Dwelling in the Land

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 26:12-33

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Well this morning we hope to cover quite a bit of ground in chapter 26 looking at verses 12 through 33 which will leave just verse 34 for next week.
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So we're gonna condense a lot of verses into our time this morning, whereas next week we're going to expand one verse in the time we'll have next week.
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Last week we considered the way that Genesis chapter 26 mirrors a different episode in the life of Abraham, specifically
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Genesis chapter 20. There also Abraham dwelt in Gerar under very similar circumstances to his son
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Isaac, and that was the great application last week. Like father, like son.
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That continues to be the backdrop for verses 12 through 33, though our application will be somewhat different this morning.
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The key remains that like father, like son. God has renewed his covenant with Abraham unto
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Isaac. He's renewed the Abrahamic promise, specifically that of land, seed, and blessing, specifically blessing to the nations.
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And this morning as we consider verses 12 through 33, what I want to do is look at it in terms of three reversals.
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I think we have literary motifs of ironic, not only parallel, but also ironic reversal.
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And so I want to consider three reversals in verses 12 through 33 this morning.
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The first is going from trial to blessing. Certainly that brings us out of the first 11 verses to the verses we begin in verse 12.
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Second reversal would be from wanderer to seeker. From a wanderer to a seeker.
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And then lastly, in light of the whole chapter, where we begin and where we end, from famine to feast.
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So these are the three motifs, the three reversals we'll consider in these verses. Trial to blessing, wandering to seeking, and famine to feast.
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I also believe these three reversals are something that Christians can expect in their life.
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And perhaps you can amen any one of these, whether being in a place of wandering, maybe before you were converted to Christ, or maybe even since.
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If we speak of wandering as backsliding, certainly Isaac was backsliding when he was in Gerar, much like his father.
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Perhaps you're experiencing trial even right now. Maybe you've gone from blessing to trial.
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Maybe it's been a long trial, a hard trial. Perhaps you've been in a place of famine physically, spiritually.
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Perhaps your health could be described as something desolate and draining, therefore, on your spiritual vitality.
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These are reversals that Christians come to expect in their lives. And so there's much application for us here this morning.
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So let's begin with verses 12 through 14 as we consider trial to blessing.
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Then Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundred folds and the
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Lord blessed him. The man began to prosper. It's interesting, just notice that he doesn't say
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Isaac again. He says the man, which almost seems to ring back to Edenic blessing.
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The man that God had placed in the garden and causing this this bounty and this abundance and this fruitfulness.
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And so it's almost echoing this Edenic language. The man began to prosper and he continued to prosper until he became very prosperous.
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For he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants. Now the previous verses that we had read last week,
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Isaac has come out as a deceiver, as a sinfully fearful man, fearful of man, not fearful of God, rather distrusting of God, and even at the point of being willing to jeopardize his wife,
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Rebecca. And as we said, as a result of his sin, he has a wrong view of sin, a wrong view of God, therefore a wrong view of himself, a wrong view of his wife and his household, and a wrong view of his neighbor, which is always the consequence of sin.
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You don't get a right view of anything when you're living in sin. But we find
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Isaac now, beginning in verse 12, under Abimelech's protection, right, if anyone touches his wife, if anyone disrupts this marriage, he's a dead man.
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And now he's dwelling in the land of Gerar, and God is blessing him, blessing him to the ceiling, abundantly blessing him.
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So he's in Gerar, in the midst of famine, being utterly blessed, trying to make a
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Jeremiah 29 kind of lifestyle, to be fruitful, to be a blessing, to dwell in peace.
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And we read, the first year he sows, that's usually kind of your year of loss, right, the first time you scatter seed, especially in a time of famine, you're not expecting to get anything back, maybe a few alfalfa sprouts to throw in the jars.
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But what does he have? A hundredfold return. As soon as he scatters, God blesses him. It's near miraculous.
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So not only a plentiful harvest, but numerous livestock, a whole retinue of servants, all of this is the emphasis of God fulfilling the promise he's made in verses 3 and 4.
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I will bless you. I'm going to bless you in the land. This land belongs to you.
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I'm going to bless you in the land. So what is God doing here? He's blessing Isaac in the land.
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And also, it begins to set up where this narrative moves us. It begins to introduce this tension now between Isaac and the household of Isaac and the
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Philistines. They're living in the midst of famine in an already arid region, the south, the
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Negev. In times where the weather was cycling, in times of famine, migratory groups would settle.
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So now the resources are fewer, the demand is very intense, and there's all sorts of irritations and squabbles.
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There would have been disputes during the dry season, even in good years, but this is not a good year.
