Genesis #30 - Unlikely Grace #2 - Temptations in the Pathway of the Believer Pt.1 (Gen 26:1-25)

And if you have a Bible, and I hope you do, take it in turn with me to Genesis chapter 26. Genesis chapter 26. We have been working our way, section by section, through the book of Genesis. That's our habit here at Redeemer.

We like to work our way through books of the Bible, and we've been going through Genesis. And we are in a series in the book of Genesis that we've called Unlikely Grace. Unlikely Grace, as we've been thinking about, for now, the life of Isaac and later on, the life of Jacob as well.

And we come to chapter 26. So Genesis chapter 26, and verses 1 through 25. Genesis chapter 26, from verse 1 to verse 25. If you grabbed one of the red hardback Bibles that we give away, and by the way, if you grabbed one, that's yours to keep, that's on pages 20 and 21.

Genesis chapter 26, from verse 1 through to verse 25, pages 20 to 21 in the red hardbacks that we give away. Genesis chapter 26. And if you're there, can I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's word as we read this portion?

It's our custom here at Redeemer that when we come to our sermon text, we stand as we read it, out of respect for God's word. And so Genesis chapter 26, beginning in verse 1 and reading through to verse 25.

Genesis chapter 26, beginning of verse 1. Brothers and sisters, these are God's very words. God's word says, there was another famine in the land, in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham's time.

And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar. Yahweh, the Lord, appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you about. Stay in the land as an alien, and I will be with you and bless you.

For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father, Abraham. I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky, and I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring.

And I will confer, and I will give, for I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father, Abraham. I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky.

I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations will be blessed by your offspring, because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions. So Isaac settled in Gerar.

When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, she is my sister, for he was afraid to say my wife, thinking the men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is a beautiful woman.

When Isaac had been there for some time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife, Rebekah. Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, so she is really your wife?

How could you say she's my sister? Isaac answered him, but because I thought that I might die on account of her. Then Abimelech said, what have you done to us? One of the people could have easily slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us.

So Abimelech warned all the people, whoever harms this man or his wife will certainly be put to death. Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundred times what was sown. Yahweh blessed him, and the man became rich and kept getting richer until he was very wealthy.

He had flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and many slaves, and the Philistines were envious of him. Philistines stocked up all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with dirt.

And Abimelech said to Isaac, leave us, for you are much too powerful for us. So Isaac left there, camped in the Gerar Valley, and lived there. Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, and that the Philistines had stocked up after Abraham died.

He gave them the same names his father had given them. Then Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there. But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen and said, the water is ours.

So he named the well Essek, because they argued with him. Then they dug another well there and dug another, and quarreled over that one also, excuse me. So he named it Sitna. He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it.

He named it Rehoboth and said, for now Yahweh has made space for us, and we will be fruitful in the land. From there he went up to Beersheba, and Yahweh appeared to him that night and said, I am the God of your father Abraham.

Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring, because of my servant Abraham. So he built an altar there, called on the name of Yahweh, and pitched his tent there. Isaac's servants also dug a well.

Pray that God will bless that reading of his word and give us understanding of it as we come to study it. Let's pray and ask for the Spirit's help, and we'll get to work in God's word. Well Heavenly Father, we thank you once again for another opportunity to open up your word, and to hear you speak to us as your precious people.

We pray that as we come to this portion of your word, and what it has to teach us about who you are, and what you are doing, we pray that our eyes would be opened, that your Spirit would be at work, helping us to understand what we read, and what we hear, and helping us to apply these things to our lives as your people.

Fathers, you pray for us now as we gather. We also pray for our friends just up the street, and here in Central Point at Community Bible Church. Thank you for Pastor Kevin, who's taken up the leadership there following the retirement of Pastor Pete.

Pray for them, and all that is happening there with change, and easing into a new pastorate. Pray for his current preaching through the book of Ephesians, that you would bless that, and that that body there would grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as we seek to do here, as we open up your word now.

We ask all these things in Jesus' name, and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated. Well, this morning, I want to begin the first of two messages in this chapter of Genesis. Genesis chapter 26, and a message that I've entitled, Temptations on the Pathway of the Believer.

Temptations on the Pathway of the Believer. Like I said, this is going to be part one of two, if the Lord wills. I'm an avid student of military history. That might surprise none of you, because I talk about my love of history.

I've loved history since I was in school, and you really can't talk about military history and not talk about the completely evil genius that is the landmine. Some of you may not know this, but the landmine was actually first developed on these shores.

It was first developed during the American Civil War, but it really cemented its place in conflict during the Second World War. That's where the use of landmines escalated. In fact, statistics tell us that right now, as of actually 2022 was the last time this was checked, but as of 2022, there are still close to 100 million landmines.

Oh, live ones, by the way. These are not ones that are dead. They're still live today. 100 million landmines still in the ground today. One of the things that makes landmines so effective is that they're hidden.

You don't see them until you step on them. A good landmine is pretty well buried, and sadly, by the time you realize you've stepped on one, it's already way too late. You don't see them coming until they do.

Sophie, why are we starting this message talking about landmines? That's not a very pleasant subject for a Sunday morning. I have us think about the landmine this morning, because the principle that makes landmines so deadly, the fact that they're unseen until often it's too late, I want to put it to you that that principle is equally true when it comes to our Christian lives as it is when it comes to the fury of war.

On our journey with God, our faith journey with him is going to be lined with all kinds of unexpected and hidden dangers that pop up without us necessarily being ready for them. As I said, I come to this passage with that picture in mind, because as we come to Genesis chapter 26, we're about to witness Isaac as he has to navigate through some spiritual landmines.

I hope you got the sense as we read this that it just seems to be problem after problem that he's encountering, and there are some more. I kind of cut the text at 25. We'll pick it up next week where there are a few more of these dangers.

It's danger after danger in the way of this patriarch, this father of the nation of Israel. But I don't want to just look at the life of Isaac in terms of history. This is what happened to Isaac way back when, because what I hope we're going to learn over the next two Sundays from this chapter is just how common the temptations, the spiritual landmines as it were that Isaac faced, just how common these temptations are.

We might not do exactly what Isaac does, but we may be faced with the same sorts of temptation. And so my hope is for us to learn just how common these temptations are, and also to learn what lessons we can learn as we seek to navigate these spiritual landmines.

So that's really what we're going to try to do this and Lord willing next Sunday as we spend our time in Genesis chapter 26. Both messages are going to have the same big idea. It's simply this, that the life of faith involves the navigation of many temptations.

The life of faith involves the navigation of many temptations, and we only navigate these by the grace of God. The life of faith involves the navigation of many temptations and only by the grace of God.

I'm reminded of what Paul told the early churches that he had planted in Acts chapter 14, where he said that it is through many tribulations that we must enter into the kingdom of God. Sometimes those things are external, and I'm going to put it to you that from this chapter, sometimes those things are internal as well.

So if we're going to navigate these things, we have to bear in mind that the life of faith involves the navigation of many temptations and only by the grace of God. For the rest of our time this morning, I want to consider three temptations that Isaac faced in this passage.

Three temptations that Isaac faced in our text and lessons that we can learn from his responses to those temptations. Three temptations, we'll look at two more next Sunday, but for now three temptations that Isaac faced in our text and the lessons that we can learn from his responses.

So three temptations that Isaac faced in our text. The first one that you need to watch out for that comes up in this passage is actually a very common one. If you've been in our series in Genesis, you probably can guess what I'm about to say because I've said it multiple times, but can't be said too many times.

So first of all, there's the temptation to forget the promises of God. The temptation to forget the promises of God. As we step onto the scene of our passage, as you read it, I hope you caught the sense that there's this kind of foreboding sense in the air as you come to this text.

In fact, our text begins with an unpleasant circumstance in verse one. So verse one again, there was another famine in the land in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham's time. And Abraham went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gera.

Now, if you've been through Genesis, you may think, wait a minute, haven't we heard about this before? And you'd be right. For those of you who were here way back when, when we were in chapter 12, this was the famine that happened in chapter 12 from verse 10 through to verse 20.

The fact that Moses tells us this, that he says that there was another famine in the land, by the way, they're in the desert famines happened all the time. So why does he mention this one? Well, he's telling us this one in particular, because he wants us to make a connection between Abraham and Isaac in this moment.

And the fact this parallel that he's trying to build, this connection he's trying to build, it's only going to get a little bit deeper because did you catch that second line in verse one? And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gera.

Hold on. Haven't we heard about an Abimelech king of the Philistines before in Genesis? You'd be right. That's in chapter 20. Now let's be fair. This is not the same Abimelech. About 90 years has passed since those events.

So this is not the same person. More than likely Abimelech, the name just means my father is king. Abimelech was just the royal title that was given. So everybody who becomes king gets the title Abimelech.

