Submitting to God in times of Famine
Do you trust in God when the wells are dry? I begin today with a question. Where do you go when you are in a tight place? Of course, if someone in your house is having a heart attack, you would call the paramedics. If you have a fire, you would call the fire department. Well what do you do when there is no agency that can take care of your problem?
What do you do if your spouse walks out of a marriage? What if you are unjustly fired or unjustly accused? What then? What if the doctor walks into your room and tells you, “you may have cancer? What then? During times of broken relationships and pain, where do you go? In times of struggles, hardships, and famine, what shall we do?
I chose this title not because I think that America is going to have a famine, but we may face and experience times of financial downturns. Sometimes during those times of struggle, some of you will wonder ‘what to do’ and ‘where to turn’. In the Bible, we realize that the closest thing to economic hardship is really a famine because they didn't have an economy like ours. Today, we're going to look at the life of a man who experienced an unexpected famine and what he did. What he did right, what he did wrong, and where do we go from here. The man's name was: Abraham.
Having a testimony with God
The story takes place in Genesis chapter 12. As you may know, Abraham was actually there in Ur of the chaldeans. God told him that he was to go into a land that God would show him. And Abraham left and traveled without a map. Chapter 12:1, “Now the Lord said to Abraham go from your country and your kindred in your father's house to the land that I will show you and I'm going to make you a great nation.” Have you ever wondered how he convinced Sarah that he should do this? Can you imagine that, husbands? So Abraham and his people came into the land. And behold the Canaanites were there. But Abraham was in the land and the Lord confirmed, ‘this is the land I have chosen for you’, so Abraham builds an altar unto the Lord in verse 7 and he worships the Lord. In verse 8, he went to Bethel, on the west side, and has Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.
Abraham journeyed on going toward the Negev, which means ‘the desert’. Is he in the will of God? Yes, he was there by obedience to God. Yes, this land was a gift to him from God. And he was obedient in following the Lord. That’s why we're surprised when we get to verse 10. In verse 10 we read, “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”. In the middle of obedience, in the middle of doing God's will, right in the place of blessing, the land of blessing, there was a severe famine.
Maybe you've experienced this too. You may have left one job, and you took another. You prayed about it, and you gave it to God. But now six months later, the company has downsized, and you've been let go. You may say to yourself, “how can this be? I must be out of God's will.” Not necessarily. Abraham was in the middle of God's will. He was also obedient to God. Remember in Matthew 14, Jesus tells the disciples to get into the boat and go to the other side. Were they in God's will by doing what Jesus told them to do? Yes. In obedience to Christ, they experienced one of the most devastating storms that they'd ever experienced. Don't ever think that the most holy path is always the smoothest path. Sometimes, the roughest path can be the holy path for you and for me.
Now, the famine came to Abraham and his family. And as trials do, they came without instructions. There was no tag on it from God's saying, “Abraham you will have a severe famine and I want you to do this.” However, no trial comes without instructions and without guidance. We have it right here, now in our bible. God has a purpose, but we sure don't know where it is, what it is, or when we will get through it.
Leaving God’s testimony:
Although you must be strong during times of hardships, I would like to emphasize that, in a logical sense, it may not have been wrong for Abraham to go to Egypt during the famine. As a matter of fact, there might be times where God often uses famines to move people. However, in this instance, Abraham, in the land that God gave him, experienced a famine, and he went down to Egypt.
He went down to Egypt. Not only did he go down geographically, but he went down spiritually in a panic of doing something that seemed reasonable to him. A better opportunity for His family, rather than trusting God. So now we have Abraham in the land of Egypt, and he resorts to deceit. He resorts to deceit in order to protect himself. You'll notice in verse 11-13, “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. 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. Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you.’”
Abraham was willing to jeopardize his wife to save his own skin. She apparently went along with the deceit. It's similar to a man who expects his wife to sign an income tax statement that she knows is fraudulent. It has the wrong numbers, but she's asked to be part of the lie and deceive. This is what Abraham does in the case of Sarah. So, she goes along with it. Sarah is now 65 and still so beautiful. Abraham knows that the Egyptians will see her, and they will want her, and that Pharaoh will want her. Sarah was very beautiful and stunning in appearance. And so what happened now is that Abraham’s lying becomes profitable. Because, you see, if they said that she was his sister, now the custom was that Pharaoh would have to negotiate with Abraham and give him some kind of a dowry so that Pharaoh could marry his sister. And that's exactly what happens. It says that in verse 15, “The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house. He treated Abram well for her sake. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels.” Abraham must have thought to himself, ‘my deceit is working. Not all lies are immediately exposed.’
A Sunday school boy was once asked what a lie was. He said, “a lie is an abomination unto the Lord, but a very present help in times of trouble.”
Not all financial blessings are a sign of God's favor. Pharaoh gave Abraham all of these things, even though they were given to him based on deceit. So Abraham says to himself, ‘the lie seems to be working.’ But there is a shadow over Abraham's soul. This shadow becomes very evident, because the Bible says that he lost his testimony in Egypt. The Lord afflicts Pharaoh. You may say, ‘why doesn't Lord afflict Abraham?’ God had something special for Abraham and Sarah. So instead of afflicting Abraham, which he could have done, He afflicts Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah and Abraham's lie. And so in verse 18, “Pharaoh called Abram 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’? 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 backslid when he was in Egypt. He resorted to deceit and lying and panic without trusting in God. You'll notice that there is no altar in Egypt. Illustrating that there was no indication that Abraham sought God's mind in the midst of the famine and in the midst of dry wells. He did not seek the Lord, but he did what seemed right on his own accord and it involved deceit.
Now it's interesting how greatly this impacted his family. It has a negative influence on his family. Understand, when you and I backslide, we can come back as parents, but sometimes our children don't. This was also true in the case of David. David came back from his sin of adultery and received God's forgiveness. He was able to come back into fellowship with God, but his children never recovered and many walked in sinful ways. So here in Genesis, you have an instance where Abraham was deceitful and it affected Sarah too. But it also influenced a man by the name of Lot, his nephew.
Lot was there in Egypt and evidently went with Abraham. Lot looked at the riches of Egypt. Even when Lot came out of Egypt, Egypt did not come out of Lot's heart. He had seen something that he wanted, and he never got over it.
In Chapter 13, Abraham and Lots separate because they needed their own pasturing land. Abraham tells Lot, ‘you can choose which you want, and I'll take the opposite.’
In Genesis 13:10-11, “Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other.” It turned out to be a decision with great repercussions.
God calls us back to have fellowship with Him
But Abraham was able to come back into fellowship with God. Chapter 13 opens with Abraham going to the Negev and then going to Bethel where he had been at the beginning. Genesis 13:3-4 says, “And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel, 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.” Abraham was worshiping God again, came home, and was restored by God.
The question now is: How does this change our lives and my particular famine in life? You may be in a situation where your wells may seem dry. It may not only be economically, but in terms of relationships, in terms of hardship, or in terms of crisis and how it affects us.
Understand, the God who saves us is also the God who sustains us. The God who went with Abraham into the promised land would have also been able to sustain Abraham in the land. No question or doubt about it. I also mentioned it isn't wrong for us to move from one part of the country to another when we're in a famine. But for Abraham, this was an unique problem. He believed in God's guidance into the promised land, but he couldn't trust God to sustain him in the land.
God will bless us and sustain us
There's a very interesting passage in the 26th chapter of Genesis. In Genesis 26: 1-3, “There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar. Then the Lord appeared to him and said: “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you. Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.”
Isaac trusted God to keep him in the midst of the famine and to grant him the grace to stay there. What follows in the rest of the chapter is also quite unique and even surprising. In verse 12-13, “Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him. The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous.” Although he was in the land and time of famine, God provided for him and his family.
God tells us He is going to provide for you and your family in the midst of your famine. He is not going to take the famine away, but He is going to grant you grace and strength so that you can live in the midst of the famine, in the midst of your economic struggles, in the midst of your relationship struggles, in the midst of your sickness, and in the midst of your hardships. Isaac reminds us to be willing to trust God.
Now in chapter 26:15, “the Philistines had stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and they had filled them with earth.” Issac had to re-dig Abraham's wells in the Valley of Gerar. Although God had blessed him abundantly through the famine, God also allowed Issac to face trials. Within the passage Issac struggles to find a well for his family due to arguments with other herdsmen.
God may sustain us in the midst of famine, and we may live through the famine, but it is hard to live as we always lived. There is a chance that Issac may have had to sell off his possessions, he may have lost a lot of money, but, from God's standpoint, it is all a part of His great teaching. God tells us, ‘I will sustain you in the midst of the famine. It may be hard, and it may be difficult, but don't give up hope.’ And the reason we should not give up hope is because of the next observation.
God doesn't leave us even when we leave him:
God doesn't leave us even when we leave him. Understand, Abraham was supposed to be sustained in the land God promised. But he decided to do something foolish and go into Egypt. In the midst of financial needs, we may have done very foolish things. Does God abandon us? There are two different kinds of famines: There's one famine which we have absolutely no control over. The famine which Abraham faced in Egypt, you can not control. None of us can control elements like those. The economy or the company in which we work, we can not control. But the second famine that Abraham experienced when he was in Egypt was the self-created famine.
Abraham left the promised land to go into Egypt. However, would God have stopped at the border? Would God have said, “I'm not going to do anything for somebody who disobeys me and uses deceit in order to get ahead and save his own neck”? NO. God walks with us. God is there with us. God accompanied Abraham into Egypt. God brought a plague upon Pharaoh for Abraham's benefit. God restored Abraham even though his testimony was lost. Abraham discovered that the God who led me is also the God who forgives me. He is the God who restores me, and he is the God that I can worship again. I can build another altar. I can come back from my wrong doings.