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This is a time of famine. There's not enough to go around. And so realize what the
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Lord is showing to the inhabitants of the land. I am the one who blesses my people in the midst of the land.
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He's pouring out blessing upon Isaac in the midst of a famine. How much blessing?
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Look at the emphasis here. In Hebrew, we don't use forms of exclamation.
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You emphasize something by repeating it. You don't have what we call superlatives. You just repeat things.
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The man began to prosper and continued prospering until he became very prosperous.
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That's a three -fold repetition of prospering. How much has God blessed Isaac? Abundantly beyond.
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And this again is the first step toward the Lord fulfilling his rightful place within the land.
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But notice that with blessing, there's difficulty. This is very important.
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As soon as God is blessing him, we read at the end of verse 14, So the Philistines envied him.
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You can take it as a principle in the Christian life that with blessing comes difficulty. With blessing comes hindrances.
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And you can't interpret the hindrance or the difficulty as though it cancels out or voids the blessing.
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Well, it must not be a blessing if it's this difficult. Well, surely this is not
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God blessing me and helping me and and restoring me if it comes with all of this baggage and difficulty.
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We can't interpret God's blessing in light of the difficulty that accompanies it. And we see that here in chapter 26.
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The Lord is abundantly blessing Isaac, but Isaac's life is getting a little more difficult as a result of that blessing.
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Amen, parents of toddlers? Life gets difficult with God's blessings, but that does not nullify what
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God declares to be a blessing. Marriage is a blessing, and marriage comes with difficulty and hindrances.
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You have to work at it, and you consistently and constantly are working at it to improve it, to reinforce it and strengthen it, to not drift apart from that first love you had, as we'll see even happens with Isaac and Rebecca.
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Blessings also introduce hindrances. So here we have the hindrance of the
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Philistines and specifically their envy. This term envy is going to reappear in the
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Joseph narrative. Perhaps for good reasons initially, Joseph is kind of a brat, but his brothers envy him.
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Here's this spiteful envy, this animosity within Jacob's household, between the sons of Jacob.
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And we see that same envy here, and envy will always lead to expressions of envy, cruelty, bullying, real abuse, real expressions and actions of hatred, and we see that here in verse 15.
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What do the Philistines do? They're not just jealous and writing about it in their diaries at night. They're actually taking action.
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They go and fill in all the wells that Isaac's father had dug up.
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We read verse 15, The Philistines had stopped up all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and they filled them with dirt.
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They filled them with the earth. Please remember that this is a time of famine. This is about the most irrational thing you could do, fill a well with water of dirt in a time of famine, when water is scarce and very precious, but your hatred burns so hot that you'd rather be thirsty and lose cattle than allow
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Isaac to have a claim in the land, to be able to draw water from the well that his father had dug.
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And this is an example of how irrational jealousy, envy, and outbursts of wrath can make someone.
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You are willing to almost self -destruct, to harm yourself just out of spite for the one that you're envious of.
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The Philistines were essentially threatening Isaac's livelihood. We'll make do.
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We've got the spread, but you're dependent upon these few wells, and we're gonna cut you off.
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The Philistines are attempting to cut the air of the land off of the land. All of that blessing of God, the provision of all the cattle and all the agriculture, they're trying to destroy it, to undermine it.
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And so again, you can see this dynamic of the godly line, the line of flourishing and blessing, creational blessing, and the way that the line of the serpent, the power, you know, the prince of the power of the air, how he seeks to destroy that which
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God blesses, that which God creates. Notice the emphasis here.
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They stopped up, they destroyed all of the wells. All of the wells. They're trying to cut the promise line.
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Digging a well, at this point in the ancient Near East, was essentially laying a claim on land.
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How do you claim land? By digging a well or by burying someone. And Abraham had done both, right?
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He buried his wife in the land, in the caves of Machpelah, and he dug several wells. Some of which are here being backfilled by the
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Philistine. Kind of, you know, tongue -in -cheek, I guess, the Philistines. Makes you think of them a little differently. The Philistines filling in the wells of the
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Patriarchs. Rather than recognize the rightful claim of Isaac, they fill up the well, try to make it seem as if it hadn't been dug, and that would be like going and finding the property claim and tearing it up.
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Oh, sorry, we don't have it on record that this land has any claim. Abimelech says to Isaac, verse 16, just go away.
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Get away from us. You're much mightier than we are. So they take his father's wells, they fill them up, and then as he continues to be blessed and go from strength to strength, eventually
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Abimelech comes to him and says, just go away. Go away from us. You're numerous.
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You're mightier than we are. And so it's because of numerical strength, this almost has military overtones.
