Scripture is crystal-clear that one can never “justify securing success through evil means.” We read in Proverbs 10:2-4, “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivers from death. The LORD will not allow the righteous soul to famish, but He casts away the desire of the wicked. He who has a slack hand becomes poor, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (NKJV). We see in these 3 verses a stark contrast between “one who gains riches by illegal means” and the “one who acquires riches by being righteous and diligent.” The world may call anyone who is rich SUCCESSFUL, but God calls the one who resorts to illegal and unrighteous means to become rich WICKED. In Proverbs 16:8 we read, “Better is little with righteousness than vast revenues without justice. This simply means it is better to have just enough money to live on that is earned by honest living than to have great wealth that is earned dishonestly.

Now let’s read Genesis 12:10-13,” Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land. And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, ‘Indeed I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance. Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, “This is his wife” and THEY WILL KILL ME, but they will let you live. Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and THAT I MAY LIVE because of you.” Here we learn that the real reason why Abram asked his wife to lie by telling the Egyptians she was his sister; he was FEARFUL FOR HIS LIFE! He truly believed Pharaoh would kill him so he could have Sarai for his wife. He had no idea that Pharaoh would make him rich as we see later in verse 16, “He treated Abram well for her sake. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels.” Thus, Abraham was guilty of “LYING to save his life,” but he was not guilty of “LYING to make himself rich.”

Sadly, Abram’s “fear of man” also led to Saria being “taken to Pharaoh’s house” (verse 15) and “the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai” (verse 17). We read in Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.” Abram’s “faith had temporarily left him” and in its place “his heart was filled with fear which led to deception.” This SNARE then affected others adversely, so Abram’s sin was great. Yet we would be wrong to say that his willingness to lie and deceive was to gain riches. Yet after he was made wealthy by Pharaoh because of Sarai, his conscience should have bothered him even more, for why should he prosper while others were suffering the consequences of his deception? If we were to look further in the book of Genesis, we would see that Abram’s riches caused Abram and his nephew Lot to have to separate from one another after they left Egypt which in turn led to Lot becoming defiled in the city of Sodom (Genesis 13:1-12 and 19:1-25). In fairness, Abraham was a “man of faith” and throughout most of his life he lived righteously and glorified God, but his “lapse of faith” in Egypt is a lesson to all believers. If we take our eyes off from the Lord and put them on man, we will “fear man instead of the Lord” and this SNARE will wreak havoc in our life and in the lives of others.  (DO)  (639.3)