The Apple Doesn't Fall Far

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I want you to take your Bibles and open them to Genesis chapter 26.
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If you don't have your own Bible with you, there is a Bible probably somewhere in the seat around you.
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I'll be reading from the English Standard Version, which is in the seats.
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And turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 26.
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Most of us are familiar with the patriarchs of Israel.
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The patriarchs of Israel are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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And then, of course, the 12 sons of Jacob, which make the nation of Israel.
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And among these three, the majority of attention is often given to Abraham.
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Even today, we are called sons and daughters of Abraham.
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Then, of course, Jacob is given a great deal of attention.
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Jacob is the one who will become Israel.
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His name will change from Jacob to Israel.
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And he will be given a great deal of attention.
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And then his sons will be given a great deal of attention.
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But what we find when we read through the book of Genesis is that not much attention is given, really, to the life of Isaac.
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Isaac is almost as if a transitional figure, moving quickly from Abraham to Jacob with only one single chapter devoted to the life of Isaac.
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And it's the chapter that we're going to look at today.
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Now, certainly, Isaac has been at the forefront of the story.
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He was the great promised child.
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He was the one they waited for.
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And, of course, if we go back to chapter 22 and the story of Mount Moriah, Isaac being taken up to be sacrificed, we know he's certainly been in the story.
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But the story hasn't really been focused so much on him as a person.
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But what we are going to see today is his life, as it were, somewhat summarized for us in this chapter.
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And what I find amazing about this chapter, and as you know, I've been preaching through Genesis now for a long time and trying to take one chapter at a time.
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And because we took so much time in the first half, by the way, today begins the second half of the book.
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We're only three years in.
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So but we're second half of the book.
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Chapter 26 marks the second half.
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And we're going to try to go one chapter a week as the Lord allows.
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But what I what I find most interesting about chapter 26 is this.
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Almost every single event in Genesis 26 in the life of Isaac has already happened in the life of Abraham.
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In fact, it is so obviously repetitious that some unbelieving scholars have said that these stories really aren't to be attributed to Isaac, but rather they are simply the the the the sages of old rewriting Isaac story using Abraham's stories as Isaac stories, because they didn't have anything to say about Isaac.
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That is not true.
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I'm going to show you today why that's not true, because the text actually doesn't allow for that.
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But that is one of the arguments that's made by unbelievers, is that this is just one of those times when we are seeing the writers simply writing the stories over and over again, because this is the third time we're going to see one major event.
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Great patriarch goes into a city.
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Fears for his life because of his gorgeous wife and tells everyone in the city she is my sister.
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Happened twice in the life of Abraham, and it's going to happen again in the life of Isaac.
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And they say, how could this one thing happen so many times to one family? We're going to talk about that, too, because the title of today's sermon is the apple doesn't fall far.
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And if you're not familiar with that particular colloquialism, I'm sure you are.
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But if you're not, that is shortened version of the term.
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The apple doesn't fall far.
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Let me try again.
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The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
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And what that means in colloquial terms is that the father is often like his son and the son is often like the father.
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And oftentimes what we see are the are the the places where the father is virtuous.
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Often the son will be virtuous.
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But the same is also true where the father is not so virtuous.
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We will see a lack of virtue in his children.
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Now, that is not always true, but we see a child acting like his father.
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What do we say? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
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In my house, it's more like this.
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Stop acting like your father.
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So we're going to read chapter 26.
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We're going to read the whole chapter.
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And I will ask you to stand because we stand for the reading of God's word.
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I know it's a lot to stand through, but it's not that many verses that we've done.
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Sixty seven verses in a shot.
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We can do we can do the few that are here.
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It's only thirty five.
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So let's stand together.
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And we'll read the story and then we will have a short prayer.
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Genesis 26 begins.
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Now there was a famine in the land beside the former famine that was in the days of Abraham.
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See the text.
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I just have to mention this.
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The text tells us this has already happened before.
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And it it's telling us this isn't Abraham's story again.
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It's Isaac's story.
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But it happened in Abraham's time.
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There was a famine in the land and Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech, king of the Philistines.
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And the Lord appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt.
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Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you sojourn in this land.
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And I will be with you and will bless you for to you and to your offspring.
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I will give all these lands and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.
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I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands.
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And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws.
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So Isaac settled in Gerar.
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Then the men of the place asked him about his wife.
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And he said, she is my sister.
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For he feared to save my wife, thinking lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah, because she was attractive in appearance.
