God’s Plan Never Fails

Read Genesis 12: 10-20

The Jewish, Muslims, and many Christians make Abram out to be some amazing saintly figure. A man of faith he may be, but a man of great character he is definitely not. We see that in this interesting story.

Abram went down to Egypt to escape the famine. But wait! In yesterday’s reading, God has clearly shown Abram the land He was giving him. What’s Abram doing in Egypt? Yes, there’s a famine, but what’s wrong with trusting God to provide? So now, he’s in Egypt, and before they even entered Egypt, Abram told his wife, “Hey - you’re really hot looking, but if the Egyptians see you, they’ll want to kill me so they can have you. So to save myself, just say you’re my sister, so nobody will kill me.”

By the way, did Abram really know that they’ll kill Sarai? No - he made things up! In reality, the Egyptians wouldn’t do that - their religion is has severe penalties against murder. Anyways, they went into Egypt and Pharaoh, who found Sarai to be really hot, made her his wife! Now, we’ll stop there. Keep in mind that God’s plan for a nation of Israel was almost derailed by Abram’s sin. First of all, he wasn’t supposed to be in Egypt to begin with, and secondly, he wasn’t supposed to lie to Pharaoh about Sarai. And now, it seems that things are going to be screwed up because of what Abram did. But God sent a plague among Pharaoh and his family, and it wouldn’t be long before Pharaoh discovered that Sarai was Abram’s wife, not sister. Nothing will screw up God’s plan.

Oftentimes it certainly feels like this world is continually out of control, doesn’t it? It almost feels, nowadays, that the world is falling apart day after day. There is great uncertainty in the air with lots of insecurity, lots of anger and resentment. People die out of senseless violence in many parts of the world. Even my mom tells me that she cannot help but fear what the near future will bring. But isn’t it great that God’s plan is never derailed, even in the midst of our sin? Indeed, God is in control. He is Lord over all - and sin has nothing against him! What encouragement! What blessing!

Yes, sin has its consequences. But in the end, God makes sure that his kingdom marches on forward. Just last week at Princeton Seminary’s opening chapel, Rev. Nancy Gross, the Dean of Students, preached on how because technology is moving so fast, there might come a day - according to scientists - that everything we know will fuse together. Indeed, there may come a day when God is completely optional to human knowledge, because scientists think they know everything. But even so, Dean Gross reminded us that as Christians we always go back to the Gospel. Even though the world races forward and falls apart, God is always Lord of all and in control.

Thus, let us always remember that God is Lord of all, and His plans never fail. Let this truth continually strengthen us to fight the good fight, to take our stand with arms high and hearts abandoned!