God Saves a Marriage

Also, Mike mentioned, or Alvin mentioned this, a few minutes ago. I just want to say this again. We have some people here from the former Adventist Fellowship Conference that took place here this weekend. If you were at all attending the conference this weekend, could you stand just so we could welcome you?

Amen, let's welcome them. Yeah, this was a wonderful and strategic event and we're just ecstatic as a church to be able to host this wonderful conference this year and hope that we can, we can do it again in the years to come. Well, let me, invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Genesis 12, Genesis chapter 12. We're doing a verse by verse study, through the Book of Genesis, and as we continue in our study this morning, we come to Genesis chapter 12 verse 10.

And my goal this morning is to cover, verses 10 through 20. And if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be, God Saves a marriage. God saves a marriage and what an appropriate day, Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is actually a special day for me, for a couple of reasons.

The first is that On Valentine's Day back in 1979, I was a freshman and, did someone whistle? in 1979, I was a freshman in high school and I gave Donna a Valentine's card. Donna's my wife. And, I, again, was a freshman in high school.

I had never even ever had a conversation with her before. but she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen in my life. And so I bought her a Valentine's card and I summoned up the nerve to walk up to her and give it to her after a Wednesday evening, church service, and she kept the card and it's right here. So And, and in the card were, were these words to one of my all-time favorites.

And in cursive, I wrote after that, oh yeah. And I had never even had a conversation with her, but she was already one of my all-time favorites in my, in my life. Well, our relationship didn't really take off after that. In fact, another 2 years went by and there was no conversation between us at all, but I adored her from afar.

And then our junior year of high school, our youth group had a Sadie Hawkins Valentine's Day banquet where the girl was supposed to ask the guy. And wouldn't it, Donna came walking up to me at our church and asked me to be her date. I could not believe my good fortune. I happily told her yes, and Valentine's Day 1981, 35 years ago was our very first date.

During that, banquet, there were red construction paper hearts that were on, the tables, and I took one of them during the banquet and I wrote her a note and I gave the heart, folded up the heart and gave it to her, and she kept that too, and this is it right here. So. and it was only, what I wrote to her was only about 4 sentences long, and the most revealing sentence that I wrote to her in this heart was this, I'll share it with you. You are a really nice girl and I really like you a whole gob.

True story, And, our relationship took off after that. And I think it was my eloquence, that Won her. So take notes, guys. But speaking of Valentine's Day, cards, ladies, I want you as we start this morning to imagine getting a Valentine's Day card from your husband and you open it up and you see these words.

He says, I know that you are a beautiful woman. Would that be sweet? Yeah, it'd be really sweet. We actually see Abraham speaking these exact words to his wife in our passage today.

but imagine that you continue reading and the card goes on to say, you are so beautiful that when other men see you, they will want to kill me just so they can have you. What would you think? Sounds a little paranoid, but it's still sweet, right? Well, in our passage today, Abraham essentially says this to his wife.

But then imagine you continue reading the card and your husband goes on to say, therefore, please tell people that you are my sister. That way when they try to take you away from me, they won't kill me. But instead they will treat me well because they think I'm your brother. Suddenly that's not so sweet, is it?

But that's exactly what Abraham says to his wife, Sarah in our passage today. Happy Valentine's Day, Sarah. In truth, what happens in our passage today is a sad story. About a man who makes a decision that is profoundly detrimental to his marriage and endangering to his wife.

Abraham makes a horrible decision that apart from divine intervention, would have ended his marriage to Sarah and resulted in his wife being violated by another man. But we see in our passage today how God intervenes. And rescues Sarah, and in the process, he saves Abraham and Sarah's marriage. And God does the same for us as any of us that have been married for any length of time can testify to.

Most of us who are married would say that we have often made poor decisions that are detrimental to the health of our own marriages. Over the years, I myself have done Many things that were hurtful to Donna and not conducive to the health of our marriage. But God has graciously intervened and he has rescued our marriage again and again, sometimes rescuing our marriage from me and my own devices. The fact that Donna and I are still married.

that our marriage still stands today after these 28 years and that we love each other more today than we ever have is a wonderful monument to God's grace and the result of many, many moments of divine intervention, gracious intervention. I would love to be the hero of my marriage to Donna, but I'm not. And I'm OK with that. The hero of my marriage, the one who has saved my marriage to Donna countless times and whose grace has made all the difference, is Jehovah God.

