Abraham's First Test: Famine, Fear, and Failure

I praise the Lord, everybody. Very good Wednesday evening to you. Let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 12 and we'll begin with verse 10 and go through to verse 20 and then the first several verses of chapter 13. I'm just gonna read these 10 through 20 for right now and then we'll go back through each of these verses and proceed verse by verse. Okay, so where we've been, we have been of course through creation, we've been through the fall, we've been through the story of Canaan Abel, the story of the flood, the story of the Tower of Babel and then the call of Abraham in our last session which has been I think more than a month since we were able to meet on a Wednesday night Christmas Eve, yep. No, we had a funeral, then we had Christmas Eve, we had New Year's Eve, all fell on Wednesdays. So we haven't been able to pick back up until tonight but now we're

at really what is Abraham's first major test outside of the initial calling and he's going to face a famine and then he's going to enter into the land of Egypt. All right, so we're going to begin verse 10. There was a famine in the land, I'm reading from the English Standard Version. So Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there for the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarah, his wife, I know that you're a woman beautiful in appearance and when the Egyptians see you they will say, this is his wife, then they will kill me but let you live. Say you're my sister, that it may go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared for your sake. When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful and when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praise her Pharaoh and the woman was

taken into Pharaoh's house and for her sake he dealt well with Abram and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys and camels but the Lord afflicted Pharaoh in his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abram's wife. So Pharaoh called Abram and said, what is this you've done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say she's my sister so that I took her from my wife? Now then here is your wife, take her, go. And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him. They sent him away with his wife and all that he had. That is not the story I expected. As a reader reading the story as a child, I didn't expect this story at all. I was expecting that after the call of Abraham, this great and heroic man of the faith, I expected that what would follow would be great acts of faith and victory, conquering, establishing cities,

establishing a people, having children, raising them in the fear and the admonition of the Lord, learning more about God but the first story we get is failure. This is a good reminder that really the story of the Bible, the heroes of the story of the Bible, the hero isn't Abraham or David or the prophet, the story, the hero of the story is never Peter and Paul. It's God. He's the one consistent character throughout scripture. Human beings are going to fail. It's whenever it comes down to, whenever it comes down to there being a covenant and there's going to be one side who upholds the covenant, we always know what side it's going to be. Human beings are frail, even the best of us. Laying a foundation for the great nation of Israel, the call of God, laying the foundation for the people that would build a temple, create a monarchy that would ultimately usher in the Messiah, the kingdom of God upon the

earth, it begins with frail men and women. The story of scripture is very consistent on this point. We are inconsistent. Let's go through this piece by piece and the overarching theme of this Bible study going through these verses of scripture and then what we're going to see in the next chapter, I would call this Abraham's faith tested. First, there's the famine test and a famine, hunger can drive people to do things they wouldn't normally do. It's very hard to predict or really know somebody really, really well until you see what they're like when they're desperate. Desperation tends to reveal and Abraham is tested first with famine. This famine sends Abram to Egypt and throughout scripture, it's a strange thing but it keeps on reoccurring. The people of God oftentimes find refuge in Egypt for better or worse than usually for worse but it's God that sends them down there. God is going to send Abram down there first and then he's going to

send Jacob's son Joseph down there and Jacob's going to be rescued, his family's going to be saved from famine down there and then the children of Israel are going to come out of Egypt but later on in under the monarchy in the promised land even then Egypt becomes a refuge for various figures and then Jesus himself is whisked away in the middle of the night by Joseph and Mary and brought down to Egypt for their safety. This is the first instance of that in scripture. It's the first mention of refuge in Egypt. God oftentimes tests his people and Egypt ends up being the refuge. Abraham strategizes. When I read this passage of scripture, if I'm just reading it very casually, there's a little bit of humor right here. He turns to Sarah, his 65-year-old wife and says, you're a woman beautiful in appearance and then he has this whole scenario in his head. When the people of Egypt see you and then find

out that I'm your husband, I'm done for. This is it. I'm sorry. I can't help but laugh at that. It almost sounds like a hyper-jealous conspiracy theorist individual at first glance. But then again, human beings are living for longer periods of time at this particular juncture in human history. And so Sarah may only, if she's 65 and Abraham's going to live to be 120, you're around middle age right there. And indeed, she's not going to have a child for another 25 years, her first child. So you can't really look at the relative ages and it comes to pass that Abraham's not imagining things. In fact, the princes of Egypt end up hearing about this woman and the report spreads and then they go to Pharaoh. So it turns out to be the case, Abraham was exactly right. Sarah was a woman of great and famous beauty apparently. And so he schemes in advance, say you're my sister, so that it will go well

with me because of you. Interesting strategy. We're related, but we're not married. I'm your brother. Now it sounds like just a flat out lie and we don't necessarily know how this is going to help Abraham face Pharaoh and we don't know how this is going to work out to help him escape with his life. But if you read the rest of the book of Genesis, you'll see a couple of instances where a woman who's available for marriage, meaning she's a virgin, her protector is her brother. Okay, this happens with Laban and Rebecca later on. Okay, Rebecca's protector is Laban her brother and Jacob goes to, ends up having to go to Laban to get permission to marry Rebecca. And Laban puts Jacob through a series of trials, ultimately ending up with him married to the wrong sister. You recall that story. There's all kinds of deception involved in this family for some reason. It starts right here. This is the first of many

lies that this, again, very human people at the foundation, the origin of the nation of Israel, really they're representing all of the human race here. There's deception involved and curiously, it's Laban who doesn't want, for whatever reason, Jacob to marry Rachel, his daughter. Sorry, sorry, I got it backwards there. Jacob, Laban doesn't necessarily want Rebecca to be married off. So I got my stories all confused right there. But there are these stall in delay tactics that are put in place in order to prevent the marriage. And then you're going to find out in Genesis 34, an even darker story in which Dina is, she's taken and she's raped. And the brothers of Dina, who are the sons of Israel seek revenge and they end up having these people, the Shechemites, all circumcised. They agree. They say, okay, you can marry our sister. You can take our sister. You already raped her. You can have her and marry her, but you have to do

one thing first. You have to get circumcised. And so they all got circumcised in the village. Big mistake. Because that made them, that put them up for a couple of days. And then the tribes of Israel, the brothers of Israel, descended upon the Shechemites and killed them all for raping their sister. But it was the brothers who were the wards of the sister. So you see those two instances in Genesis where the brother is the protector and they use delay tactics in order to stall off a marriage they don't want. So it seems that this is actually the first instance of that with Abraham. Abraham wants Sarah to say, that's my brother, so that he's in a position to be able to forestall a marriage that he doesn't want to have happen. With Pharaoh. All right. So it is, it's deception, but you can see the logic in the deception is, I'm now not the husband who's to be eliminated. I'm the brother

that has to be negotiated with. You see? All right. And that's what Abraham is thinking. And it's apparently not successful. Because Pharaoh says, okay, I don't know what your terms are, but I want to make you rich. And you make some rich. Cattle, silver, gold, servants, camels. And he takes the wife. No real back and forth negotiation apparently. Pharaoh's not used to negotiating. He just makes him wealthy and says, it's good. And he takes Sarah to be his wife. Don't know how far that arrangement went. But we do know this. The Lord was extremely angry and sent to plague. This, this is the first time we're going to find out about Pharaoh having to deal with plagues from the Lord. It's going to come up later. You see the story that's happening right here? You know what's happening? It keeps on happening over and over and over again. When you read one of these stories, you're reading a kind of an echo or

foreshadowing of every story that will be told afterwards. All right. Nevertheless, Abraham's or Abrams deception recreates not just or foreshadows stories of the future, but it recreates some of the sins of the past. I tried to emphasize when we are reading the text, verse 14 and 15, a couple of phrases. If you if you if you hear the echo of something from previous Bible studies, nod your head or say amen or something. Here we go. When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. Or very good. And when the princess of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. You've heard that before those phrases, haven't you? Remember, this is this is the Garden of Eden. The woman saw that the fruit was very good to eat. And she took it. All right. The sons of God, Genesis chapter six, saw that the women, the daughters of men, were very beautiful

and they took them. And then kind of a twist on that story. Ham saw his the nakedness of his father, Noah. And then you have to skip over that to what the older two brothers do. They take a garment and walk backwards to cover their naked father with. But that combination of saw and took keeps on recurring in all of these stories. And here it happens again. The the princess of Egypt saw that she was very good and they took her. All right. And then that's not the end of it. Remember, what does Pharaoh say to Abram when he gets hit with the plague? He says, what have you done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife? Well, where have you heard these kinds of questions before after a sin here in the early stages of human history? Remember the Garden of Eden? What have you done? Who told you you were naked? God says to Adam and

