Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good to see everyone here today and thanks for joining us here on this Sunday before Thanksgiving. Very glad you're here. We're going to do some Thanksgiving related songs, seasonal songs. You know, what I have found out is the holiday songs were written by classical musicians, which means they are harder to sing, which means everyone needs to clear their voice. Be ready. We're going to start out. This is my father's world. Him, number 46. I'll ask the rest of our musicians to come up here. I think we Madison's joining us for the first song here. Okay, there we go. And Lynn and Brenda. And we will do a this is my father's world. And let's sing all three of them. I have enough confidence to say let's sing all three of them. Stand together and we sing him number 46. And this is my father's world. And it's my lipstick is all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres this is my father's world I rest in a park of rocks and trees and skies and seas and the wonders rock this is my father's world all let me never forget let go. The wrong team talk so strong run in the river yet this is my daughter's world. Amen. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the world that you've given us. And even the heavens declare the glories of God his handiworks all about us. And as we look to the creation, we know that there is a Creator and we honor him, dear Heavenly Father. And the creation itself speaks loud enough so that there is no one who has an excuse to not recognize the Creator, God and our Father. We rejoice in this truth and the blessings of the world all around us as we conclude this fall season and begin to go into the winter season. And as the Americans anyway, we gather around the table this week and we enjoy the bounty of the earth and especially of this land that is ours. And we care for it and are grateful for it and encouraged by it and strengthened by it, not only today, but through this Thanksgiving week. We pray that in every way your presence might be real and a blessing with us. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Thanks, musicians, for helping me out there and good to see everyone. Perhaps everyone picked up a bulletin right here and some announcements on the back and that is that we've got a special Thanksgiving schedule right here. The activities this week are not taking place and next week, a week from today is going to be this is the first time I have, I think ever done this. It's going to be online only next week in our worship. We will have an online sermon, but not an in house sermon. That's because none of us are going to be here. And so we'll go online only there will be at our website Sermon, next week. But no Wednesday night activities this week either. That means the next Wednesday night is what? Wednesday. I said December 30, but that should be November 30, I'm pretty sure is the next Wednesday night. We'll just skip one. Not a month of them. We'll skip one and we'll be back in the Book of Hosea and having some homemade chicken and dumplings. How's that sound? I saw a video with Kent rolands Rowlands. Rollins Rowlands? You know, the Cowboy. Cowboy? Kent out in Oklahoma. He teaches you how to cook like a man. And he was doing chicken and dumplings and I thought, that looks good. I'm trying it out. So I tested it at home and it was good. So we're having chicken and dumplings November 30 and you'll enjoy that. And in the Book of Jose and the other info that's there in your bulletin, you check that out. We are always glad to have guests worshipping with us and happy to welcome you. And I've got a gift for you today. Dispensationalism for wonderfully, smart, intelligent people from other places. Also known as Dispensationalism for dummies. I wrote this little booklet and want to give it to our guests today and very glad that you're here. And the distinction of our wonderful little church is that we embarrass our guests and introduce them. Unlike in the big city, they don't do that because it makes them feel awkward. Do you feel awkward yet? No. Good. Well, why don't you start then? You came out first with no. Why don't you stand and introduce yourself? Tell us who you are and where are you from? Amen coming to Tower since 1967 from Tyler, Texas. I already told them we have some Tyler people in our church. Glad to see Matt and Rhonda. Halls. Hobbes. H-A-W-S haws. Okay. Well, just in case. Pam and Vernon or Steve and Sharon, you know, the haws. They're here. Wondering where you are. Glad you all are here. And then I think we have the are you the son or the in law? The inlaw. Then you introduce yourself and your family. Amen. Three beautiful daughters. And John and Brittney, Brittany and the three wonderful girls here from Lubbock. Glad you're here. She's kind of from Lubbock, but not really lived there for a while. Yes, that's as close as I could get. Okay. Glad you all are here. Sir, how about you? Right back there. Excellent. Jeff, from what was the town in Oakley? Did you say Oklahoma or Utah? Oakley. Oakley, Utah. For some reason, I heard Oklahoma. And then I thought, I don't know of an Oakley. Oklahoma? Oakley, Utah. Glad you're here. You know, I don't, but I was looking up back there. We have a map with pins in it from our guests. And we'll give you a pin before you go. And I'm pretty sure we do not have a pen in Oakley, Utah. So we're very glad you're here tonight. We also don't have a pen in Jamaica until today and we're going to have to draw Jamaica on the map. But two wonderful ladies back here stand and introduce yourselves, if you don't mind. Amen. Amen. Sonia, did you say? Yes. Excellent. Wonderful. We're glad you all are here and they are spending the winter season here for work at the Tawski Valley. And I told them we eat good. Yeah. And do Bible study and fellowship. So I look forward to getting to know them this winter. Thanks for being here. Do you sing? You just had such beautiful voices talking. It seems like you're probably singers. In which case you also go ahead and get a special music together for the next time you're here and we'll just call you all up. But I introduced myself here to the what was the last name again? Rutherford. Thank you. And I said, do you play the piano? I thought everybody from Lubbock plays the piano, right? I guess not. Thanks for being here. And Rich and Jody have been here this weekend from Poco, West Virginia. They introduced themselves last week and they've been doing volunteer work, like building our little bookstand back there. Doesn't that look nice? The little rotating bookstand there and lots of other things that they've been working on. You'll see, little pieces of it, bits and pieces of that as we go along. And our repair work here is coming along nicely. Another while when it'll be done and that's come along. The wall is actually repaired. Now it's in the plastering stage and then the painting stage after that. So we're looking forward to having just a wall instead of a niche. Sounds sophisticated, doesn't it? Thanks for being here. Why don't you stand and shake someone's hand while I give out some gifts here and we'll sing come and sing here in just a moment together. Thank you. And let's take our hymnal now and we are going to start out with hymn number 584. Come into his presence with Thanksgiving in your heart. 