A PLAGUE ON YOU!

                                                                A PLAGUE ON YOU! 

“But the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.” Genesis 12:17. 

Introduction

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We pick up Abram as he continues his journey through the land the LORD had promised to his descendants. We see that there is a great famine in the Promised Land. The LORD had sent this famine to test the faith of His servant Abram. What was Abram going to do? Would he call on the LORD to provide for him, knowing that the LORD is faithful? Or would he lean on his own understanding?

We see that Abram, like many of us, had not yet learned to fully trust in the LORD. However, the LORD is patient with His children. So, let’s see if we can learn from what the LORD taught Abram. Christian, you need to learn the proverb, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding!” (Prov. 3:5).

The Plan

Abram looked at the Promised Land and saw severe famine all around. If he could have changed stones to bread, he would have. The place had become a wilderness. Hunger and thirst hid behind every dry and parched rock. Of course, Abram didn’t know the verse of Scripture, the verse the LORD quoted when He was in the wilderness, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Jesus trusted in God the Father to provide for Him. But what about Abram? The LORD had caused the famine to teach Abram to trust in Him alone. It was to teach Abram to trust every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

When Moses addressed the children of God he said, “He [the LORD] humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD” (Deut. 8:3).

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        Did Abram trust in the promises of God during the famine? No, instead Abram wrote an elaborate ‘stage-play’! And Sarah, his wife, was to be the star player in this stage play. In simple terms, Abram had a plan. He told his wife that they were flying south for the winter. Just like the Canada goose, they were heading south to escape the season of famine. Sarah was to be his passport, his ticket into the ‘Oasis Casino.’ He was going to park his camel and try his luck on the ‘pokey machines’ of Egypt!

Abram was a gambler (we see this in Genesis 12:12-13). The stakes were high. He was gambling with his life! Like all gamblers, Abram had a system. He had a plan – Sarai! We’re told in Genesis 12:11 that Abram observed that Sarah was “a woman of beautiful countenance.” Take a beautiful woman with you and you’ll receive the royal treatment on her account. “Pretty girls just seem to find out early, How to open doors with just a smile!”[1] So go the words for a popular song from the 70s. Abram knew that his wife’s pretty face would get him into the ‘Oasis’. And we see in Genesis 12:14 that the Egyptians agreed with Abram, “So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful.”

Abram had masterminded a brilliant plan. His fake passport had fooled Egyptian customs. “The princes of Egypt also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house.” BINGO! JACKPOT!

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        What a great mind this man Abram had. His plan was foolproof. There he was. In among the high-fliers. He was, so to speak, playing the roulette wheel beside the high rollers. In today’s vernacular, no doubt Abram couldn’t believe his ‘luck’. He even landed himself beside the highest of the high rollers, the Casino owner, Pharaoh himself. Find a stunningly beautiful woman, use her wisely, and you can go places in this world. Doors will open for you. And here’s the proof.

Why put up with famine in the land the LORD has promised, when you can wallow in the riches of Pharaoh’s court? So there was the beautiful Sarai in the palaces of Pharaoh. Marilyn Munro in Kennedy’s Camelot? There’s more to it than that.

What was really going on here? Abram wasn’t really gambling with luck, was he? Abram was really gambling with the LORD. He was putting his trust, not in God, but in the flesh. He was trusting in his own plan, not God’s plan. He was putting his trust in his wife. He was trusting in his wife’s good looks. He was trusting in those things that don’t last. “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley”[2] As the LORD through His Prophet Isaiah says, “All flesh is grass, and its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isa. 40:6-8).

O Abraham, don’t you see that the famine in the Promised Land is from the LORD? The Spirit of the LORD, like a hot wind, has blown upon it and brought this famine. O Abraham, why do you seek refuge in the things of the world? Wouldn’t you rather be a doorkeeper in the house of your God than dwell in the tents of iniquity? Abram was young in the faith. He had a lot to learn. But praise the LORD for His patience toward all His children.

