Abraham No.2 The Fear of Failure

The passage that we're looking at this evening, as with last week, is in Genesis and chapter 12. Abraham is a great man of God, to which the Muslim community look forward in terms of they honour Abraham, and he's mentioned in the Koran, and Islam traces its roots to Abraham. That's another reason why we should be looking at this character.

And of course the Jewish faith looks to Abraham as its founder. And when we go into the New Testament, we find that Abraham is referred to as a man who gives an illustration of the sort of faith that pleases God, to the extent that he, along with just two other people in the Bible, is actually called the friend of God. And at one point in his life he had to move from the area where he'd grown up, a very thriving metropolis, and come along the fertile crescent and go to the land of promise, which we now know as Israel.

A very momentous journey, a very brave journey. He wasn't quite sure just where he would go as he followed the will of the Lord, though God of course knew and was leading him. But it was a great challenge for Abraham.

And as I tried to explain last week, when you become a Christian, you get a similar sort of challenge. Maybe not geographically to shift location, but certainly in terms of going through a change in personality, a change of direction, a change in outlook. Well, with that in mind, let's look again at chapter 12 from verse 1, spilling over into the next chapter.

The Lord hath said to Abraham, Leave your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So Abraham left as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abraham was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran.

He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired at Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. Abraham travelled through the land as far as the sight of the great tree of Morah at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

The Lord appeared to Abraham and said, To your offspring I will give this land. So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. From there he went on towards the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east.

There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. Then Abraham set out and continued towards the Negev. Now there was a shift in circumstances.

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abraham went down to Egypt to live there. For a while, because the famine was severe, as he was about to enter Egypt he said to his wife Sarai, I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, This is his wife.

Then they will kill me, but will let you live. Say, You are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake, and my life will be spared because of you. When Abraham came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very beautiful woman, and when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace.

He treated Abraham well for her sake, and Abraham acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, men's servants and maid's servants, and camels. But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abraham's wife Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abraham, What have you done to me? he said.

Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say she is my sister, so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go. Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abraham to his men, and they sent him on his way with his wife and everything he had.

So Abraham went up from Egypt to the Negev with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. Abraham had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold. From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier, and where he had first built an altar.

There Abraham called on the name of the Lord. It's marvelous to concentrate upon our faith and what God has done for us, but it doesn't take much to realize as we look at the television and the newspapers that there is great problems in our world, and this next prayerful song just brings some of the situations before the Lord. We'll treat it as a prayer.

If you would listen to it being played through, and then we'll sing it to you, and there'll be a number of prayers and chances for us all to sing this. Our heavenly Father, how wonderful it is that you, the God of the universe, the creator of the universe, listen to our prayers. But it is true, and so we bring them to you this evening, and we pray for our loved ones in this fellowship.

Father, we pray for Hilary especially today and this evening, this night that you'll be very close to her. We pray that she will know your presence, so very real at this time. And Lord, we bring also to you Eileen and Rachel Smith, Mary Wilkins, and we thank you for the healing begun in her, and for little Georgina.

We pray for her and for Colin Anderson this evening. Lord, we thank you that you do hear and answer our prayers. We are so blessed to be your children.

Amen. Answer me, O Lord, hear my prayer. O Lord, hear my prayer.

Come and listen to me. Father, we bring before you the trouble spots in our world. Lord, as we consider the horrors that we have seen in Rwanda.

Lord, as we consider the children and the adults butchered and mutilated. Father, we bring before you that very, very terrible situation, and ask, Lord, that your peace might reign. Lord, we bring before you Bosnia, Lord, and Lord, we pray for that nation too, in Jesus' name.

Amen. O Lord, hear my prayer. O Lord, hear my prayer.

When I call, answer me. O Lord, hear my prayer. O Lord, hear my prayer.

Come and listen to me. Father, we also bring before you the needs of this church. Lord, and your church in this nation.

