Home > Studies on Abraham (2)

GOD WHO SEES ALL THINGS

                                                Study Series Number 02

                                       

                                                   Text: Genesis 12: 10 – 20

INTRODUCTION 

ABRAM was human like us. There were times he was afraid and times he was confident and strong (Genesis 12:4-6; 14:22-24). There was a time he was single and a time he married. There were also times when he panicked when faced with uncertainties in life. There were decades when his desire to have children was not met (Genesis 15:1-5). However, on each occasion mentioned above, he often talked to God or returned to God for God’s opinion and intervention (Genesis 15: 8)

  1. List a few examples of how or when you were anxious, worried, or had unmet needs.
    1. ……………………………………………………
    2. ……………………………………………………
    3. …………………………………………………..
    4. …………………………………………………..
  2. How did you feel during the time you mentioned above?

All these show that we are humans. What makes the difference is that Abram knew how to either talk to God or return to God for God’s opinion and seek God’s intervention in his predicament (Genesis 17:1-5. 15-19; 18:1-5, 16-21).

 In the above story in Genesis 12:10 – 20, ABRAM was on a journey to a foreign country (or city) in ancient Egypt but might have heard of the rumour of the way their king behaved. He told his wife to pretend and tell the half-truth that she was a sister (but not the other side of her life that she was ABRAM’s wife. ABRAM did a similar thing to King Abimelech (Genesis 20:11-13), while his son Isaac did the same to King Abimelech some decades later (Genesis 26:6-16). We may call this a compromise. ABRAM thought that if he let King Pharaoh know that Sarai was his wife, the King might kill him and take his wife as his own. Fear! ABRAM was probably correct because the supposed sister of ABRAM was taken away from him to live in the Palace with the Pharaoh, but the Pharaoh had not taken her as a wife before the Pharaoh knew she was another man’s wife.

ACTIVITIES:

Let us go into groups with a maximum of five and discuss the following questions.

  • What is half-truth, and how can we avoid it?
  • Considering how God fought for ABRAM by allowing a plague in the house of Pharaoh, who took away his supposed sister and/or wife by force, what could have happened if ABRAM had been quiet rather than saying half-truth?
  • Why do you think God fought to defend ABRAM in this story (considering him powerless and not in authority to fight for himself)?

GOD KNOWS US WELL:

God does not allow injustice to go unpunished. The king began to see a certain unexpected illness in his family and palace untraceable to any known scientific cause that he could rectify with medication. Egypt was an ancient, advanced city good at medicine and surgery, mathematics like algebra and geometry, philosophy, science, architectural design, religion, and magic, yet it had no solution to the palace plague. The King later knew that the cause was the way he snatched away somebody else’s wife to add to his own. He immediately repented and returned the woman to her husband. The problem they faced in the palace disappeared after the repentance and restitution of the woman back to the owner/husband. This means that the problem was not medical in that instance but spiritual.

LESSONS 

  1. Let us now discuss the lessons learned in this study.
    1. As children ……………………………………………………
    2. As teenagers ………………………………………….………
    3. As adults ……………………………………………….………
    4. As married people ……………………………………………
    5. As singles ……………………………………………………….
    6. As people in authority (leaders) ………………………….
  2. Other lessons include the following.
    1. talk to God about your situation,
    2. return to God if you are not in a good relationship with HIM,
    3. ask for God’s opinion in prayer about the matter of your concerns
    4. seek God’s intervention.
  3. Avoid covetousness. Not everything beautiful (humans, houses, land) or expensive (cars, mansions, etc.) should belong to you; often acquired through crooked means. If you do not get rid of covetousness, you will end up in crisis as Pharaoh did.
  4. Guide your heart. ABRAM, Sarai, Pharaoh, and the palace staff all fell into sinful and polluted minds by not guiding their hearts well.
  5. Purified lives can be acquired through Christ Jesus. John the Baptist said this about Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 29.

“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

The fallen nature of mankind to bad influence and Satan has been handled by Jesus Christ who is ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’. Why do you not think about your life and believe the work of redemption Jesus came to do in the Bible and ask Jesus to save you from your sin? Hebrews 7:25 states

 Therefore, He (Jesus Christ) is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

 ACTION AND CLOSING PRAYER

 Lord Jesus Christ, help me in my current situation. I believe that you came to save as many who believe in you. Come into my life, save me, and save my soul. Deliver me from Satan, and from now on, let me live for You, Your words, and Your purpose. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit and teach me Your word daily, in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

Translate »