To summarise before we move on: Abraham, at this time, trusted in his own wits. He trusted in his own wife. He trusted in her beauty. And he trusted in the wealth of a nation.

The Place

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Egypt was a mighty world power in Abram’s time. Egypt at the time of Abram some 4000 years ago was different to today. The great Pharaohs were around in those days. Some of the great pyramids had probably been built before then. So, we can imagine something the wealth of the place needed to build pyramids. Today 99% of the people in Egypt live in 4% of the land. The size of the country today is, in rough terms, 1100 kilometers by 1100 kilometers. Just about all of that is desert, more than 90% apparently.

Now, we know that 4000 years is a long time and perhaps the land was quite different than what it is now. However, the most fertile parts of Egypt must always have been along the banks of the River Nile. The Nile would overflow its banks each year and the silt deposits were great for growing things in. The Egyptians were good agriculturalists. They also had settled livestock. They used the little fertile land they had wisely.

Abram was a pastoralist. He was into flocks of sheep and herds of cattle etc. He was living the life of a nomad, keeping an eye open for good grazing ground in Canaan. However, when the famine came what was he to do? We don’t know how much of his livestock survived the famine in Canaan. If any of the droughts we’ve witness over the last few decades in Australia are anything to go by, I don’t expect Abram had much livestock left. One drought-stricken Australian cattleman said it was almost enough to make a man fall on his knees and pray to God!

What did Abram do? Well, he didn’t look first to his bank manager for an extension on his loan. Neither do we see him falling to his knees. No! He looked south to Egypt, to the oasis in the desert. He looked to a type of ancient Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. So, Abram went there. He reasoned with Sarai, “We have to get away from this dry and parched land. If we remain here, we’ll perish along with the livestock, Promised Land or not!” Abram thought, “If I head south what do I have to lose, my life, my wife?” Abram took the gamble and went to the oasis in the desert.

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        According to the Egyptian paintings from around that time, the Egyptian people were copper colored, (like ‘bronzed Aussies’?). The Egyptians therefore were descendants of Ham, one of Noah’s three sons. See, e.g., “Israel also came into Egypt, and Jacob dwelt in the land of Ham” (Psa. 105:23). Therefore, when Abram went there, the Hamites met with some Shemites, (As you know, Noah’s three sons were called Shem, Ham and Japheth). And the skin of the Shemites was lighter in appearance than that of the Hamites. This might have contributed to the beauty of Sarai in the eyes of the Egyptians. There’s a painting from the tomb of Khnum-hotep III which depicts a foreign ruler arriving in Egypt with thirty-seven ‘Asiatics” (i.e., Shemites). They’re not sure whether the scene recalls Abram’s visit or that of Jacob’s sons (Gen. 46-47). The painting dated from around 1890 BC, so it could be either. The Hamites are copper colored and the Shemites are much fairer. Anyhow, the Egyptians fell off their barstools when they saw Sarai’s beauty!

“Don’t go near her or the boss will kill you!” Abram was right about the Egyptians. They knew a good-looking woman when they saw one. “The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house” (Gen. 12:15). We can only take it that Pharaoh had men scouting around for beautiful women for him.

So, Abram got Sarai to lie about their marital status and tell Pharaoh she was his sister. Pharaoh treated Abram well on account of his “sister” (Gen. 12:16). Abram received a sizeable payout at the Oasis. He got sheep, oxen, male and female donkeys, male and female servants and camels, all tax-free. And all of this because he had a beautiful sister, correction, WIFE! Sarai was Abram’s wife no matter how close they were related. Sarai was a married woman and more than that. She might have been part of Abram’s elaborate plan, and she might have had the star role in his elaborate stage-play, but there was One infinitely greater than Abram who had a role for Sarai to play.

Sarai was to play a star part of an even greater plan – God’s plan of redemption. Abram, for the moment, had forgotten about that plan. He had forgotten about the promise the LORD had made to him. “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you” (Gen. 12:2-3).

