EGYPT
We first see the principle of God using pagan religions for disciplinary purposes in the life of Abraham who went to Egypt during a famine in Canaan. Here is the story:
Genesis 12: Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
COMMENTARY: This command given to Abram is the same command that is given to all Old/First Covenant religionists. It is an early example of God’s command to come out of Babylon.
The promised land is a spiritual place — not a physical place. It is the place where God places his name and where people hear his spoken voice.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
COMMENTARY: Abraham is the father of all New Covenant disciples because he left the religion of his fathers and lived by faith.
Name is a symbolic reference to character. Thus, this verse says that God will make Abraham’s character great when he takes him out of his family religion and delivers him to the promised land where he listens to God’s spoken voice.
Abraham’s character will be the same as God’s character when God writes his laws on Abraham’s heart. This is important because God’s laws are the essence of his character. His laws are the laws by which he governs his activity. When God’s spiritual laws are written on a person’s heart, those internal laws govern their thinking and behavior.
When Abraham heard God’s voice, he was born again and was recreated in God’s image. When Abraham’s character became like God’s character, he began blessing religious people by speaking God’s voice to them.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.”
COMMENTARY: Blessing is a code word for hearing God’s spoken voice. Curse is the code word for the Old/First Covenant.
The greatest blessing is the ability to hear God’s spoken voice.
New Covenant disciples are true prophets. Old/First Covenant religionists bless themselves when they listen to true prophets who speak for God instead of listening to false prophets who speak out of the evil imaginations of their minds.
4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sar’ai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8 Thence he removed to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
COMMENTARY: Abram has heard God’s promises and traveled by faith to enter the promised land. As a sign of devoting himself to God’s purposes, Abram built two altars. The scripture does not say that he offered any sacrifices on the altars, but it is not necessary to report that because a human altar is what God really wants. We know this because God later tells Moses to build an altar of earth (i.e. make yourself a living altar where earth symbolically refers to people). Thus the altar that Abram made is not a physical altar but a spiritual altar: Himself.
Since Abram has acted on God’s promise, we assume that he is a New Covenant believer even though it is not until later that scripture reports that his belief was credited to him as righteousness. In that righteous condition, Abram knew that what God really wanted was a human altar.
9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb. 10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.
COMMENTARY: This is the first time the Bible mentions a famine in Canaan. We must keep in mind that is a spiritual famine not a physical famine. Scripture does not report why God invoked a spiritual famine, but we might suppose that it was to test Israel to see if it would trust him or seek other gods. Or, famine could have occurred because God’s people did not listen to his spoken word.
11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sar’ai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful to behold; 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account.” 14 When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.
COMMENTARY:
16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels. 17 But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sar’ai, Abram’s wife.
COMMENTARY:
18 So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone.” 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had.
COMMENTARY: