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Steps of Unfaith
Genesis 12:10-20
Skip Heitzig

Genesis 12 (NKJV™)
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.
11 And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, "Indeed I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance.
12 "Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, 'This is his wife'; and they will kill me, but they will let you live.
13 "Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that Imay live because of you."
14 So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful.
15 The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house.
16 He treated Abram well for her sake. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
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 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'? I might have taken her as my wife. Now therefore, here is your wife; take her and go your way."
20 So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they sent him away, with his wife and all that he had.

New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Lifestyles of the Righteous and Faithful - Abraham

Abraham has often been called, "the father of faith." In this inspiring series, we study the life of Abraham, an ordinary man who heard the voice of God and "did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith" (Romans 4:20).

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Transcript

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First time I heard the word, “born again,” it was a delight to me because I was trying to describe my experience after becoming a Christian. I had accepted the Lord after watching Billy Graham on a television program. Went back down to Southern California, but I had never heard the word born again. He didn't mention it that, uh, one crusade. And I felt something completely change and I didn't know an adequate way to describe that to somebody until a friend of mine, who was a Christian, came up to me trying to witness to me, and I was already a Christian, and he said, “Skip, have you been born again?” I said, “That's it!” And he looked at me like, “You're weird.” I said, "I have been trying to think of a phrase to describe what had happened to me over the past, uh, week and I couldn't think it, but that's a great description, where'd you get that?” So John chapter 3, Jesus said, "You must be born again.” I thought what a beautiful description of a changed life. And if you think about it, it's so accurate that you become spiritually a baby. And just like a baby learns and through all those little stages how to eventually walk from crawling to getting into the walker, to taking a steps, falling over, until finally that child begins to walk. It's a beautiful description of spiritual life. Being born again. There's a growth from babyhood to maturity and, of course, the rate of that growth is completely determined upon your cooperation with the Lord.

The chapter that we have been studying this last few weeks is the beginning of Abraham's spiritual journey. He's a brand new baby, so to speak. He's just learning what it means to walk and he really hasn't got it down yet. He really hasn't learned to walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, as we would say today. And now that he's in this brand new land, this place that God has for him, he's got to learn to grow. And that means he's got to learn to trust. Now, it comes, it seems, very naturally for a young child to trust mom and dad. A three-year-old doesn't sit a fret that dad won't bring the paycheck home on Friday. He doesn't look at the accounts of bills and say, “How will we ever do this?” Somehow those bills are going to be paid because mom and dad always pull through. There's always breakfast on the table. There's always hugs. There's always love. There's always something that mom and dad provide. However, as that child grows up, there comes a time when he knows a little more and thus he begins to doubt a little more because of that knowledge. Really wondering about mom and dad's ability to provide and even challenging that ability to provide. Any of you ever run away from home when you were kids for maybe 20 minutes or even half a day? Probably, we've all done it. And I remember the first time I ran away from home. I was going to cut that dependence. I didn't need my dad telling me what to do anymore. I could make it out in the world on my own. That was my message to him. And so I took my little sheet and stuffed my things in it and carried it on my back and walked out the door. Had a Snickers bar on the way out. I said, "I'm leaving home.” my dad said, "Alright, bye. Don't forget a coat if you get cold out there.” but he let me go. And, as I was out there, it dawned on me. That I had been depending on him all this time and this is a stupid move. I mean, where am I going to get my next meal, let alone my next four weeks of meals? Dad always provided food. Mom and dad were always there. This living on my own isn't as easy as I thought. It's tough. And so I went back home and I repented before my father and I didn't doubt that provision again.

Now Abram needs to learn that lesson. He really quite hasn't learned that lesson as you're going to see in these verses to come. He is in a new place and, let's call it a bubble so to speak. He's in this land and God spoke to him and God appeared to him up there in verse 7. And now he's in this land of provision and promise and he's so excited and he's sort of like in a bubble of wonder. And that bubble is about to get popped. And that happens to every single Christian. There comes a point where there is sort of a rude awakening. Think back and remember the first days or even weeks or even months of your Christian experience. You were in an incubation bubble. It was just total absolute wonder and joy, usually. Most Christians experience that. It was euphoria. You were in that bubble of wonder. No matter what was mounting up against you, you knew what had changed inside of you and that excitement sort of overshadowed everything else. It was like a honeymoon. Everything was perfect. And there came a time when God popped the bubble and you were in boot camp. You were facing experiences and you started questioning and wondering and even doubting certain things.