584. Just a simple chorus that we will sing together. And then you'll notice we have a theme. We always put great amount of prayer and study and searching. And our theme this week is they all start with Come. How's that? Come. So we're going to come into his presence with Thanksgiving in Your Heart. Let's sing it together. Maybe if I can get the pianists to cooperate, I think I come. Thou fount of every blessing him, number 98. Listen, the first and the last hymn. 98. Hard to sing like grain strings of words he never teasing cold songs of loudest grain teach me summer what is on it? Sunburning Thompson race the mountains rain, how great a desert daily life comes straight to peace and I grace more like a better time. I wandering apart to me run to wonder what I feel is from to be the God I love hear my heart a lot to it, doesn't it? For those of us who are humans. I think we have several humans who came today. And those last two lines especially prone to wander, Lord I feel it prone to leave the God I love here's my heart, Lord take and seal it seal it for thy courts above isn't it nice that we are complete in Christ and not complete in ourselves? Otherwise we would just wander off every time, wouldn't we? And what a blessing. The last song we do today come, ye thankful people come hymn number 636 and tell you what, let's do the first, second and fourth of this. First, second and fourth. Come, ye thankful people come even so on break free car ring and final waters home caverns now my people hear free from star let's have a word of prayer. This is the last Sunday that our missionaries, the Elrods, Eric and Rebecca Elrod, are our missionaries of the month. There are pictures back there. And if you give Mark missions, it goes to support their work in India. And if you give undesignated, it goes the course to the work of our church and all that we are attempting to do right here. Let's have a word for our Heavenly Father. We are grateful people, thankful people and come with the bounty of the harvest, both a physical harvest and even more, dear Heavenly Father or the spiritual harvest that is ours and in Jesus Christ and the blessings that are ours in Christ. And as we come to a time of offering, we pray that you would take these gifts that are given and that you would use those not only for the work of this church and supplying all of its needs. As you have down through these eight decades. Dear Heavenly Father but also for the work of the Elrods and other missionaries around the world that we support and encourage and pray that you had strengthened them. And this week we're grateful for again the opportunity to gather around the table with friends and family and to honor you and celebrate that which you have done in our lives and in our families and our country. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. We'll have a little offery time and we won't pass the plate today, but there is a box back there at the back. If you'd like to give, you can do so now or at any time as we prepare for this preaching time. Music Video and with that would you go to Genesis, the 12th chapter and we will pick up in a moment in verse eight. We've been now what, six times here in the 7th time of looking at the life and times of Abraham. He's still abram as we are in our text here. And as we look at abram. We're going to look today at a very interesting little period in his life in which Abram goes with his wife Sarah, as she's known here later would be Sarah. And so Abram and Sarah make their way down to Egypt, and there there is a I don't know, shall we call it a lie about she's my sister, she was kind of his sister. We'll see that as we go along, and it shows up even more later in the book of Genesis. But she really was his wife. And so there was some deception going on, and Abram got rich out of the deception and also impoverished his life for the rest of his days. And that we will look at today in the life and times of Abraham. Genesis, chapter twelve. We'll start with verses eight through ten. Now, you may be wondering, you say, well, preacher, we've done chapter twelve already, and indeed we did part of chapter twelve, but we didn't finish. And then we did chapter 13, and then we did chapter 14, and then we did chapter 15. And you would expect that we would go into chapter 16. And if you were really wondering, you would say, why in the world did he skip those verses about going down? I guess he just didn't want to talk about marital issues. But there was a reason I skipped it, and that is because going down and the marital issues that are there, I think is kind of the back story. How many of you remember Paul Harvey? Right. West Texas. You got to know Paul. Well, you're, Tyler, I don't know what they know. And Tyler, other than roses. No, Paul Harvey. Paul Harvey? Yes. Good. And Paul Harvey used to give the rest of the story. Well, we all know the story, of course, of Hagar and Abram and Sarah and the childishmail that's in chapter 16. I think that chapter 16 needs the introduction of the trip to Egypt. That's kind of the rest of the story. It's the prequel, if you will, and I wanted to put them together, although I couldn't fit it all into one sermon. I thought about it because I knew it's a holiday weekend and you're on vacation and all that, and so you wouldn't mind a two hour sermon. But Shelley told me to say otherwise, and I said, well, you're just my sister. Okay, that's not how it went either. But let's