Lesson #3 From Abraham: Failure Text: Genesis chapters 12, 16, 20 Series: Genesis, #9 Pastor Lyle L. Wahl January 30, 2005

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1 Lesson #3 From Abraham: Failure Text: Genesis chapters 12, 16, 20 Series: Genesis, #9 Pastor Lyle L. Wahl January 30, 2005 Theme: Our Failures Devastate; God s Mercy Redeems. Introduction At the start of this morning I said our service was going to focus on a number of basics including Communion, prayer regarding morality and marriage, and failure. We now come to the basic of failure. This is the third of our four looks at Abraham as we trek through the book of Genesis. We find some examples of his failures here, as well as lessons for ourselves. We all have first hand experience with failure. You and I are not alone in failing. And today you may be carrying fears, guilt and scars from some of your past failures. Because failure is common to all of us, there is an unlimited supply of cliches and truisms about it. Be persistent. The only real failure is to give up. It s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers they help us to learn. Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate. Without failure we d be in big trouble. When we face our own failures, small and large, we need more than cliches. We need rock solid, dependable truth that does not shift with the currents of current thought. We need God s truth. And He gives us His truth in the Bible. We see an important aspect of God s truth in the account of Abraham. The core truth for us this morning is our failures devastate; God s mercy redeems.

2 Examples Of Abraham s Failures. We begin with two examples of types of Abraham s failures. The first is failure due to independence. Abraham was a man of faith. But there were times when he struck out on his own, independent from trust in God. His first recorded failure due to independence from God was in Egypt. Chapter 12 verse 10 tells us there was a famine in Palestine and so he went down to Egypt. His wife Sarah was 65 at the time, and lived to be 127 in that period when people lived much longer than today. She was beautiful (12:11) and Abraham was afraid the Egyptians would kill him to get her. This was not a paranoid response that kind of thing was done at the time. His plan was, Let s say you are my sister, and they won t kill me to get you. This would protect Abraham but, of course, not necessarily Sarah. Verse 12 in chapter 20 tells us this lie had a grain of truth in it, because Sarah was his half-sister. Abraham s fears were realized, only much worse that he would have thought. For the Pharaoh s officials saw her and she was taken to the Court with the intent of making her one of his wives. The Pharaoh did not have to negotiate with Abraham, as others would have had to do. The court showered Abraham with livestock and servants. God intervened sending plagues on Pharaoh and his house. It s sad that in this the Egyptians were honest with Abraham but he, the Friend of God, was not with honest them. Understandably, they were upset. They reunited Abraham and Sarah and deported them. Generations later, when God called young Jeremiah, He reassured the young man with His unchanging truth, Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you (1:8). Abraham s failure, his sin, was not trusting God, was acting independently from God, was not being truthful. A second recorded example of failure due to independence from God is found in chapter 20, 25 years after the events of chapter 12. Abraham traveled south from Palestine to Gerar, south of Geza, which was controlled by a man named Abimelech. The condensed version of this is that it was a 25-year-later replay of what happened in chapter 12. The same fear, the same sin. 2

3 This time we read in chapter 20, Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister. So Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married. Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, Lord, will You slay a nation, even though blameless? Did he not himself say to me, She is my sister? And she herself said, He is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this (2-5). God s response is the next two verses. Then God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her. Now therefore, restore the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours (6-7). We go and see that Abimelech and Abraham met. Pick it up at verse 9. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done. And Abimelech said to Abraham, "What have you encountered, that you have done this thing? Abraham said, Because I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. Besides, she actually is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife; and it came about, when God caused me to wander from my father s house, that I said to her, This is the kindness which you will show to me: everywhere we go, say of me, He is my brothe r (9-13). 3

4 The this king gave a lecture, gave correction to the prophet of God. Again, Abraham was given livestock and servants. This time, money as well. The failure, the sin was not trusting God, was acting independently from God, was not being truthful. In both of these cases Abraham failed God. He failed himself. He failed Sarah. He failed Pharaoh and Abimlech. There were devastating Results for all of them. Remember, our failures devastate. The second type of failure we see in Abraham is due to impatience. Yes, Abraham the man of faith failed because of impatience, not waiting for God, running ahead of God. We find this in chapter 16, some of which was read earlier. God had promised to make a great nation from Abraham. The promise was given in his initial call in chapter 12 verse 2 and was restated in chapter 13 verse 16. In the opening verses of chapter 15 Abraham talked with God about his situation. It seemed to him that his servant Eliezar would be the one to inherit. God responded in verse 4, Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir. Then God gave him more affirmation in the next verse, And He [God] took him outside and said, Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them. And He said to him, So shall your descendants be. Then, the next thing we read, and we aren t told the amount of time that came in between, is that Abraham and Sarah took things into their own hands. Following the accepted customs of the people around them, Sarah gave Abraham her maid, Hagar, to have a child through her and carry on the family line. This was an acceptable practice for the people, but not for God and His people. In their impatience, Ishmael was born through Hagar. The failure, the sin was impatience. They had waited for a long time, and now they would try to fulfill God s promises in their time and way. The failure of impatience is seen in this situation with Hagar and Ishmael, her son by Abraham. There were devastating problems at home. Turn ahead to chapter 16, verse 4. He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her sight. And Sarai said to Abram, May the wrong done me be upon you. I gave my maid into your arms, but when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised 4

5 in her sight. May the LORD judge between you and me. But Abram said to Sarai, Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her what is good in your sight. So Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence (4-6). There also were devastating problems between Sarah and Hagar. There were devastating problems between Sarah and Abraham. When Hagar fled, God came to her, told her, beginning at verse 9. Then the angel of the LORD said to her, Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority. Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count. The angel of the LORD said to her further, Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has given heed to your affliction. He will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand will be against him; and he will live to the east of all his brothers (9-12). There were consequences lasting to this day: the hostility between the Jews and the Arabs, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah through Isaac and the descendants of Abraham and Hagar through Ishamel, has been intense and constant. Our failures devastate. These are some examples of failures. But there is more to the picture. Our failures devastate; God s mercy redeems. Lessons From Abraham s Failures. Let s move on to lessons from Abraham s failures. The first is to always stay in close fellowship with God remember, vital contact and trusting obedience. We looked at this last Sunday. We saw this was a pattern in Abraham s life, a mark of his character. With vital contact and trusting obedience he was faithful, without it, he failed. There was no substitute for Abraham and there is no substitute for us either. The discipline of close fellowship with God based on the truth of His word is essential. 5

6 A second lesson is to always step back and analyze the situation. We see this in Abraham s failures. It is fairly clear that he did not step back and take a careful look at everything, all the factors, options, and results from God s perspective who God is, what He is like, what He asks of us, what He promises us. Abraham certainly did some thinking in these failures, but basically it was from his own perspective. Perspective is important for all of us, for each of us. A lady went into an auto parts store and asked for a seven-ten cap. The employees were puzzled; asked her, What s a seventen cap? She said, You know, it s right on the engine. Mine got lost somehow and I need a new one. Still not understanding her, they asked her to draw a picture of it. So she drew a circle and in the center wrote the number 710. The guys behind the counter broke out laughing, now realizing what she wanted, you see, they were looking at her drawing upside down. Try it. 710 upside down = OIL. Perspective is so important. In many situations it is easier than we realize to rush ahead without a solid Biblical perspective. It is easy in our secular society where values are defined by trends and political correctness. It is easy in our fears. Abraham s fears of being killed by someone to get his wife were realistic. Some ours are realistic and others are not. In either case, we need God s perspective. It also is easy to loose perspective when the temptations are strong. So, always step back and analyze the situation from the perspective of God s truth, His principles that apply, His promises. Consider the consequences. Look at the options from the perspective that transcends life and time, eternal perspective. A third lesson is to never excuse failure. There is no record in the text of Abraham trying to rationalize, explain away his responsibility when he failed. One of the qualities of a true friend of God like Abraham, or a man after God s own heart like King David, is facing failure squarely, not excusing it. The natural tendency is to excuse ourselves. Yes, I realize some people tend to blame themselves for almost everything that goes wrong around them, even when they have nothing to do with it. But most of us are more acquainted with the tendency to excuse ourselves when we blow it. There is plenty of precedent, going back to Adam and Eve when they sinned: Eve blamed the serpent; Adam blamed Eve, and even God. A university student returned a test paper with no answers, just these comments: You cannot hold me responsible for knowing the 6