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The next time we see it in significance is actually in Exodus. This is the reason that Pharaoh expels the
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Israelites. It's because they're powerful. They're numerous. And so he seeks to enslave them and treat them cruelly.
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They've become mighty. But look at the response of Isaac to this maltreatment. Verses 17 and 18.
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Then Isaac departed from there and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there.
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And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father.
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For the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. You can picture them writing out the condolence cards after the calling hours while they're also holding shovels in their hands.
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We're so sorry for your loss, Isaac. Let's go back fill those wells. He has no rightful claim in our land.
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Twice the name Abraham appears here. Twice the valid claim is reinforced.
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Abraham his father after the death of Abraham. Again, the whole point, the whole emphasis is on Isaac taking the rightful place as covenant head now of the
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Abrahamic Covenant. But notice his demeanor. When the king says, go away.
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He doesn't take out his concealed carry and threaten back. What does he do?
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He retreats. Get away from here. This is my land.
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These are the wells that my father dug. I have a right here. I've been wronged here. Go away.
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What does he do? He goes away. He leaves Gerar and he settles into the valley of Gerar.
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Instead of fighting for the property that was rightfully his, he retreats. Now, is this a lack of faith?
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Is this fearful Isaac coming to the fore again? Depending on how the rest of the chapter goes, this might just be another example of a failure to trust in the
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Lord. Or is it that Isaac now in a profound way is beginning to actually trust the
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Lord and is recovering the footsteps of his father Abraham, realizing that the
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Lord will bring this about in due time and therefore he only has to patiently wait upon and seek the
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Lord and that perhaps as will trace his journey now from Gerar to the valley of Gerar and and beyond, he's actually going from wandering to seeking.
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To tilt my hat just a little. In other words, this is not Isaac the coward,
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Isaac the man -fearer. This is actually Isaac displaying,
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I think, a virtue of trust in the Lord as he seeks to maintain peace with the neighbors in the land, knowing that he is rightful heir and God will bring it about.
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So on the surface of things, he's essentially cutting and running. He doesn't want there to be open hostility or conflict.
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He has enough problems. It's famine. He's got a lot more animals now and a lot more servants and there's a lot more mouse to feed and so rather than duke it out, he's just gonna go and dig up new wells and God blesses him as he does that.
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As he goes into the valley of Gerar and finds new places to graze and new wells to dig, lo and behold, there's water.
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Lo and behold, there's pasture. God is blessing him as he goes. And so Isaac is learning to trust in the
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Lord, not only because he was blessed there in Gerar, but as he goes, he's being blessed.
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Wherever he goes, the Lord's blessing is following him. So this is reinforcing his desire to sojourn back to the place he had left.
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We see a principle played out here. Not necessarily a popular principle,
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I think, for our circles and in other circles, other evangelical circles, it's a little too popular of a principle, but nevertheless we see it here in chapter 26.
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We see this virtue, this patient willingness to bear injustice.
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That's what we see with Isaac in Genesis 26. We see him living out 1
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Peter 2, 19 and 20. This is commendable. If for conscience toward God one endures grief and suffers wrongfully, this is commendable.
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Isaac is here in Genesis 26, enduring grief and suffering wrongfully.
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For what credit is it if when you're beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.
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Isaac is doing something commendable before God, being treated spitefully and unjustly by the
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Philistines. He does not insist on his rights. He has other things to pursue and he trusts the
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Lord with those wells. And so we see this principle, Romans 12, 18, if possible, so far as it depends upon you, be at peace with all men.
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Even the Philistines who are backfilling the wells that belong to your father, that laid a claim on that corner of the land.
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When our ways are pleasing to God, as the Proverbs says, he makes even our enemies at peace with us.
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And we'll see that by the conclusion of the chapter, God has done that to Isaac. 1
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Peter 3, 8, 9. All of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, tenderhearted, courteous, never returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you were called to this so that you will inherit the blessing.
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Yeah, that's Isaac. He knows he's going to inherit the blessing. And so he has some capital here.
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I don't have to fight for it now. I know it's mine. And by trying to live at peace in this way,
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I will actually inherit the blessing. The meek inherit the land.
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Blessed are the meek, for they inherit the earth. Another thing we learn here is something that perhaps
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Isaac didn't realize for a long time. On the surface of things, if you could go to the dinner table at night,
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Isaac and Rebekah sitting there, you know, dark circles under their eyes. They're losing sleep over it.
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They're really stressed out about these Philistines and the nuisance and the injustice, and they have to comfort each other and console each other and pray about these things.
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Perhaps Isaac didn't realize it in that stressful time that the Lord was actually using this opposition to guide him.
