If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Genesis 26 - we’ll be reading from vv. 1-25.
1 Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines. 2 And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 Live for a time in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed Me and fulfilled his duty to Me, and kept My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”
6 So Isaac lived in Gerar. 7 When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say, “my wife,” thinking, “the men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, since she is beautiful.” 8 Now it came about, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down through a window, and saw them, and behold, Isaac was caressing his wife Rebekah. 9 Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she certainly is your wife! So how is it that you said, ‘She is my sister’?” And Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘otherwise I might be killed on account of her.’” 10 And Abimelech said, “What is this that you have done to us? One of the people might easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” 11 So Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, “He who touches this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.”
12 Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundred times as much. And the LORD blessed him, 13 and the man became rich, and continued to grow [i]richer until he became very wealthy; 14 for he had possessions of flocks and herds, and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him. 15 Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up by filling them with dirt. 16 Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us.” 17 So Isaac departed from there and camped in the Valley of Gerar, and settled there.
18 Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which [o]had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the same names which his father had given them. 19 But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing water, 20 the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they argued with him. 21 Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Sitnah. 22 Then he moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, for he said, “At last the LORD has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”
23 And he went up from there to Beersheba. 24 And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said,
“I am the God of your father Abraham;
Do not fear, for I am with you.
I will bless you and multiply your descendants,
For the sake of My servant Abraham.” 25 So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well.
It’s interesting that this is the only chapter in Genesis where Isaac is the central character. And you can see how his parents, especially his dad Abraham and his decisions influenced his own decision-making process. What are some things we can see in this passage?
1. God’s presence in the famine
2. Isaac’s unfounded fear
3. A fortified faith
1. God’s presence in the famine
We see in v. 1 that there was a famine in land and famines tended to affect the decisions of the patriarchs and the nation of Israel. It was a famine that took Abraham to Egypt, that caused Jacob and his family to move to Egypt and eventually become enslaved. Were they merely natural, common sense decisions or were they seeking the Lord’s guidance?
Isaac took his family to Gerar, on his way to Egypt. We see that these cyclical events caused these patriarchs to act in the same way. What did God do in Isaac’s case? He appeared to Isaac and told him to stay in Gerar.
What would you consider a modern day famine? [financial (need for a job), a spiritual drought, no satisfying relationships, believing you have no purpose where you are.] How do people normally respond in times of famine? When we are in these situations do we default to our own thinking and ways in times of distress, need, hurt, discouragement or disappointment instead of asking God what we should do?
Warren Wiresbe said:
When the famine hits we are all tempted to run but…the safest place in the world is in the will of God, for the will of God will never lead us where His grace can’t provide for us. Unbelief asks, “How can I get out of this,” while faith asks, “What can I get out of this?”
We will never grow in faith if we run from difficulty, because “tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character.
2) God told Isaac, “Don't abandon the land I promised you because of a famine - stay in Gerar for a time and don’t go to Egypt.” In the ESV, the phrase for “stay in the land” is “dwell” or “live.” However, it’s not the usual word for live but a derivative from the word “to tabernacle” (the place where God’s presence dwells). One Jewish commentator understood it to mean there was a reason for Isaac to dwell in Gerar, not just to support his family in time of famine but to manifest the Lord’s presence.
Why do you think the Lord has you here in Vienna besides for work, studies, or raising a family? Could it be that He has us here to tabernacle in His presence and manifest His presence to people here or anywhere else He might take us?
3) God said “Live here and I will be with you and will bless you.” God was saying to Isaac, “I am with you in this famine, trust Me, even if things don’t look good - wait, don’t be anxious, don’t panic. Moses had this type of dependance on God and told Him that he wouldn’t make a move unless he knew God’s presence was with him (Ex 33:14-15). When Joshua had the responsibility of bringing a nation into the Promised land, God told him: (SL 5)
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).
After Jesus gave His disciples the Great Commission, He said, “I am with you even until the end of the time”(Matt 28:20). Why would God want to reassure us of His presence?
