some of these tonight. We’re going to study four incidents in Abraham’s life. What we’re going to be interested in is his relationship with his wife compared with his relationship with the Lord in the eyes of the covenant, a most marvelous parallel that where Abraham falls down in his relationship to the Lord he has complete trouble with his wife and in every case where he trusts the Lord his wife fills the mission completely. So this is a most interesting mechanic that operates here. And we’re going to look at in four parts.

The first one is going to show a case where Abraham’s trust in the covenant promises, by the way, let’s keep in mind there are three covenant promises, basically, to the Abrahamic Covenant: a land, a seed and a worldwide blessing. We’re going to take one of those three promises and trace it and watch how the mechanics of history control his life, and how God ordains these things to work this way. We’re going to take the one about the seed. Abraham was promised to be the father of a nation, a great nation. That was one of the things that he was responsible to believe, regardless of anything else, he was responsible to believe that. And we’re going to watch how he trusted in this promise and when he did he automatically wound up as a leader over his wife. She followed him willingly. Then we’re going to show the second incident, where Abraham doubts that very promise, he rebels, he does not apply the faith technique, he gets out of fellowship, and the result is that he not only reverses things but he endangers his wife. And he is not only endangering her but he doesn’t even realize that, in fact, that’s what he’s done, so out of it is he at this point.

In the third incident Abraham trusts in the promise and goes on loving his wife for an extended period of time; in the third incident Abraham doubts and winds up following his wife instead of leading her; follows her right down into a jam. So this is the preliminary outline of where we’re going and it shows you the mechanics that we’re going to watch, that his relationship with his family is a direct byproduct of his relationship with the Lord; if he can’t handle his family there’s something spiritually wrong and we’ll see this. All right, the first incident, Genesis 12:1. This is not to say that there weren’t arguments and discussions in the home, but it is to say that the Word of God apparently doesn’t recognize any of those arguments or discussions as significant. It just skips right over them in these periods of prosperity.

Genesis 12:1-3 outline the famous core to the Abrahamic Covenant. If you haven’t seen this before, for those of you who have never been through this part of the Scripture this is very important. These three verses form the nucleus of the Old Testament. So if you haven’t seen these you’d better pause right now and understand something. After the flood God started a new civilization through Abraham which was to be a counterculture to the world. That counterculture was to breed divine viewpoint; it was to breed a canon of Scripture; it was to breed a stock of people who would be spiritually mature, through whom Messiah could rule the world. A lot of things happened with Abraham, he’s a very significant person of history, a most significant person of history. He’s more significant in this regard than Moses.

Abraham, then, is the first Jew. He becomes a Jew, not because of a gene change in his body; he becomes a Jew because he has faith in what was then revealed of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Genesis 12:1 God orders Abraham to physically separate from his culture. The production of this counterculture was impossible apart from physical separation. “Get out of thy country, get out from thy kindred, and get out from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show you.” So there’s the separation. It had to happen. By the way, that shows you the influence of society on individuals. Even God’s chosen individual at one point in history had to remove himself from the group because the group was pulling him down, and that’s why it comes time when Christians sometimes have to physically separate from degenerate groups, simply because they are degenerate. It’s not that you look down on them, but you look at them as though they’ve got disease and you don’t want to catch it, that’s the point. So Abraham is put into quarantine, you might say.

In Genesis 12:2 God goes on to promise, “I will make of thee a great nation, I will bless thee, I will make thy name” or reputation, “great; and thou shalt be a blessing.” Now there’s the promise of the seed; verse 1 is the promise of the land, the real estate promise. We would translate that as also an economic promise; it’s a promise of a business base for production, capital assets. You might say go to the place where there capital is that I will show you, that you can use. Then the second thing is I will give you a family, the “blessing” of the seed.

And third, [3] “I will bless them that bless thee,” the worldwide blessing, and a protection clause in the third person singular. You notice, “I will bless them,” plural, “that bless thee,” plural, it shows God’s attitude, He doesn’t enjoy curing people. He loves to bless people, and so the blessing is in the plural but I must “curse him,” singular,” who curses thee.” Now that’s the guardian clause of the Jew in history. Hitler tried to violate verse 3 by walling off Jews in Germany and herding them into one place. It’s very significant that the capital city of Germany is divided. Spain tried the same thing. After Jews put up the money to discover this continent, after Jews discovered the continent on Columbus’ crew, Hebrews Christians, by the way, who did that, in fact, there’s even scholarly suggestions that Columbus himself was a Hebrew Christian, after this was done the Spaniards became anti-Semitic, and within only a few short years the great Spanish Armada was at the bottom of the English Channel. So the prognosis for nations that go anti-Semitic is not too bright, and here’s the reason. “I will curse him who curses thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

Now this limits, then, spiritual blessing after Abraham in history… after Abraham, the fact that the world will have mediated to it God’s Word and all grace through Israel. And that’s still happening; the book you are holding in your lap was written by Jews; never forget that. The Lord Jesus Christ was a Jew; all the apostles were Jews. Maybe one writer in the Bible was not a Jew, in the later books, and that’s Luke, and possibly in the earlier books Job. But mostly it’s a Jewish book fulfilling this covenant.