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That it wasn't just the Philistines making life difficult, though that's what the Philistines were doing.
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It was God ultimately moving Isaac back to the place he had departed from.
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Remember when the famine came, he left that altar place.
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He left Lehi -Roy and began to dwell southward. And now
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God is causing this opposition and conflict to drive him back to that place that he had left.
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In other words, God is creating a course of restoration. He's bringing the wanderer back, and he's using
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Philistines, unjustly treating him to do so. And so this is a Christian insight that God uses such difficulty, hindrance, even hostile opposition to guide us back to spiritual restoration.
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The Philistines filling the wells is part of God's divine guidance. And so we read a conclusion, really.
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They keep digging wells, they keep digging wells, they keep digging wells, and every time they get a well and they've gone a little bit further north, the
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Philistines are there to gobble up the water. And so he starts naming these wells. You can almost sense the frustration. Well, I'll call this well hatred.
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Well, I'll call this this well, and it's like, I'm just gonna call these wells the abuses that they are.
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Verse 19 and following, Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well of running water there, living water, running water.
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But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, the water is ours. And so he called the name of the well
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Esek, because they quarreled with him, quarrel. And they dug another well, and they quarreled over that one also.
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So he called its name Sitna, meaning accusation. Then we read verse 22.
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He moved from there and dug another well, and they finally did not quarrel over it.
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So he called it Rehovoth, space, you know, room. And he said, now the
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Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. Please notice how
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Isaac is beginning to understand the providence. When he's digging well after well, and the
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Philistines keep coming, he's not, he's not becoming more enraged, more frustrated, more willing to, to march back down, to create a conflict, to use all this newfound strength and wealth, and all these servants that he can raise up by the sword.
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He's not willing to do any of that. Why? He just keeps moving northward, digging new wells, until he finally is far away enough to dig a well that the
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Lord allows him to keep. And he says, the Lord has made room for us.
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The Lord will make us fruitful in this land. So as he's journeying northward, his faith is being grown.
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He's recognizing that God is the one who allows these wells to provide water. God is the one who's used these
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Philistines in this, perhaps, distressing way, but it's been part of his guidance, and he recognizes the
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Lord is the one that makes room for us in the land. The parallel between Isaac's life and Abraham's life here is very encouraging.
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Because the Lord was also restoring Abraham as he came out of Egypt. Remember Abraham, when he entered into the, the promised land borders, how he built an altar and called upon the name of the
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Lord. It was a restoration from backsliding, and we see that with Isaac here.
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He was in this land of Gerar, and he was deceitful and distrusting, and the fear of man was burning hot, but here he is being blessed and digging wells, and he recognizes the
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Lord's making a space for us. The Lord makes us fruitful. In other words, he's gone from trial to blessing.
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And he has all the hallmarks of it. He's patient under hostile oppression. He perseveres through difficulty.
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This is how you know you've gone from trial to blessing. But also, secondly, you can see how he's gone from wandering to actually seeking, beginning in verses 22 and 23.
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Right, so picking up where we just left off, he moved from there, dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. He called its name
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Rehoboth because he said, now the Lord has made room for us. We will be fruitful in the land. So here he is.
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He's in Rehoboth. The well is theirs. There's no opposition. Shouldn't this be where he dwells?
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Isn't this what they wanted? They have a well. There's no hostility.
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Why not just stay here at Rehoboth? But what do we read in verse 23? He went up from there to Beersheba.
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Why is this detail recorded? If he was simply looking for a place that wouldn't be contested where he could enjoy the resource of water in the midst of famine, he would stay at Rehoboth, but he doesn't do that.
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He keeps pressing back to Beersheba. And so the wandering of Isaac takes us from Gerar, where he failed, through the valley of Gerar, to Rehoboth, where he has success, but that's just superficial.
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He's actually seeking something more, and he goes to Beersheba. Beersheba, of course, is the place where Abraham, in chapter 21, encountered
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El Olam, the eternal God. And he dug a well there. And we read in verse 24 what
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Isaac was seeking. The Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the
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God of your father Abraham. Do not fear. For I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for my servant
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Abraham's sake. So immediately after, he leaves Rehoboth and keeps seeking.
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Not seeking water now, not seeking a distance from the oppressor, but actually seeking the
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Lord in Beersheba, the Lord appears to him. And we get the sense that Isaac was seeking this encounter with God.
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And this is going to be where he dwells now. Now he's been restored. He knew the
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Lord was going to make a space. But until he encountered the presence of God, he chose not to dwell in the place where his immediate needs were met.
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Please hear that, brothers and sisters. Until he met with the presence of God, he chose not to situate himself where immediate needs were being met.
