(Genesis) Genesis 12:10-20 — J. Vernon McGee

Abram Goes Down to Egypt During the Famine

Now, we come to that blot in his life, the second one, I should say. And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land. Came to pass when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarah his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon.

Therefore it shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife, and they'll kill me, but they will save thee alive. Now Abram was in the land. It was a place of blessing.

God never told him to leave. But a famine was in the land, and I think one morning Abram pushed back the flap of his tent, looked out and said, Sarah, it looks like everybody's going to Egypt. There's a famine, you know, and it's getting worse.

Maybe we ought to think about going down. And I think Sarah said, Well, anything you want to do, Abram, I'm your wife, I'll go with you. And so a few days went by, and Abram talked to some of these travelers, and one of them had come from up north of where he lived.

He says, It's getting worse, and it's coming south. And Abram said to Sarah that evening, I think maybe we'd better pack up and go to Egypt. Now, God never told him to. When God appeared to him last time, he says, This is it, Abram.

This is the land I'm going to give you, and you'll be a blessing, and I'm going to bless you here. But you see, he didn't believe God. He went on down into the land of Egypt. And Egypt is a picture of the world in Scripture.

Worldliness and the Rationalization of Disobedience

You'll find that all the way through. I think it's still a picture of the world. It's my opinion of it, and I was there. And frankly, Abram went down there. It's amazing how the world draws Christians today.

And so many of them rationalize today. And they say, Well, now you know, Brother McGee, we're not able to come to church on Sunday night because we have to get up and go to work Monday morning. Well, believe me, everybody has to do that.

And it's amazing that during the week on Thursday night or Friday night or Tuesday night, if there's a banquet and they have a long-winded program, a lot of music and a lot of talk, that party doesn't seem to worry about getting up and going to work.

It's amazing how the world draws Christians today, and they can rationalize. And I think if you'd met Abram going down to Egypt and said, Wait a minute, Abram, you're going the wrong direction, the wrong way on a one-way street.

You shouldn't be going this way. You should be staying in the land. He could have given you a good reason, Well, look, my sheep are getting pretty thin, and there's not any pasture for them, grazing land, not very much, and there's plenty down in Egypt.

We're going down there. And so they went down there. But immediately there was a problem. We have here something that's quite interesting. He's going to have trouble actually with his wife. And the reason is she's beautiful.

Sarah’s Beauty and the Dead Sea Scrolls

And next time I want to tell you about what one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, you know, at first the unbelieving scholar thought that he had found something that was going to disprove the Bible. And have you noticed how silent that the higher critics have become?

They just don't seem to have found any contradiction in the Bible. I want to give you next time how one of them confirms the Bible. It's quite interesting. And they thought it was something else when they found it.

And that reveals the fact you better not listen to the scholars until all the facts are in. Well, we'll save that until next time. And in the meantime, why, we'll be going on down to Egypt with Abram because we want to go down and see what happened to him there.

Abram’s Deception in Genesis 12

Now, if you have your Bible, turn with us to the 12th chapter of the book of Genesis. And we're putting in today at verse 13. We're looking at Abraham. And he'll be a subject all the way through the Bible, by the way, and more said about Abraham probably than any other in the scripture.

Now we found that Abraham went into the land after he dilly-dallied in the land of Haran and God appeared to him when he got into the land. But he didn't stay there, although he went up and down the land, saw that it was a good land.

And it's not like it is today, friends. I'd have you know that because a great many people can't understand how it could be called a land of milk and honey. We'll see that when we get to Deuteronomy, what happened to the land.

But it was a glorious land in that day. But a famine came. And this man Abraham goes down to Egypt. And he recognized he'd get in difficulty because of the beauty of his wife. And we read here in verse 12, "...therefore it shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see thee that they shall say, this is his wife, and they will kill me, but they'll save thee alive.

Say I pray thee that thou art my sister.". And by the way, that was a half a lie. A half a lie sometimes is worse than a whole lie. And this time it certainly was to deceive. And Abraham said to his wife, "...say I pray thee thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee.".

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Biblical Account of Sarah

Now they have found, as many of you know, what are known as the Dead Sea Scrolls over in Qumran, along by the Dead Sea in caves there. And one set they got, they couldn't unroll it because it was so fragile and had been wrapped so long, the leather, they were afraid it would just shatter and come to pieces.

They could see one name, Lamech. So they called it part of the Book of Lamech and said this was one of the apocryphal books of the Bible. Boy, were they wrong. The nation Israel bought it and in the museum there, they began to moisten it and soften it, and they were able to unroll it.

And what they found out was that it was the 12th chapter, 13th chapter, 14th chapter, 15th chapter of the Book of Genesis of all things, but not the text that we have, rather an interpretation of it. And here in chapter 12, in that part of it, why it tells about the beauty of Sarah, actually describing her features and telling about how beautiful she was.

Well, I think that merely confirms what the Word of God said. Pharaoh certainly wanted her. And then when you get to chapter 13, God told Abram, walk through the land and the length and the breadth thereof, and the scroll gives a first-person account by Abraham of his journey.

And the very interesting thing is that that's not Scripture, but it merely confirms Scripture. And it also confirms the fact that that land was just like God said it was. The eyewitness apparently back in those days was able to discover it.

And whether Abram ever gave a first-hand description, I don't know. But the Word of God doesn't say that. God says it. And that ought to be enough for us, and God puts it on that kind of basis. Now you remember the encounter that he had down in the land of Egypt.

The thing was that Pharaoh did take Sarah. And as you well know, in that day they would have to go through a period of preparation for a woman to become the wife of a ruler. You find that in the book of Esther.

And during that period, God appeared to Pharaoh and said, don't you take that woman, that's another man's wife. And in verse 18 of the 12th chapter, Pharaoh called Abram and said, what's this that thou hast done unto me?

Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidtest thou, she's my sister? So I might have taken her to be my wife. Now therefore, behold thy wife, take her, go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him.

They sent him away and his wife and all that he had. So God is overruling. But God does not appear to him in the land of Egypt. Now in chapter 13, we see the return of Abram from the land down there. And what we have here is Abram and Lot leave Egypt and return to the land of promise.

And Lot here separates from Abraham and goes to Sodom. And what happens? Well, God appears to Abraham for the third time. Long as he's in the land of Egypt and long as he's still holding on to Lot, God does not appear to him.

The minute that he comes back to the land and there's this separation from Lot, God appears to him.