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When he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah, his wife.
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So Abimelech called Isaac and said, behold, she is your wife.
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How then could you say she is my sister? Isaac said to him, because I thought lest I die because of her.
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Abimelech said, what is this you have done to us? One of the people might have lain with your wife and you would have brought guilt upon us.
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So Abimelech warned all the people saying, whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.
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And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold.
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The Lord blessed him and the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy.
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He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him.
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Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham, his father.
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And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us, for you are much mightier than us.
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So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar and settled there.
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And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham, his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham.
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And he gave them the names that his father had given them.
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But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, the water is ours.
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So he called the name of the well Essek, because they contended with him.
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Then they dug another well and they quarreled over that also.
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So he called the name Sitna, and he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it.
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So he called the name Rehoboth, saying, for now the Lord has made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land.
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From there he went up to Beersheba, and the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, your father.
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Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and will multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake.
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So he built an altar there, called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there, and there Isaac's servants dug a well.
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When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzath, his advisor, and Phicol, the commander of his army, Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you? They said, We see plainly that the Lord has been with you.
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So we said, Let us be in a sworn pact between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace.
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You are now the blessed of the Lord.
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So he made them a feast and they ate and drank, and in the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths, and Isaac sent them on their way and they departed from him in peace.
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That same day, Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, We have found water.
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And he called it Sheba.
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Therefore, the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.
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When Esau was 40 years old, he took Judith, the daughter of Berei, the Hittite, to be his wife, and Basimath, the daughter of Elon, the Hittite, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebecca.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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May it be now that you would keep me from error as I preach.
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May you open the eyes and ears of the listener.
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But more important, Lord, may you open their heart to receive your word.
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May your spirit do the work that only he can do by engrafting and implanting this word into all of our hearts.
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And Lord, may we not only hear it, but may we apply this word to our life today.
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And Lord, if there are those here who do not know Christ, Lord, that they would see Christ, even in a text like this, even in a long narrative, Lord, that they would see the promise of the Christ who would come, the one through whom God will bless the nations.
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And we thank you, Lord, for this in Jesus name.
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Amen.
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All right, I know that was a lot to read, so please have a seat.
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As we're reading through that text, I don't know if it jumped out at you like it did me, but as I've been spending time in this text all week, I noticed something that I hope that you did while we were reading, and that is this.
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Up until this point in Genesis, we have not seen the Lord appear to Isaac as we have here.
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We know that the Lord has appeared to Abraham.
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He appeared to Abraham in multiple ways.
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He appeared to Abraham as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch.
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He appeared to Abraham as a theophany, meaning a man form as he came in man form and ate with Abraham outside of the Oaks of Mamre.
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And we know that God was there speaking through the angel of the Lord when Isaac was on the altar about to be slain.
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And the angel said to Abraham, touch not your son.
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So we know that Isaac is well familiar with the Lord.
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We know that Isaac has a relationship with the Lord in that regard.
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But as far as appearing to him, we come to this text and we find that here first.
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But notice also that the Lord appears to him twice in this short chapter.
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In fact, it says it in such a nonchalant way that it's almost as if it was a normal occurrence.
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Let me ask you a question.
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Well, I better not ask.
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I was going to say, has anybody here ever had the Lord appear to them? I don't even want to know.
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Because we might be going into an area of weirdness and I don't want to go there.
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But I will say this.
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The Lord has never appeared to me.
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I know that he is there.
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I believe that he is there.
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I believe that I have his word written for me by his apostles and prophets.
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And I do believe that the Lord is here with us today.
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But we don't see him.
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And his presence, though felt, is not experienced by the eyes or even by the ears.
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This is a special moment in the life of Isaac.
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But yet it's given to us as if it's just a normal thing.
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The Lord appeared to Isaac.
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So what? But it is a big deal.
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And this text, as long as this chapter is, the 35 verses, I think, can be broken up into three specific parts.
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Now, of course, we can talk about the wells and we will.
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We talk about the wife and the sister and saying she's my sister and all that.
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And we will talk about those things.
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But the part of this text that we mustn't miss.
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In fact, I would I would encourage you, please don't miss this.
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Is that the first time the Lord appears to Isaac? He makes a promise.
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He says, I will be with you.
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Then the second time he appears in this same chapter to Isaac, he says, I am with you.
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Notice the difference in the preposition.
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One is a promise.
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I will be with you.
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But the second time is I am with you.