Now this is what is happening to Abram. He's in this land of promise, but he begins to wonder as you look in verse 10. look at the first part. “Now there was a famine in the land.” Stop right there. Let those words sink in. this was a land of promise, right? This is the land of blessing, right? Look back at verse 1, “The Lord said to Abram, 'Get out of your country, from your kindred, your father's house to a land I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great. And you shall be a blessing.'” Alright, what a great place to hang out. Give me that land. Well he's there folks. And there was a famine in the land. In the land of promise, there's a famine. In the land of blessing, there's a famine. Now can't you just see old Abram out there in that land of promise, getting out of his tent in the morning, looking out, maybe worrying a little at first because there hasn't been any rain for like a month and a half. Starts wondering, “Well, it's okay. This is the land of promise.” Day after day, no rain, no rain. He picks up the dirt and it's just dust in his hands. Until he probably one day questions, thinking, “You mean I came all the way to this place to have this happen? I came all the way out here for this? A famine in the land?” You gotta keep something in mind, folks. Abram was used to Ur of the Chaldeans. That was a rich delta of agricultural land. There was provision running out of his ears and God says, “Get out of your land to the promised land.” Well he's there. And it's dust. There's famine in the land. It's hard for us to relate to us because when food runs out of our refrigerator, we go down to Safeway and buy more. But these guys, like Abram, relied totally upon the land. They were farmers. They were herdsman. They couldn't just go open the refrigerator or go down to Denny's or go down to Safeway. They were totally dependent upon the land yielding its food to them and it wasn't anymore. And he's out of the pagan country, which was so full of provision and he's into the promised land, and now there is a famine in the land. And I'm sure all sorts of things were going through his mind.

Remember last week, how we applied this? “I'm going to take you to a new land. A place where you fit and in that place I'm going to expand and enlarge your life to great proportions.” And now, he's all excited about this land. He came, he worshipped up in verse 7, and all of a sudden a famine comes. And I can almost hear those loved ones who were closest to him, kind of poking at his faith. “Why did you bring us out here? Oh, God spoke to you, huh? God told you to come to this land? Well, your kids are starving, Abram, and so am I.” I'm sure those thoughts went through their mouths as well as Abram’s own heart. Questioning the Lord in this land of promise. Do you remember, perhaps, what I am talking about- that bubble bursting? Do you remember back to the time when you had a rude awakening and you found out that the Christian life was not a set of one hoopla after another? One smile after another? When all of a sudden you recognized that there were some tough times, even trials, even suffering in the land of promise, and how you reacted to that? Let me tell you about mine. Most of you have heard about it, but let me just describe it to you.

I was a young Christian. I was excited, I was growing in the Lord. I had my own bible. Friends were coming around me who were Christians. It seemed like my life was a total victory story. And I began to think that nothing bad happens to Christians. That's the way it oughta be. Until the night I was playing in a Christian concert, a night of evangelism. I was playing bass guitar for a group and somebody took my beloved, newly rebuilt motorcycle, poured gas on it, lit it on fire to blow it up, put it against the building to light it on fire. And all of a sudden, the concerts in disarray and they come in and a guy looks at me and says, “Let's pray right now.” And I said, "Why?” He said, "Your motorcycle just blew up.” And that's boot camp, baby. And I thought, “Now wait a minute. These things don't happen to Christians. I mean, I've been enjoying this wonderful line of victory all this time and now, there's famine in the land. No transportation.” This absolutely stuns some young Christians. They have unrealistic expectations of the Christian walk. And when boot camp comes, they get really uneasy. And because of that, they do some dumb things, as we're going to see Abram even did.