Eve. And then when Cain kills Abel, what have you done? Where's your brother? I can hear his blood crying out from the ground. All right. And so you get here, the Pharaoh saying, what have you done? Why have you done this to me? Why did you deceive me like this? And then also at the end of the story, at the end of this particular episode, Pharaoh says to Abraham, go, take her away, go, leave. And this is an echo also at the end of each of these stories that I have reiterated from the first 11 chapters of Genesis. God sends Adam and Eve out of the garden and Cain is sent, go out and he's driven into the eastern lands. And in this case, Abram is sent out of Egypt. Go, leave. All right. So for whatever reason, the author of Genesis has decided to take elements from those early stories. And he also uses them here again, because history repeats itself. Okay,

we're not punished for the sins of our fathers, but our father's sins tend to get replicated throughout the generations. And really, this is one of the great overarching stories of this particular chapter and the chapter to come. If you're going to be the founder of a great nation, if you're going to start a great family in which all the world will be blessed, there are going to have to be an end. It's put an end to some of these family problems. If you've come from a difficult place, if you've come from a difficult family situation, God's grace is with you and God's mercy is with you and he's brought you and given you a chance to start over again. Don't let those old sins creep upon you. If you let yourself go, if you get lukewarm in your walk with God, old sins are going to come creeping upon you and you're going to start repeating some of the mistakes of your past

and especially of your family's past. For whatever reason, we have these proclivities that are passed down from generation to generation and we need to stay close to the altar, stay on fire for the Lord, constantly in a state of prayer and watchfulness. Take heed lest you fall. Those old sins can come back, but the altar can keep them away. We're going to build a great nation. You can start all over. I've been in this for a really, really long time, 49 years and I've come across so many great stories. Individuals who've come from terrible situations and you would never know it. You would never know. I mean, I'm looking out in this congregation right now and I see sister music and I'm thinking of brother music. You would never know from brother music's life. The kind of family that came from. Never know. I can just keep on listening. It's amazing what God will do. All right. Let's keep going. I said that

this is a foreshadowing of later stories. This story of Abraham in Egypt. All right, so let's look at again at some later stories. Abraham, like Jacob, goes down to Egypt to escape famine. Okay, so that's a later story that's going to come up. Abraham, like the children of Israel, leaving Egypt loaded with Egyptian riches, leaves Egypt rich. Also, Abraham's, listen to this one carefully. What did Abraham say? If you go back up, look at verse 12 with me of the chapter we've just been looking at. When the Egyptians see you, Abraham says, they will say, this is his wife. Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Okay, this is a foreshadowing of what's going to happen with the children of Israel during the time of Moses. Abraham fears that he, the man, would be killed, and Sarah, the woman, would be spared, and it foreshadows a later pharaoh, also a pharaoh, killing the boys and sparing the girls. Okay,

and then, of course, I've already alluded to this one, the plague that's visited upon pharaoh because of Sarah is a foreshadowing of the 10 plagues that will be visited upon the pharaoh who enslaves the Israelites. All right, in other ways, the story, though, is unlike what comes after it. This pharaoh, when a plague comes upon him, he responds well to the plague. He obeys. He dispatches with Abraham and his wife and tries to make up for the wrong that he did. The later pharaoh is going to harden his heart each time a plague comes upon him. Also, Abraham, unlike this particular pharaoh, is not concerned about morality, apparently. He's willing to deceive in order to save his own neck. And it's the pharaoh who's the moral character in the story. Why did you do this to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife? This could have completely destroyed us and our reputation and this plague could have ravaged our