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In fact, that construction I am is a very similar construction to the name Yahweh.
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But where we get the name Yahweh is from the idea of God's presence.
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When he says, I am who I am.
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Remember when Moses said, who am I to say who sent me to you? And he says, tell him I am has sent me to you.
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Well, that construction is where where we base that that four letter name of God, what is called the Tetragrammaton or the four letter name of God.
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Yahweh, which we pronounce Yahweh, some people pronounce it Jehovah.
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Right.
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And he says, I am with you.
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So we have the promise.
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I will be with you.
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We have the fulfillment.
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I am with you.
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And then later toward the end of the chapter, we see this interaction between Isaac and Abimelech, where Abimelech says it is obvious the Lord has been with you.
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So you notice the theme of the chapter when you look at it that way, you see the theme of the chapter is about the presence of God.
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God says to his servant, I will be with you.
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God says to his servant, I am with you.
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And God says to his servant through the outside world, obviously, the Lord has been with you.
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Dr.
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Kent Hughes and his commentary on this particular passage makes this point.
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He says, when we think about the presence of God, we often get tied up in the omnipresence of God.
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Now, what does omnipresence mean? Means all present, means everywhere.
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The Bible tells us in Psalm 139, if I go up into heaven, you are there.
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If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
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I can't get away from your presence.
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We sing Psalm 139 here.
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We have a song and the song is all about I can't escape you.
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You're always there.
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And that's the omnipresence of God.
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But understand this, beloved, and this is so important that you must get this.
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While God is always present everywhere in the world at all time, he is especially present with his people.
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There is a special presence that God has with his people.
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That is unlike his omnipresence, which is everywhere.
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In fact, why do we gather? We gather to be together, to encourage one another and to build one another up and to challenge one another.
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The Bible says to reproof, rebuke, correct in righteousness.
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We do that, but we also gather to experience together this holy time where we get to be in the presence of the Lord.
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This is a special time and a special place.
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Might I even say a holy time and a holy place? Because God promises to meet with his people.
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This is the Lord's day.
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Why do we call it the Lord's day? Because it's different than the other days.
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It's God's holy day and we get to express it every week.
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We get to enjoy this time to come together and be with him, with his people, in his presence.
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I don't know about you, but that's a great joy for me to know that God is present with me in a way that is unique and in a way that is different.
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And that's what we see in this passage.
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We see a man who was not perfect, y'all, and we're going to see some of his imperfections.
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We're going to read about how the same sin that his father dealt with, the sin of fear, which caused lack of faith, is going to be the same sin that causes or causes the same fear and lack of faith in him which causes the same sin.
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So we're not talking about a perfect man.
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If you think you have to be perfect to experience the presence of God, then no one has ever experienced the presence of God except Jesus Christ.
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But the Bible tells us that God loves us in our imperfections because Christ came to die for our sins and he makes us holy and he seats us where? Where does he seat us? In heavenly places with whom? With Christ.
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We have a experiential presence with God because we are his.
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And what's today? What's the theme? You know, I don't I didn't do this.
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I'm sticking with Genesis.
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But what's the theme of today? The theme of today is peace.
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And what gives us peace? Well, first, our sins have been forgiven.
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Therefore, we have peace with God having been justified by faith.
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We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore we have legal peace.
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We have legal.
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Guilt has been removed legally, and so there's peace between us and God.
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But now there's also this relationship and a peace which the Bible says passes all understanding.
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Because even though we can't see God, we get to experience him in his presence.
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The Bible tells us to come into his throne room boldly.
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Not arrogantly.
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But not fearfully either, because we can go because the way has been made.
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Christ has made the way into his throne room, and therefore we get to experience his presence.
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We sing the song, I have entered his gates with thanksgiving in my heart and I will enter his courts with praise.
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And I will say this is the day that the Lord has made and I will rejoice for he has made me glad.
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So this is really what this chapter is about.
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Isaac experiencing the presence of the Lord.
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And what we're going to see is we're going to see God is going to prosper him over and over and over.
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In fact, I want to talk a little bit about prosperity later on, because I do think there are some people who misinterpret passages like these to assume that every time someone experiences the presence of God, they're automatically going to have prosperity in the sense of gold and silver and land and all that.
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And that's not exactly what the Bible teaches.
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Sometimes the presence of God isn't accompanied by riches, but it's always accompanied by peace.
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Paul didn't have riches.
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Paul had a jail cell, and yet he still had peace.