Now Abraham departs, in Genesis 12:4, he “departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him,” we won’t go into the Haran problem in verse 4, “Abraham was seventy-five,” by the way that makes his wife sixty-five, “when he departed out of Haran. [5] And Abram took Sarai,” in all four of these incidents Sarah is not called Sarah, which means princess, she’s called Sarai, and this is a problematic stem, something that means contention but it’s a definite… the Hebrew is definitely indicating a change in this woman’s character as time goes on. But notice what the requirement is. In verse 1, for sixty-five years Sarah lived in her own neighborhood; she grew up in Ur, she had a culture, she was used to the surroundings. Abraham says woman, you’re coming with me, and not only does Abraham have to make the break, he has to make the break for his wife. And there’s not a shred of evidence in the text that indicates Sarai gave him a hard time about it. Sarai followed Abraham.

Now why did his wife respond to him? You know, people say what was Abraham’s secret? Did he have a long leash? What did he do? It’s very simple, in the context he had a revelation from God and Sarah sensed it. Sarah had confidence in her man because her man had confidence in the Word. It’s that simple. And women can intuit that about men, and they can sense when the guy’s just crawling all over the place, he never can settle down, he doesn’t have any plans, he can’t plan or if he does plan he never carries them through, he’s up today, down tomorrow. That doesn’t inspire any woman to follow you anywhere and Sarai is the kind of woman who does at this point because she senses God is in this thing. See, the woman is ultimately not trusting the husband, the woman is ultimately trusting the Lord; she’s made to do that, as a human being made in God’s image. But if she can’t sense the fact that her husband is in the chain of command there’s going to be some bucking against authority. That’s not to excuse every rebellion against authority in the home but it’s to show a very definite principle, that a lot of women won’t follow their husbands, and can’t in good faith, because their husband never conveys a sense that he’s tuned in to the right frequency; if he’s an idiot you can’t expect her to follow him all over the place.

But notice what Abraham did. Of course he’s known as Abram here; [Genesis 12:5] “Abram took Sarai, [his wife], and Lot, his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered,” and by the way, Abraham wasn’t some poor rinky-dink hobo on a camel. Abraham was an upper middle class businessman who had marvelous assets. Most of his money, most of his holdings were in stock, cattle, he was a rancher. And this meant that wherever he went he had to move his whole land, which meant he had to look for ranch land; he had to protect his flocks. There’s a massive logistic problem, talk about the Jews coming… Moses bringing the Jews out of Egypt, what about Abraham bringing all of his flock out of Ur. There was a tremendous logistics problem, you can imagine, every time they moved, the logistics going on, where’s the next water place, is the water good there, do we have enough pasture between point A and point B. And then Sarah has to pack up the kitchen stuff once again, and carry that on, and all the rest of it. Don’t you think there was some discussion going on.

But look, it goes on; in verse 6, “Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.” So that’s the first place they come to; this is a long, long pilgrimage. And the story of these particular verses is the story of Sarai following; here’s the eastern end of the Mediterranean; the Persian Gulf comes in like this, Ur is here. Haran is up here, and so first they travel up here. So this woman has to tolerate her home sweet home torn up by a move up to Haran; then she just gets settled in Haran and he decides okay Hon, we’re moving down here and so pack up everything and move to Shechem, meanwhile, camels, camel, sheep and everything else under the sun going with them.

Then in verse 7, “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said,” and there’s the confirmation which shows you… you see, all during this process of stopping and moving and stopping and moving, this would normally drive a woman crazy because it would normally convey rootlessness. And theologically there is a certain rootlessness here, in the good sense of the word, he’s not rooting himself into the world system. But women tend to have a nesting instinct, they don’t like this movement thing, hopping all over the place. All right, the fact that Sarai goes along with it is the fact that she perceives that underneath the transitory movement her man stands on God’s solid ground, and here, right in the middle of all this motion, and it doesn’t stop in verse 6, in verse 7 there is the added revelation, “Unto thy seed will I give this land,” so Abraham, being confident that this finally is the area of the real estate in general, and apparently Sarai senses this. Abraham “built an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto Him.”

And then in verse 8 what does he start doing again? “And he removed from there unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent,” so he packs up again, moves from Shechem down to Bethel, another move; “and there he built another altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.” Then in verse 9 what is he doing? “And Abraham journeyed,” and he went “toward the Negev,” or toward the south. So they had to break camp once again and go about 75 or 80 more miles down this area, the Negev.