land. So it's pharaoh who's more moral than Abraham. Abraham was supposed to be, from earlier in chapter 12, what did God say? I'm going to bring you out of your land and I'm going to make you great and I'm going to cause you to become a blessing unto the nations. But look, Abraham's first encounter with the nations. There's a curse and plague. He's the opposite of a blessing to the nations. He's become a curse to this particular nation. And notice at the end of that particular episode, pharaoh's lecturing Abraham. And what does Abraham say in response? Nothing. He's just silent. That's a silent acknowledgement of the wrong that he had done. He is being chastised by a Gentile for the wrong that he had committed. The silence is an acknowledgement that the pharaoh's right. He was wrong. This episode shows us that Abraham had faith to follow God, but he was immature, still and susceptible to fear and temptation. Famine scarcity drove him

into the arms of Egypt and along the way into a situation where he felt he had to deceive in order to spare himself. He's going to have to grow and then he's going to be tested again. Ultimately, he's going to be tested to the point of offering his son. All right. I've often seen this in play out in our lives that something like this and scripture is written for our admonition. It is profitable for reproof and correction. It's not just here to be an interesting historical fact for us to have tucked away somewhere in our mind. It's actually supposed to help inform us of what's happening behind the scenes spiritually, oftentimes in our lives. And you follow the call of God, you come out of the world, you exercise your faith, you're full of faith, you're having a revival in your heart and everything's going well and then all of a sudden, Monday hits you. It's reality. Where's that faith? Where's that fire?

What was I feeling yesterday? What was I feeling last week? Where's that all gone? I can't seem to sense any of that now. Was it just an illusion? Was it just me being carried along with waves of emotion? Where's it all now? Where's the inspiration? I need some inspiration if I'm going to do right. The scarcity. Scarcity's there and there's something happening here that can help the new Christian grow in maturity. There's a testing of your faith. You're not going to ride waves of inspiration all the way to glory. You're going to go into some great big valleys. Sometimes they happen the day after you receive the Lord. When you have to face your friends. When you have to go back to that family member. When somebody sees you acting different and they say, oh, what happened to you? Oh, I see you're all high and mighty now. And all of a sudden everything seems all that, all that inspiration that you felt

around the altar. Just kind of, it can dissipate. And you wonder where the Lord is. There's this remarkable story in the Gospel of John. Jesus heals a blind man. He's blind from birth. The disciples say, who sinned that made this young man blind? Was it, did he sin? Did his parents sin? Jesus said, well, no, neither. It was that God could be glorified. But he heals this blind man. He receives a sight. But before he can see anything, really, Jesus disappears. He disappears into the crowd. Remember, Jesus has done something here on the temple grounds and he's violated the Sabbath. He's done all kinds of things wrong, according to some of the traditions and conventions. And they're looking for Jesus, and they're trying to find some fault to lay at his feet to stop this movement and his popularity. They think if they can catch him in a trap of some kind, that he's morally defective in some way, even if it's in

the performance of a miracle and making a blind man see, then they can get their agenda moved forward a little bit further against Jesus. And so Jesus has dissipated into the crowd. And here's this blind man being surrounded now by authorities. And they want to know what happened to him, and they're trying to find some fault with this healing. And the blind man says, you're asking me questions about the quality of the character of the man who healed me and gave me sight. That's for you guys to worry about. All I know is I was blind, but now I see. That's all I know. And step back from this story a little bit, and look at how closely this mirrors the experience again of the new Christian who's received his sight or her sight. Healing. For the first time in my life, I see it. And then the euphoria just dies down just a little bit, and suddenly you're getting questioned by all

these people. They're like, where'd he go? Where's Jesus now? He's dissipated. He's disappeared. Where's the altar? Where's the revival? Where's the emotion? And the blind man told us what to do. I don't know much, but I know this. I was blind. Now I see. All right. Abraham, Abraham has, he's had the great revival. Remember, he, in the first 10 verses of chapter 12, which we didn't read in our text, he built an altar in Bethel, and then watch what happens. Watch what happens. Chapter 13, verse 1. So Abraham went up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and locked with him into the Negev. That's the Egyptian desert. North, close to the border of what would become Israel. Now Abraham was very rich. The Hebrew word rich there is, underneath it, the Hebrew word is, is kavad, which is also sometimes translated glory. When the Ark of the Covenant was taken away from Israel later on, there was a