And in our passage today, Jehovah, God saves Abraham and Sarah's marriage and gets them back to the place where he wants them to be. Our story today begins with Abraham and Sarah in the land of Canaan. which is where we left them last week. this is the place that God has called them to.

At the beginning of Genesis 12, God, called Abraham to leave Haran. He made promises to Abraham that he would bless him and protect him and make of him a great and a mighty nation and that through Abraham, God would bless all the peoples of the world through him. And so Abraham and Sarah and those that they take with them leave Haran, and they come into Canaan, and upon arriving, they literally travel through the land of promise. And at one point of their travels, God appears to Abraham and told him that this was the land.

That would be his home. This was the land that he would give to his descendants. And so we saw last Sunday how Abraham and Sarah and those that were with them traveled to the full length of this land of promise and they end up settling somewhere in the southern region called the Negev. Some time goes by and this is where the events of our passage pick up today.

Let me read the account to you beginning in verse 10. The passage says, now there was a famine in the land. So Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. And it came about when he came near to Egypt that he said to Sarah, his wife, see now, I know that you are a beautiful woman.

And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife, and they will kill me. But they will let you live. Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you and that I may live on account of you. And it came about when Abraham came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.

Pharaoh's officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. Therefore, he treated Abraham well for her sake and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels. But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. Then Pharaoh called Abraham and said, what is this you have done to me?

Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister so that I took her from my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and go. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him.

And they escorted him away with his wife and all that belonged to him. This is the word of God and may God help us to understand his word this morning. The way we're gonna break this passage down is we're gonna observe seven developments in this story of how God saves Abraham and Sarah's marriage and returns them, gets them back to the land. of promise.

And hopefully we'll see ourselves, especially see our God in this story, how gracious and loving and how faithful he is. The first development that we observe here is that Abraham leaves Canaan for Egypt due to famine in the land. He leaves Canaan, the land of promise for Egypt due to famine in the land. in verse 10, it says, now there was a famine in the land, so Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there.

We're told at the beginning of verse 10 that there was a famine in the land, but then at the end of the verse, we're told, That the famine was severe in the land. This means that the seasonal rains were not falling and the land was under drought conditions, crops were not growing, and there was little grass for Abraham to be able to feed his livestock. This teaches us, guys, sometimes even in our own lives, that there is famine in the place where God actually wants us. Clearly, God is testing Abraham's faith and wanting to grow Abraham and teach Abraham to depend upon him.

To provide for him. Nonetheless, twice we're told here that Abraham went down to Egypt because of the famine. That's the reason and it's stated twice. Look at this, there was a famine in the land, so, you can underline the word so.

Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for, you can underline the word for, the famine was severe in the land. Clearly, Abraham is in his thinking, he's leaving the Land of Promise, going to Egypt because of the famine. Evidently, Egypt was not experiencing famine conditions. Egypt was not dependent upon seasonal rains like the land of Canaan.

At least in the region of the Negev was, Egypt's agriculture was dependent upon the Nile River, so it often served as a place that people would flock to during times of famine, and we see this actually happening later in Genesis as well. So the text tells us that Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there. In other words, to sojourn means that he went down there intending to live there temporarily with every intention of coming back one day. Notice guys, that in the passage, the text nowhere tells us that God told Abraham.

To leave the land of promise to go down to Egypt. Earlier in Abraham's life, God had told Abraham to get out of Ur of the Chalde and to come to the land that he would show him. And then later in Abraham's life, at the beginning of chapter 12, God called Abraham to get out of Haran and come to the land that he would show him. And now Abraham is in.

that land that God had provided for him, but nothing in this story is said about God speaking to Abraham and telling Abraham to get out of Canaan and to go down to Egypt. So it's likely I don't want to overly judge Abraham here, but it's likely that Abraham is making this decision of his own accord rather than consulting with God. As one writer says, And I quote, Abraham's going down to Egypt was not so much an intentional sin, as much as it was a reflexive turn to his own devices.