Now all during these nine verses Sarai apparently isn’t bucking the system, and the reason we can infer that is when she does the Holy Spirit usually brings this out in the text. So the fact that she willingly follows Abraham in a situation designed to frustrate any normal housewife is proof that the reason that he can lead his wife is that he has a firm grasp of the Word. He knows his calling and his wife follows through the frustration of a series of moves because she’s confident of her husband’s calling. His confidence becomes her confidence. Now that’s the first incident, Abraham is trusting and Sarai is following; he’s leading her.

Now the next incident, Genesis 12:10-20. Abraham doubts and drops the use of the faith technique and watch what happens. Let’s first look at it and read through the text with me, survey the text and just observe it, then we’ll come back and comment. “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. [11] 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 you are a beautiful woman to look upon; [12] Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see you, they will say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save you alive. [13] Say, I pray thee, that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake; and my soul shall live because of you. [14] And it came to pass that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very beautiful.” Now at this time she’s seventy years old, so if you can figure out what Sarah used in her makeup, you’ve got it made. [15] “The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. [16] And he treated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she-asses, and camel. [17] But the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. [18] And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that 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 I might have taken her to me as my wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way. [20] And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.”

Now this is the second incident. Let’s look at some of the lessons in this incident. First of all in verse 10. We don’t know why, whether it was good or bad that they went down to Egypt for the famine. The Genesis text at times is hard to interpret because the commentator doesn’t make explicit judgments; he kind of just paints his picture and you kind of have to infer the judgment. And right now I don’t think we have to decide whether it was God’s will that he went down to Egypt; that’s not the point. The point was he made the decision to go there. Also the point is, and watch this, men, because in verse 10 do you notice what it is that precipitates him to get out of fellowship? Famine in the land; what’s Abraham’s job? Rancher. Where is Abraham getting hit? Exactly where Genesis 3 says the guy gets hit—on the job. Where is the curse expressed in Genesis 3 most for the man? “In the sweat of your brow” you try to subdue the earth. And so what Genesis 3 is trying to tell us in loud and clear terms is that 90% of satanic attack will come to you through your job.

So here Abraham gets hit and he gets clobbered right in the area of his job. And he doesn’t respond, something happens to him and spiritually he snaps out right here. We don’t know why but he comes up with this idiot scheme in verses 11-13 involving Sarai. Now what is wrong with this? Well, for one thing, this particular incident puts him in a position where his wife is sustaining him and the roles are reversed. Notice what he says in verse 13, “that it may be well with me” because of you. Now that’s exactly the reverse of the way it should be. And sure enough, no sooner does he start to doubt but now he uses his wife to support him. He is seeking a solution and he grabs one. It’s the wrong solution.

But there’s something more grievous than that involved, and that is they Egyptians; notice the problem. In verse 13 he says tell them that you are my sister, “that it may be well” for me, “ and my soul shall live,” notice in verse 13 there’s not any shred of concern… what about Sarai? She gets locked up in Pharaoh’s harem; he isn’t concerned about that point. He’s only concerned about what’s good for me.

Now this is one reason why I always kind of cringe when two college students come to me and say we’re going to get married and we want you to marry us, so therefore would you set up counseling and so on. The reason it makes me cringe is that over the years I’ve noticed something. And of course with the fellows that know the Word this doesn’t happen, but there have been cases here at Lubbock Bible Church where they happily get married and trip down the aisle, and about four months later it turns out that the girl is the one that’s making all the money, and she drops out of college because they can’t make it economically, and then finally she winds up supporting, which might be fine for a temporary agreement so that he can get his degree and so forth. But then when he gets his degree I notice a strange thing happens; he doesn’t reciprocate and go back to work so she can her degree. Somehow it just goes right down the drain. Well, these kinds of little things I just notice and I notice a lot of irresponsible guys in this area. And they’re acting like Abraham, living off their wife. No honorable man wants to do this; sometimes because of the exigency of the moment you have to, maybe because of a particular situation you have to. Fine, but let it not become the norm and the standard, that’s what the Word of God is talking about. And usually these marriages don’t last and they’re divorced by the time they’re 23 or 24, just as soon as they get out of the system and the girl recognizes what kind of a deal she got into she bails out, and I can’t say I blame her but unfortunately you’ve got a nasty case of a marriage that was never grounded right in the Word of God and it got all screwed up because roles got reversed. This is the same thing and here’s what’s happening.

