Word of Salvation – Vol. 31 No. 23 – June 1986

 

The Danger Of Doubting God’s Promise

 

Sermon by Rev. D. Vandervecht on Genesis 12:10-20

 

Introduction

Think of the feeling you have when someone makes a promise but doesn’t keep it.  Even if it’s a small thing, like promising to meet you at a certain time, it feels bad when the promise is not kept.  If someone makes a big promise to love you; marry you; lend you a large sum of money but they don’t follow through, you end up very hurt and perhaps even shattered.

Abram’s whole life depended on the promise of God.  We will learn from him about:

THE DANGER OF DOUBTING GOD’S PROMISE.

1.  GOD’S PROMISE SEEMS EMPTY SOMETIMES.

Picture Abram crouching down, letting the dusty soil of the land God promised him slip through his fingers.

1.1  THERE WAS FAMINE IN THE LAND.

I want you to try and imagine the thought and experience of Abram:

a.  He had grown up at the centre of the world – Ur of the Chaldeans.  The centre of wealth, the centre of culture, the arts and education, the centre of population.

b.  He had known only the most fertile land in the world, the so-called fertile crescent.  Conditions were ideal: plenty of water, a moderate, warm climate – never any drought.

c.  As his journey began, they lived first in Haran, still a large city.  Abram was rich, a man of learning and culture and power.  He was used to the life of the wealthy in a large city.

d.  Then he answers God’s call.  The journey is long, the end is unclear – he trusts in God.  Finally they reach the LAND!

BUT… WHAT A SHOCK!  Abram came in from the north (the area called Galilee in Jesus’ time) and he keeps moving south.  This was partly because he wanted to see all of it, but also because HE WAS STRUGGLING TO KEEP ALIVE IN THE LAND OF PROMISE!  The land of God’s promise: the land to which they had been looking forward for so long with such great expectations – THE LAND WAS A DESERT!

It must have looked much like Israel does today: before Israeli farming it was mainly desert.

THERE WAS FAMINE IN THE LAND.  Not just drought, famine: no grass, no food.

CAN YOU EXCUSE ABRAM FOR ASKING HIMSELF: “HAVE I MADE A MISTAKE?”

1.2  ABRAM EXPERIENCED A CRISIS OF FAITH.

When Abram reached the land of promise, he experienced a crisis of faith.  Just look at the promise of God given to Abram when he received the call to go to this land:

            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;

            All the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.

The famine was more, much more than an absence of food – it meant A CRISIS OF FAITH for Abram.

It was an experience that called into question the word of God; his promise; his faithfulness.

What good was it to believe in this God who didn’t deliver the goods?  Promises are great, but you can’t eat promises.  It just didn’t make any sense.

These are thoughts that must have run through Abram’s mind as he let the useless dry dust of the Promised Land slip through his fingers.

What is a crisis of faith to you?  When does the promise of God come to you empty?  We don’t experience famine – and even the famines in other parts of the world don’t really shake our faith.

Is your crisis the sense of frustration with your relationship to God: you came to know him in a blaze of joy and new freedom, power over sin and deep, refreshing fellowship with other Christians.

Now you feel as though the land is empty of God.  It’s a spiritual famine.  Your love and your heart are cold.  You ask: “What is God doing?  Why be a Christian if there is no power, no life?”

Is your crisis a disappointment in other people?  You thought you had friends, brothers and sisters in the Lord.  But gradually the relationship has cooled, now it’s on ice and you are lonely!  Even in church you are lonely.

Is your crisis the disillusionment that comes when your children don’t grow up the way you thought God would lead them?  They don’t seem to have any use for the God you love.  You have trouble understanding them.  You think of the promises God made to you when your children were baptised and you shake your head.  You are afraid for them; for their lives.

THE PROMISE SEEMS EMPTY SOMETIMES.

Is your crisis the death of someone you love?  Just as Abram focused all his hopes on this land God promised, you centred your hopes on a person, only to meet with a famine: death.

What crisis of faith do you experience?

SOMETIMES THE PROMISE SEEMS EMPTY.

2.  WE ARE TEMPTED TO PRESERVE OURSELVES.

2.1  ABRAM LEFT THE PLACE HE WAS CALLED TO.

The Bible is not a book about glorious “saints” who do all things well.  It is not filled with people who put us to shame with their goodness.  It is a book about God and his dealings with real people like you and me.

Abram left the land of promise.  He did what everyone else did in time of trouble – he went to Egypt.  Abram conformed; he settled for the way out of trouble followed by everyone.

Abram took the situation into his own hands.  Notice we don’t read of him worshipping at an altar in this passage.  He doesn’t pray.  He just goes.  Perhaps he was ready to give up on this God of empty promises.

It is very similar to the action the disciples took after Jesus had risen from the dead.  He had promised to meet them.  They waited and waited.  Finally they gave up and decided to go back to their old jobs: fishers of fish instead of fishers of men.

ABRAM LEFT THE PLACE TO WHICH GOD HAD CALLED HIM.

2.2  ABRAM PLACED HIMSELF UNDER A SECULAR PROVIDER.

He went to Egypt.  He must have been of such a position that he could easily mix with Pharaoh’s court, the leaders of Egypt.  Abram didn’t just go to Egypt, HE WENT TO PHARAOH and placed himself under Pharaoh’s care.

So it was no mere chance that Pharaoh came into contact with Sarai and took her as his wife.  You see, the half-truth Abram told about Sarai being his sister was only a small sin compared to this HE LOOKED TO PHARAOH TO PROVIDE FOR HIM WHAT GOD FAILED TO PROVIDE.

2.3  ABRAM WAS AFRAID.

This sort of behaviour: CONFORMING TO THE CROWD without asking, “What does God want me to do?” and SEEKING OTHER PROVIDERS, is rooted in FEAR.

Abram feared for his life, his wealth, and so he left for Egypt.  Abram feared for his life and so gave up his wife.

How much of OUR lives are we not driven by fear?  How many of US don’t go to bed at night WORRYING about the things we did yesterday, ANXIOUS about the things we didn’t do today and AFRAID of tomorrow?

How many of us have not had the experience of finding ourselves arguing with someone we love – for no reason, except this: We are so wound up inside with fear and worry, we can’t love anymore!?

How many of us, out of fear have CONFORMED – gone along with the crowd?

These are the things we do when we doubt God’s promises: we conform to the crowd; we seek other providers – out of fear.

3.  GOD’S PROMISE IS THE ONLY SURE THING.

God rescued Abram in the nick of time.  Before he could lose his wife, his promise, his land, and his God – left only with Pharaoh’s gifts – God rescued him.

Finally, when we come to our senses, we see that there is only ONE ROCK, ONE FOUNDATION, ONE SURE THING in this life: GOD AND HIS PROMISE.  Not people, or money, or house, job, church, religion.  The proof of that sure thing is the cross and empty tomb of Jesus Christ.

In YOUR land of famine – in your crisis of faith – when you enter the dangerous place where you doubt God’s promise: BELIEVE THIS:

            NO CRISIS CAN CRUSH YOU!

Because, while the Son of God was being cruelly tortured to death, he cried out, “My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?!” Then he died.

HIS was the GREATEST of all crises of faith.  HE was rescued when he was raised to life forever.

            HIS CRISIS IS OUR CRISIS.

            HIS RESCUE IS OUR RESCUE.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned to our own way,

            BUT THE LORD HAS LAID ON HIM THE SIN OF US ALL.

AMEN.