look into Genesis, chapter twelve. And here, let's see, we'll start out with a picture of the wandering Jew. There is the Wandering Jew by Mark Shaggal, I believe is how you pronounce that. Mark Shagal. He actually a Belarusian jew. Was a belarusian. Jew. He died in the believe Mark Segal, and then he left Belarus during World War II and became a Frenchman, and whatever his original name was became French Segal. And so this was done 1923 to 1925. And even as you see this, it was already the time in the world in which the Jew was beginning to say, I don't have a place to live in Europe. Things are not looking good up from one village to another village, trying to stay one step ahead of the Tsar. And so the Wandering Jew there's our picture, our background picture as we think of Abram. And it fits what we've got in verses eight through ten of Genesis, chapter twelve. And you know, and you remember from earlier passages, earlier sermons as well, you know that Abram left ear, the Caldis, he went to Haran. He stayed in Haran for a long time after his dad was dead. Then he sort of picks up the call and the Lord calls him down to the land of Canaan and he begins to go down into Canaan. And we studied that already. And again, you remember it even if you didn't have that sermon. And in the first part of chapter twelve, there is this journey into the Promised Land. He comes to a few places like Bethel. Actually, he names it Bethel Beth Elle, the House of God. Because he encountered God there. You would kind of think that encountering God at a place that you call the House of God, you might say this is probably the Promised Land, right? First thing he does is pack up his bags and move on somewhere else. Almost like this crystal clear journey is not so crystal clear. He is going we don't want to forget he was led not necessarily to the land of Canaan, as we know now, but he was led to a place that I will show you. And so he has to have the discernment and listen to the Lord to say, is this the place that I will show you? I'll tell you because I go to Israel quite often that the Jews have a little joke and it goes something like this, that as Moses, they usually say Moses, you probably should say Abraham here. But anyway, they say as Moses was looking for the Promised Land, going about on the Promised Land, moses stuttered a little bit, of course. And so Moses sort of heard God and then he was telling Aaron and the others, he said we're supposed to go to and Aaron said Canada. And he said, no kiddo, canaan. I actually got that wrong. Aaron said canaan. Now see how you mess up a joke. Aaron said canaan. And they all ended up in Canaan when they were supposed to go to Canada. And then the joke usually goes, you know, here we are, the one place in the Middle East that has no oil and this is our place, right? We were supposed to be in Canada, not Canaan. Well, it's just a humorous joke, obviously. And yet as we think of Abram the Wandering Jew, as he's going about here, obviously he wouldn't have been called a Jew yet at this point. But Abram, the wandering Jew is going about and he doesn't really know where it's supposed to be. He's supposed to hear from God. He's supposed to stop and say okay, this is the land and there's plenty of evidence in chapter twelve for you and I who have the benefit of hindsight to say abram, you should have stopped right there. You're right in the heart of it. I mean you are there, take the bounty that God has given you. But he kind of keeps wandering around. And this is where we pick up, really, in verse verse eight. Genesis, chapter twelve, verse eight. He removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and AI on the east. And there he builded an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed going on still towards the south, I want to emphasize going on still. He goes to Bethel, he meets God, he goes to AI and what does he do? He builds an altar there, he calls upon the name of the Lord and he goes on still. The Hebrew phrase I think it's actually something like journeying. He kept journeying. Journeying is sort of a repetition that is taking place in the Hebrew and we don't know exactly how to put that in English. So going on still the Hebrew really does emphasize the fact that he doesn't stop and the reader sort of gets the hands. It's not just you have to read between the lines a little bit but the reader sort of gets the hands. Why are you going on still? You happen to be at your destination stop and it continues going on still toward the south. Now the south is Egypt, a little bit to the southwest it would be. But all through the scripture south, the south, the southern kingdom, all of that is always going to be Egypt. So he's going down in verse ten I'll make that clear. It says then in verse ten there was a famine in the land and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land. OK, we don't know how much time there was between Bethel and then AI and building an altar to the Lord and going on kind of looking through and trying to figure out which real estate is God giving. Some amount of time comes obviously because a famine arises, there's a famine in the land. And the reader again, though it's not stated explicitly, the reader is almost saying me wonders if this is a test, is Abram going to trust that the promised Land can actually provide for him and for his future nation? So there is this famine in the land and he goes down unto into Egypt. Down into Egypt. Now again, if you're reading very closely, going on still seems to say you should have stopped going down into Egypt. Now I understand that normally we would talk about going down to Jamaica, for example, and up to Canada, down to Jamaica. That's the kind of talk that we would use in Hebrew. It's not really necessarily the kind of talk that would be used. You may remember that. Well, really all through the Old Testament, and very definitely in the New Testament, there is the phrase going up to Jerusalem. And it is always doesn't matter what direction you're coming from, you're always going up to Jerusalem, whether you're coming from the north, traveling south to Jerusalem, you go up to Jerusalem and it's almost like a little spiritual clue that this is the city of God. Here is where you come into God's presence. This is where the house of the Lord is. This is the place that he has chosen. You're going up. Well, interestingly, both for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, later on, the children of Jacob, the twelve tribes, when they go down later and end up in Egypt every time in that context of the patriarchs, they end up in Egypt. It always says going down to Egypt. Now, if you know, the Bible says up to Jerusalem, down to Egypt, you sort of get the idea. Again, not explicitly, but you could pick it up. It doesn't take a rocket science theologian, does it, to pick up. I don't think Egypt is the place that God wants. Egypt was, I would say, the superpower in the world at that point. Egypt was a well established kingdom. By this point. God is not going to take it from the Egyptians and give it to little Abraham. He's got another place. So it's all but stated that Egypt is not the promised land, egypt is not the place that he is supposed to be, and yet he goes down to Egypt. Now, in fact, again, in verse ten, there's a famine in the land. Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there sojourn is the word that says we're not permanent. We're here for a while. Sojourn you all are sojourners in the back, right? Sojourners to task, it's not your home. You plan to go back home someday, but in the meantime got a job to do. I'm sojourning here. And we're glad you sojourned with us, by the way. So again, pick up all these clues kept going still famine in the land, down to Egypt, to sojourn when we are sort of sitting back, it's kind of like how many of you watch horror movies? Anybody ever watch a horror movie? I don't watch horror movies, I watch westerns. But sometimes it's the same because you want to say to the rifleman, don't go in there. He's in there, the bad guy is there. And so we're sort of sitting back like we're watching the movie, saying, that's a bad choice. No, don't do that. This is a bad choice. We're seeing this play out on the big screen before us with Abraham and yet that's what he does. Here is abraham. And I've mentioned this a couple of times, several times already in this series that Abraham is this great patriarch of faith, and yet, so far as we've seen him, he kind of flubs up an awful lot. And he kind of comes to a lot of places where this great man of faith didn't express too much faith. Here I am in the land of promise. I don't think it can sustain me. Little bit of famine, I'm out of here. You wonder, and we'll never know. Who was it that wrote the little lines, the saddest words of tongue and pin? Are these sad words what might have been? We don't know what might have been. What if Abram had said, lord, I think this is a test. You bring the famine on the land of the land of promise, the land flowing with milk and honey and here I can't even feed myself. But I'm going to trust in you. I met you. Here you are my all in all. Who needs crops? You'll provide for me. What if Abram had had that kind of faith? The truth is we'll never know. And that's the truth in many of our lives as well as so many times as it goes. One of the things, in a strange way and again, I've mentioned this before and I'll mention it again, but in a strange way with Abram, is we sort of expect that these patriarchs just go from one mountaintop experience. To another. And they're always men of great faith. And you sit at their feet in awe that the person could have that kind of faith. And yet when you read it closely, it is a guy struggling to figure out what God's will is and trying to make the best of it and do the best, which is what you and I do so many times. But how do you stay? Would God have healed the land if Abram had only shown faith? Was there something Satanic behind this, shall we call it spiritual warfare? In the back of all this, that God excuse me, Satan is saying God's up to something. He wants to do something. This might be the land in which he provides the Messiah. This might be the family through which the Messiah comes. And maybe Satan is saying, and Messiah crushes me on the head. I already read that in Genesis, chapter three. I need to stop this. And so maybe he's trying to do everything he can to what would Barney Five say? Nip it in the bud. Is that who said nip it in the bud? Yes. Maybe Satan's trying to nip it in the bud and throw in all this at him. We just don't have the full story to understand it. But we can certainly speculate a little bit there. And so we go on now he goes down to Egypt. We're going to pick up in verses eleven through 16 and see what I'm calling a faithless act and its immediate benefit. And he certainly does have that. And here is a picture of Sarah right here. This is beautiful Sarah. I like the look on her face, because Abram is counseling Sarah, according to the artist James Tiso, anyway. And just imagine the scene, man, especially you can understand this, honey, why don't you tell them you're my sister? And the beautiful wife has that look like, what did you say, your sister? So that's what's about to happen here. And we pick it up in verse eleven. And it says, it came to pass when he had come near unto Egypt, 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. It's not bad to choose a fair woman to look upon. And however Abram and Sarah came together, we don't really know as husband and wife, but she was a beautiful woman. If you were to look up any list of beautiful women of the Bible, sarah would be there. Sarah would be there. In fact, the Jewish people have this theory that Sarah was the most beautiful woman to ever live. Now, are they reading a little extra into it? And the scripture says probably so, but certainly she was a beauty. And Abram knows this, and so he mentions it. By the way, I think she's about 65 years old here at this point, and yet she's going to live into the hundreds. The scale is just a little bit different when we get to her death, and that will be quite a while from now. But when we get to her death, we'll find that there's this interesting thing. I think she died when she was 127. I think. I'm almost sure it was 127. And there's an interesting way the Bible says it. It doesn't say she was 127 when she died. It says when she died, she was 127. Now, we kind of read that as King James English, she was 127. Just sort of flowery speech. But that's actually in the Hebrew. That's the way the Hebrew puts it. And the Hebrew can say 127, doesn't have to say 127. Now, this is just a preview for a future sermon after the holidays. That when we get to Sarah's death, we're going to look into that text and say, at least all of the Jewish rabbis say there's something to the way that is worded there, which basically I won't let the cat completely out of the bag, but basically it said she always looked, acted and had the demeanor of someone much, much younger than her. So here she is, 65, and she could win the beauty contest. Back to verse eleven. Here's the council from Abram. Behold, now I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon. Verse twelve. 