Here's a truth, before we move on. God never promised the road to be easy. I know you've heard that, but I'll tell you why He never promised the road to be easy. Because He don't want the road to be easy. He doesn't want to make it easy for you. Believe that. He doesn't want to make it easy for you because if you had an easy road, you'd be a wimp spiritually. And so, He takes the road and He slants it upward, so you're walking uphill sometimes to strengthen those spiritual muscles as you go. Listen to what Paul the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians. He says, “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet we are not crushed. We are perplexed but not in despair. We are persecuted but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.” That's the balance of the Christian life. And God plans it that way for you. He sends famine in the land of promise to strengthen you. In fact, you cannot follow Jesus Christ without having that happen. That's part of following Jesus, is having those scars, as Amy Carmichael wrote in this poem:

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,
I hear them hail their bright ascendant star,
Hast thou no scar?
Hast thou no wound?
Yet, I was wounded by the archers, spent.
Leaned me against the tree to die, and rent
By ravening wolves that compassed me, I swooned:
Hast thou no wound?
No wound? No scar?
Yet as the Master shall the servant be,
And pierced are the feet that follow Me;
But thine are whole. Can he have followed far
Who hath no wound or scar?

You see, following Jesus, you incur some damage. He doesn't want it to be easy so that you'll grow. Abram gets in the land, there's a famine right there. Now, he's at a test point. He's facing the crisis, “What do you do?”

Look at the next part of the verse. “there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.” He acted quickly. And you know what it's like when we're faced with a crisis situation, we have the tendency to act quickly, rashly, impetuously. And under pressure, we do dumb things a lot of times, right? Especially when it comes to our own physical provision. If we're not being provided for, we push the panic button. And that's what Abram did. He pushed the panic button, did not consult the Lord, and he ran off to Egypt. He acted but he didn't ask. Let me clear something up. There's nothing wrong with Egypt. You can draw a whole lot of parallels about, “Egypt's a bad place. It symbolizes...” and it does symbolize a lot of things. But in and of itself, going down to Egypt was no sin. There's nothing wrong, in fact it's a logical move when you want your family to have food on the table, to go to a place where there is more food. That is not the issue. The issue is not Egypt. The issue is that he didn't talk to God first. There's not a word here about him consulting the boss about what to do. Because the boss led him to this land and it's in this land that, “I'm going to bless. It's this land in which I'm going to make you a great nation. That's the land I want you in. that's the place where you fit. You're having a famine, now you talk to me about it.” he didn't do it. Nothing wrong with Egypt, he didn't consult God.

Parents, what is your reaction when your four-year-old climbs up on the counter and snaps a whole fistful of cookies. There's nothing wrong with eating cookies. You probably baked the cookies for the kid. But that's not the issue. There's a protocol that the kid has to follow to get the cookies. He has to eat his dinner, and then he has to ask. I hope that's the way it is in your house. Maybe you let him crawl up on the counter, I don't know. Nothing wrong with those little cookies but you want the kid to say, “Mommy, can I please have a cookie now?” “Are you done with your meal?” “Yes, I'm all done with my meal.” “Great, you can have a cookie.” But you come and talk to the parent first. Abram didn't even talk to God. Pushed the panic button, went down to Egypt, and the story follows. I'm sure all of us can identify with Abram's quick, impetuous choice at this point. Because we think like he thinks a lot of the times. And this is how we think. We think, “You know, it's okay to trust God as long as everything goes okay when I trust God. Now if things don't go okay when I'm trusting God, well then throw trust right out the window and I'll start relying on my own resources and my own wisdom.” If plan A, trusting God doesn't work, plan B, trust yourself, that will always come through. And so, we take things into our own hands, and that's exactly what this man did.

