Genesis 12 starts Abraham’s journey of faith with God’s call to him:
“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household 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 peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Abram left his father’s home in obedience to God and with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and his household they set out on pilgrimage to the Promised Land of Canaan.
“The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So he built an altar there to the Lord, had had appeared to him.”
A famine came into the land and so Abram went down to Egypt to live there awhile. Abram became fearful – telling his wife to act as his sister not his wife. He told the Pharaoh that Sarai was his sister out of fear of the Pharaoh wanting to take such a beautiful woman into his house. So he instructed Sarai to go along with his lie, and she ended up in Pharaoh’s house as his wife. “God inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife.”
So Pharaoh found out that Sarai was Abram’s wife, but how he found out the Scripture does not say. He called Abram in to rebuke him and command him to go with his wife and all his belongings. Abram was humiliated by Pharaoh as he sent them all on their way with everything Pharaoh had given Abram for his offense with Sarai.
The result of Abram’s fear was cowardice in doing that which is right; that which of faith and not of fear.
What comes to me is the question: Have Christians in America (the Lord’s people) made decisions for their families based on fear of what they think the government will do to them if they stand up and speak the truth? Maybe all that has been happening in our land is because God’s people, for the most part, have been living in fear (lying to themselves) instead of living by faith in God, holding firm to the truth and speaking the truth on all occasions; afraid of what will happen to their physical life and possessions. Why not leave the results in God’s hands for our obedience and courage? Has the Lord’s church in America become like Abram and Sarai when they first started on their journey of faith?
I wonder what Abram was willing to see happen to his wife in the house of Pharaoh, as one more wife of the Pharaoh? Why does a man use his wife, or children, to protect himself from what he thinks ‘might’ happen, if not because of the lies of the devil to put fear in all of us?
Abram’s lie only humiliated him, but it caused a plague of infertility in the whole land and a disgust for the people of God, so that they were all glad to see Abram leave with everything that belonged to him. Is this what we have brought on America as well because we as God’s people have cowered down with fear and unbelief in our God?
Pregnancy being prevented – was the plague that came because of Abram’s fear. Marriage with infertility is not God’s design. Marriage and fertility IS God’s design, and if anyone or anyone’s plan of disobedience to God’s natural design – tries to come against God’s natural designs – bad things happen.
Of course, God was in control of this plague of infertility to put fear into the king because of taking another man’s wife into his house, but the devil can put fear in people also, but for an evil agenda. When God puts fear in us – it is for a very good purpose in our life; it will always have a good outcome to bless us. But when the devil puts fear in us – it is for evil; it will always have a bad outcome to hurt us and to harm others by what we do out of fear.
Here in America birth control and abortion is a plague in our land because the devil has been able to put fear in women and men: fear of not being financially capable of or emotionally qualified to raise a child or another child, fear of raising the child alone, fear of having a ‘not so perfect’ child, fear of what our kids do behind our backs, fear of ‘what will people think?’, etc. and I’m sure the devil has many more lies and schemes than I’ve mentioned.
When we live by fear instead of by faith in God and His Word, the result is not good: self-deception, sickness, distress, depression, paranoia, indifference, selfishness, unnecessary hardships, relationship problems and divisions, broken marriages, children confused and fearful, drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, crime, etc. (as if this wasn’t enough).
Abram feared man, instead of God in the early part of his journey, but God was still with him to raise him up to be exactly what God told Abram he’d be.
Job 28:28 “And to man God said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.’”