“…that it may be well for thy sake,” Sarai supports Abraham. No woman was ever designed by God to have the responsibility to support the family. I think some of the unsung heroes in our society are women who have to raise their children all by themselves because their husbands walked off and left them or because of a divorce situation or death situation or something, and how those women raise those children I do not know because I know what it takes to slam a kid against the wall every five minutes to make him obey something and get his attention. And for a woman this is hard and sometimes women can’t survive this thing, they turn into a half-man and they get very masculine about it because there’s a certain harshness that creeps into their soul because they have to be; that’s the only way they can fend for their own family. And it warps the woman’s soul to have to handle that kind of responsibility. I’ve seen guys marry girls and then first thing you know, after two or three months of marriage they’re out on town with the boys all week. Now I don’t know what they were doing during their teenage years but that was the time to have fun with the boys all week; not after you’re married. If you’ve got some problems at home you just stay home and solve your problems there. You ought to want to be at home anyway. So we have that little thing, oh, I want to go out and raise some hell tonight, keep her at home so she can take care of the kitchen and clean up the dishes and so on, carry out the maid functions and I’ll have… you know, you can fill in the rest.

So there’s irresponsibility and Sarai is being placed in a position where she has to bear the entire responsibility. This is not just Abraham’s safety; with Abraham are all his servants. Notice the list in verse 16; Sarai is acting as the chairman of a corporation. She’s not just asked to be the envoy to Pharaoh for Abraham’s sake; she is being asked to represent a ranching corporation. All of that falls on the woman’s shoulders besides the personal safety of her husband.

Well then there’s even more to it than that. God said in Genesis 12:2 that I will promise that I will give you a seed. Now we said that in all these incidents it involves something to do with the Abrahamic Covenant. In the first instance, from verses 1-9 we have Abraham trusting in God’s promises; the result is that his wife follows him. She probably doesn’t like it but at least she’s got a basic confidence, you know, she probably blows off steam and smoke all over the place once in a while, but she’s got a basic confidence that her man knows what he’s doing and it’s better than anything else going on so I’ll go with it. So she generally goes with the system.

But now, beginning in Genesis 12:10 Abraham blows it on trusting God’s calling, because remember verse 3; verse 3 said I will “curse him that curses thee,” there was the clear promise Abraham could do; he could have gone down to Egypt, got his assets, solved the problem where he was getting hit on the job, and roll right on. But no, because he refused to apply the faith technique to Genesis 12:3, that was his promise, he failed to claim that promise, it put him out of fellowship, he gets his wife in this situation where she’s not supposed to be and moreover, what he almost does is blow the whole covenant right out of the tub, because if Sarai gets hauled into Pharaoh’s harem, who will be the mother of the seed? See, God ordained Sarai to be the mother of Isaac, and if she goes into the Egyptian harem that’s it right there. So Abraham is not only endangering his wife, he happens to be endangering the whole plan of God. How does he expose his wife to this kind of danger? He exposes her because of his refusal to apply the promises; simple faith technique. And when he is not squared away his wife suffers.

Now Genesis 12:16-17, that is grace. It’s a neat thing about God; when God has a sovereign plan to it it’s going to come to pass and He is so tremendously gracious. Now Abraham doesn’t deserve it, but God is going to get him out of Egypt and every penny of his assets and his ranching business is going to be saved. That’s what that list is all about in verses 15-17. God undertakes and that’s why in verse 17, “And the LORD plagued Pharaoh,” in other words, Abraham, he is out of it at this point, he doesn’t even realize the significance of his mistake. Abraham doesn’t think about his calling and how he’s ruining it by this kind of action. So what does he do? Nothing. What does God do? Everything. God gets him out of a jam; the initiative starts in verse 17 with the Lord, that’s grace.

Now he probably doesn’t think it’s grace; I would imagine that when Abraham got the news that hey, Pharaoh wants to see you, you’d better show up tomorrow, 9:00 o’clock, you’ve got an appointment, and it was probably delivered to him by a group of soldiers. And I’m sure he didn’t think that was grace. But now looking at the big picture, yes it was grace because as it comes out in verse 20, everything, notice how the text repeats the list or at least the nouns [can’t understand word] everything from verse 16, verse 16 gives you the list of his assets and then in verse 20, “Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, his wife, and all” his possessions. So the Holy Spirit writing the text this way is showing us something; that where Abraham refuses to use the faith technique God is gracious anyway. He gets him out of the situation; Abraham refused to use the faith technique, he endangers his wife. He refuses to use the faith technique and he winds up following her ultimately; he’s lost his leadership in verse 13; if that isn’t an expression of a loss of leadership I don’t know what is. But that sure is.

So that’s the second incident in Abraham’s life; that’s the down moment, and every is going to have this problem; you’re going to get out of fellowship, everybody’s got a sin nature, it’s going to happen. Well, here’s a picture of a guy that it happens to that the Lord graciously restores.

