Page 50 - The Divine Unfolding of God's Plan of Redemption

famine, and the Father of the Faithful failed miserably by scuttling off to Egypt. How
important for us to remember that God‟s Word is the ultimate guide of faith and
practice and not the actions of the choicest of His saints! It is not an unknown

experience to observe men in places of leadership, otherwise considered to be the
fathers of the faithful, advocating a course of action that is plainly against the whole
current of Scripture, wresting certain isolated portions to try and justify their actions
which are in reality obviously dictated by reasons of personal convenience or

economic expediency.

When Abram was bought into the environments of Egypt he proceeded to adopt
some of the ways of the seed of the serpent. He tried to beat the world at its own game

of cleverness and duplicity, and as is so frequently the case, the very thing which he
tried to avoid came to pass. His wife was taken into the palace of Pharaoh, and the
very man whom God (in verse 3) designed to be a “blessing,” became (in verse 17) a
“plague.” Instead of maintaining his own position of pilgrim separation from which he

might condemn evil, he was himself called “on the carpet” by the king of Egypt and
indicated for an immoral act. Let us pause at this point to call attention to an
additional principle in connection with this relentless war between the seeds, that we
who are graciously chosen of God and called unto His salvation and are the present

people of His testimony may take heed to walk “godly, righteously, and soberly” lest
we drift into disobedience and a lapse of faith.

It will be observed, if we take heed to it, that the failures of God‟s testimony

people have had far-reaching and disastrous results. Lot and his family were among
those originally called out of Ur with Abram. The same sort of thing that led Abram
down into Egypt led Lot to pitch his tent toward Sodom, and then later to move into
Sodom, bag and baggage. Placing himself and his children in that environment of

unspeakable wickedness resulted in that awful piece of iniquity recorded in Gen.
19:33-38, which produced Moab and Ammon. In later history the people of Moab and
Ammon were so bad that even if they desired to be proselytes to the congregation of
Israel they were not permitted to enter in for ten generations (Deut. 23:3). The

Moabites and Ammonites were among the very worst enemies of God‟s testimony
people and opposed them and harried them in every possible way. It will be
remembered that Balak, the King of Moab, hired Balaam, the Midianitish seer who

loved the wages of unrighteousness, to try to curse Israel. When he discovered that he
could not do this he advocated that there should be mixed marriages between the
women of Moab and the men of Israel, whereby the women should seduce the men of
Israel to turn aside from the worship of Jehovah and engage in idolatry. This was the
doctrine of Balaam so severely condemned by the risen Christ in His dictated epistle

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