Some of you may be cynical in your walk with God. There is no warm fellowship, because you feel that God wasn't there for you. You say to yourself, ‘I'm in a mess that I've made it, and God's not helping me in it.’ If you are a believer, God is with you. He is there for you. He is rooting for you, but he wants you to come back into fellowship. He wants you to say, ‘Lord, I've strayed long enough. I've done my own thing long enough. I want to come back, because it is better to have a dry well in Canaan than it is to have lush pasture land in Egypt.’ It is better to have a dry well than a poisoned Oasis. So the Lord says to you, ‘return to me, believe me and trust me.’
Every famine is a test for our trust:
Now here’s the final lesson for every famine we go through. It is always a test for us when facing the famines in our life. Why did Abraham say, ‘if we go down into Egypt they may kill me?’ What did he mean they may kill him? Was there any chance in the world that Abraham could die in Egypt? Of Course not. Because God had already told him, ‘I'm giving you this land. I'm giving it to your descendants.’ Abraham didn't have any descendants at this time. How could the promise of God be fulfilled if the Egyptians had killed him? Here is the truth. Our lives are in God's hands. It is not in Pharaoh's hands or any earthly authority. God gave Abraham a promise that someday through his seed this land would be populated. His life and our lives are secure in God.
In the book of Galatians 3:8 Apostle Paul says, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” Paul states that Abraham believed the gospel. He said the gospel was preached to Abraham. However, during the time of Abraham, there was no gospel about Jesus dying for our sins. No, but what would eventually come to pass happened because of the promise that through Abraham’s seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And within that promise, there was the coming of Jesus the Redeemer.
However, Abraham did carry doubts. He hesitated to believe that the person who led him into the promised land would sustain him in that land until and as long as He wishes too. Abraham experienced a crisis of faith. He hesitated to trust God to continue. Every famine, whether uncontrollable or self-made, is a test from God. Can we trust God no matter whether it's a famine we've created or one created for us. Can we wholeheartedly trust and submit to him? That is always the question.
Giving our Baggage and Burdens to God
Some years ago, when I landed at an Airport, the plane that I was on stopped at a gate that was extremely far from baggage claim. Shortly after I got off the plane, I found myself next to a young mother. She had a baby in one arm, and she was pulling her suitcase with the other hand. She also had a little toddler, perhaps three, trying to keep up with her and running around like little kids do. I had a free hand, so I asked her if she would like me to pull her suitcase? I only had one briefcase. She replied, “no, I can manage.” I said I would promise to stay in step with her. Wherever you are going, I will pull it for you. Again she replied, “No, I'll take care of it”. I realized that she was just obeying common sense and wisdom. You can’t trust a man you've never met before. If I had taken that suitcase, in ten steps or less, I could go into the crowd and disappear. Then what would she have done? I thought to myself how differently she would have reacted if she had known me. If she had been a member of our church and I asked to help pull her suitcase, she would gladly have given me the suitcase and thanked me. In a sense, Jesus also walks with us in life like this.
How we are carrying our suitcases. Are we trying to manage or trying to manipulate or trying to control our situations? Some of our decisions may be wrong, but at the end of the day, Jesus said, “don't you see that I'm beside you? Why don't you let me carry your baggage?” We may not trust our baggage to someone we do not know. But He is the God who brought us out of our mother’s womb. He is our father who walks by our side each and everyday of our lives. He is the God who secures our lives. We know Him.
Instead of just praying weary prayers that have no faith. Pray in desperation. God may say, ‘the people are saying ‘father’ and they keep asking me for help, but the one thing they will not do is trust. They will not take their sins and their failures and their concerns and their deserts and their famines and just turn them over to me.’ Of course God’s help doesn’t mean there will be an immediate answer, but it means that you will be walking with somebody beside you. He'd say, ‘let me carry your baggage for you. I've not abandoned you. I'm walking in your direction and, if you're going the wrong direction, I'll even lead you in the right direction.’ Could we tell Jesus and wholeheartedly give Him our baggage? Whether it may be a relationship issue, or a financial issue, or a health issue, the bible says to cast all your burdens upon him. He cares for you. He knows what famines you may be going through. He knows how it is going to end.
Dear church, I would like you all to always live every day of your lives in total surrender. Not just in prayer through thanking God, but in complete submission to God. Because as a church we love to see God answer prayers because they are prayers made in faith and commitment. Because He really does care for you. He really does.
Let's pray; Father we thank you today for the story of Abraham and even in his failure we see ourselves. Now restore your people. Lord there are people going through times of very great famine. Some can't pay their bills and other people are going through times of stress questioning your will not knowing where you want them. Lord, every person is filled with questions, concerns, and burdens. Today in faith, we give them to you. Help your people to come in fellowship with you that we might see your glory in this place. And for those who have never trusted Christ as their Savior, may they lay their burden down and receive you today in Jesus name, Amen.