But the fact that an Abimelech is mentioned again in connection with a descendant of Abraham. Oh, and back to think back to chapter 20, Abraham did not make a good decision in chapter 20. All of this is setting up for us the fact that this is not about to be a straightforward story that we are going to read.

More on what he does in Gera in just a moment. But I think everything kind of lines up to tell us that this is about to be an unpleasant circumstance. Whatever is about to happen here is not about to be easy.

But this unpleasant circumstance sets up God's entry into the narrative. Yes, it's unpleasant, but it allows God to enter into the narrative with secondly, an unfailing promise. So you have an unpleasant circumstance, but that creates the backdrop for God to speak with an unfailing promise.

So God speaks in verse two and he's pretty to the point when he speaks. Look at verse two, Yahweh, the Lord appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt. Why does God feel the need to tell Isaac don't go down to Egypt?

Because the last time there was a famine in the land of this kind of magnitude, that's exactly what Abraham did in chapter 12. That story did not go well. I put it to you, and this is why I've titled this first point, The Temptation to Forget the Promises of God.

I put it to you that Isaac is probably thinking, you know what, when there was a famine last time, what did dad do? Well, that's what dad went down to Egypt. Egypt at this point is an up and coming world superpower.

In a slightly more prosperous part of the Middle East at this stage, it's probably the perfect place to go. But God steps in and says, no. Why? Because he's facing the temptation to forget God's promise and to do it his own way.

Sure, he wasn't even around when Abraham went down to Egypt, but no doubt, like all families do, this story had been passed around a few times. He was aware enough that this happened. And you can probably just put yourself in Isaac's shoes for a moment.

He's probably sitting there thinking, you know, I know it didn't go well for dad last time, but dad was kind of dumb last time. I can do this better. After all, it would be different this time. I mean, Isaac doesn't say it, but I think you can get the sense he doesn't have to say it.

And before we go any further, let's bring this home for a moment. Isn't that a temptation we can all be prone to? I mean, who in here can honestly say you've never been tempted to retread old ground, even though the old ground didn't lead anywhere good the last time you trod it?

I mean, we've even got a phrase for this, don't we? Don't we say that there are some people who, when things get difficult, they revert to type? Did God know this tendency about Isaac? Does God know that tendency about us as regular everyday people?

I'll put it to you that of course he does. In fact, God knows you better than you. To use the technical term, we call that God's omniscience, omni everything, science, knowledge, that God has all knowledge of everything.

And that includes you. He knows you better than you know you. In fact, if you're taking notes, Psalm 139, this is how the psalmist says it. The psalmist says, Yahweh, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I stand up. You understand my thoughts from far away. You observe my travels and my rest. You are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, Lord.

You have encircled me. You have placed your hand on me. This is wondrous knowledge that is beyond me. It is lofty. I am unable to reach it. God has perfect knowledge of each and every single one of us in this room.

Now, I can imagine what for some people that might feel like, wait, God knows everything about me? That's probably the most terrifying thing in the world. But actually, for those of us who are his children, that's not terrifying.

It shouldn't be. Because if you think about it, it's actually the most reassuring truth in the entire world. Okay, how is that reassuring? Let me help. Let me see if I can help you out with this. Nothing that you have done or will do or even think about doing has ever caught God off guard.

I mean, we as human beings catch each other off guard all the time. Whoa, I did not expect them to do that. Think about this. That thought has never occurred to God. Not even once. God has never had a moment where he has no idea what's going on.

And Isaac is about to learn just how reassuring that is. Because God doesn't just say, don't go down to Egypt. Come back with me to Genesis 26 verse 2. Yahweh appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt.

Live in the land that I tell you about. Stay in this land as an alien and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring and I will confirm the oath that I made that I swore, excuse me, to your father Abraham.

I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky. I will give your offspring all these lands and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes and my instructions.

God knows what Isaac is thinking in this moment. And because he knows exactly what Isaac is thinking, he speaks right to the point of his need. Just like Abraham was an alien in the land. And alien, by the way, just means someone who's a stranger here, not someone from Mars.

Just like Abraham was an alien, Isaac's identity was to be that of an alien. Just like Abraham enjoyed the blessing of God even in that state, Isaac would too. Just as Abraham was promised offspring as many as the stars, now Isaac would be the recipient of the same promise.

And just as land and physical blessing were given to Abraham, they would now be given to Isaac. You see, what Isaac needed in the heat of temptation was not a stern telling off. There's a time and a place for that, but not necessarily here.