Wayne Grudam wrote;
God is present with his whole being everywhere…God does not have any size or spatial dimension and is present at every part of space with his whole being, and yet God acts differently in different places. In respect to his people, while all of God is spatially present everywhere, he is specially present with his children. Indeed, he is with them and in them (cf. John 17:20, 21; 2 Cor 5:17). He is specially present with his people to protect and to bless them.
It’s one thing to theologically affirm that God is omnipresent but another thing altogether to have it dominate and inform us everyday. To embrace the sure knowledge that God is always present and, more specially, present to bless and protect us—what a difference this would make in our lives.
In v. 4 God reaffirms His covenant about the promised land, the uncountable number of descendants, and how through his descendants all the nations of the earth would be blessed. The word blessed here is reflexive, in the middle voice meaning that the nations will recognize that you are blessed and will want to associate with you in order to be blessed. People would have to be in an active relationship with Abraham and his family to be blessed.
Isn’t it the same principle today with God’s people? People in the world are watching the church and recognize how God blesses His people.
(Story of working with highly disturbed children at Avalon - HR director, who was not a believer, told me that he would always hire Christians whenever possible because of the difference they make in the kids’ lives. He wanted to get in on the blessing.)
God’s covenantal blessing here, in the nifal tense or passive tense meant that Isaac and his family could enjoy God’s blessing because of Abraham’s obedience. Abraham listened diligently to God, he kept God commandments, statutes (decrees), and laws. Abraham sensed his responsibility in maintaining what is valuable or sacred because he knew how it would affect the next generation. We know Abraham didn’t always obey or trust God perfectly but he kept coming back to the Lord.
This would be a lesson for Isaac and his family to obey God's teaching and instructions so they might enjoy further blessings from the Lord that would, in turn, be passed on to the next generation. The question is: Will Isaac do what it takes to pass on the blessings to the next generation?
We know that Isaac did stay in Gerar but what similarities do we see in Isaac and his father Abraham in vv. 7-12?
? Just as Abraham “stayed in Gerar” (20:1), so does Isaac (26:6).
? Just as Abraham devised a scheme with his wife Sarah, calling her his sister (12:13; 20:2), so does Isaac with Rebekah (26:7).
? Just as Abraham was rebuked by the Philistine king Abimelech for the great shame he might have brought on his people (20:9), so also is Isaac (26:10).]
Such similarities can hardly be coincidental. The writer portrays to the reader that the lives of the two patriarchs run a remarkably similar course.” But now we witness:
2. Isaac’s unfounded fear
7) Isaac had no reason to fear the people of the land because God was with him. Yet when the men of the town asked about who this woman was, he feared the worst and it made him act irrationally. His decision-making process put his wife and the town’s people in jeopardy. Isaac might have theologically affirmed that God was with him but, in reality, he did not believe it in his heart.
Abimelech, who apparently had a greater sense of right and wrong/fear of God protects Isaac and his family and allows him to stay in the land. Isaac worked the land (as a semi-somatic farmer) during the famine and reaped 100X as much as he sowed. The Lord supernaturally blessed him, made him rich and powerful and it was a testimony to the Philistines of God’s presence in his life. As a result, however, the Gerarites were envious of his success so they stopped up the wells his servants dug, to dishearten Isaac and make him leave.
Even Abimilech eventually felt threatened and ordered Isaac to leave Gerar. After being treated like this, it would have been a reason for discouragement. But we see Isaac didn’t put up a fight, didn’t retaliate, and instead left peacefully and started redigging the wells his father Abraham had dug.
Though the local herdsmen were contentious and accusatory, Isaac knew this was the land God had promised him, and instead of retaliating he dug another well and called it Rehoboth. What is amazing here is that even in the famine, everywhere he dug or redug a well he found water and everything he put his hand to prospered. Though his enemy tried to discourage him, later they would admit that God was with him. Isaac’s perseverance reveals:
3. A fortified faith
After all the conflict and contention in v. 23 Isaac moved back to Beersheba (the well of the oath or well of seven) and God appeared to him that same night. What does God communicate to him? 1. Who He is, 2. that His presence is with him, and 3. that He will bless him and his descendants. Isaac, like his father, responded by building an altar to remember God’s promise of His presence and calls upon the name of the Lord. This last place, the well of seven is where Isaac finally settled.