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 will save thee alive. I think that's a way of saying I'm ugly, you're beautiful, and I'm in the way of your beauty. And so they're going to kill me. Verse 13. Say, I pray thee I bet he did. 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. So there is, of course, the great plan is hatched. You say you're my sister, and that way I can live. And they're not going to kill you, they're just going to kill me. That way I'll live. You'll live. We'll live happily ever after, honey, if you'll just say you're my sister, we go on in verse verse 14, it came to pass that when Abram was coming to Egypt, that the Egyptians beheld the woman, that she was very fair. And the princess also of Pharaoh saw her. Princess? Excuse me. The princess of Pharaoh also saw her and commanded her before the Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into the Pharaoh's house. And he entreated Abram, well, for her sake. And he had sheep and oxen and axes and men's servants and maid servants, and she asses and camels. And we'll stop right there. So here it is. And you get this idea in the picture that is coming along here. And now the great faithful Abraham comes to save his own skin, says, why don't you go be the Pharaoh's wife and just tell him you're my sister? It'll all be okay, really. Nothing could go wrong. And that is the proposal that is given there. And so here this beautiful woman comes along and in verse 14, she is taken into the Pharaohs house. Taken into the Pharaoh's house. Let me just say right here, we'll get to it in a few verses that don't interpret that as she married the Pharaoh. We'll get to that later and see whether or not she married the Pharaoh. But in our earlier hour, we were talking about how to interpret the Bible, and it would be a presupposition to say they got married when he was taken into her house. We don't know that. All we know is she was taken into the Pharaoh's house in verse 14 and we'll see exactly what happens. Now, when you look at this, if you were to look ahead to Genesis, chapter two, verse twelve, we find out from that that Sarah actually is Abram's half sister. That is, they had the same father, Terra, but they had different mothers. And we won't get into all of that marrying your half sister kind of stuff, but they were from Arkansas. Excuse me, those of you from Arkansas. West Virginia, I should say. West Virginia, right. So he married his half sister, which was fairly common in the day there, to marry within the clan, if you will, and so, yeah, okay. She was kind of his sister. And maybe he's saying, if we want to put the best spin on it, we're going to try to do that. Okay, let's put the best spin on it because this doesn't look so good, does it? It looks like you go be the pharaoh's wife just for me so that I can be saved. Well, it could be that, and there's a decent amount of evidence for this, that in that day, either the father, if the father is not present, then the brother is really in charge of his sister and her care. And so it would be the brother that would be able to say, yes, you can have this woman as your wife. We still have the sort of even in modern culture, who gives this woman to be married, and usually it's the father or maybe it's a brother, an uncle or something like that, that still kind of holds to this idea that someone in the family authorizes this marriage, gives this woman to be married. And so Abram maybe is coming forth and saying, okay, I'll be the brother, you be the sister. And that way I'm in charge of whether or not you can marry the pharaoh or one of the princes or whoever it may be. And maybe in the council he's saying, look, I'll tell you what, I'll drag my feet until the famine is over, and then we'll pack up and leave, put the dishes on the camel and go on. We'll make it out of here. So maybe there's something behind this that he's saying, look, you'll live in comfort. I'll live, and I'll just not yet give permission and so you'll be taken care of. Now, again, that's not exactly in the text, but it certainly is a scenario that would fit culturally and may come together and work. So perhaps this is exactly what is happening now as we look at this. Here Abram comes maybe buying time by not saying, okay, she's my wife. And the plot appeared to be working because again, in verse 16, he entreated Abram for her sake. He, this is the pharaoh had all these sheep, oxen, all that kind of stuff that he blessed Abram with, almost like, you take the ox, I'll take the girl, you get the loot, I'll get the beautiful woman to be my wife. Negotiating now, I think that, again, a little speculation apartment here, but I think Abram by this time must have been somewhat well known. I think even if you've got a beautiful sister, you don't just get invited into the pharaohs palace. So I think, excuse me, abram is treated as a dignitary when he comes in. That probably adds to it, because we certainly know that during that day that rulers of cities, of clans, of nations, whatever it may be, of kingdoms, would trade beautiful family members to go and be part of the palace over there as a means of negotiating a treaty. Basically, you're not going to go to war with us if your sister is in our palace. Sorry. Women, I think they use beautiful women as a hostage a little bit and human shield and all that, but it took place. And that perhaps is what we're looking at here. So again, in verse 16, all of this stuff gets given to Abram. He's getting rich. Jump ahead to chapter 13, verse one. When it says Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had then jumped down to verse two. And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver and in gold. So he's down there, he's getting all this stuff. When he leaves, that's when it's mentioned he's rich. So he's getting a lot of stuff here that is going on. It looks like that this is the case. And then we get into Lot