How is God going to make Abram into a great nation when Abram has gone into the place of captivity? There are echoes here of Adam and Eve in the Garden submitting to the Serpent. Abram’s wife Sarai has been taken captive by Pharaoh. Pharaoh through Sarai, the go-between, the mediator, has given Abram the fruit of the land. Abram is into livestock. “Here!” says Pharaoh, “Have some sheep, oxen, donkeys and camels. I’ll even give you some people to serve you. Have some male and female slaves.” By the way, one of these slaves was a woman named Hagar, i.e., “Hagar the Egyptian” (Gen. 25:12).

Anyway, we see a Bible motif here. We see an underlying element or theme at work. Always remember that “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). At this point in time Abram had not learned this. He was young in the faith. He was somewhat immature. He needed to learn to keep his eyes on the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Pharaoh in the Bible is a type, or picture, of the Devil, the Serpent. Egypt at this time represents the Devil’s Domain, his kingdom of darkness. Of course, his kingdom is full of delights, delights for the flesh. But what about the spirit? It’s the place of spiritual bondage. It’s the place where people are captive to the things of the world.

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Take a walk through the local RSL (Returned Services League). Take a look at the hotel along the road. I remember seeing a billboard outside a hotel “Twenty (or was it 40?) new pokey [slot] machines!” Go and look and you’ll see a perfect example of people in captivity. Look in the hotels and RSL’s. Look in those places where they have all those gambling machines.

There was a member of a bowling club in Scotland who wet herself in front of a pokey machine. She was afraid to leave the ‘one-armed-bandit’ for a second – even to go to the toilet! She was afraid someone else would move in on her absence and commandeer the machine and hit the elusive jackpot. But we don’t have that problem here in Australia. At least not in the hotel with the forty new pokey machines! ‘No waiting! There’s room for all!’ But we should “Seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:33).

Turn your back on the ‘Get Rich Quick’ schemes. Don’t seek to rub shoulders with the rich and famous in order to try to gain riches. For that is to gamble with your soul at Pharaoh’s Casino. Pharaoh’s Oasis is but a desert mirage. His kingdom of glamour and glitter will all be dissolved on the Last Day (2 Pet. 3:11).

You might have fun at the ‘Oasis Casino’ for a little while. But you’ll find that there’s a principle at work. You’ll find that you’ll need to expend twice the amount of effort to receive half the amount of fun. You’ll need to make twice the number of bricks with half the amount of straw. That is how the mathematical law operates in Pharaoh’s (i.e., the Devil’s) domain.

Gamblers talk about beating the ‘system’. YOU WILL NEVER BEAT THE SYSTEM! Pharaoh is the hard-hearted taskmaster. He is the picture of the Satan himself. Brothers and sisters, friends, do not serve Pharaoh. As Jesus said to the devil who tried to tempt Him in the wilderness, “Away with you Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” (Matt 4:4). As the LORD said to Pharaoh through His servant Moses, “Let My people go that they may serve ME!” (Exod. 8:1b).

Sarai, Abram’s wife, was a captive in Egypt. Pharaoh wanted her to serve only him. “But the LORD plagued Pharaoh’s house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife” (Gen. 12:17). “She will serve only Me and not Pharaoh!” says the LORD. So, the LORD set about delivering His people from the hand of Pharaoh. “A plague! A plague on you Pharaoh! A plague on your house!”

The Plague

The LORD was teaching Pharaoh a lesson. However, Pharaoh refused to truly listen. His House refused to listen even though subsequent Pharaohs were taught the lesson over and over. But the LORD was also teaching Abram a lesson. Abram needed to learn to trust in God and God alone. “You shall have no other goods before Me” (Exod. 20:3).

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There was to come a time in the future when Abram would become mature in the faith. There would come a time when he would say to his son, (whom the LORD told him to sacrifice), “The LORD will provide!” a time when he would say to his future son, Isaac, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering” (Gen. 22:8).

Pharaoh learned nothing from his encounters with the living God. But Abram learned to trust God for all things. He learned not to trust in his own plan but rather to trust in God’s plan, even the eternal plan of salvation, i.e., the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Abram had heard the words of prophecy from the LORD Himself. We see by Abram’s actions that he hadn’t fully understood the words of prophecy. God was patient with Abram. However, His patience ran out with Pharaoh. Pharaoh has another plan. Pharaoh’s plan was devised by “the great dragon, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan; who deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9a).