He did not deny God, he simply forgot him and forgot how great God is.

And there's probably truth to that assessment by this writer. Whether or not Abraham's going down to Egypt was a good and appropriate thing or not, we do know that subsequent events will show that Abraham clearly is not in a mode where he's factoring God into his thinking at all and trusting God. This brings us to the next development in the story. as Abraham and Sarah are approaching Egypt, Abraham gets to worrying about something and so he talks to his wife and makes an urgent request of her.

And the second development we see emerging from that is that Abraham pleads with Sarah to conceal their marriage. Abraham pleads with Sarah to conceal their marriage. Look what the text says in verse 11. It came about when he came near to Egypt that he said to Sarah, his wife, see now, I know that you are a beautiful woman.

Literally, the text is, behold, please! Abraham is pleading with Sarah to recognize something about herself, and that is that she is a beautiful woman, and Abraham is insisting. That she recognized her own beauty and the problem that it will pose for them as they come into Egypt. What's the problem?

In verse 12, he says to Sarah, when the Egyptians see you, they will say, this is his wife. They're gonna look at me and say, this is his wife, and they will kill me, but they will let you live. We'll see in a moment that Abraham is exactly right in some of these expectations, which means that Sarah was indeed a physically beautiful woman, a woman who easily caught the eye of other men. It's one thing for a woman to be so beautiful that guys wanna kill her husband to get her.

What makes this all the more remarkable is that Abraham is 75 years old right now and we know from later in Genesis that Sarah was 10 years younger than him, so she is a 65 year old woman right now. Yet she is still beautiful, so beautiful that Abraham has to worry about men wanting to steal her away from him. While this may seem odd to us, keep in mind that life expectancy was longer in Abraham's day than it is in our day. Abraham is gonna live to the age of 175.

Sarah will live to the age of 127. Which means that at the age of 65, Sarah was about the equivalent of a woman who is maybe 35 to 38 years old. Today. So she's a beautiful woman at this stage of her life, and Abraham is gravely concerned about men wanting to steal her away from him and kill him in the process.

He doesn't seem concerned about the opposite happening. He doesn't say to his wife, honey, behold, please, I am a beautiful man. And I am concerned as we come into Egypt that women might see me and kill you in order to have me. He's not worried about that, but he is worried about people wanting to kill him so that they can take Sarah to be their wife.

Observe his fear. He expresses his prediction to Sarah, when the Egyptians see you, they will say this is his wife, and they will kill me, but they will let you live. Abraham is right to expect that the Egyptians will notice her and think she's beautiful, and he's even right in predicting that they will, that some men will want her as their own wife, but he is wrong to make the prediction as if it's fact that they will kill him. Nowhere in Abraham's prediction is Jehovah God mentioned anywhere, nor are the promises of God that God had made to him mentioned.

What Abraham could have said is, Sarah, because of your beauty, there are Egyptians that may want to kill me to take you. To be their wife, but God, who made promises to us, will look after us. He has promised to bless me and make of me a great nation and that through me all the peoples of the earth will be blessed based on these promises, and the greatness of Jehovah God who made these promises. I know that no Egyptian, even if he wanted to kill me, will succeed.

In doing that, but Abraham doesn't talk this way. Instead, he leads his wife in a way that does not factor God into the picture at all. He speaks here as if there is no God. This is actually, guys, the essence of unbiblical worry.

brooding over a situation, making predictions of the future as if there were no God who has made promises to us and who is lovingly involved in every detail of our lives. Worry essentially is when we brood over a situation. Taking everything into account, but God. And that's what Abraham is doing and in facts his leadership of Sarah.

Look how he leads Sarah in verse 13, he says, please say that you are my sister. Now notice his language so that it may go well with me because of you and that I may live on account of you. Notice his wording. He wants Sarah to say that she is his sister, A, so that it might go well with him.

And B, so that he might live. There are two goals that are stated here. Abraham wants to avoid getting killed and he wants the situation to turn out in a profitable way. To his advantage for things to go well.