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The irony here, speaking of reversals, is that the whole reason he had left this area was because it seemed like there was nothing here for him.
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It was a losing proposition in a year of famine. And if we head southward, there'll be so much more.
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But by the time he got to the south, it took away a lot. And it wasn't until he turned back toward the
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Lord that he found blessing and restoration. And it turned out that the very place he had left, because it seemed so desolate, was the place with the greatest blessing of all.
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It was the place of God's presence. This night theophany,
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Isaac's encounter with the presence of God, is really one of comfort.
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Not only does God allow this difficulty in his life, these back -filled wells, to slowly but surely guide him all the way back to Beersheba.
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And you see the faith that is being woven in Isaac's life, because he doesn't dwell where his needs are met, which was the whole reason he ever left this place to start.
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But now his faith has grown. He's seeking more than water and pasture. He's seeking the face of God.
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And God answers, and God reveals himself. And he reveals himself, really, to console him, to comfort him.
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I am the God of your father, Abraham. This is beautiful.
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Do you know what he says when he reveals himself at the beginning of 26? I will be your God. I will be your
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God. And then, of course, he departs, and he stumbles, and he fails.
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And as God is now restoring him here, and he's seeking the face of God, having been restored, what does
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God say? I am your God. The promise went from,
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I will be, to, I am. You will have my presence, to enjoy my presence now.
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I am your God. I am with you. This is Emmanuel.
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This is God with Isaac. We recognize something that is vital, not only for Isaac to understand, but for any believer, that we cannot mistake the blessings of God for the presence of God, which is a mistake that many people make.
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Being made of the flesh and dwelling as we do in modern life, we often mistake the blessings of God with the presence of God.
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In other words, we often are content to pitch our tent at Rehoboth. I have enough of the
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Lord here. I'm not in Gerar. I'm here. I've escaped the real pinches of pressure, and I'm having my needs met, and this is what
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I need. This is what I should seek. Please learn from Isaac that the blessings of God are not equivalent to the presence of God.
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Isaac presses on until he can commune with God, and when he finally encounters the
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Lord, that is where he dwells. That is where he stays. It might be arid.
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It might have all the signs of famine. It might seem like Gerar is always more promising,
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Egypt's always more promising to the Christian mind, but a Christian who understands what's being communicated here in Genesis 26 knows that when you encounter the presence of the living
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God, the deserts bring forth streams of living water. It's the difference that communing with God in an arid place can make, and so no wonder
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God meets with him to say, do not fear. I'm with you.
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I'm going to bless you. You've been restored. Many times we're more concerned about the blessings of God than we are about the presence of God.
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Physical, material, relational blessings will drive us out of the place of God's presence down into Gerar in the byways of Egypt.
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It's someone who's mature, who's been seasoned by trials and restorations in their life who knows that anything less than an encounter with God, anything less than communing with him, than recognizing and seeing the fruit of his presence in your life is a losing proposition.
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And so really verses 23 to 25 are the whole key to my mind of chapter 26. Isaac had been shaped by circumstances, and circumstances led almost all of his decisions at the beginning of the chapter.
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The famine led a decision to leave the place where God was present, and then in Gerar, the circumstances of all these soldiers and the king led him to be a deceiver and to lie and jeopardize his wife.
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Circumstances had been shaping his decisions, but on the way back we don't see that, do we? Circumstances are not shaping his decision to press on to Beersheba.
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In fact, everything we have is given in reverse order. Look at verse 25. He built an altar there and called on the name of the
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Lord, and then he pitched his tent there, and then Isaac's servants dug a well.
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Do you know what he had been doing for most of the chapter? Digging a well first, and then trying to pitch a tent, and maybe then calling on the name of the
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Lord. But look at how the priorities have reversed. Altar first, and then when we encounter
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God's presence, this is where we're going to be, and then we'll look for those physical needs, then we'll start digging wells.
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This is a illustration of seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness first, and then digging a well and trusting your daily necessities will be added to you.
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And this is what restoration looks like. It looks like God allowing issues and circumstances and opposition and difficulty in life to guide you back toward him.
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But not only the difficulty, but also those blessings, that goodness that is designed by God to lead you to repentance.
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As we said last week, the right hand and the left hand of his providence in your life, both blessing and trial, guiding you ultimately back to him, molding you and shaping you into conformity to Christ.
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And so mark the progress in the life of Isaac. He's gone from a fearful man, a man moved by his immediate needs and circumstances, to a man shaped by a failure and a faith that has been restored, where he settles for nothing less than the presence of God.
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Brothers and sisters, Philistines may be filling up your wells.
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There may be hostilities and trials and difficulties in your life, even this morning.