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In the book of Philippians, he was riding from jail and he uses the word rejoice and joy over and over and over because he had God's presence.
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You see, it's not the riches that are promised.
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It's the presence that's promised.
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And Paul says, I've learned to live with a lot or with a little.
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And I can do all things.
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And by the way, that's what that means.
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It doesn't mean I can hit a home run, doesn't mean I can run a mile in three minutes.
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When it says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, it means I can endure anything because the presence of God is with me always.
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And therefore, whether I am in the prison cell or whether I am in the penthouse, God is with me.
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All right, so let's look at the text.
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We'll begin at the beginning because that's the best part to begin with.
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It says this is now there was a famine in the land beside the former famine that was in the days of Abraham.
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I wanted to preach it while I was reading.
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It's already said this.
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This tells us that this is not the same story as what happened to Abraham.
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The writer is telling us this is like what happened to Abraham, but it's not the same.
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And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech, king of the Philistines.
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Now, you might say, well, what's that about? Well, here's the thing.
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From where Isaac was coming to where he was going, Gerar is on the way.
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Where was he going? Where do you think Isaac was going? He was going to Egypt.
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Why was why was Isaac on the way to Egypt? Because that's where you went when the famine happened.
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Egypt just happened to be a place that stayed fertile and and fruitful, and it was a place where people went when famines happened.
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Where did Abraham go in Genesis chapter 12? He went to Egypt.
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What happened when he went to Egypt? He picked up a handmaiden along with a lot of other things.
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He lied about his wife.
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And then when he got back, his wife said, hey, take this handmaiden, be my child.
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And then they had a whole bunch of mess happened because of him going down to Egypt.
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So Isaac is on his way to Egypt and he gets to Gerar, which is on the way.
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And God speaks to him, verse two, and the Lord appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt.
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Dwell in the land which I shall tell you.
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And by the way, verses two, three, four and five are a recitation or a repetition of what's known as the Abrahamic covenant.
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God is repeating the covenant that he made with Abraham now to Isaac.
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And he is essentially reestablishing his covenant with Isaac that he had made with his father Abraham.
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But notice the difference between what God said to Abraham and God said to Isaac.
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God said to Abraham, come up, go away from your family, leave Ur of the Chaldees and go to the land that I will show you.
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So what was the command of God to Abraham? Go.
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But what is the command of God to Isaac? Don't go.
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Stay, don't leave the promised land.
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Remember a couple of chapters ago when we were talking about Abraham finding a wife for Isaac.
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Remember what God or what Abraham said when this when the when the servant of Abraham said, well, should I take him to the land to find the wife? He said, no, do not let Isaac leave this land.
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This land is part of the promise that God has given.
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Therefore, do not let him leave.
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As far as we know, Isaac will stay put.
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He will stay here.
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God says, don't go.
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He gets to Gerard.
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That's about as far as you can get.
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That's like somebody saying, don't leave Florida and you're up in North Hilliard.
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Right.
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He's going to North Hilliard.
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He's not going to quite get out of the state, but he's pretty close.
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He's going to Gerard because, again, he's concerned about the famine.
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It says in verse two, the Lord appeared to him.
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Do not go to Egypt.
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Dwell in the land which I shall tell you.
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Surgeon in this land.
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And notice what he says.
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I will be with you.
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I will bless you for to you and to your offspring.
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I will give the land.
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I will establish the oaths.
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I swore to Abraham, your father.
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I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven.
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I will give you the offspring.
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I'll give I will give your offspring all these lands.
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And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.
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Please understand this, and I promise I'm not going to spend this much time on every verse.
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But understand this verse for.
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Is hugely significant and redemptive history, because in verse four, it says this in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.
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If you go back to Genesis 15.
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Abraham is given that I'm sorry, Genesis 12.
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Abraham's given the same problem, same promises, part of the Abrahamic covenant.
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So Genesis 12, Abraham is told in your seed.
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That's what the word offspring means in your seed.
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All the nations will be blessed now in Genesis 26.
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Isaac is receiving the same problem, the same promise.
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Same promise in your seed, all the nations will be blessed.
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If you jump ahead, you don't have to just take my word for it.
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If you jump ahead to Galatians chapter three, verse eight, Paul says this is the gospel.
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He says God preached the gospel to Abraham when he said these words in your seed.
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All the nations of the world will be blessed because the seed that's being referred to here.
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It's not the many thousands and millions of descendants of Israel.
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The seed that is being referred to.