child born that was named Ekabad, which means the glory is departed. There's no glory now. Kabad is the word, is the Hebrew word glory. And here, it's hard to translate. The context determines how you translate it. So it seems best to refer to this as Abraham was very rich in livestock and silver and in gold, but there's a, there's a heaviness to him. There's some kind of glory going with him, which is a great sign. He's, he has, he has made, he has failed. And yet God's still with him. Remember human beings in this Covenant, in this two-sided Covenant between God and man, man keeps failing, God stays faithful. And he journeyed on from the Negev as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and AI, to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord. He didn't call upon the name

of the Lord in Egypt. Now he calls upon the name of the Lord. You see what Abraham's doing? I keep saying Abraham, you understand, I'm speaking of the same person, Abram, Abraham. You see what he's doing? He seems to be trying to retrace his steps. Where was it that the Lord called me? Where are those altars in my life? I got to get back to the altar. And he called upon the name of the Lord. There's, there you go. There's there, that's how we, that's how we, we don't just, we don't just have one euphoric moment in this. We keep on going back to the altar. The altar is a place of prayer, a place of dedication, a place of recommitment. If it's been a while since you've recommitted yourself to the Lord. Let me ask you a question. Have you committed yourself to the Lord in the same way that you did when you received the Holy Ghost all those years ago?

Have you done that? Where is it going? If not, where is it going? When you just totally laid down your life and you said, I can't do this anymore on my own. I need help. I need Jesus. It's important we come back to that place again and again and again and again. Lot went with Abraham. He also had flocks and herds and tents so the land could not support both of them dwelling together. Their possessions were so great, they couldn't dwell together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abraham's livestock and herdsmen of Lot's livestock. And at that time the Canaanites and the Parasites were dwelling in the land. All right. So first Abraham's tested with famine, poverty. Now he's being tested with riches. Okay. He had a tough time passing that test of poverty. How's he going to do with riches? Well, he starts out with an altar. He built an altar or sorry, verse four says that he that he

even went to where he built his altar at the first. He seems to be, as I said, trying to recreate the experience he had with God before his failure. But here's the wonderful thing about this. He went back to the place where he had made an altar at the first and there he called upon the name of the Lord. Look, he didn't build an altar. The altar was still there. It's still there like the promise God had made to him. It's still there. God's promise didn't go away because Abraham had failed. The altar hadn't gone away because Abraham had failed. He was able to come back to the altar and that altar seems to be a reminder. The promise is still there. All right. Verse eight. Then Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife between you and me and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen. We're kinsmen. It's not the whole land before you. Separate yourself from me. If you take

the left hand, I will go to the right. If you take the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered because everywhere, like the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt in the direction of Zohar. And then there's this very foreboding note put in parentheses. This was before the Lord God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. All right. Sodom and Gomorrah is in that area of Zohar. And it's fertile. It's beautiful. When I went to the Judean desert, it's like going to them. I imagine something like going to the moon. No life, no birds singing. And you're standing here in front of this great big body of water. And its waves are silky, heavy, heavy waves. Nothing living. No birds landing on pieces of wood floating in this sea. There's no sound of frogs and fresh water. There's nothing jumping up out of the water. It's just

this very heavy, silty, salty dead sea. Dead is the best possible description of what's going on out there. Nothing. But, but you can turn around from standing on the shore of the dead sea. Turn around and you can look over your left shoulder and you can see some craggy hills and mountains behind you. And up there are the Qumran Caves, where the dead sea scrolls were discovered in 1947 or 48. But tucked away inside of those crags, there's one little spigot of a spring that comes up. It's called, it was called Engedi and lush palm trees, vegetation everywhere, and the distant sound of birds and things that are living. And it's still there today. Apparently at one time before Sodom and Gomorrah, that whole region was lush and beautiful before Sodom and Gomorrah. All right, so Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot

settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and great sinners against the Lord. I don't have time to go too far into this. I just want to make a couple of notes here towards the end. All right, their families quarrel, Abraham and Lot, they quarrel. It often happens when wealth enters into the picture. Oftentimes families, people don't really know how to deal with wealth well. It wasn't necessarily Abram and Lot that were fighting with each other, but the people of their families and herdsmen began to quarrel and not really handling success very well. And Abram says, men shouldn't fight, let alone brothers fight. So let's separate. It's better that we be at peace with each other. This is very much like what is said in Psalm 133, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. But when peaceful community is impossible, scripture actually prefers an amicable