Let's say it this way, Abraham wants to be known as Sarah's brother rather than her husband so that he doesn't get killed. He also wants to be known as Sarah's brother rather than as someone unrelated to Sarah, because there are advantages that will accrue to him by virtue of him being known as her brother. His life will be saved and he can actually profit from the situation if people think that he is her brother. To understand this, realize that back in this day, we actually see this demonstrated in scripture, but, one Jewish commentator says it this way, the custom was that where there is no father, the brother assumes responsibilities in arranging marriages on the sister's behalf.

Therefore, whoever would have wished from Egypt To take Sarah as a wife would have to negotiate with her brother, and that would be Abraham, according to this deception. In the meantime, Abraham could profit off the situation inasmuch, according to the Jewish Hamash, which represents ancient tradition, the nobles of Egypt would shower him with gifts to win his sister's hand. In marriage. As Bruce Walke says, Abraham's goal was not to sell Sarah's honor to save his own skin, but to deceitfully stall for time to exploit suitors without ever actually giving her away.

This is actually what Jacob's sons do later in Genesis, in Genesis 34, when they arranged for the marriage of their sister Dinah to Sheha. They get Sheha to make some commitments when their intention never was to actually ever give Dinah to him in marriage. This is what Abraham was hoping to do. I firmly believe he never intended to actually give Sarah away.

He just wanted to be able They needed to be there to feed their livestock and to benefit from the fact that things are more fertile there and they can get food and so forth and survive for several months or what have you. And he wanted to be able to buy some time to exploit the situation if someone was interested in Sarah, and then for him and Sarah to get out of dodge before he actually ever had to give her away. So Abraham is asking Sarah to tell people that she was his sister instead of his wife.

We know from later in Genesis that Sarah was in fact Abraham's half-sister, but this is still deception because it is intended to conceal the truth that they were married.

Is that making sense? so that's the strategy. but how does that work out for Abraham? this brings us to the next development in the story of God saving Abraham and Sarah's marriage and getting them back to the Land of Promise, and that is that Sarah gets taken into Pharaoh's house.

Abraham is a smart man. What he feared and predicted actually came to pass. On some levels, observe what happens, verse 14. It came about when Abraham came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.

Pharaoh's officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh. Abraham had told his wife, you're beautiful. They see that she's very beautiful. Eventually, Pharaoh's officials see her and they report to Pharaoh and the text says they praise her to Pharaoh.

The word praise here is the Hebrew word halal, which is often used in the Psalms to speak of praising God. The word means to boast about or to rave about. It turns out that when Abraham enters Egypt with his wife, Sarah stole the show and is quite the sensation in the land of Egypt. Reminded me of a documentary that I saw a few years ago back in 1961, May of 1961, President John F.

Kennedy visited France with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy and, she wowed the people. France with her charm and her beauty and with her understanding, of all things French. She could even speak French and Time magazine reported on the trip, and much of their coverage was actually focused on her rather than the president. And in the article that they wrote in Time magazine where they covered the trip, they're talking all about her and then they make the statement, there was also a fellow who came with her.

Speaking of the president, and while in France, John F. Kennedy observed the sensation that she was and how all eyes turned to her when they walked into a room rather than himself. And so on one occasion, he began one of his speeches by saying these words. He says, I do not think it altogether inappropriate for me to introduce myself.

I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris. But that's, that's kinda how Abraham is probably feeling right now as he comes into Egypt with his wife. She is all the rage being raved about even in the halls of power to the Pharaoh himself. What happens next is breathtaking in its swiftness.

All we're told next is that the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. What is not stated is that Pharaoh's officials would have come to take Sarah, and they would have asked Abraham what his relationship to her was, and Abraham himself would have told them that Sarah was his sister. And Sarah would have either concurred or just remained silent. We know that Abraham was the one who told the lie.

And told them that she was his sister because Pharaoh rebukes him later in the story and not Sarah for telling the lie. Once Abraham told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister, Abraham no doubt fully expected to have opportunity to negotiate, and stall, and maybe take a few weeks to talk about a wedding date that maybe is a year down the road and have a nice profitable situation during that intervening time period. But things don't go how he expected. Very abruptly, the text says the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

According to the language of the text, Sarah isn't given, she's taken. Away from Abraham. And brought into Pharaoh's house. I can just imagine how Abraham has to be reeling at this point.