Lord, on this weekend of on fire, Lord, may your spirit burn brightly, Lord, in the hearts of Christians. Lord, may again, Lord, we see something of that flame of Christianity burning, Lord, in this country, where men bow the knee to you. Lord, we pray for all those who have responsibility in this area, and ask your blessing upon them.

Amen. O Lord, hear my prayer. O Lord, hear my prayer.

When I call, answer me. O Lord, hear my prayer. O Lord, hear my prayer.

Come and listen to me. I'd be glad if you'd have your Bibles open at the passage to which I directed your attention earlier. That was the twelfth chapter of the book of Genesis.

We've had some very sad events in this last week. One recalls the death of Jacqueline Onassis, or otherwise known as Kennedy, perhaps one of the more stunningly attractive and intelligent women of the latter part of our century. And even more particularly, as far as we in the United Kingdom are concerned, we've witnessed the burial of and the memorial service of John Smith.

The press didn't really know what to make of the memorial service of the former leader of the opposition. This is what the Independent led off with in its front page on Friday or Saturday. In the church there was little ritual.

God was praised, but mostly for helping a good and brave man to fight for the happiness of others. The minister said that he did justice, he loved mercy, he walked humbly with his God. This is not what we are used to hearing of politicians.

And equally unexpected, the minister of the church and the other speakers seemed to rejoice in John Smith's achievement, rather than mourn for a life brutally cut off on what might have been the threshold of triumph. Now, his colleague, John Smith's colleague, Margaret Beckett, she said of Mr. Smith, he was the most self-possessed man, the man most at peace with himself that I have ever met. And I wonder what it is that makes a man to be at peace with himself.

Let me give you a picture, two pictures. One is of a room which is utterly untidy. It's just as though the IRA have been in and let off a small bomb and there's utter confusion and the place is, well, it's lacking in any order whatsoever.

And then, and then let me show you another room in your imagination and everything as we would say in South Yorkshire is in apple pie order. To use another South Yorkshireism, it's not higgledy-piggledy. Go into those rooms and answer this question, which one is the nearest as a representation of your life? Go back to Smith.

Now, let's go before John Smith, let's go to Genesis. Can't get much more before than Genesis, can you? In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void. Darkness was on the face of the deep.

That's the authorised version. Let's just update the language a little bit. In the beginning was total disorder and then God spoke and order came into the created world.

Let's now imagine that we're back at school. An illustration I often use. On a piece of paper we've got some iron filings and they're all over the place and then suddenly you get a magnet and you put the magnet underneath the piece of paper.

You introduce what you call polarity onto the scene and immediately the iron filings form a pattern. They are controlled by hidden, unobserved forces. What makes a man so self-possessed that one of his closest colleagues says, he was a man more content and at peace with himself than any other man I have known.

I want to suggest to you, because again the leaders, writers in the paper, made this sort of comment of Mr Smith. I want to suggest to you that the way in which order and purpose comes into your life can only be through a religious dimension. Because it was said of the late leader of the opposition, before politics he put his family and his religion and he would not forfeit those in the interests of the former.

The thing that puts a sense of order into a man, into a woman's life, is when they recognise, if you like, the polarity which God introduces as they commit themselves to him. Now here's Abraham. I study Abraham.

I tried to defend that last week and P. B. Curiam being here this evening has added further fuel to my argument. You study Abraham because, well, he was one of the most wonderful, remarkable historical personalities that there has ever been. As I say, he's central to Islam, he's central to Judaism, he's central to Christianity and when the New Testament says, here is a man who exercises faith, copy him, it gives you par excellence the example of Abraham.

What did Abraham do? Well, New Testament language says that before you can become a disciple of Jesus you have to take up your cross and you have to follow Him. I told you Abraham was born in a place called Ur of the Chaldees. I described something of that and showed you that they weren't primitive cavemen, that Ur of the Chaldees was a thriving metropolis of at least one quarter of a million people.

And that Abraham was worth a shekel or two. And the thing that might well have caused Abraham to think twice about the word that came to him from God to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go to a place that God would direct him to was his family. I mean his wife, his his father, his parents.

I mean parents do have a pull on you, I'm expecting to get a Sheffield by the end of this evening, so you can breathe a sigh of relief the address can't be that long because I promised my mum I'll be in by about 11.30 and it takes about four hours and so you do a bit of a mental arithmetic and see that I've got a timetable to keep to. There is a pull. Jesus said that unless you're prepared to make those ties of family secondary and recognise his primary call then you're not really equipped to be his disciple.

You see the things that might hold on to Abraham, he eventually had to cut them off and though he went from Ur to Haran and when you turn left at Haran you then move into the desert, that's where he lost his dad and that's when he decided he would by God's grace go across the trackless desert like a Bedouin sometimes called the sailors of the sand and go to a land that he believed that God would give to him but he'd never been to it before. And into the life of Abraham increasingly became or came purpose, polarity. Do you remember last week we had a wonderful illustration of somebody who lost it as far as life's purpose was concerned and then gained it.

Our friend Jean came down these stairs into this pulpit and then down the lower stairs onto the platform wearing something like the gear that she used to wear when she was basically a woman tramp on the streets and then after she told us a little bit about how she lived in a disorderly fashion she went back into my vestry, she changed and she told us about the Lord coming into her life and how he brought polarity, how he brought reason, how he brought order into it. I'm suggesting that she illustrated for us today what the Christian faith can do for her in a very dramatic fashion, for some of you in a less dramatic but nonetheless obvious and experienced fashion, and in the Old Testament this dusty book of Genesis you get an illustration of what it really means to bring order to your life. You remember I tried to teach you that Abraham, his life in effect in the beginning of it could be reduced to a discovery of three things to put order to it and those three things I put into the one word tap, each letter T-A-P reminding us that Abraham tapped into, exploited a source that he didn't know when he was in Ur of the Chaldees and it's well illustrated by three terms, a tent, an altar and a promise.

You say, what are you talking about? Well, you try going across a desert moving a semi-detached house around, you can only live in a tent. And not only did Abraham literally live in a tent, but the tent became symbolic of his attitude to life. Tents collapse, life does not last forever and the New Testament giving us a commentary on Abraham gives us the impression that here was a man who was very wise, he didn't just live for wealth, he didn't just live for influence, he didn't just live for politics, he lived recognizing that his was a journey through this world ultimately to a more wonderful experience of the grace of God.

His was a tent life and what's more you read in this chapter that from time to time as Abraham moves into the Promised Land he builds an altar. What do you do in an altar? Well, there you offer a sacrifice and there having cleared the account of your sin by the shedding of the blood of an animal you can have contact with God. Now you don't need an altar these days because the Lamb has been slain for you, the Son of God.

Jesus has taken upon Himself the consequences of your sin, so it is possible for you to have a sort of nomadic attitude to life realizing that you're moving eventually out of this world and during the time that you spend here being in contact with God through prayer. T-A-P. P standing for promise, for God has said to Abraham, I will make you into a great nation and I'll bless you, I'll make your name great, you will be a blessing, I'll bless those who bless you, whoever curses you I will curse and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and Abraham believed God.

Don't you see those fundamental principles in the Old Testament, not only are they illustrated to some degree, though I didn't know his life very much, on the part of John Smith, they are to be latched onto by folk like you and me. If we claim that Jesus Christ is our Saviour, we recognize that we're not here forever as is a tent life. You can't transfer your monies from Barclays Bank or Halifax to heaven, they don't have any branches there.

One day you'll die and leave it. So you've got to have the tent attitude if you're to be a disciple of Jesus. You've got to keep coming to Him in prayer.

You've got to believe in His promise that if you confess your sin He is faithful and just and will forgive you your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Alright, that's what Abraham did. He shows us the life of faith to some degree, but he blew it.