Jesus says Satan has been a liar from the beginning. He is the one who cast doubt into the mind of Adam’s wife Eve. “Has God indeed said?” (Gen. 3:1). “Did God really say this? And did God really say that?” The devil is still saying the same thing today. “Has God indeed said all of this?”, i.e., all that is written in the Bible.

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Abram had to learn to trust the promises of God. He had to learn to take God at His Word. And so do we more than ever. We must stop flirting around with Pharaoh. We must stop running down to Egypt whenever there’s a famine in the church. Yes, Pharaoh will give you people if that’s what you’re after. He gave Abram male and female slaves. What has Pharaoh given to the church today? What has he given to the church that has gone down to Egypt in a famine? For example, he’s given us blatantly unrepentant practicing homosexual ministers, hasn’t he? He’s given us blatantly unrepentant practicing lesbian preachers in the pulpit, hasn’t he? Of course, if a person is Biblically repentant, then that’s different, we can handle that. Also, the practice of homosexuality is not the unpardonable sin. According to the Bible all human beings are sinners in need of salvation regardless of what our particular sinful actions are, be it homosexual acts or whatever. However, to twist and distort Scripture to make it say something it doesn’t, is to speak the same language as the devil who is the father of lies. “Did God really say this” Did He really say that” As per the serpent to Eve, “Has God indeed said?” (Gen. 3:1).

Some people would take away from God’s Word and add to it as it suits them. They don’t believe in the supreme authority of Scripture and/or they put their ‘spin’ on it. Yes, God can save even the vilest of sinners. He saved me! He saves all believers. However, those who are flirting with the things of the world, those who are happy in the courts of Pharaoh, those who are ignoring the promises of God, need to beware. As John the Apostle wrote, “For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book [i.e., Revelation, and by extension, the Bible as the completed Word of God]: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Rev. 22:18-19; cf., Deut. 4:2, 12:32; Prov. 30:5-6).

“The LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abrams wife” (Gen. 12:17). Now, you may think that plagues are just a natural part of this fallen world. If you think that then you’re only half right. There are no plagues in the kingdom of God. Plagues belong only to the kingdom of Satan. However, when the Kingdom of God advances on earth so too does medical science, for example. Read the Book of Leviticus, for instance, if you don’t believe what I’m saying. It was Christianity that brought doctors, hospitals and medical science, not paganism. Christianity, true Christianity, brings healing to the nations (Rev. 22:2).

Drs. McMillen and David Stern have written a bestseller book titled None of These Diseases. The title comes from the following verse in Exodus, where the LORD says to His people, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you” (Exod. 15:26). Say McMillen and Stern,

“None of these diseases!” What a promise! For centuries epidemics has killed thousands of Egyptians and Hebrews. Ancient treatments rarely helped. Often the “cure” was worse than the disease. Yet God made a fantastic promise – freedom from diseases.

God gave Moses many health rules, filling a whole section of the Bible…

Thousands have died through the centuries, however, because doctors ignored the biblical rules. Finally, when doctors read a tried these guidelines, they quickly discovered how to prevent the spread of epidemics. Thus Moses could be called the father of modern infection control.

Even today we are still benefitting from God’s 3,500-year-old instructions.[3]

 

Look at some of those countries where the gospel has yet to flourish and you’ll see squalor and disease. E.g., we’ve seen HIV and AIDS in epidemic proportion, pandemic in places where the Word of God has either been ignored (such as in the West) or has not yet penetrated.

Pharaoh and his whole house, even his kingdom, was cursed by God. Even all of creation groans under this curse (Rom. 8:22). But those who listen to Word of God, those who believe the promises of God, are set free. Now, this isn’t to say that Christians will be free from all disease in this life, but rather where the Kingdom of God makes inroads there is better quality of life.