and all the things that we have already talked about in chapter 13. But let's continue on Genesis, chapter twelve. Let's go down to verses 17 through 20 and see that when things turn south, Abram goes north and we'll change our background picture. Here we have another James to so James To So did a lot of pictures on this. I don't know if he was just enthralled with the story or what, but here is the Egyptians admire Sarah's beauty. Here she is in all her Egyptian garb here. And you can't see because I had to crop it out of the picture, you had all the Egyptian princesses standing around admiring Sarah and her beauty. And so she's in the palace now as we come to verse 17, had been taken into Pharaoh's household, as it says in verse 14. So verse 17 again, the Lord plagued Pharaoh in his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. Okay, almost saying, Abram, you're doing a lousy job protecting her. I'll protect her myself. And the Lord sends these plagues. Don't know what the plagues are. I wish I did know what the plagues were, some of the Jewish scholars speculate on them, but I didn't see anything that seemed to have much value beyond speculation. And so we could all have fun with some speculation. But there are some plagues that come up on his house. It says here they're great plagues because of Sarah, Abram's wife. Now because of Sarah, Abram's wife. Looks like, especially when we get into the next verse, pharaoh immediately associates these plagues with Sarah. How did he immediately know sarai is the cause of your problem? I kind of think you remember the story of Jonah when he's on the ship bound for Tarshish, and the storm comes about and the sailors are trying to figure out whose fault is this? What's going on here? This was not in the weather report. Something's up here. One of you is to blame. And finally they don't know. And finally Jonah comes and says, it's me. Throw me overboard and everything will be good. Well, in this case, Pharaoh knew that this is a supernatural plague and that Sarah is the reason. And so it goes on. Then in verse 18, Pharaoh called Abram and said, what is this that thou hast done? Can I stop in the middle of a sentence? You've already been saying it right. What is this that thou hast done? Why in the world are you doing this? So, Pharaoh, what is this that thou hast done unto me? Why did thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Okay, again, I would like Paul Harvey to do some investigation and let us know what the rest of the story is. Did the plague somehow reveal it? Did an angel of God come somehow reveal it? Did Sarah herself reveal it? What happened here? I don't know. But now Pharaoh knows, and he is hot under the collar and upset with Abram. Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Verse 19, why say thou she's my sister? So that I might have taken her to be my wife. Now therefore behold thy wife. Take her and go away. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away and his wife and all that he had. And that's where we take a moment ago in verse 13, chapter 13, where he goes with all of his wealth. Now, Pharaoh comes to understand. He goes, he sends them away, and he's in the south. Things go south, he turns north. Time to get out of here. Actually, he didn't even decide himself. Pharaoh said, Time to get out of here. I don't want anything to do with you. I want you to move on and get out of here. Interestingly, once he goes back and we've already had the story of Lot and Abram, once he goes back, there's nothing really said about the famine at all. It just seems to be a non event by now. Were they down there long enough that the famine went away? Or did Abram exaggerate the famine in his own mind when he went down there? What took place? Again, so many things that we would like to know, but we don't know. So I want you to focus. We were asking earlier, was she married? Look at verse 19. And this is one of those you might put your eyeballs on the text there if you've got your Bible in verse 19. Mine, I'm reading from the King James and says, Why said thou'll? She is my sister. Now, here's what I want you to look at. So I might have taken her to be my wife. Now, many of the translations say I took her to be my wife. There is a difference I think you would agree between I might have taken her to be my wife, and I took her to be my wife. Which one is it? Is that Pharaoh recognized how close this came in the possibilities, or did he actually become his wife? First of all, I looked at the Hebrew on it. The Hebrew well, Hebrew is not easy, let me tell you. And I'm not a Hebrew scholar, so we perhaps could bring in a Hebrew scholar and deal with this. But the form that it is in, the verb to take the form is in the imperfect. Imperfect is normally that which had not been completed in this case, let's say that which had not been consummated yet. I might have taken her to be my wife. Let's kind of pretend like they had already played Here Comes the Bride and I had already walked down the aisle, and they were standing there, and the preacher said, Are there any objections? And the angel of the Lord comes down and says, I object. And, boy, that was a close call right there. Something to that degree that it was about ready to take place, but because of these plagues, did not take place. Now, I also looked among Jewish scholars, and I could not find a single Jewish scholar that said they believed that Pharaoh took Sarah to be his wife. And I even looked, strangely enough, at a few Muslim scholars, because Muslims, of course, have Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and all this that is in there. The Muslim scholars 100% do not believe that Sarah ever became the Pharaoh's wife. So take all that. All the Jews believe they didn't get married. All the Muslims believe they didn't get married. Most of the English translations in America today say they got married. Which one is it? I happen to think that the modern translations didn't quite get it right and that the King James here does that. I might have taken her for my wife. There never was a marriage or a union between the two, but sure came, and it sure could have happened. And by the way, all those scholars that say it didn't happen base it based upon grammar, upon Hebrew grammar and what is taking place there. So here it comes. Pharaoh understands, and he knows. Now, with that, let's take all that and