I mean by that he failed. I don't mean he failed entirely. I mean that having made such a good start he then failed in a very bad way and I am so glad that the Bible refers to the mistakes of the leaders in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

You see how appalling it would be if we were to teach you that once you have become a Christian you'll be successful forever after. I would like at this moment, because I've got nothing else to say to you, anyone who is a Christian who has never blown it, quote unquote, who has never fallen short of what Jesus expected of him, of her, I'd like you just to leave right now. I do mean that quite sincerely.

It's either modesty that's preventing you from going or it's conviction that's gluing you to the seat. I'm assuming it's the latter. Abraham, we are told in the second part of the chapter that we're looking at this evening that here was a man who failed and we are grateful for the integrity of the record.

I mean he comes to, he comes to the promised land and there's a famine. Look at verse 10. Now remember that when he moved into Canaan he didn't really have any hold on the land at all, not physically even though God had promised it to him.

He's got a wife, he's got a large retinue of servants, a massive household, and so he goes down to Egypt and he does something terrible. Aren't you glad that the Bible record is accurate, that it tells us the truth? You know we live in a world of image makers. You ever read a biography of Ronald Reagan, don't believe it, if it was authorised by him.

The same could perhaps go for Margaret Thatcher too. The same could go, I don't want to be cruel, to most public people. We live in a cosmetic age, you know you have to touch things up a little bit.

I'm told it costs a penny or two to keep one of the members of the royal family looking beautiful. Well we understand don't we? I mean those of us who are over 30 they say that up to 30 life is a question of development and after 30 it's a question of maintenance. Oliver Cromwell says paint me warts and all.

Well this is what the Bible does about Abraham, it paints the true story and it paints the true story about Peter and it paints the true story about Paul. Peter who was petrified by a girl who accused him of being a disciple of Jesus. Paul who fell out with Barnabas and as a result there was a split in the early church.

It would have been so easy to have applied a little painter's brush, taken a little bit of a biographer's license and edited these things out but the Bible doesn't do that and that's an indication of its inspiration that it is a trustworthy book. Not only do we read here about the integrity of the record but let me suggest there is something else. We find recorded something of the instability of Abraham as well as the instability of my overhead projector slide.

You know when he went down to Egypt he had a problem. This problem was twofold, one was bounty and the other was beauty. The bounty was well he hadn't got any food as we've indicated.

So he goes down into Egypt because there's going to be food there. Joseph will go down to Egypt and eventually Jacob will follow him because well they've got exactly the same problem. Egypt is a luscious land at least where the Nile is and the food that Abraham required is available in Egypt but he doesn't ask God's permission to go.

And one of the things about discipleship, one of the things that's going to keep you on the right path as far as following Jesus Christ is concerned, is asking His permission. Especially if you go to the equivalent of Egypt which here is a very tempting country and if you go into a tempting situation then you need to know that you have been directed down there by God Himself. It's the beauty of his wife really however that becomes a problem for Abraham not so.

Now you might wonder how on earth can a woman who is 64 years of age, for that is what she was, how can she present such a problem? Well in those days, in Abraham's time, they lived for almost twice as long as, at least he did and his wife and some of his contemporaries, almost twice as long as you and I lived. Which means to say that if you adjust the years for a moment or two then she's an equivalent of just over 30. A very beautiful woman and she might be attractive to Pharaoh.

I worked with a man in London, a dear man of God by the name of Macbeth Patterson and he would repeat his stories time and time again and we'd always laugh because they were always funny in the way that he told them and he would sometimes refer to a man who got a little bit of difficulty with his wife and one of his friends says, have you ever considered divorce? And the answer was divorce no, I don't believe in divorce. Murder yes but not divorce. Now in one sense that illustrates Pharaoh's attitude.

He might see this beautiful woman, she is married to a man, he wouldn't contemplate the man divorcing her but he will murder the man in order to release the woman. Hey Sarah, if we get into that sort of problem, my life's in danger. Why don't you do me a favor, say you're my sister.

Abraham never sunk more than that. And sometimes in our discipleship, brothers and sisters, we can sink very low in reneging on the quality of life, the quality of discipleship that the Lord wants us to demonstrate. Let's move on because I know some of our youngsters want to get to Little Hampton in a while.