Have you ever experienced a famine in your life? A spiritual famine? You're experiencing the joy of fellowship with God. Things are just flowing along in your life and you're just. You think, “My life is just great. It's a breeze. There's a fullness of joy. I'm walking with Jesus. Everything is going my way.” Then, it's like a kidney punch. Comes from behind you. Those unexpected catastrophes, perhaps. Those things you never planned to just happen. They're just there. And you start thinking, “This is the land of promise? This is the Christian life? Hey, what about this abundant life I have underlined in John 10 that I quote to myself every day. This is abundant life?” Now, at those times, we are tempted to pull an Abraham and to split because what we want at that time more than anything else is relief, right? Don't care how we get it, we just want to get out of this situation. And so we're tempted to move to the next town, to change jobs, to change spouses, to change anything that will give us relief. And it will give us relief, but only temporarily as you're going to see with Abram. But that's all that we're concerned about and we make a fast move without consulting the Lord. “He went down to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. And it came to pass, when he was close to entering the land, that he said to Sarai,” that's her name right now. Her name isn't Sarah, “Indeed I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance,” sounds like a compliment, but he's buttering her up.” We really need to be careful and almost watch ourselves, or even have somebody watch us when we are going through a time of trial, when it just sort of creeps up upon us, when the famine strikes. Because we start doing anything we can to escape and we can even start doing what Abram did, living in hypocrisy and making up flaky excuses like he does in these next several verses. I wanna warn us against going down to Egypt. And what I mean by that is any time we attempt to satisfy our spirit with the resources of this world, we're going down to Egypt. I'll say it again. Any time we attempt to satisfy our spirit with the resources of this world, we have gone down to Egypt. I'm going to say it again, I want those words to stick. Any time we attempt to satisfy our spirit with the resources of this world, we have gone down to Egypt. We've done it. Abram goes down to Egypt and the pressure is now off of him. “Ain't no famine around here. This is the Nile delta. It's like Ur of the Chaldeans, it reminds me of home. There's food in abundance. There's houses in abundance. There's no pressure. The pressure is off.” However, there's some consequences that this guy is going to pay and he has no idea when he made that quick choice, that it was going to hurt that much. Look at verse 11 again. He goes up to his wife and he says, “Indeed, I know that you are a women of beautiful countenance.” That's a nice thing to say to your wife if it is for the right motivation. “Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they're going to say, ‘This is his wife’, and they're going to kill me, but they're going to let you live.”

Before you get too down on Abram, he had reason to think this way. I'll tell you why. The ancient Egyptians thought that the Semitic women, like Sarah, were absolutely the most gorgeous women in the world and according to some historians, they wanted Semitic women over their own because, as they said, their women faded early. Now there was a procedure that they had to follow to get somebody else's wife. And that is, you kill the husband. That's the procedure. You see, it's too unethical to just take her and to commit adultery. That's, that's wrong. Just kill him. Get him out of the way and then she's husbandless and you can take her to be her wife. They did that. There were people hunting, for the King, these kind of women. Abram knew it and he goes, “Honey, I know these guys are real aggressive down in Egypt and you know, you're a gorgeous girl.” Look at verse 13, here's his strategy. “Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you.” “Now, you're so beautiful, please tell them that you're just my sister.” There's something about this that's interesting. He was half-accurate. That was a half-truth. For Sarai was the daughter of Abram’s father but not the daughter of Abram's mother. After Abram's mom died, I suppose, Abram's father took another wife and it was that woman that bore Sarai. They married. So, it was a little white lie. It wasn't totally the truth but it wasn't totally a lie. It was a half-truth. But a half-truth is also a half-lie, alright? And when you stretch the truth, it's apt to snap back on you. And it did, for Abram. Next verse, “So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was beautiful.” This should sort of astound us because Sarai is at least sixty-five years old and she had such astonishing beauty. I'm not saying that sixty-five-year-old women are not beautiful, but Abram knew that his wife was so beautiful that, even at sixty-five they would be willing to kill him to get her and he didn't want to lose her. Now that sounds really romantic, doesn't it? The truth of the matter is, it's not romantic. Abram has stepped away from a place of trusting God, and when he took that step of unfaith, he started taking her defense into his own hands, and this is the result.

This always happens, the first result of taking a step away from God's control and trusting in the Lord wholeheartedly is that your old flesh, your old self starts assuming control again. Have you ever experienced that? You just take a little step away from God, and each little step, your old man just starts kind of elbowing his way through again going, “I'm in control here.” You have, if you are a Christian, two natures within you: an old nature and a new nature. The old man, the new man. The old self, the new self. Whatever you want to call it, there's two of them. Each of them hate each other's guts, they don't get along, and they're always warring to the time you die. The flesh wars against the spirit, the spirit wars against the flesh. You can't do the things that you want to do and you have to live that way. One of those natures is going to have control, or you're going to have a civil war forever. One of those, you have to yield to the impulses of either the new nature or the old nature. The old nature is like a weed in your garden. Your new nature is like a finally cultivated flower. You who tend gardens in the spring and summertime, what happens if, when you plant a flower you just say, “I don't need to tend the garden. I'll just let it grow.” Flowers don't grow that way, do they? They require meticulous care: fertilizer, just the right moisture, tender loving care, pulling up the weeds. If you just let it go, the weeds start taking over, right? Have you ever noticed that you don't have to water or fertilize weeds? They grow on their own volition. You don't have to touch them. Flowers, on the other hand, require care. Weeds do not. But if you don't cultivate the flower, and you start stepping back from it, the weeds are going to take control. That's like your old and new nature. You quite cultivating your new nature and you step back from it just a little bit, and the old nature starts elbowing its way through, and you start assuming control, the old nature does. And here's Abram. He's not trusting God anymore form his provision. “There's famine in that land, I'm getting out of there.” And in taking that step, he feels the impulse and the need to defend Sarah himself. And so he stoops to lying and hypocrisy. “Say that you're my sister.”