Let’s go to the third incident, Genesis 15; in the fifth period that we’re studying we’re back to the Abrahamic promise, back to the same old one of the three promises which is the seed, and here Abraham trusts, and I’ll show you how he trusts; he is trusting and everything is going along fine. Genesis 15:1-6, “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, thy exceedingly great reward.” You notice what is different about verse 1 than Genesis 12:1; see, it’s a repeat of the Abrahamic Covenant basically, so in its core central content it shouldn’t be that different from Genesis 12:1-3. But there’s some added things in this repetition. And in verse 1 what does God add to it? He emphasizes the truth that He before stated in Genesis 12:3, because He knows on Abraham’s part it’s just a general weakness in this guy; the guy has a problem trying to trust that God is his defendant. So the next time that God comes to Abraham to clarify the terms of the covenant He begins by saying, “Abram, I am thy shield, I am thy exceedingly great reward.” He said I demonstrated it, I got you out of Egypt, didn’t I? so next time if you’re going to make a mistake, make a new kind of mistake, not making the same thing again.

Genesis 15:2, so “Abram said, Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless and the steward of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Now Abram’s thinking here. He’s thinking in terms of inheritance. Now he’s taking God literally that God is going to give him a seed, which means his business. Let’s get this right down to the material dollars and cents and then we can get our theology after that. So let’s get down to the physical basis of it all; he’s talking about conserving his assets. If God is going to give him a seed the child is going to inherit his property; the male child. But what his concern was, I build up this great ranching business and who do I give it to? Some foreigner, a guy from Damascus; he might be a great friend but he’s not of my tribe. So [3] “Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and lo, one born in my house is mine heir.” Keep this in mind because right now Abraham is getting straightened out and he believes it; later on he doesn’t believe this.

Genesis 15:4, “behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels [loins] shall be thine heir. [5] And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and count the stars; if you be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be.” Verse 6 is a famous verse requoted in the book of Romans for justification by faith: “And he believed the LORD and the LORD counted it to him for righteousness.” There’s the word impute, there’s the word justify, and that shows you that Abraham was a saved man while all this was going on. It doesn’t indicate that he necessarily believed the Lord for the first time in verse 6; verse 6 is a descriptive title that, in fact, is identifying Abraham as a justified believer.

All right, so Abraham believed; he is justified, he has God’s righteousness credited to him; he is acceptable with God. But God this time in talking to Abraham has done two things. He’s dealt with one problem this guy has in verse 1, “I am thy shield,” but now He clarified something in verse 4; the child is going to come from you and from Sarai. Now that verse is the basis of the two comments in the New Testament on the marital relationship of Sarai and Abraham. So turn back to Romans 4:13, we started here the other night but it’s this period of their life that these verses comment on. This is the up period of Abraham’s life, when he’s successful. It’s a twenty-five year period in their lives. For twenty-five years this couple goes childless.

In Romans 4:18-19 is the New Testament commentary on Abraham’s faith. “Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations…. [20] And being not weak in faith, he considered,” as we exegeted this a previous night, “he considered his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, and he considered the deadness of Sarah’s womb.” However, [21] “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, [21] And being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform.” Now we read that and it’s a very fine verse, verses 20-21, about a promise and it’s good, nice theological truth. But you know what in practice is going on? It’s talking about sex. The whole basis of that, that he and Sarai continue to have sexual relations hoping that she gets pregnant for 25 years. How’s that for a little devotional tucked into Romans 4. The sign of faith technique was sexual intercourse. And this is what that whole things talking about.

Let’s go to Hebrews 11, same comment. See, the New Testament takes that you know something for granted and doesn’t comment on all the details. Hebrews 11:11-12, rid of all the piety that’s the business of verses 11-12. “Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to found [conceive] a seed,” now I commented before that the literal Greek translation of this passage is “Through faith with Sarah; now you can put it together, and see why the preposition “with” is there. It takes two, and that’s what it’s all about, “with Sarah herself he received strength to lay” or “found a seed, [and was delivered of a child when] she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. [13] Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead,” and so on, it goes on to describe it.

But that’s why these New Testament references are there; that is referring to the 25 year period centering on Genesis 15. And during that time there was a time of blessing in that marriage; a time of frustration, yes, but Abraham was trusting and Sarah was responding. And finally she became pregnant… 25 years, finally! But before that final period when she became pregnant there was a lapse.

And now we come to the fourth incident we study tonight. We studied a trust incident, we studied a doubt incident. Now we study the trust incident and we’re going to study another doubt incident. The doubt incident is Genesis 16. Keep in mind the creation role, keep in mind what we’re looking at, watch the husband and wife and watch their relationship, and watch how it shifts, depending on who’s in fellowship. Genesis 16, it starts out, problem in verse 1. We said the other problem started with Abraham’s job; we said Genesis 3 clearly says the effect of the curse on the male, it hits the guy right on his job. Now this problem, watch how it develops.

Genesis 16:1, “And Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children: and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. [2] And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. [3] And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband, Abram, to be his wife. [4] And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived, and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.”