He had hugely miscalculated. When he came into Egypt, he never dreamed that the man who would want Sarah was the Pharaoh himself, who happened to be the only person in the country who didn't need to negotiate an arrangement with Sarah's brother. As one writer says, it never dawned on Abraham that Sarah might be desired by the one who could take her without her brother's consent. And that's exactly what happens.

Pharaoh wants her, he takes her immediately, leaving a devastated Abraham and Sarah to deal with the circumstances as they stand now. Observe what happens next. The fourth development in the story of how God saves Abraham and Sarah's marriage and gets them back to where they need to be, and that is that Pharaoh treats Abraham well because of Sarah. He treats Abraham well because of Sarah.

It says, therefore, he treated Abraham well. For her sake. In Pharaoh's mind, Abraham is now his new brother-in-law, so he lavishes gifts on Abraham. The text says you might want to underline these words that he treated Abraham well, the word treated and well for Sarah's sake.

The verb treat well is the exact same verb used by Abraham in verse 13 when he told Sarah that hey, if you follow this strategy, things will go well for me. Well, they are In an awful way. The thing is, Abraham was hoping that things would go well for him before having to give her away, not after she is taken away from him. Verse 16 tells us that Pharaoh treated Abraham well and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels.

This was the currency of the day. It's another way of saying that he lavished wealth on Abraham, lavishing him with money and BMWs and Ferraris of the day. But how hollow it all must have seemed to Abraham. One writer on this passage sarcastically says, this is quite an exchange.

Abraham relinquishes his wife and gains animals and servants. He has his wife taken away from him, and he gets these gifts in return for a gift he did not really want to give to the Pharaoh. There's something else that we should take note of here. Notice that Pharaoh is giving Abraham male and female servants.

almost certainly, among the female servants is a certain Egyptian woman named Hagar. In Genesis 16:1, we see that Hagar was an Egyptian maidservant to Sarah, and it is her that Sarah will bring to Abraham so that he can have sexual relations with her in order to help God fulfill his promises of offspring. Hagar will give birth to Ishmael. And many, many problems are brought into Abraham's household and in subsequent history as a result.

So while it seems that Abraham is profiting materially from this situation, and while in the end, God intervenes and everything works out and Abraham gets to keep all these gifts, the seeds of future difficulties are embedded in this gain. That Abraham is obtaining because of his deception. Something else happens as a result of Abraham's strategy, which is just as unfortunate that leads us to the fifth development, and that is that Jehovah plagues Pharaoh and his house because of Sarah.

Jehovah plagues Pharaoh in his house because of Sarah.

Says, but the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. Finally, Jehovah's name actually shows up in the narrative. His presence was not acknowledged by Abraham, nor was it factored in by Abraham, but Jehovah shows up anyway, and the text tells us that he is striking Pharaoh's house. With great plagues.

How sad. There's no such thing as an ordinary plague, but as far as plagues go, there are plagues, and then there are great plagues. And that's what God is doing here in striking Pharaoh and his house with great plagues and not just one plague, but with several plagues that are now overwhelming Pharaoh and his house. We don't know what these plagues were based on the way that this word gets used in the Old Testament, these plagues likely involve various kinds of skin conditions like leprosy or boils.

Whatever these plagues were, they are quite literally God's protection on Sarah. As long as Pharaoh himself and his house are afflicted and overwhelmed by these plagues, Pharaoh will not be engaging in sexual relations with Sarah. This is a wonderful mercy from the Lord in protecting. Sarah, why did Jehovah strike Pharaoh's house with great plagues?

Look at this, the text says, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. God loves Sarah, and he's looking out for her. It's sad that Abraham's deceit is bringing these plagues upon Pharaoh's house in Genesis 12:2-3. God promised Abraham, saying, I will bless you.

I will make you a great nation, and in you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Yet here is Pharaoh, and he's a part of the nations of the world that are supposed to be blessed by Abraham. And yet here is Pharaoh in his house experiencing plagues as a result of Abraham's deception. As one writer says, here was Abraham's first contact with a world power and a great ruler, but instead of being a blessing, he was a curse.