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Is Jesus Christ himself, because it is through the Messiah that all the nations would receive a blessing.
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You know what the Bible says in Revelation chapter five, it says in the end, we are going to see a multitude from every tribe, tongue, people and nation.
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And what are they going to do? They're going to worship the lamb.
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They're going to show that the Lord Jesus Christ came not to save only people of Israel.
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He didn't come only to save people of Florida.
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He didn't come only to save people of America.
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He didn't come only to save white people.
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He didn't come only to save black people.
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He didn't come only to save anybody else.
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He came to save people from every tribe, tongue and nation.
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And this is the promise through your seed, through the seed of the woman.
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Remember what the Bible says in the fullness of time.
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God sent forth his son.
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Born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons and be able to call him Abba Father.
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That's the blessing.
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That's what's being pointed to here.
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When it says all the nations of the world will be blessed through your seed.
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Jesus Christ is that blessing and he is the reason for our peace.
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Then we go on to verse five.
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It says because Abraham obeyed my voice.
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Now, if I were doing a Bible study and I had the time to do it, I would stop at verse five and I would talk about the fact that the words, it says Abraham obeyed my voice.
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He kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws.
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And I would show you how those four phrases are connected to the law of Moses.
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And some people believe that Abraham actually had an early form of Mosaic law that he lived by.
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Because it says here he lived by the charge, the commandments, the statutes and the laws of God.
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And you say, well, what are you talking about? I don't necessarily subscribe to that.
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That is called the republication theory of the law of Moses, meaning Abraham had the law of Moses and it was republished by Moses.
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I don't hold to that only because the Bible says the law came to Moses and grace and truth came to Jesus Christ.
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I don't necessarily hold to that view, but I do know this.
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Abraham did understand righteousness.
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He understood God's moral law.
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He understood that because remember back in chapter 18, when he was speaking to God about Sodom, what did he say to God about Sodom? Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? How did Abraham know what justice was? Was it from the code of Hammurabi? Was it from the Newsy tablets that have been on earth from that time in history? No, he was not living by the culture.
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He was living by the word of God, which he had received through the revelation of God.
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He knew God's holy transcendent law.
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Now, I don't think that he knew all of the laws regarding like clothing and shellfish and all that stuff.
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I do think that we could make an argument that those things came in to separate the nation of Israel out as a people later.
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But he understood God's just character.
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And Abraham lived in accord with God's just character.
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Now, does that mean he was perfect? No, we can go back and point out many imperfections.
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But he knew God's character and he lived his life in light of that.
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Now, the next part of the story is, again, we're not going to read every verse, but the next part of the story, Isaac settles in Gerar.
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And it says when the men of that place asked him about his wife, she said, she is my sister, for he feared to say she is my wife.
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Why? Verse seven says because she was attractive in appearance.
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I don't know about this, but these ladies, Sarah and Rebecca, they had to have been very impressive with their external appearance.
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Either that or their husbands were some of the most doting husbands in the history of doting husbands, because they were so impressed with the beauty of their wives that they felt that they needed to lie every time they went somewhere so as to not be killed and take their wife.
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Now, we don't live in that kind of culture.
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Praise the Lord.
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I don't have to worry about a man standing behind, you know, standing behind a bush, wanting to jump out and shank me so that he can take Jennifer to be his wife.
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I mean, you're beautiful, but I don't worry about that.
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It's just not our culture.
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But apparently there was something in the culture where that was.
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If you had a good looking wife, she was up for grabs if you were dead, which made your death somewhat of a potentiality.
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So they go into town and Isaac says, no, no, no, she's my sister.
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By the way, Abraham at least had a half.
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She was at least his half sister.
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We learned that a few chapters ago.
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So Abraham told a half lie.
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There ain't no truth in this.
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She like a distant cousin at best.
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She is not his sister, but he says she's my sister.
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This is where I say that whole apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
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Where you think, where you think, oh, Isaac, learn how to do this.
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Daddy did it.
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And you remember what we read back a few chapters ago, it says everywhere Abraham went, he did this.
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This was a ruse that didn't happen once or twice.
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This was a ruse.
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It seemed to be the common activity everywhere he went.
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He said she is my sister.
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So it was the natural thing for Isaac to do to follow in the footsteps of his father to say she is my sister.
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Now, verse 8 is where the drama happens.
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Because in verse 8 it says when he had been there a long time, so apparently they'd been keeping up this ruse for a while.