Now it doesn’t require too much perception to notice who is the prime actor in verses 1-4? The prime actor is Sarai, not Abram. Notice, in verse 1, the subject, “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children;” Sarai “had a handmaid.” [2] “Sarai said to Abram,” and verse 3, “Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar.” See, Sarah is the prime actor. Now this is where she gets bent out of shape in the marriage relationship and what area does she get bent out of shape in but the area of childbearing and childrearing. And what did Genesis 3 say that most women are going to get hit with first? In the area of childrearing and childbearing. And so it follows through, the text is consistent. Genesis 3 is not just there, tuned to the front of the Scriptures to act as a nice introductory taste of the rest of the text; it tells us the skeletal outline of the rest of Scripture. And we see sure enough, just like Genesis 3 tells us, here it comes.

So the problem is it starts on Sarah’s side; Sarah gets out of it first, just gets totally frustrated with the whole thing. So she comes to her husband in verse 2 with a proposal. Now this is interesting because remember earlier we studied the woman as the helper, as the counselor, and I made a point about how David met Abigail on the road, and Abigail gave David some counsel. And I said at that time that certain men, because they get burned several times because some woman gave them the wrong advice and then they turn all women down, no woman from that point can tell them anything. A woman tells them it’s clear outside they’ll take an umbrella. So that’s that hardness that develops because the guy didn’t know how to handle himself in the first place.

The Scriptures say that women can give men advice; that’s one of their jobs. But what did we say? The advice that gives the man cannot automatically take but he must subject her advice to the canon of Scripture. Now in Abraham’s day what was the canon of Scripture? Three promises. What was one of the promises? One of the promises was just given in Genesis 15, wasn’t it: “Out of thine own bowels you will have a child.” Now nothing could be clearer than that; that was the promise. So what happens in verse 2, Sarai comes, she starts giving advice to Abram, and Abram falls for it hook, line and sinker, it never dawns on his mind to subject his wife’s plan to the test of is it Scriptural or not; it’s a good idea, maybe, but at least we test it with Scripture. You can say well, certainly Abraham ought to know that that’s kind of adultery, isn’t it? Well, in that day it wasn’t considered adultery. In that day it was a perfectly legal thing to raise up seed by… it’s like Levirite marriage in the Mosaic Law. So morally speaking it was not obvious to Abram, but on other grounds it should have been obvious and the grounds should have been the promise of Genesis 12:2 and the other grounds should have been the promise of Genesis 15:1-6. He had that Scripture available to him but he didn’t use it.

And now notice the way the text phrases the action. Sarah becomes the one’s who’s frustrated in verse 1; she triggers off a human viewpoint plan. She comes up to Abram and what is the last comment of verse 2, “Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.” In other words, his leadership is shot; he just kind of followed, whatever Sarah wants… you know, come on baby, beg for a biscuit. And so he stands up and begs for a biscuit; whatever she wants she gets because her husband just lost spiritual leadership. Before he showed his lack of faith in bringing his wife into danger; now he shows his lack of spiritual leadership by letting her walk all over him. And the result is, interestingly in verse 3, the Chinese symbol for trouble is two women under the same roof, and here it works.

[4] “He went into unto Hagar, she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.” In other words, she begins to replace Sarai. So this is Sarai’s great brilliant plan, to kind of get on with God’s goal; to get on with it all right, she just bounced herself right out of the stadium and now the one player that’s playing is Hagar and she doesn’t like it because Sarai’s been benched. Now that really was a great accomplishment and now in verse 5 Sarai comes up to Abram, now you get me out of a jam. But notice what happens, still look what happens in this chapter. Sarah said to Abram, my wrong is your fault, “I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee.” Now she’s really hacked off here and she’s all blaming it on Abram. Well, in a way she’s got a right to, in that Abram should have cut her off before, but in a way she’s got no one to blame but herself.

And so we read in Genesis 16:6, “But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleases thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.” Now you see, in verse 6 Abram doesn’t even lead in the solution to the problem. He drops it in verse 2 and 3, and never picks it up there when the problem first arises. Then the problem escalates and he’s got a full scale female war going on in the kitchen, and he doesn’t even solve that problem. He lets them go out there and fight it out. Here babe, two boxing gloves for you and two for you. Now I’m going to sit here and I’ll sell tickets and watch. That’s how Abraham solved the problem, but it’s obviously not a leadership situation.

And finally in Genesis 16:7-16 we have the Lord coming in, by the way, this is the first Christophany recorded in Scripture; it’s to a woman. Hagar is met by Jesus Christ, who is the angel of the Lord in verse 7, He “found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness…. [8] And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, from where camest thou? And where do you flee? I flee from the face of my mistress…. [9] And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands. [10] And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, [that it shall not be numbered for multitude.]” Now do you know what race has just been born? The Arabs. Now every time a Jew looks at an Arab he’s looking at his big daddy’s mistake. That’s the fallout that happened in history when a man got out of fellowship and let a woman talk him into something.