The wells of Abraham illustrate the value of returning to the original source of life. Many times wells symbolize blessings from the hand of the Lord (Gen. 16:14; 21:19; 49:22; Ex. 15:27; Num. 21:16–18; Prov. 5:15; 16:22; 18:4; Song 4:15; Isa. 12:3; John 4:14). Isaac could have dug all new wells but he chose to restore Abraham’s wells. He could have chosen new names but he chose to use the same names that Abraham had given them. He could have become bitter and discouraged but he just dug another well. God brought Isaac out dust to life.
This whole chapter seems focused on wells and ends with an interesting note about Isaac’s son Esau. The narrative tells us that Esau was 40 years old when he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite and how that brought grief to his parents. Beeri’s name means “my well.” Esau could have lived a blessed life (Hebr 12:16 - 17) but he sold his birthright and traded away the blessing. He chose to live a godless life, to drink from a different well, one the Lord hadn’t provided, and it grieved his parents and the Lord. He was so naturally-minded because he lost sight of a supernatural God.
I know that some of the ladies in the church have been doing a study called Becoming a Woman of Understanding with Sandy and Pearl. We tend to dig our own wells in pursuit of finding a relationship, finding purpose, and significance apart from God’s springs of eternal life. But the well or source of life from which God calls us to drink is the only source that will quench our thirst. It’s the only well that will satisfy and the enemy wants to pollute it and to miss out on God’s presence and blessings.
Are we allowing the enemy to fill up the well, to pollute it? In our discouragement,do we start digging other wells that can never quench our thirst for life? What about the decision-making processes we use on a daily basis? The decisions we make actually reflect the desires of our heart (Psa 119:30). Therefore, a key question before making a decision is “do I choose to please myself, or do I choose to please the Lord?” There will be times when we will be totally discouraged but God wants us to learn that His will for our lives is always for our good and His glory (Psa 119:67; Hebr 12:10-11).
There might be some people here today who are in the valley of decision because of some type of famine in their lives. If we believe that God’s will is always for our best and for His glory, we can also believe that He will reveal His will to us and provide for us in the famine. What are some questions you can ask yourself when trying to discern God’s will?
1) How are my attachments and insecurities influencing my decisions?
Things like money, the need for affirmation, security, or a desire for stimulation are many times motivating factors when it comes to decision-making. Sometimes we believe we are making a decision that honors God, when in fact, it only feeds these attachments. Be aware of your attachments and learn to let them go.
2) Will this path develop godly character in my life?
God wants you to be the best version of yourself possible, so try to identify what affects your life, your job and your character in a positive way and make your decision with that in mind. Will this decision help me to grow in my faith?
3) Would the action or decision go against Scripture?
The Bible should be our filter for decision-making. If you find that a path doesn’t connect with the truths we learn from Scripture, it is most likely outside of God’s will.
4) How would the action or outcome affect others?
If you believe your choice would impact your closest relationships in a negative way (spouse, family), it isn’t a path worth following.
5) Which path would help others draw nearer to God?
We are all given the mission to make disciples. So which decision will put you in a better position to help bring people closer to God?
6) Who is someone who knows me that can help me make the best decision?
Whether it’s a close friend, relative, co-worker or spouse, we each have someone we feel comfortable confiding in and trusting for advice. Go to that person whenever you’re struggling with finding God’s purpose. Oftentimes, they can give you a new perspective and help you see things in a fresh light.
7) How will these decisions honor God?
If you see that one decision will keep you from making an impact for God’s Kingdom, then it’s likely that this is not the best decision for you. Instead, seek the path that better helps you fulfill God’s purpose for yourself & the people around you.
8) Do these decisions have an eternal impact?
Taking that big promotion because it benefits you financially is great, but more money or notoriety shouldn’t be the foundation of any decision-making. Remember: promotion comes from the Lord and the path that leads to a meaningful life is the one that prepares us for eternity. Choose the decision with implications that don’t end with this world, but rather carry on to the next.
God is present in whatever path you choose but He blesses the decisions that honor him and result in your good and His glory (1 Cor 10:31).