But that's not all. There's other consequences. Look at verse 14. “So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was beautiful. The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house for his harem. He treated Abram well for her sake. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels. But the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.” There's another consequence when you start and I start to take steps away from fellowship and obedience to God and that is, we affect other people. When Abram decided to lie so that he wouldn't get snuffed, he placed his own wife in jeopardy of being in a pagan king's harem. And his decision also really hurt the Pharaoh himself cause God was bummed at the whole thing and was going to snuff Pharaoh if she was touched by him. Point is is that you cannot sin privately without affecting other people. Remember the little rule in science that every action brings an equal and opposite reaction? A disobedient child of God is a menace. It affects other people and you put other people in jeopardy and the closer those people are to you the more in jeopardy they become. Sin is like AIDS. It affects people who are innocent. Abram's sin is starting to affect people who it shouldn't have affected. But it did. Others were affected.

But that's not all. Look at the next verse. “Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she's your wife? Why did you say, ‘She's my sister’? I might have taken her as my wife. Now therefore, here is your wife; take her and go your way.” So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they sent him away, with his wife and all that he had.” Abraham became a curse to the Pharaoh. Now look back at verse, uh, 2. Same chapter. “I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and I will make your name great. And you shall be a blessing.” And that's God's intention for Abram's life- to make Abram a catalyst, the source of God's blessing to other people. Abram became a curse instead of a blessing. He took it into his own hands. He's affecting others because of his own sin thinking, “Well, I can do what I want to do. It's not going to hurt anybody else.” well, it did hurt other people. Hurt his wife, hurt the king. And now he's become a curse even to the Pharaoh and Pharaoh sends him out of town on a rail.

Here's the principle. A Christian who is walking out of fellowship with God is of no help to unbelievers around him. A Christian who is walking out of fellowship with God has really nothing to offer unbelievers. In fact, if you are a Christian and you are not walking in the spirit, I beg of you, don't witness. Please. Don't tell people that you are a Christian and tell them to become a Christian like you. Because at that point you have no witness. You have nothing to say. It's like John MacArthur, who went to visit that one prison. And there was a guy who was in for all sorts of dumb things that he had done. And he goes, “Oh John MacArthur! I hear you, I'm a Christian.” And John said, "Please don't tell anybody around here that you are, okay?” Abram had blown his witness. He had really nothing to say at this point. Now, get this picture folks. Here's a man of God being rebuked by a pagan king. That hurts. There's nothing more painful than to see a Christian being rebuked by this world, especially when it's broadcast on ten o’clock news. That hurts the church. It's painful.

And here's Abram, railroaded out of town. Pharaoh goes, “Later days, man. You're outta here. Don't come back. You are a plague to me. You who were meant to be a blessing are a plague. Get out of town.”

That's not all. The story's not over. I want you look at verse 1 of the next chapter. First four verses. “Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South. Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold. And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel.” Remember Bethel? Remember back in the first few verses of this chapters when he went through Shechem and Bethel and worshipped the Lord? “To the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar which he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of the Lord.” Abram paid an incredible price for a short-lived relief. “Alright, there's famine, I need relief. I gotta get out of here.” He shot down to Egypt, he paid incredible consequences and now he's back. He's back in the land, he's back at the altar worshipping God, he's back in his tent being a pilgrim once again, and he's going down to bethel and, “Abram called upon the name of the Lord.” You know what that shows me? It shows me, first, that the time that he spent in Egypt was a complete waste. Oh, he learned from it but it was a complete waste of time. And, when he got back to the land of promise, he went right back to the same place that he'd left- Bethel. He was at Bethel, he was in the land, there's a famine and he split. But when he came back, he had to start all over again at the very same place he'd left off. All those years were wasted, but now he's back worshipping the Lord at the altar of God, calling upon God, asking God. Which is something he should have done and could have done when the famine first struck, alright. But there's no record that he did that. There's a famine, he left. Now, he's calling on the name of God. He's learned his lesson. Question: Now that he's back, is there a famine still in the land? I bet there is. I bet there is for two reasons. Number one, Abram was driven out of Egypt. He didn't want to go, he was forced out. Number two, if we would read this chapter in its entirety, we would see that there's an argument between Abram's herdsmen and Lot's herdsman because there is a shortage of feed-able land. So there's probably still a famine going on in the land of Canaan when Abram gets back. However, it's not worrying him now because he's at that place calling upon the name of the Lord saying, “God, I acted. I pushed the panic button, but I didn't call upon you. What do you want me to do? I don't wanna make any stupid steps just for my own benefit when you have my best benefit in your heart.” And Abram called upon the name of the Lord.