say, okay, all is well that ends well, right? And so now they go off and they live happily ever after. Does anyone think it might have been a long, quiet ride home as far as a beautiful woman maybe even has a little animosity towards all the wealth that's there and that he got, shall we say, at her expense? That she's kind of saying, you're my husband, and you basically put me up hostage so that you could get a ransom and save your skin. And now we're out of here, and we're supposed to pretend like everything is just peaky keen, right? Everything's wonderful. Do any of you men think you could have got away with this? I didn't think so. There's nothing really mentioned. I mean, again, the text doesn't say, oh, boy, was that a hot ride on the way home? We don't know. We can only speculate. But the next time we really see Sarah is in the whole story with Hagar and all the sermons we've had up to this point we knew Sarah was there. Sarah was there, but she wasn't in the text. She was kind of hidden in the background. We know that later on we're going to see her with Isaac and the men that come and she laughs and therefore he's called Isaac and whatnot? And we see her a few times. But the next time we see her is in June. Genesis, chapter 16. And there's this interesting little thing that takes place here in Genesis, chapter 16. Go to chapter 16, verse one, if you will. And it says now Sarai, Abram's wife bear him no children and she had a handmade what? An Egyptian whose name was Hagar. Wonder where you get an Egyptian handmade named Hagar. Here is a picture by Edmonia Lewis. Not a picture, a sculpture. That's what I'm trying to say of Hagar. And down in 75, Edmonia Lewis is an African American Native American sculptor who did a bunch of famous sculpting and some painting, too. But anyway, here is her depiction of Hagar. The artist said, by the way, this is Hagar as she is walking away from the scene. Remember when she was kicked out of the house and she's walking away with the scene kind of eyes to the sky, not really straight ahead and saying, I know where I'm supposed to go because she didn't know where she was out there wandering. Next week we'll put that into the sermon and look at it but with Hagar as the background. Here again in chapter 16, verse one we see this intriguing little thing that Hagar is introduced the first time we have a read about Hagar. She's introduced as an Egyptian. Now, back in you want to back up again to chapter twelve, verse 16. This is back in our story down in Egypt and speaking about the Pharaoh 1216. He entreated abram. Well, for her sake. He had sheep and oxygen. Asses men's servants. Made servants. She asses and camels. Okay. Made servants. Pharaohs given out made servants. Men's servants. Made servants. Could it be that Hagar came from this experience right here and that she comes home along with a bunch of others and a lot of livestock and whatnot? She comes home and she's part of the family now? Well, I think certainly we don't have any better explanation, do we? Then she comes from this whole scene, as a matter of fact. Once again, Jewish and Islamic scholars all say that something you've perhaps never heard before that they believe that Hagar was the pharaoh's daughter and that the pharaoh gave his daughter in this kind of political arrangement that was Given gave his daughter in exchange for Abram's sister. And that was the deal that was going to happen. And then the Lord called it off and Pharaoh just said, get out of here, and didn't back up, didn't take his daughter back. Again, that's a little hard for us to conceive, because we would never do that. But in the political kind of situation that was in that day, it's very possible that it happened. And again, I would say if you ask any Jewish scholar who is Hagar, they'll tell you Pharaoh's daughter. And if you ask any Islamic scholar who is Hagar Pharaoh's daughter, they'll all tell you pharaoh's daughter. She came from royalty in there. And that's going to be, again, a little bit of background to what we'll look at when we get into that story of Hagar that is going on through there. And could it be that Christians haven't so much rejected the idea that she's, Hagar, is Pharaoh's daughter? We haven't rejected the idea, we just never heard the idea like, okay, well, maybe so that this is royalty now living in it, and Sarah now has the princess as her handmaid. If that is the case, then that might I'll give you a preview for next week sermon that might explain why Sarah says to Abram, hey, we're not having kids, why don't you have hers? Abram says, I don't think that's a good idea. No, let her be the surrogate. Really? Oh, really? Really? And of course it happens. And then Hagar, once she's carrying the child of Abram, she becomes a little prideful and Sarah then comes back and she blames Abram. If I was Abram, I'd be like, I didn't want to do it in the first place. You're the one that did this. But if you read the text, we will next time. In Genesis, chapter 16, sarah is convinced that, abram, this is all your fault. 100% on you. Again, I read the text and I say, sarah, you're the one that said, you know, you said it. The Bible says Abraham is your fault. But if Hagar, whether she was Pharaoh's daughter or not, if she came out of that whole Egypt experience, then Sarah probably does have a leg to stand on and say, abram, it's your fault. If you just told him I was your wife to begin with, we wouldn't have to deal with this. Maybe you'd be dead and we wouldn't have to deal with this. But nonetheless, we wouldn't have to deal with this. And maybe even if you just had faith in God before we journeyed down there, we wouldn't have to deal with. Let's pick up some lessons from the life and times of Abraham as we've seen it so far here. Really just one lesson, as we've already in toned a little bit. Let me just say, as those of you who know me already know, but I'm not the kind of preacher that thinks you have to have application to every sermon. I think the application is, now you know more about that Egyptian experience and hagar than you ever knew before. I hope that was the goal. Now, you know the Bible well, that's the best application there is. But sometimes there is that application that just sort of kind of jumps off the page at us and you say, well, if we can get some free application, I'll go ahead and take that too. You paid for the Bible study and