We need to learn from this, guys. God has saved us and blessed us so that we would be a blessing to other people. Yet if we make sinful choices, we too can bring hardship and hurt and ruin to people's lives when we don't follow God's ways. Observe what happens next.

Apparently, the plagues that are afflicting Pharaoh's house are so severe, so sudden, so perfectly timed with Sarah being taken into his house that they are able to figure out eventually that these plagues have something to do with Sarah. Some investigation into the matter takes place and Pharaoh uncovers the fact that Sarah was indeed Abraham's wife, and Pharaoh now realizes his mistake that he has unwittingly taken a married woman. Into his harem. Pharaoh is mortified by what he discovers.

He calls for a meeting with Abraham. And this brings us to the next development in the story. of how God saves Abraham and Sarah's marriage and gets them back to the place where they belong. And that is that Pharaoh rebukes Abraham.

For his deception about Sarah. Between Abraham and Pharaoh, you'll see by the end of the story, Pharaoh comes off as the more righteous of the two, the more noble of the two. It says, then Pharaoh called Abraham and said, And listen to his questions. He asked three questions.

The first question is, what is this you have done to me? He takes what Abraham has done very personally. Pharaoh must have been a pathetic sight at this point, afflicted with plagues on his body as he stands before Abraham, asking, what is this you have done to me? he asked, probably while pointing to his plagued body.

Pharaoh's second question is, why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Implied in Pharaoh's question is that if Abraham had told him, yes, I'm her husband, she is my wife, then Pharaoh would have left her alone and not taken her to be his wife into his house. It turns out that Abraham's fears were not well founded after all. He would have been better off telling the truth from the outset.

Has that ever happened to you? Like, you do the wrong thing cause you got all these worries and fears and then you find out later after a whole lot of mess and consequence and hurt to yourself and other people that, man, if you would have just done the right thing at the start. Things would have been so much better and your fears that led you into sin were not well founded, after all. Pharaoh's third question is, why did you say she is my sister so that I took her from my wife.

Pharaoh's question indicates that Abraham was the one. Abraham told his wife, say that you're my sister, but, and she may have done that, we don't know, but what we do know from what Sarah says, or from what Pharaoh says, Is that Abraham told the lie. And said that she was his sister. Again, implied in Pharaoh's language is that he would not have taken Sarah into his house if he had known that she was the wife of Abraham.

Observe what happens next, and this brings us to the last development in the story of how God saves Abraham and Sarah's marriage and brings them back to the land of Promise, and that is Pharaoh, Pharaoh returns Sarah to Abraham and escorts them back to Canaan. He says to Abraham in verse 19, now then, Here is your wife, take her and go. Pharaoh brings Sarah out and speaks very abruptly to Abraham and his words should have made Abraham feel ashamed of his deception and selfishness.

Literally, the Hebrew is very abrupt.

Pharaoh brings Sarah out and says, behold, Your wife. Take and go. Notice that Pharaoh is saying about Sarah what Abraham was afraid to say. Behold, your wife, he says.

Take your wife, which is what you're supposed to do as her husband and go get out of here, Pharaoh says. Pharaoh obviously has no desire to spend any time with Abraham. He wants Abraham gone and out of his life. Imagine if Abraham at this point, said to Pharaoh, hey, Pharaoh, can I, can I take this opportunity to share with you about Jehovah God?

He made promises to me and said to me he would bless all the peoples of the earth, and I'd like to unpack that for you if I could and tell you about my God. How do you think that would have gone? Pharaoh would not have listened. He wants Abraham gone, as one writer says, what a tremendous opportunity for personal witness.

To the living God that Abraham has lost because he had compromised the truth. This is why the text says in verse 20 Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they escorted him away with his wife and all that belonged. To him. Pharaoh is taking the step of providing a military escort for two reasons.

Number 1, to make sure that Abraham gets out of the country. And 2, to make sure that Abraham is protected and that nothing happens to him or to anything that belongs to him, including Sarah. Pharaoh is angry with Abraham. But he also recognizes that there is a powerful deity who is looking after Abraham and Pharaoh is very concerned that nothing else happened that would further anger.