separation. In Acts chapter 15 and verse 39, we find out that Barnabas separates from Paul, as they can't come to an amicable agreement on the subject of John Mark. So they part ways and everything ended up being okay. 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 12 through 15 says, if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. The unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife. The unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. And then listen to verse 15. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. So rather than them warring with each other, separation preserves the peace. And that's going to be important because later on, Abraham is going to be called to rescue Lot and his

family. You might think if you're in a quarrel with somebody, you might think you never need them. And you write them off. You'll never need them again and get them out of your life forever. Maybe, but not necessarily. You never know. You never know. All right. John Mark ends up becoming profitable to Paul's ministry. Abraham ends up coming to the rescue of Lot. Life is full of surprises and you're going to find people who you thought were going to be friends, become enemies. And people you thought were going to be enemies, become friends. So be at peace with people. Be at peace with them. If you have to leave, leave on peaceful terms. All right. Lot made a fatal choice though. Abraham invites Lot to share the Promised Land with him. He says, if you choose to the left, I'll go to the right. If you choose the right, I'll go to the left. In ancient literature, to the right usually refers to

the south. It's as if you're facing the rising sun. Okay. And there's your orientation to the right would be south, to the left is north. And Lot chooses, he chooses to dwell eastward, which means on the border of the Promised Land and even beyond it. In other words, he chose to live among God's enemies on the basis of appearance. Abraham walks by faith, not by sight. Lot walks by sight, not by faith. He's willing to leave the Promised Land behind, willing to leave this inheritance behind because there's already an established city right there. He went eastward, which is readers of the first 11 chapters of Genesis now know is the wrong direction. It's the direction Adam and Eve were driven after the fall. It's the direction Cain went after murdering Abel. It's the direction Nimrod went to build the Tower of Babel. Lot was probably understood to be Abram's heir at this point. He's his nephew. And Abram is old and he has

no child of his own. Lot, he's the successor. He's the heir it would seem through which God was going to fulfill his promise to Abram. What he thought was a step forward in his life was actually a step back. He left the promise of God because there was nothing established. Anytime you step in the direction of the world, you're going in the wrong direction. Abram will receive a dwelling that will last forever, a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Lot will receive a city that will last a few months, a city that has foundations too, but its builder and maker is man. All right, and I'll read the last few verses and we will wrap. The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, lift up your eyes, look from the place where you are, northward and southward, eastward and westward. For all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your offspring

forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land. I will give it to you. And so Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built and altered the Lord. He moved his tent. Lot, Lot went into the direction of the settled city and Abraham chose the life of the wanderer. This is a foreshadowing of all who would believe in the Lord. We become wanderers, sojourners, and this warbore pilgrims. This isn't our final home. We live in tents as long as we're here. So don't get too comfortable. And Abram gets back on track to make the right choice. And he starts going back to the altar where he first encountered God. A beautiful couple of episodes here in between really important,

like tectonic things that are happening in the book of Genesis and they're subtle, but they're important. They give direction. Here's what you do after you hear the calling of the Lord. You commit to it. There's going to be a time of famine, but stay faithful. Stay faithful to the Lord. And then the Lord's going to bless you, and sometimes he might bless you with plenty. Be careful that you don't go the wrong way with that either. There could be problems rising up in your family and in your surroundings. Stay faithful to the Lord. And remember, no matter how rich you get down here, you're never, you're really still poor until you reach the eternal city. We seek a city that has foundations whose builder and maker is the Lord. Amen. All right. So we just go verse by verse, verse by verse, wherever it leads us. Sometimes it's a great big thing. Sometimes it's just little things, but along the way, as we

keep on building our knowledge of Scripture, we're creating kind of database or a library that helps us understand Scripture more fully. And finally, we're going to step into the New Testament and it's going to shine a light upon everything that we've read. And the Old Testament will shine a light upon the New Testament. We're going to understand it in a way we've never understood it before, but we have to go carefully through the Scriptures. Amen.