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Things that fill you with dread, things in your relationships that are painful.
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You look and you just say, there's nothing I want from this. There's nothing but opposition and difficulty.
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There's not a place where God's going to work. And we learn here, this is exactly where God works.
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This is how he makes his people go from wandering to actually seeking. And Isaac went from a wanderer to a seeker.
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And so the last reversal in verses 26 through 33 is from famine to feast.
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The whole chapter opens with a famine, but it ends with a feast. And we see this spiritual work in Isaac's life begin to bear fruit horizontally.
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Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzath, one of his friends, and Phicol, the commander of his army.
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And Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have even sent me away from you?
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Notice what they say. We have certainly seen that the Lord is with you. So he said, let there be an oath between us, between you and us.
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Let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm since we've not touched you, and since we've done nothing to you but good, and I've sent you away in peace.
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Oh, yeah, nothing to you but good, as we filled every well you tried to draw water from. But what do they recognize?
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You are now blessed of the Lord. The appearance of Abimelech is a reminder of just how far
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Isaac has come. Isaac went in destroying, tarnishing, running through the mud the testimony of God's promises.
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But as a result of his restoration, he's become a very vibrant testimony of the
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Lord's promises, and it's recognized even by the king. He travels all the way to Beersheba to say, you are now blessed of the
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Lord. It's become apparent. It's become obvious. Do you remember what we read last week?
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When he was in the midst of his sin and his deceit, the king was peeking through the window and then he calls him out on it.
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It's quite obvious that she's your sister. In other words, it's quite obvious that you're in sin.
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But now what's obvious? We have certainly seen the Lord is with you.
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So we go from God in a theophany saying, I will be with you, to now the testimony of that theophany.
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We can see that the Lord is with you. And ultimately this is what we want in the
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Christian life. As a result of having these reversals play out, of going from trial to blessing, of going from wandering and backsliding, to actually seeking and finding the
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Lord, we want to have this same response. We want to have a feast with those that are observing us.
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We want them to confess. We've seen that the Lord is with you. Who else could live their life like this?
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Who else could find such joy and hope and peace in the midst of what you've endured, what you've been through?
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Why do you have this song in your heart? Why do you have this way of living your life?
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We've seen that God is with you and we confess you are now blessed of the
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Lord. So Abimelech has come all this way to be a testimony,
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I think the cherry on the top of God's work in Isaac's life. God is confirming his place in the covenant out of the mouth of a
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Philistine. A Gentile prophet, a sinful man has come to confess that Isaac is the blessed one of the
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Lord. And what we see here is Isaac realizing there's people in the land that hate me and they've treated me unjustly and all the work that my father did, they kicked it down and caved it in and ran it over and they told me to get out of here.
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They wanted me to live on the margins. They were envious of anything I had going for me and they sought to ruin me.
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And it's a lot like what we read out of what was prayed out of Psalm 3, isn't it? Hostility and opposition at almost every turn.
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So what gives Isaac that grace to be able to tactfully move away, tactfully avoid conflict, somehow gracefully maintain a positive witness in the midst of that kind of heat and hatred?
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Well, it must be first of all that God is in control of blessing. He certainly would have seen that when his seed is returning a hundredfold.
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And so he would have inferred from that. If God can control the seed and the soil,
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God can control the hearts of the Philistines. In fact, the hand, the heart of Abimelech is in the hand of God.
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He directs it like water. So certainly there Isaac is able to understand
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God is going to do what he's promised and I don't have to draw my sword and cut off Malchus's ear, so to speak.
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But then you see the spiritual work that has brought patience and meekness and kindness.
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And when you have these reversals in your Christian life, when you've actually experienced trial, famine, it does produce this gentleness, this quietness within your soul.
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It's going to be very hard to be abrasive to people that are treating you spitefully. When you've come to such a place of failure and you've been humbled by your sin and you've found
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God's restoration and now he's heaping blessing upon you, it's going to be very hard to treat your neighbors spitefully even when they're spitefully using you.
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So this recognition is the beginning of how you walk the extra mile, give the extra cloak.
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This is how we bless those who curse us, who hate us, who tell us get out of here.
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And this is an application we need to hear today. This is an application we need to drill down deep into our practice moving forward in this godless culture.
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We're surrounded by Philistines who hate us. They hate us. And in a myriad of ways, both legal and cultural, they say get away from us.
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Not because your numbers are so great, you're actually puny, but you're so offensive and irritating. And we don't like the way you provoke our consciences.
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And we are envious of the way that you live and how that drags out of the dark corners of our lives those things that are shameful.
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In fact, we'll parade them around and call them good and the things that you declare good, we'll call evil.