The God of Abraham. In this way, you actually see with hindsight that God plaguing Pharaoh's house was actually a mercy to Abraham. It guaranteed that he would be protected. And not messed with or killed by Pharaoh after the deception was discovered.

Pharaoh does not want to mess with Abraham. He wants him gone and actually provides a military escort to get him out of the country and give him protection as he goes. When you read the first verses of the next chapter, You observed that Abraham and Sarah were escorted back to the Land of Promise, which brings us full circle to where the story began. there's a lot to learn here just as we wrap things up this morning.

Let's just ponder, a few things. some of us husbands might read the story and say, man, I would never do what Abraham. does in this passage. But actually, we men are guilty of what Abraham does in our story today, every time we think of our own individual good, rather than our wife's good.

Every time we think as an I, rather than as a we, every time we treat our wife as less than the wife that she is, we are guilty of what Abraham does every time we forget the promises of God and act according to our own wisdom. We're just like Abraham, every time we behave in a way. That Leaves our wife in a vulnerable. Position There may be some men in this room that when you travel, you take your wedding ring off.

In that moment, and you don't, you don't really want people to know that you're married, you're doing worse than Abraham. Abraham said that she was his sister. You're saying she's non-existent. So we as husbands do well to just ask.

Are there ways that I do What Abraham does on various levels. It leads to another lesson for us as husbands to ponder, and this can go both ways also and that is don't let your wife be your Jehovah. On one level, guys, it looks like Abraham is not placing a lot of value on his wife, but honestly, a fair read of this story. shows that he's actually placing too much value on Sarah and he's leaning on her too much.

Notice that he tells her that she has to lie so that it may go well with me because of you and that I may live on account of you, he says. You see what he's doing? Abraham should have been thinking it will go well with me because of Jehovah. And I will live on account of Jehovah.

But Jehovah's name is removed from those sentences, and Sarah is put in Jehovah's place. Jehovah was the one who had promised Abraham that he would bless him and make of him a great nation. But Abraham's eyes are not on Jehovah. Instead, in this moment, Abraham is looking to Sarah to be his savior rather than looking to Jehovah God.

He's saying to Sarah, I need you to do such and such in order for things to go well for me. I need you to lie in order that I will live. Abraham is forgetting Jehovah and putting the burden of deity on his wife. And that's a pressure that should never be put on any wife or any husband.

Abraham's greatest sin in the story was not that he lied. His greatest sin was not that he demoted Sarah to the status of sister. His greatest sin was that he elevated her to the status of savior. And in the process, he almost lost his wife.

Men, if you take nothing away from this morning, take this away. If you're married, let your wife be your wife and let Jehovah be your God. Given opportunity, I think your wife can make a pretty good wife. But she will be a terrible Jehovah.

The greatest gift that we as husbands can give to our wives is to let God be God and let our wives just be our wives. And our wives will love us for that. Another thing we observe in this story is that God is the gracious savior of marriages. We see in our passage today that the real hero of this story is God.

Abraham tried to be the hero with his risky strategy of deception, and I'm sure had it worked out, I can just hear him gloating as they left Egypt. How proud he would have been of his own devices, if his strategy had worked, but he got more than he bargained for, and he ended up almost losing Sarah in the process. But God came through and saved the day and God showed himself the true and faithful hero. Of their marriage This isn't the last time either.

There'll be more instances of God saving their marriage. Abraham will be guilty of this exact same deception in Genesis 20, and God will have to rescue their marriage again. In Genesis 16, Sarah will bring Hagar to Abraham. And tell Abraham to have sexual relations with her so that they can have a child through her, bringing huge problems into their marriage, but God again intervenes and rescues their marriage.

What's clear is that God loves Abraham and Sarah's marriage more than they do. It's God's plan to fulfill his promises through Abraham, but essential to the fulfillment of God's promises is Abraham and Sarah's marriage being whole. God will settle for nothing less in his plan to use Abraham to be a blessing to the nations. God will not bless the nations through Abraham at the expense of his marriage to Sarah, but he wants to do that through his marriage to Sarah.