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It says when he'd been there for a long time, Abimelech, and by the way, real quick, the word Abimelech here, this name was also the name of the person that this happened with to Abraham, which is why some people think it's the same story told again.
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But the title Abimelech is like the title Pharaoh or Caesar.
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It's a name which is attached to a title.
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So could this be the same Abimelech from a few chapters before? Yes, but this is several years, several decades later.
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So this could just simply be another.
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This could be the son of the first Abimelech.
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This could be a different one.
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But notice what it says.
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It says Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window.
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By the way, how many kings in the Bible get in trouble by finding themselves looking? You know, David looks out.
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He sees naked Bathsheba.
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Oh, what was his name? Nebuchadnezzar looked out.
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Oh, look at all the good things I've done.
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Then God sends him to the field to eat grass like an ox, you know.
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So this king, just like the other kings, just finds himself strolling about, looks out the window, and he sees Isaac laughing with Rebekah, his wife.
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Now, I want to say this.
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The word in Hebrew here is, it's not obscure, but it is translated in wildly different ways depending on your Bible.
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The ESV says they were laughing together, and I think that is a proper translation because the word, you know the word Isaac means laughter.
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Well, this is actually a form of that same word.
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So really, in Hebrew, it would say Abimelech saw Isaac Isaacing with Rebekah.
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That's sort of the way that it's written.
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But the word Isaac, in that sense, means to laugh, but it also means, as in the King James, it says sporting.
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But in certain translations, and I think this probably gets more to the heart of it, that certain translations say fondling.
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Because if he looked out the window and he saw a man and a woman laughing together, he would not assume that they weren't brother and sister.
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But if he looked out a window and saw them smooching, if he looked out a window and saw maybe a caressing embrace that included some very intimate moments, he would assume, well, I hope that ain't your sister.
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I mean, I'm just saying, you know, there's something happening here.
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So Isaac is Isaacing Rebekah, and whatever it is, it ain't what brothers and sisters do.
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So Abimelech called Isaac.
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They're Baptist dancing.
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No, a Baptist, you have to dance three feet apart to leave room for the Holy Spirit.
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Abimelech called Isaac, and he says, Behold, she is your wife.
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How then could you say she is my sister? And Isaac said to him, Because I thought, lest I die because of her.
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Abimelech says, What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.
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By the way, this is almost the exact same thing that happens to Abraham.
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Abraham sins against Abimelech, and this pagan king, understanding the righteousness of God, chastises the man of God.
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And let me ask you a question.
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Isn't it true? We talked about this before.
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Isn't it true? That a rebuke from a fellow brother and sister in Christ can be harsh and hurtful, but a rebuke from the world is embarrassing.
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Because when one of you rebuke me, it might be a time where I need to repent and do right.
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But when the world calls me out, I've really messed up.
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And that's what's happening.
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The world is calling out the man of God.
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But then verse 11.
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So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.
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You might say, Now, wait a minute.
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That seems weird.
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That seems like a weird follow up.
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Because you would think Abimelech is so angry with Isaac, he would say, You're on your own, buddy.
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Whatever happens to you, I don't care.
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But he says, No, I'm putting a decree out.
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If anybody touches this man, he will die.
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Now, why do we think that is? Well, the text doesn't say for certain, but it likely points to this one simple fact.
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Isaac has been there a long time, the text tells us that.
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And what we're going to see in the next few verses is that everywhere Isaac goes, God's blessing comes with him.
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In fact, in a time of drought and in a time of famine, every time his servants put their spade in the ground, they find a well.
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Everywhere they go, they put their spade in the ground, they find a well.
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So Abimelech understands the importance of this man.
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Abimelech understands the importance of God's presence in the life of this man.
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So even though he has sinned, Abimelech comes and he says, Nobody touch him.
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Yeah, he messed up.
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But nobody's going to punish him.
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Nobody's going to come and bring retribution on him.
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So we get then to verse 12.
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We do find that there eventually comes an expulsion.
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It says, And Isaac sowed in the land, reaped in the same year a hundredfold.
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By the way, you don't reap a hundredfold in a good year, much less a time of famine.
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This again is a picture of the presence of God.
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He is reaping a hundredfold in a time of famine.
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The Lord blessed him.
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And the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy.
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He had possessions and flocks and herds and many servants.
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So the Philistines envied him.
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He built and amassed such a wealth that the people around him realized this guy is really powerful.
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He is the Jeff Bezos of this area.
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If you don't get that, that's the head of Amazon, who went from nothing like 20 years ago to being more rich than NASA.