Where people are obedient to the Gospel venereal disease disappears, for instance. It’s no longer an epidemic. AIDS virtually vanishes. Where the Gospel advances marriages produce obedient children making for a safer society. A safer society means fewer murders which means a lower mortality rate. All I’m trying to tell you about is a principle seen throughout Scripture, i.e., the ‘Good News’ principle. When Israel was obedient to God, then God blessed them. When they turned their backs on His promises He cursed them. (See, e.g., Deut. 27-28 for a list of God’s covenant blessings and curses.) God even sent plagues among His own people so that they would know it was Him. He sent the plagues so that they would turn to Him in repentance for help!

Abram needed to learn to turn to God first and foremost for help and not to conform to the world (cf. Rom. 12:2). There were blessings in abundance awaiting Abram from the hand of God. But first he had to see the fallen world for what it really was, a desert-mirage. There is nothing of any substance in the kingdom of this fallen world. The kingdom of this world is just a sandcastle in the sky. The storm cloud of God’s wrath is going to wash all its sin and unrighteousness away on the Last Day. This world with its elements, i.e., its elementary teaching, will be dissolved at the earth’s renewal (2 Pet. 3:10, 12; Gal. 4:3, 9; Col. 2:8, 20; Isa. 65:17 with Rev. 21:1). It’s the Kingdom of God and His righteousness we need to seek, for that remains forever. However, you won’t find it hanging around in Pharaoh’s court.

Abram went down to Egypt for help during a famine. The LORD gives this warning through His prophet Isaiah, “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the LORD!” (Isa. 31:1).

Let’s consider Pharaoh for a moment. Pharaoh figured out the connection between the plagues and Sarai. Pharaoh had had adulterous intentions towards Abram’s wife. Whatever he had planned for Sarai had been unsuccessful. He knew there was something different about this woman to all the rest. And we gather that at some point Sarai must have told him she was Abram’s wife (Gen. 12:18). The LORD (back in Gen. 12:3b) had already said to Abram, “I will bless those who bless you. And I will curse him who curses you.” Pharaoh had unwittingly come between a man and his wife – a man of God and his wife! He had separated a man from his wife because of his antics – marriage wrecker! So, God cursed him with great plagues for his trouble! “I will curse him who curses you” (Gen. 12:3) – even him who curses you unwittingly. (“What, therefore, God had joined together, let not man put asunder!”)

If non-Christians could only think more like Pharaoh, they would see the connections between plagues and famines, and the people of God, the children of our father Abraham, i.e., all who are in Christ. Perhaps this is too much to ask since even many Christians fail to see the connections! But all it means is that we’ll never be short of material for a lesson on trusting in God and not Pharaoh.

There will be more and more famines and plagues until people learn to trust in God with thankful obedience. But if the world ever wants to spare itself then it needs to learn to, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding!” We need to learn to walk in grateful obedience to the promises of God.

Conclusion

Should Abram have gone down into Egypt with Sarai? No. Why not? Because by substituting his own plan he was putting God’s plan of redemption in jeopardy. Paul the Apostle illuminates it all for us, “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16).

As to His humanity, God the Son, i.e., Jesus Christ, was to descend from Abram and Sarah, not Pharaoh and Sarah! So the LORD intervened by sending great plagues into Pharaoh’s house. Pharaoh got the message and sent Abram packing, “Here is your wife, take her and go your way.” I don’t think it is a misapplication of Scripture to quote at this point the verse where God says, “Out of Egypt I called my Son” (Matt. 2:15b).

Pharaoh was only too glad to see the backs of Abram and Sarai – to escape the plagues of God! However, the only sure way to escape God’s plague on you is to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. This is found of course only in the One who came through the loins of Abram and the womb of his barren wife Sarai, his Seed Jesus Christ.

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[1] The Eagles, from Hotel California song.

[2] Robert Burns, To A Mouse.

[3] S.I. McMillen and David E. Stern, None of These Diseases: The Bible’s Health Secrets for the 21^st Century, (Revell, a division of Baker Books, Revised edition, 2000), 11.