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So how are you going to live in the midst of such a hostile, spiteful culture? What's going to give you the meekness and the graciousness to respond with love and seek to fulfill that promise that says you will be a blessing to the nations?
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Well, it has to be a recognition that your sins have not been heaped upon your head.
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Your sins have been forgiven you. That you're living by grace, through faith that was a gift, and that even in the midst of your worst failures and stumblings,
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God has patiently and gently brought you to restoration. And even these unjust treatments and these hostile neighbors
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God is using to guide you unto him. And so when the Christian is seeking the presence of God, he doesn't have time to get caught up in the hatred and hostility of his neighbors.
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When you're seeking the face of God, you will be like Christ unto your enemy. I love what
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Spurgeon says on this. This is kind of lengthy, but it's just so good. And if I had more time, I would just read all of Spurgeon's sermon from this text.
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He didn't really exposit much of the text. He never does. He's a horrible grade -F expositor, but he's the prince of preachers.
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This is what he says. Before the Philistines bore this testimony to Isaac, no doubt they remarked his gentleness.
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You know, please get away because you're more mighty than we are. And what does this more mighty man do?
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He gently and tactfully retreats. He gives himself over to injustice. He allows himself to be spitefully mistreated because he's got a pursuit, not on the water of the well, not even in Rehoboth.
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He's pursuing the face of God. If the promise given at the beginning of 26 was that I'm to be a blessing to the nations, then somehow even these enemies before me,
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I'm meant to be a blessing to them. And in this meekness, I will inherit this land.
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This is what Spurgeon is getting after. They noted this gentleness. And Spurgeon says,
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I believe there is nothing that has such power over ungodly men as meekness of spirit, quietness of behavior, patience of character, a continual conquest over a temper.
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If you grow angry when people are angry with you, you lose your position. But if you can be patient under persecution, if you can smile when they ridicule, if you can yield your rights, if you can bear and then continue to bear, you are greater than a man who's taken a city.
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Remember that the blessing promised to the disciples of Christ is that they will be called peacemakers.
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They are not only the children of God, but they shall be called the children of God. In other words, people will call them children of God.
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When long -suffering, gentleness, and meekness are in the life, men begin to say as Abimelech, thou art blessed of the
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Lord. As gentleness of the Lord makes us great, the gentleness of the saints brings us brings
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God great glory. Anger has a temporary sovereignty that melts in the heat of the sun, but a quietness of spirit is a king over the land.
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Such powerful imagery here. If you can rule yourself, you can rule the world. Isaac conquered by his meekness.
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When Abimelech saw that, he yielded well, after well, after well, rather than keep up a conflict.
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And he even declared, you are blessed of the Lord. You see the difference that meekness makes.
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And then what's the result? Verses 30 to 33, they have a feast. They make an oath.
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This feast would have been a way of sealing the oath that they made. They made a covenant together. And they arose early in the morning and swore an oath with one another and Isaac sent them away and they departed from him in peace.
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And it came to pass the same day that Isaac's servants came and told him about the well which they had dug and said to him, we've found water.
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And so he called it Sheba. The name of the city is Beersheba to this day. And so this is coming full circle now.
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Isaac at the beginning of the chapter, leaving in the midst of famine. Not just a physical famine of the land, but really a famine of the soul.
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And God, bringing him through his failure to repentance and restoration.
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He was not at that point thirsting for the water of Rehoboth uncontested. Hungering after the bread in the land of plenty, he was hungering and thirsting for the presence of God.
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And in that very meekness, he gives a testimony to the people of the land.
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He becomes really a blessing to the people of the land. The right place for Isaac all along was
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Beersheba. This was where God's presence was. This was the altar. But Isaac would have never gotten to this place if in his failure
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God had not worked grace into his life unto restoration. And so it is in the
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Christian life, brothers and sisters. You're never meant to leave Beersheba or Beerlehai Roy or these places that you've met with God and the
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Lord's presence is here, but it looks like a famine. It seems dry. The streams dried up.
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It's hard to find the Lord and you've lost the encouragement and it just seems so exhausting and discouraging to stay here.
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And there's so much more promise if you just change your life a little bit, start started pursuing some other things, took a step back, took some, you know, some time away from these difficult means of grace and doing these routines and exercises that seem so empty and therefore frustrating and discouraging.
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We learn from Isaac's life that God's presence is there in the midst of famine.
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Please do not underestimate what the Lord will do in a dry land.
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Young believers, please hear me. do not underestimate what
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God is going to do in these difficult times where he seems distant and your heart seems cold and your face seems dry.