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Now, NASA don't have money.
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I don't know, more rich than anybody else.
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Him and Bill Gates went from nothing to everything.
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Well, this is sort of the ancient world version of those guys.
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God has blessed him.
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He has multiplied him.
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And now the people are getting nervous.
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He's getting too powerful.
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He's not a blessing anymore, he's a threat.
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So verse 15.
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Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells of his father's servants and had dug in the days of Abraham his father and Abimelech.
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So they brought retribution.
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Okay, we're going to start making life hard on this guy.
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He's too rich, he's too powerful, we're going to make life hard on him.
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But then verse 16, Abimelech finally said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you're much mightier than we.
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I want to translate this as I think it should be.
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It's not this way in the Hebrew, this is the key standard version.
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I think Abimelech is saying this, Go away from us, you're more powerful than I am.
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Because Abimelech's the king.
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He says more powerful than we, but I think he's actually thinking more about himself.
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Isaac is rising to the point of preeminence.
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And Abimelech does not want that level of threat to his throne.
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All right, after this we see a battle of resources.
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There's a back and forth over wells.
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Everywhere Isaac goes, his servants put their spade in the ground, they kick up a well everywhere they go.
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The first place they go to, they kick up a well, the guys come in and say, No, that's our water, that's our water.
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So now he's dealing with the herdsmen of Gerar, they're coming, No, that's our water.
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So Isaac, notice this guys, and I'm going to say something that's going to sound very anti-Keith.
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So stick with me.
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This doesn't sound like me.
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Isaac was willing to take it and move on.
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You know, I sometimes can be a stubborn man.
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I pray that God will continue to sanctify me in my stubbornness.
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But it appears Isaac was much more godly than that, because rather than fighting over the wells, he just says, We'll move on.
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He didn't stand up for his rights.
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He didn't fight for his hole.
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He says, Okay, you want it? I'll move on to the next one.
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The first one is called Essex.
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The word there means contention.
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Some of your Bibles translate it for you.
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So some of it says it's called the well of contention.
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Okay, we're going to contend over this.
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Well, I'll leave, I'll go to the next one.
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The next one is titled Sidno, which means hostility.
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Even worse, from contention to hostility, or enmity is the better word.
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He goes from one to the next.
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Finally, finally, they push him out to the outskirts.
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They push him out to the area that would have been like the wilderness.
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What happens? His servants put their spade in the ground.
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They kick up another well, even out in the middle of nowhere.
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And he calls this one Rehoboth.
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Rehoboth means room enough.
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That's the Hebrew.
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It means open space or room.
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This is God's made a place for us.
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Even though we kept fighting, even though we kept battling.
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We didn't have to battle.
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We just had to move into where God wanted us.
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And now we're here.
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That's what it says in verse 22.
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For now the Lord has made room for us.
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Now moving down to verse 23.
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We get the second time the Lord appears to him.
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The Lord appears to him at Beersheba.
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He leaves from this place and he goes to Beersheba.
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And it says, And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham your father.
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Fear not, for I am with you.
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Notice before he said, I will be with you.
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Now he says, I am with you.
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And will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake.
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You might ask yourself, God gave this promise to Abraham multiple times.
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In fact, he probably gave it to him more times than we have the recordings of.
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But we know God gave this promise to Abraham in chapter 12, in chapter 15, chapter 17.
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God was always reiterating his promises to Abraham.
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And here he's, you got to believe Isaac grew up hearing that.
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Don't you think there were times when Isaac, when he was little, would come and sit on the knee of his father and his father would say, let me tell you what God promised me.
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God promised me that through you, I'm going to have a nation.
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God promised me that through you, I'm going to be a blessing to the world through your seed.
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So don't you think Isaac knows these things? Don't you think Isaac has heard these promises since he was a child? But understand this, beloved.
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We all need to be reminded of God's promises.
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We forget the promises of God almost as soon as we hear them.
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Martin Luther said this, he said, I preach the gospel every week because every week my people forget.
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I preach the gospel every week because every week they forget.
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So God is again giving the promise, giving the gospel to Isaac.
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So he built there an altar.
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And called upon the name of the Lord, the term calling upon the name of the Lord.
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Some people think that means to pray, but actually more appropriately could mean to proclaim.
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And if he had an audience, they were hearing him proclaim the name of the Lord.
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And he pitched his tents there.
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And guess what his servants did? They dug a well because everywhere they went, there was water.