And the same is true for all of us who are married. God loves our marriages. Jesus died for our marriages. And Christ wants us as a people to be a blessing to the world, to others in our lives, not in spite of our marriages.

Not at the expense of our marriages, but through our marriages. There's another huge takeaway for us this morning that I'll mention briefly, and that is that God is faithful when we are not. I love God as he's demonstrated here. The purpose of the story is not to just tell us about how Abraham lied and fell short of complete and perfect faith in God.

This story is designed to show God's faithfulness to keep his promises to Abraham. Even when Abraham is blowing it and not trusting God as he should. At this point of the narrative, coming to the end of chapter 12, we now know that the promises God made to Abraham are unalterable. And even Abraham's sin cannot undo these promises.

And God does the same for us again and again. Even when we are almost faithless at times, even when we make bonehead decisions, God remains faithful to expose us and our sin and to rescue us and to pull us back to the place where he wants us to be and to teach us some valuable lessons and to grow us in the process. Abraham one day is gonna be a man of crazy faith, and it's a faithful, gracious God. loving him, rescuing him, teaching him who will make Abraham that man of great faith.

God is gracious and faithful like that. In the end, the hero of Abraham's life story, the hero of our life story as Christians, the hero of our sanctification is God. It's not us Lastly, I think we have to appreciate Jesus here. We cannot read the story without appreciating Christ, who is the husband.

Of the church. Abraham was afraid to be killed on account of his wife. Abraham was afraid that his marriage to Sarah would cause him to get killed, and he did everything he could to avoid that fate. But Jesus, our Savior, The lover of the church.

The lover of our souls was not afraid. To be killed for the sake of his bride. The church And the truth is, we, the church, prior to Christ dying for us and saving us, we weren't even beautiful like Sarah was. There was no beauty in us that would cause anyone to even want us.

But Jesus looked upon us and our uncleanness and in our filth and our ugliness and our sin. And he said to his father, Father, can I have her for my wife? And the father says, yes, you can, but you'll need to get crucified. You will need to die And shed your blood In order to obtain her, and Jesus said, I'll do that.

I'll do that. What a savior we have. In all honesty, I fell in love with Donna years ago. Because she was beautiful.

Jesus loved us when we were not beautiful. And he laid down his life for the salvation of sinners like you and me. And he says to us, greater love has no one than this. Greater love has no one than this.

It is His love that takes hold of us as we believe in Him. And that begins day by day to transform us and to make us beautiful men and women, a beautiful church that displays the image and the glory of Jesus Christ. And if you have never believed in Jesus Christ and called on his name for salvation, I think Valentine's Day 2016. is the perfect day for you to do that.

Let's pray together. Lord, I pray that if there are any in this room, This morning that have never surrendered to your love, that they would do that today. No matter what sins they have committed, no matter how their conscience may afflict them. That they would know that they could come to you and hear you as you say, anyone who comes to me, I will never cast him out.

It is your grace that teaches our hearts to fear and shows us our sin, and it's your grace that relieves those fears and And gives us atonement for those sins that we feel conviction over as a result of the working of your Spirit, and I pray that That you would draw souls to yourself today that even where they're seated, they would cry out to you and know that in you, they have a savior who stands ready to save. I pray for us as your people that you would Just help us to be a godly people, a truth speaking people.

People who value the institution of marriage and who, who value our spouses, who value other marriages. We respect other marriages.

For the sacred things that they are. And above all, Lord, we just thank you that in this journey that we are all on of sanctification that you We will look back at the end of it all and see a whole lot of mess, but there will be a steady line of faithfulness to all of that mess, and that is you, Lord, who are always there. To rescue and to save and to love and to give grace and to sustain and to bring us back to the right path. You're a gracious God, and we just cherish your grace this morning.

May the awareness of your grace melt our eyes to tears. Melt our hearts into deeper levels of loving obedience to you and may this grace serve as the wind beneath our wings. Enabling us to soar. To heights of faithfulness.

In a way that gives glory to you. We thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you. We ask that you would receive these funds and do much with every penny that is given for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. And all God's people said, Amen.