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We've emphasized this a lot in the life of Abraham that God is at work in these times.
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We subconsciously only report as a testimony those mountaintop experiences of God's work.
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Tell me a little bit about your faith, you know, spiritually, how are you doing? And then we think through what five mountaintop experiences can
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I share because those are the only times that God was working in me. Those great encounters and those great blessings and those times
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I was just energized and we tactfully leave out all the valleys and the difficulties and the failures because God's clearly not in that.
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What you learn as you mature in the Christian life is God's more in those valleys. His work is more evident when he's creating that hunger and that thirst for something more powerful, more meaningful, more transcendent.
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And as a Christian you're laboring and thirsting for something that has gravity and clarity.
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There's always garrars that seem easier, that seem to offer comfort and relief apart from God's ways, but the testimony we have in chapter 26 is don't depart, don't depart, even when the land seems dry.
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If God's presence is in these means, if it's in this place, if it's in this way, don't depart, don't doubt.
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Keep digging. Keep praying, keep reading, keep fellowshipping, keep attending, keep persevering.
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Seek nothing less than the face and presence of God. Defy the famine as you trust the
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Lord. What does he promise? I will open rivers on bare heights, he says in Isaiah 41. Rivers on heights, bare heights.
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In the place you least expect it, God loves to present some night theophany, and he does that all the time.
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And I hope as a Christian you've experienced that. Often it takes some time walking with the
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Lord before you really get a sense of how deep a trial can go, of how cold your heart can be, of how surprising
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God's restoring presence will be. I hope you've experienced something of that, and I hope it's been not too long.
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It's a hard thing for a Christian to go through months and years of dryness, but persevere if that's you this morning.
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Just be encouraged by Isaac's example, be humbled, examine yourself.
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Stop just seeking those things that meet your immediate needs. Keep persevering until you actually encounter that interrupting presence of God.
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We often think, I won't encounter God until I get these things in order. This year
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I'm gonna start off, and we've already got our list printed out, and this is what we're gonna do, and family worship's gonna be totally different. We're gonna start doing this, and these things, and we put together our formula with God being the carrot dangling at the end.
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If I get all these machinations in order, then I will encounter God's presence as a result of that.
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What we're going to see as we continue forward in Genesis is God's presence is interruptive. When you expect to find it, you often don't.
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When you don't expect to find it, you do. Has God just invaded your day anytime recently?
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It's been a long time since I've sat and wept during sermon preparation.
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I say that to my shame. Years ago, it was almost weekly that at some point
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I would have catharsis, but I have to persevere.
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I have to trust that in God's faithfulness, he's allowing the region to be arid, and in due time he'll allow that seed to bear fruit a hundredfold.
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I have to trust that he's allowed my own failures to mold me and shape me onto this path of restoration.
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I have to believe that he's as present in Gerar as he is in Beersheba. When the landscape gets a little dry, we want to pull up our stakes, we want to find something else, but as followers of Jesus, we recognize that seeking the
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Lord, seeking his kingdom, his righteousness, his presence, his water, his bread, not what the world pretends to offer, not that we try to muster up for ourselves, digging in vain to find not even a drop, but persevering until in his time he interrupts our lives with his presence, and our souls are restored.
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Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. When they pass through the valley of weeping, they make it a spring, and the rain covers it with pools.
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They go from strength to strength. Do you see that imagery? As they go through the sort of dry valley, you know, in that sorrow, in that weakness, they're actually watering it.
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They're actually making it fruitful, and therefore they're going from strength to strength. For the
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Lord God is a sun and a shield, and he will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
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O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you. Blessed is the God who takes his people from famine to feast.
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Amen. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would help your people to encounter you,
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Lord. Wherever they might be, Lord, dwelling this morning spiritually before you.
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Whatever way their presence before you, Lord, is interwoven with their circumstances, much in the same way as Isaac's physical circumstances were interwoven with his relationship with you.
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Lord, we have many ways of wandering, many ways of putting our trust and finding our comfort in other things, lesser things.
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And so I pray, Lord, that you would convict your people, bring us to that deepness of soul that we can sense your presence,
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Lord, and know your restoration. These things we wouldn't rehearse as truths to be known, words to be recited, but experiences to feel.
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We pray, Lord, for your disrupting and yet comforting presence in our lives, that we would know that we belong to you, that we would find water for our weary souls, that we would be encouraged along the difficult way to persevere in arid regions,
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Lord. In dry seasons of our walk, may we be reminded that you are a gardener, and that gardeners work in seasons.
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And may you bring forth fruitfulness in due time, Lord, quickly. May you get the glory for it's the seed that you've sown, and it's the crop that you've cultivated, and,