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In fact, what is the word Beersheba mean? It means well of the promise or well of the oath.
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And he dug a well.
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Now, verses 26 to 33, Abimelech finds him.
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Goes to him and says, look, we need to be in a covenant with one another.
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We need to be in a pact, what is called an oath of non-aggression.
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Why? Because he says, the Lord has been with you.
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I've seen everywhere you've gone.
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I've seen everything you've done.
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I've seen every time your spade goes into the ground, you kick up a new well.
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Everything you're doing, God is with you.
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And I don't want to be on the wrong side of your God.
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I don't want to be at odds with you.
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But notice what I love this part.
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Verse 27, Isaac said to them, why have you come to me seeing that you hate me and you sent me away from you? So Isaac's given a little bit like he got, you know, earlier Abimelech got on to him.
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Now Isaac's giving it back.
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Well, you hated me before.
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Now you want to be best friends.
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But the answer is simple.
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They said, verse 28, we see plainly that the Lord has been with you.
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God said, I will be with you.
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He says, I am with you.
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And now the outside world says, so obviously it is obvious the Lord has been with you.
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Brother Andy, in his prayer earlier, said something to the effect, and I don't think I'm saying it exactly right, but something to the effect that the world might see in us something different.
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Now, I want to say this.
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I do think that there was a time, especially when I was younger, when people would try to replace evangelism with what was what was called lifestyle witnessing.
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And that just simply meant, well, I'm going to live a good life before people.
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And eventually they'll ask me about God and then I can tell them about Jesus.
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And what people found was that really rarely happened.
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But there is a truism in this, that when God is working in our lives and the outside world sees it, they will recognize a difference.
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They will recognize something that God is doing in us that he's not doing in them.
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I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard in other people's lives and even in my own where unbelievers are broken in grief or broken in their heartache or they're broken in something in their life and they come weeping.
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I don't know what you have, but I want it.
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That's what caused me to go to my friend when I was 19 years old.
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I had grown up in the church, but I wasn't saved.
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I got confronted with atheism at my job.
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I was scared to death that I was going to die and go to hell.
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But then I was even more scared that there was no afterlife, that I was just going to die and go to nothing.
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And I was afraid for everything.
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And I only knew this one man who had really impressed upon me his faith because I had seen it lived out.
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And so I went to him and I said, tell me why you believe.
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Tell me what God did to make a difference in your life.
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Because I want that.
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I want that confidence.
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I want that truth that you seem to have.
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These men came to Isaac because he was carrying the presence of God everywhere he went.
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And they said, you know what? If I'm going to be in a compact or if I'm going to be in a covenant, if I'm going to be in an oath with anybody, it's going to be with this guy, because I know that the Lord has been with you.
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Beloved, that's the heart of this passage.
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There's so many other things we could talk about today.
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We could talk about parental examples.
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And I actually had a whole section in my sermon that I kind of overlooked about that.
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There is something to consider, though, in this passage.
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So much of Abraham's life is repeated in the life of Isaac.
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Doesn't that remind us as parents the influence we have of our children? We can't save them.
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But you know this.
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You can influence your children.
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You can point them to the Lord or you can point them away.
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We model for our children either a love for the Lord or a love for the world.
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But the modeling of Abraham and Isaac is not the most important part of this passage.
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The most important part of this passage is the presence of God.
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And I want to ask you this question as we close.
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Do you understand truly that the same God who was with Isaac, if you are in Christ, is with you as well? In fact, he's not only with you, but through the person of the Spirit, he is in you.
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The same blessings God promised to Isaac, he promises to us when he says, I will bless you.
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I will be with you.
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I will be your God and you will be my people.
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That is the blessing that we have through Christ.
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In fact.
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I want to leave you with the words of Christ.
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When Christ gave the.
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Great commission.
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He said these words.
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He said, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you.
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And behold, I am with you always.
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If you are in Christ.
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He is with you.
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Always.
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And if you are not in Christ.
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The Bible says to turn from your sins and turn to him.
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And this is what it says.
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It says all who come to him.
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He will in no way.
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Cast out.
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So let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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And I thank you for the promise of your presence.
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And Lord, as we get to in just a few moments, experience that presence yet again and the participation of the table and the eating of the bread and the drinking of the cup.
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Lord, let us understand how important it is.
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That you are with us.
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And that you have promised to never leave us.
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Nor forsake us.
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God help us.
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To know yet again.
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That you are here.
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In Jesus name we pray.
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Amen.