23 Mar Abram’s Lie, Sarai’s Harm
Genesis 12:13 – “Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”
Thus far we have seen God call and bless Adam, Noah, and Abram. And, after their call from God, we have seen each man sin against God. Adam ate the forbidden fruit, Noah got drunk, and now Abram, who is the man of faith, acts without faith in God’s promise to protect him. The point Moses is making repeatedly is that there is not a man sufficient to remedy the sin problem, which paves the way for God becoming man, Jesus Christ, to remedy the sin problem Himself.
The story of Abraham begins with him entering Egypt to escape a great famine. He feared that men would so desire his elderly, though apparently beautiful, wife that she should lie and say that she was his sister so that he would not be harmed.
The unsuspecting Egyptians believed Abram’s lie, bringing the lovely Sarai to the great Pharaoh and rewarding Abram with great gifts for the right to pursue his wife, whom they thought was his sister. Oddly, Pharaoh, who is the godless man in the story, appears more morally upright than the godly man Abram. However, God punished Pharaoh until the secret was revealed and Sarai was released to Abram, though she, thankfully, had not yet been sexually violated. Abram’s journey into Egypt foreshadows the 400-year exile in the book of Exodus in which God safely delivers Abram’s descendants from the hand of Pharaoh as He had their mother Sarai and father Abram. Tomorrow, we will continue our look into the story of Abraham and Sarah and how God remains faithful through their faithlessness.
Note the times Abram uses words like “I”, “me”, and “my”, showing his selfishness in encouraging his wife to be harmed so that he could be spared. How does Abram’s example contradict Ephesians 5:25-33?
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