7 material on this test, as I was sleeping during all of your lectures. Since you did not wake me up, I assumed that you sympathized with my tiredness and were excusing me from the information being covered. Not needing to know the information, I assumed that I would not have to take a test on it. You might have made some kind of mistake in handing me this test, since I don t have to take it, so I am just writing this to remind you. Yes, as an old proverb puts it, Where the heart is willing it will find a thousand ways, but where it is unwilling it will find a thousand excuses. Never excuse failure. A final less is to always know that God s grace, forgiveness and healing are available. Our failures devastate; God s mercy redeems. Abraham failed God, his family, others. He repeated the same failure a second time. But he also found God s grace, forgiveness and healing; God s blessing on him and his service. Make no mistake about it, failure is serious. Better than to be redeemed from failure is not to fail. As it has been said, few things are as difficult to live with than some of the scars of forgiven sin. With that clarification, always know that God s mercy, grace, forgiveness and healing are available to you no matter what the failure, no matter what you or others may think. 1 John 1:9 is true, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Conclusion. Our failures devastate; God s mercy redeems. We have seen important truth, lessons here. Truth that applies to us. To help us picture it, let s take a brief glimpse at a familiar New Testament account, the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke chapter 15. The account opens with religious leaders grumbling about Jesus, This man receives sinners and eats with them. Jesus then tells three brief stories to illustrate how God relates to repentant sinners. This is the last of the three. A brash young son foolishly, against the set standards, demanded his share of his father s estate now, in cash. Having received it, he left home. Far away, he squandered his estate with loose living. In short order he was penniless, friendless, and had to do difficult, degrading work to survive. Then he came to his senses. He recognized his failing, his sin. He realized his inheritance was gone. He hoped his father would forgive him and hire him 7

8 to work on the family farm. He went home; confessed his sin to his father, who welcomed him, forgave him, and treated him as his son, not as a hired hand. Sin devastates. The money he squandered was gone. He no longer had any inheritance coming to him. The scars of that forgiven sin would remain for the rest of his life. But, as well, God s mercy redeems. The father loved him and ran to meet him. The father forgave him. The father celebrated His return, and blessed him. For us, looking back, at the present and to the future, these lessons help us deal with the past and present. The lessons help us avoid failure, sin as we make God, keep Him the Lord of all that we are, all that we think, say and do. As you spend the next moments personally, quietly in reflection and response to God, thank Him that while your sins devastate, His mercy redeems. Ask God to forgive you for any ways and times in which you have minimized your failures, your sin. If you have any sin which is still outstanding with God not confessed, turned from clear that up with Him now. Present yourself to God, to His direction and control, to be renewed and transformed, to no longer be conformed to the ways of this world Lyle L. Wahl Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. 8

DwellintheWord.net. Bible Study - Abraham and Sarah. Now the Lord said to Abram:

DwellintheWord.net. Bible Study - Abraham and Sarah. Now the Lord said to Abram: DwellintheWord.net Bible Study - Abraham and Sarah Life Lessons from Abraham and Sarah Abraham and Sarah teach us about waiting upon God. "Wait, I say, on the Lord!" Psalm 27:14. NKJV. In Genesis 12:1-3