So let’s take these four instances and see if we can put them together in a pattern, and see if now, after looking at the pattern, we can come up with some lessons. Let’s organize the four instances in two groups of two. The first instance Abraham trusted; his wife willingly followed and she had a hard time. Any woman following through Genesis 12:1-9 will be in full sympathy with what Sarah had to go through. But nevertheless, she willingly followed because she sensed that her husband was trustworthy; he was trustworthy because he was in turn trusting in the Lord. There’s your chain of command working. Abraham doubts; he doubts Genesis 12:3 and immediately he endangers his wife. Immediately she becomes the mainstay of the marriage; the wife sustains the husband; the roles are reversed. She is in danger and God’s whole plan for that family is about to be in danger and about to be just blown out.

Now the third incident, he trusts, the third instance is one he’s trusting, he trusted and the result was that they had, we’ll say a good love life for 25 years. Okay. The fourth incident, he doubts, and what happened? Along come the Arabs. Now let’s look at how these problems arise and just notice something from Abraham’s perspective now. Both of these instances, both the instance where he’s trusting the promise to move from place to place and place to place, and when he doubted Genesis 12:3, were areas involving primarily his job. Notice here his job was a rancher; he was to be in a place where God wanted him to be but that was his job. When he operated trusting the Lord in his job area his wife was following and responding to it fine. When he doubted and got in a jam, again over his job situation, what happened to his wife? She suffered. Now he’d probably be the kind of person that would ask in the face of this jam, how do I get my wife to get together with my job; how can I juggle this and keep it all one? Well, you’re seeing one of the patterns right there. And it starts with the use of the faith technique consistently, on the part of the husband.

Now let’s go to the second incident. Here he’s trusting in the area particularly of the seed promise which is in the area of his marriage, and here his doubt, the doubt first of Sarai and then he goes along with her doubt, is in the area of the marriage. So we have the two polls of his relationship, the job and the wife. Both of these instances show what happens when trust is used and what happens when doubt occurs. There’s a tremendous fall out.

So let’s go back and review the three principles of divine guidance that the guy can use to simulate Abraham, because every man here does not have God hot-lining down from heaven and saying I’ve given you a land, a seed and a worldwide blessing. So we don’t have an open canon of Scripture and we can’t go around building altars everywhere God drops His message down. So what does the modern male do? He’s got to have some principle that corresponds with what Abraham was doing. And that principle is going back to the four calls and applying divine guidance in this area.

All right, we’ve got the call to subdue and for our purposes that’s all we need to have right now. That call is to subdue. Now every guy knows that that’s what he’s supposed to do. He is supposed to produce something, not just be a bum the rest of his life floating around from welfare check to some other sucker that will support him. That’s the man’s job, and no person can have a dignified self image when he’s some sort of a parasite socially. Social parasites never have good social images. Do you know why? Because they’re no good, it’s very simple. So the point here is that the man has got to find out what area does he subdue. That’s obviously the problem every fellow has and it’s a legitimate problem, so let’s review back through the same three principles of divine guidance. We’ll go over these and we’ll go over these and we’ll go over these because these are the things that we’ve got as tools in our day to use to parallel what Abraham had.

The first area, in the area of the norms and standards of creation, that is, that God has revealed certain thing, certain items in the creation; items such as the second divine institution, or third divine institution, items such as laws of economics, items such as the organization of the creation. These are norms and standards that God has revealed about His creation; wisdom principles, etc. These would be capsulized in the Genesis 1:28 mandate to subdue the earth; the Matthew 28:18 mandate which is the great commission which does not just include witnessing to every Tom, Dick and Harry you happen to run into. The great commission includes teaching all nations all things that I have commanded. Do you know what that means? From Genesis to Revelation; that’s the great commission—teaching all things that Jesus Christ has commanded; not just Acts 16:31. All right, so there is where we have approximate rough mandate.

Then to bring this principle out, besides the mandate of Genesis 1:28; Matthew 28:18 we have the mandate of Genesis 2:19 or the example of Genesis 2:19. In Genesis 2:19 is that principle of why it is sometimes a man cannot get guidance on a job decision. And when that happens, and God doesn’t seem to give any clear guidance and you just feel like you’ve got to step left, right or some place, that you’ve got decisions coming up you’ve got to make it. Genesis 2:19 is your clue, to read that and find out why that’s happening to you right at this point. And why it’s happening is because God is allowing you to choose; it’s your creative act of choice and He’s not going to tell you. He’ll give you principles, lots of principles but he is not going to stand there and tell us which way to jump. He wants to see what we’re going to do, we have a head, brain, made in the image of God, now He’s saying to us use it.