you get some free application. How's that? What a deal, right? So here's a little bit. And as we see this, even the heroes of the faith had huge moments of faithless failure. We see it in Abrams life, we see it in Moses life, we see it in Joshua's life, we see it in David's life. I think you could go on and on. These heroes of the faith had great moments of faithless failure. And maybe one of the values that we get in learning these things is to learn from their mistakes, to say, okay, here's a guy who really kind of messed things up forever. I sort of said at the beginning of the sermon, they come home and everything is wonderful and everything's terrible forever, all these blessings that they bring home. And yet in that blessing was Hagar, who becomes this problem which honestly affects the world's geopolitical situation today and religious situation all the way today in Abram and Hagar's descendants versus Abraham and Sarah's descendants. And there is this, shall we say, rift in humanity that takes place because of the faithless moment that you've got right here in Abram. And maybe it helps us to say, you know what? I was about to make a real bad mistake myself. But then I read Abram and I said, I'm not sure it's worth it. Sometimes those problems have such long term consequences onto me, onto my family, onto my descendants, on and on. And maybe if you're in the place of Abraham, even they put a rift or a divide into humanity itself that is nigh unto, impossible to ever put back together and to fix. And that's what we deal with in the situation that it is today. You can look because of our vantage point of where we are and say Abram really did have some short term mistakes. But if all we get out of his mistake was a very chilly ride home, then we haven't seen the half of it so much more that is coming home with them and later on a little bit. I don't know if this is the right phrase to use here, but don't you see, when you get down to Hagar and all that in chapter 16, I think we might just say, you know what? The chickens came home to roost. I see what this all leads to. I personally think there is a great joy in being able to tie the stories of Scripture together and say, hey, it's not just two separate instances. They really do come together and there's a plot line in the Bible, and it all comes together. And ultimately the plot line is about who is the promised child. And so here you've got Satan maybe even working behind the scenes from the beginning to say, I can't really stop this thing, but I sure could give some confusion to the whole matter. And so if I can't stop it, I'll confuse it, and maybe that's the reason that the famine comes. Can Satan send a famine? Could Satan send a famine? I don't know. The New Testament calls him the God of this age, right? The God of this world, the God of this age. So I won't be so far as to put it off onto him and say, perhaps that's happened. So you and I go home today and we say, okay. I want to think before I tell people that my wife is actually my sister. I want to think before I lie. I want to think before I'm just not upfront and honest. But even more than that, I want to think before I, shall we say, jump ship. Because that's kind of what Abram did when he didn't just stay in the Promised Land and said, Famine. God can handle famine. He brought me here. He told me this was the place. He met me here. I'll let Him provide what a difference that would have made. And you and I can think through those things in our own lives. Amen. Let me lead this in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you again for the stories of the Scripture, the accounts of what is taking place among these you have chosen and you have used. And as we look at it and consider it their Heavenly Father, we're we would say sometimes some of that, Lord, I would have left out of the book. I just left that secret. But you put it, warts and all, there they are. And we see what takes place here and the pain that it brought not only into that family, but ultimately that it is even brought into the world. And thank you for giving us the full account and helping us to understand and then so much more that we would like to understand and indeed farther along we will, and we look forward to that. In Jesus name, amen. As you go from this place, you know that the Gospel is not found in Abraham. A hint of the Gospel is found in a promised Child to come, but the Gospel is found in ultimately jesus, who comes to be born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, finally went to the cross, died, bore the curse upon the cross, and now has risen again. And not only risen again, lived again, but sent it unto heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father. And he comes from above now, offering a gift of eternal life to anybody, anywhere, anytime, who would receive it. And this Thanksgiving week, I can't think of anything that I would be more thankful of than to know that you have received the greatest gift that anybody could ever offer and that God offers in his son Jesus Christ and the blessing that ours is ours there. And what better way to spend Thanksgiving than to know that you are complete in Christ? Not because you're better than Abraham, because even though you didn't do that dumb thing, you probably did a dumb thing right? No better than Abraham. We still struggle with faith and doing what's right and sometimes doing dumb things. And yet to know the grace of God that he just offers this gift of eternal life is the greatest of blessings this Thanksgiving season. And so we hope that you have a delightful one all the way through. Thank you very much. And we will as a go out pray. Come, ye thankful people, come. You can interpret it as Go, ye thankful people, go. Thanks again for being here. Oh, I'm going to take pins for the map and I'll set them back there at the table in the back so that you can stick a pin somewhere near Jamaica, as close as you can get on the map to Jamaica. And what was the name in Utah? Oakley. Like the sunglasses. Oakley, Utah and Lubbock, Texas. And Tyler, Texas. Stick one of those in there and we would appreciate that. By the way, the hospital home folk noticed the map is framed this week. Doesn't it look nicer with the frame around it? That's one of the things that Rich did while he was here. And all for a hamburger. God bless you all. You're dismissed. Happy Thanksgiving.