Okay, give Abram a break, he's a beginner. Had a test, he blew it. But he learned. Okay, lets boil it down to that issue- he learned. So, do you and I learn from our failures? Oh yeah, we fall down all the time. We do stuff like Abram a lot. But he learned from it and now he's learning to walk. You know, he's stumbling before. Now he's learning to walk with the Lord. He's back with God. He's trusting God. I found something that you moms and dads, but especially moms will relate to that beautifully showed this story. Let's see, it's the testimony of one mother who watched her toddler grow up:

When my son was a toddler, washing his hair was always a problem. (You could relate to that, Lenya). He would sit in the bathtub while I put shampoo on his hair. Then, when I poured on the water to make a lather, he would tip his head down so that the shampoo ran into his eyes, causing pain and tears. I explained that if he just looked straight up at me, he could avoid getting the shampoo in his face. We would agree; and then as soon as I started to rinse his hair, his fear would overcome his trust, and he would look down again. Naturally the shampoo would run into his face again, and there would be more tears. During one of our sessions, I was trying to convince him to lift up his head and trust me. I suddenly realized that this situation was like my relationship to God. I know God is my Father and I'm sure he loves me. I believe that I trust Him, but sometimes in a difficult situation, I panic and I turn my eyes away from Him. This never solves the problem, I just become more afraid as the shampoo blinds me. Even though my son knew I loved him, he had a hard time trusting me in a panicky situation. I knew I could protect him, but convincing him of that wasn't easy, especially when all he could see was water coming down. His lack of trust hurt me, but it hurt him more. He was the one who had to suffer the pain. I'm sure my lack of trust hurts God very much, but how much more does it hurt me? Often in the Bible we are told to lift up our head to God when problems come. He knows how to protect us if we remember to listen to Him. Now when I find myself in a situation where it would be easy to panic, I picture my son sitting in the bathtub, looking up at me, learning to trust and then I ask God what I should do. Sometimes the answer may seem scary, but, one thing I'm sure of---He'll never pour 'shampoo' in my face!

Lord, we are so grateful as we look at Abram, You are incredibly patient with this guy. You let him make dumb mistakes. But he came back and he learned, Lord. He learned that You don't pour shampoo in his face. That, even in the land of famine, You could provide for him. I pray that we would come back to Bethel this morning Lord, the place of worship, the place of trust. And many of us have taken steps of unfaith and our fleshes assume control, other people around us are in jeopardy and our witness is shot. All because of those little steps away from you. Lord, some of us have steeper slants than others, but You have programmed that and You know what You're doing and we readily accept that. I pray that as we're climbing those slants, that we would never leave the altar. Thanks for the famine, Lord. But thank You more for the altar in the midst of that where we can hear Your voice. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Additional Messages in this Series

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1/8/1989
completed
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Ladies and Gentleman…Meet Abraham
Genesis 11:27-12:9
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1/15/1989
completed
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Have I Got Plans for You
Genesis 12:1-3
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1/29/1989
completed
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A Tale of Two Friends
Genesis 13-14
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2/12/1989
completed
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God Helps Those Who Help Themselves?
Genesis 16:1-6
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2/19/1989
completed
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Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
Genesis 18:1-15
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2/26/1989
completed
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God…Can We Talk?
Genesis 18:16-33
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3/5/1989
completed
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God's Perfect Will in an Imperfect World
Genesis 21:1-21
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3/12/1989
completed
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The Suffering of Sacrifice
Genesis 22
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3/19/1989
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Death at the Doorstep
Genesis 23
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There are 9 additional messages in this series.
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