All right, that’s one approach to divine guidance, looking at the norms and the standards of Scripture about items in creation. We can look at divine guidance a second way, from the standpoint of our personal history. So let’s put it that way. This looks at the continuity principle. Now we’re not focusing so much on the second divine institution, the third divine institution, the stars, the purpose of the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, we’re not focusing on specific items; we’re just trying to focus on what is God doing with me, as a unique person right now. And the principle is found in 1 Corinthians 7:19-20, and in that section we have a passage where God says to stay in the calling wherein you are called, (comma), keeping the commandments of God. Now there’s two things there: “stay in the calling wherein you are called, keeping the commandments of God.”

Now to cite an obvious illustration, when Jim Voss was a wire-tapper for Mickey Cohen in L.A. the command says “stay in the calling wherein you are called, keeping the commandments of God. Well, when Voss went to keep the commandments of God what happened? He was forced out of his calling wherein he was called. Right? So there’s a corrective device in 1 Corinthians 7:19-20 that keeps you tracking, if you just notice it’s there. And that is if you keep the commandments of God you’ll be led out of your calling wherein you are called, if there’s a leading to be had there. Otherwise, stay in the calling you have. Some men think just because they trust the Lord and they get a little doctrine that God has called them to the ministry. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Now that’s not necessarily true. What you do is you stay wherever you are; keep the commandments of God, and as you keep the commandments of God it might turn out you’ve got a spiritual gift of teaching and as you obey the situations, you respond to situations, you obey His mandates to develop that gift, you find yourself thrown into situation after situation of teaching, people are blessed in the situation, things open up and then God leads you. But you just don’t suddenly jump overnight from being, say a stock broker over here to be a pastor; it’s not that simple. You stay in the calling wherein you are called. See, that’s a principle of stability. You don’t hop all over the kingdom here, just stay in one place, doing one thing, keeping the commandments of God.

A third way of looking at decisions on job situations and where to subdue is look at the principle of the relationship to God. Now we’re not looking at my personal history, we’re not looking at items in the creation. We’re rather, looking at my relationship with God. And 1 Corinthians 7:35 gives a good principle on this. The principle is stated in other places, but these are good verses for it. In 1 Corinthians 7:35 the principle is: take that course of action where you are free to spiritually grow to the maximum. If all else criteria doesn’t work, choose that one.

Now be careful how you apply that one; that again to a fellow might sound like well, wouldn’t it be true that I could spiritually grow in the ministry. Not necessarily. Suppose languages come difficult to you; suppose you might not have the gift of pastor-teacher; suppose you have the gift of exhortation; you try to go in the ministry, you wind up like many fundamental pastors, all you do, each Sunday service you go through the evangelistic pitch, and when you’re tired and you can’t do it you signal the organist, come on, four or five more stanzas, I haven’t got enough people lined up down here, that kind of a thing. And it’s frustrating, and you never see real growth, people don’t apply the Word and so on, and finally you just bag out of the whole thing and go sell insurance some place, or do something else. That’s not an insult to the insurance people, it’s just that a lot of ministers wind up there. So the point is that this criteria is not a mandate for every man that becomes a Christian to be pastor; it’s just saying go choose the place that is not going to be spiritually destructive.

Let’s take a modern illustration. I was interested in the remark of Mr. Colson, who’s recently become a Christian, a member of Nixon’s cabinet, and he was being interviewed and someone asked him about a particular individual who was being considered for a higher federal office, and they asked him: well, Mr. Colson, do you think it wise that so and so occupy this office of government, because he’s a Christian now. And Colson said: in my experience, the city of Washington D.C. is the hardest place to be a Christian. And he says I think it’s suicide to have any young Christian go into that place because you will be cut down, slaughtered by the press. You’re a fool to think you can survive in that kind of an environment. So obviously, if a guy’s a new Christian and he has political ability, that’s not the place to go to right away; maybe later but not right away it isn’t because he cannot spiritually grow there. It’d be better for him, maybe, to take an office out on the side some place, near a strong group of Christians where he could get grounded in the Word of God and right at that point in his career that would be the thing to do, because you would cause long term spiritual growth, then he could become the great leader that maybe the country needs later on.

So these are the three ways and these are the three techniques that we have on divine guidance so the guy can mimic Abraham. And when a person, when a fellow decides this he has some basic idea of the outline of God, not everything. Abraham didn’t have it all laid out in a road map, but he had some general idea and he stuck with the program, and it all fell together. And the result was that he went on and became a great believer; not without his ups and downs but he became a great believer.

When Abraham trusted he had no problem with his wife and his job. When Abraham doubted all hell broke loose. So that is saying something to Christian men about spiritual dynamics of history. It’s not saying that the guy is the source of all the problems. That’s not anything in the text; the text is just as hard on Sarah here as it is on Abraham. But you see, with position of privilege comes responsibility. The male has a privilege; Abraham was a party to the covenant. Remember, the covenant was with circumcised males. And therefore that gave them a privilege, but the privilege also involved them with a horrible responsibility, that if they failed to trust every thing else just fell out of place. The key was the male spiritual leader.