The instability of Abraham is nonetheless matched in this chapter by the consistency of God. You see, when you do blow it as a Christian, when you have committed your life to the Lord Jesus, if you don't always live at the level that He wants you to live at, the fact of the matter is that He keeps His Word. He is always faithful.

The Bible says of God that it is impossible for Him to lie. Abraham, I will make you into a great nation. I'll bless you, I'll make your name great.

And here is Abraham doing anything but reflecting the faithfulness of God as he carelessly goes down to Egypt and gets his wife to contract such a disagreeable arrangement, Abraham leaning heavily on her. Now wouldn't you think that God has every right to give Abraham up? Wouldn't God have every right to give you up for the things that you have done, post-conversion, which are wrong? And the answer is yes, He has every right. But He doesn't apply His rights, because you see God's rights are also involved, as you understand them, in God's promises.

God says to Abraham, I will make you a great nation. He's not going to go back on His promise. Our Lord Jesus, when you've placed your trust in Him, He will keep you, even though you fall.

He remains utterly consistent. And so you find with Abraham that he leaves Egypt. Pharaoh has discovered that he has in effect deceived him, and the children of darkness, our Lord Jesus says, sometimes are more wise than the children of light.

In other words, non-Christians can be more sensible than Christians. And Pharaoh says to Abraham, why didn't you say she's your wife? Why did you say she's my sister, so I took her into my harem? Think of the damage that I could have done, and think of the way that God is punishing me. But the fault, Abraham, was yours, the Pharaoh correcting the patriarch.

Sometimes, my friend, I think that God deserves a greater quality of discipleship than we offer Him. Abraham, exposed by Pharaoh, is told, take your wife and all the goods and chattels that you've acquired in Egypt and go. And Abraham goes, verse 1 chapter 13, back from Egypt to the land of promise.

Verse 3, to the place that he came to originally, to Bethel. And between Bethel and Ai, he pitched his tent, and then he called on the name of the Lord, Abraham repenting over the very disagreeable episode in his life when, without permission from God, he went into a tempting situation and fell badly. But as God in His grace received Abraham back and continued to work out His promises and continued to bring through Abraham His will, don't you see? He can do exactly the same for you.

You've done wrong. You've fallen short of the God. The Lord turns you back to Himself.

You can have the tap turned on again as you recognize that primarily He calls you to the tent life, an impermanent view of life in this world as He shows you once again the importance of being in touch with Him through prayer, and as He reaffirms His promise that He will do dealings with repentant people such as you might be. What impressed Mrs. Beckett about John Smith? A man at peace with himself, with an order to his life. You can have exactly the same or rediscover it as you ask the Lord Jesus to come into your life or refresh by the power of His Spirit to straighten you out again.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness and for your grace. You deal magnificently with people who do not deserve such reactions to their rebellion and sinfulness.

We ask you now to receive us as we confess the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and ask that that may be applied to our account. We pray that you'll fill us with your Holy Spirit and give us a sense of order and purpose as we make our way through life. Each day may we pitch the tent.

Each day may we ensure the altar has been erected. Each day may we claim your promises and all convinced people said, Amen. Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer, sing o'er His wonderful love proclaim.

We'll sing the first and the last verses. Praise Him, praise Him, ever in joyful song. Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer.

Fear failing you, we ask that this next few days until we meet again in this sanctuary, you will give us a special dispensation of your Spirit, keep us from letting you down. If we go into what stands for Egypt in our life, may we go clothed by the Spirit, not forgetful to pray as Abraham was. We ask, O God, that you will give us success as Christian people.

Those who are groping their way to faith, we ask that you will enable them to embrace the old rugged cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and to find the forgiveness that He offers. And we pray of Him that we may see Him more clearly and love Him more dearly and follow Him more nearly all our lives. Now may the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest and remain with each one of us always.

Amen. Good night. God bless you.