What Isaac needed was reassurance. What he needed was a reminder of God's covenant promises. And can I put it to you that when we are tempted to forget all that God has said and all that God has promised, that's the very time that we need to be reminded of those exact same promises.

I'm going to give you a very tangible example that those of you who are regulars here at Redeemer will remember. That's one reason why every Sunday here at Redeemer, I'm going to do it this Sunday, just like every other Sunday, after we've had the Lord's table, which we have every week, every week we have an assurance of pardon.

Ever wondered why we do that? Why we intentionally build into all of our worship services an intentional reminder of the pardon that we have. And in fact, we don't make it or we don't write up words. We just go straight to God's word and allow God's word to give us that assurance of pardon.

Why do we do that? But we do that because as much as we hear it regularly, we can never hear it enough. We need to be constantly reassured of the fact that in Christ, we are a loved people, a forgiven people, a kept people.

That's a truth we can never get tired of hearing. And so we just built it into our worship services that at least at that point, even if the preacher does a bad job and doesn't get to the gospel, you will hear it in that moment.

Why? Because that's what we need. We need constant reassurance of what God has done for us in Christ. And I think you see a little bit of that here in Genesis 26, where God reminds Isaac of his promise.

Now, before we move on, there's one little thing we need to get straight. So look at verse five. Actually, let me start in verse four. So God says, I will make your offspring as numerous as the star of the sky.

I will give your offspring all these lands and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.

There's a way to read this that makes it sound as though God's blessing was conditioned on Abraham's obedience. Put it another way. There's a way to read this that makes it sound like God is saying, Abraham was a good boy.

And since Abraham was a good boy, I blessed him. Now, some of you were here when we looked at the life of Abraham in quite some depth. I think we could all agree. Abraham's a good man in a lot of ways.

He wasn't all that good. One look at Abraham's life should disprove the idea that because Abraham was good, God blessed him. In fact, back in Genesis chapter 12, when God first appears, the promise is made to Abraham before he's ever done anything.

It's a response of faith on Abraham's part to obey what God has said. Bobby, why are you laboring this point? Because I don't want anybody to leave here today with a misunderstanding of how it is that God deals with us as his people.

We're talking about this in our Sunday school hour. The fact that being precedes doing. That being who we are precedes what we do. And I think the same is true for even how God speaks of Abraham. But Kofi, the text says, because Abraham listened to me.

So what are we supposed to do with that? Well, I'm not one to always quote folks unnecessarily, but I think the commentator Calvin gets it right. He says this, that Moses does not mean that Abraham's obedience was the reason why the promise of God was confirmed to him.

But from what has been said before, and he quotes chapter 22, verse 18, where we have a similar expression, we learned that what God freely bestows upon the faithful is sometimes beyond what they deserve ascribed to them.

In other words, God credits Abraham with his obedience, even though the obedience was itself a gift of grace from God. I mean, this maps well with the rest of the Bible, Ephesians 2 .10. Bible says that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

I put it to you that this is important because it's when we understand that God's, when we understand, excuse me, God's promises, when we rightly understand what God has promised us in Christ, that's when true obedience is able to thrive.

And this is how Isaac was to overcome the temptation to forget the promise of God, to be reminded of that promise. But that's not the only temptation that he had to get around on his journey. Yes, the text teaches us about the temptation to forget the promises of God, but the text also teaches us about, number two, the temptation to repeat past failures.

A temptation to repeat past failures, verses 7 to 11. Now, it would be awesome if the narrative ended in verse 6. Great, wonderful, power cells on the back, we can all go home, but not quite. Of course, you know, just like life in general, nothing is ever that straightforward.

So, verse 6 ends with Isaac living in Gerar. Gerar is more or less the capital of the Philistines at this point. It's the same place that in chapter 20, we talked about a few minutes ago, Abraham had moved to.

Remember all of that foreshadowing that I talked about with Abimelech, the mention of the Philistines, Isaac going there. Now, it's all about to come into play, as you look at verse 7, when the men of the place asked about his wife, Isaac's wife.

He said, she is my sister, for he was afraid to say my wife, thinking the men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is a beautiful woman. If this sounds familiar, it's because we have seen this episode before.

In fact, some people have jumped on the book of Genesis at this point. See, Genesis can't be real, because how in the world can the same event happen not once, not even twice? This is the third time in Genesis we've seen this, some call it the sister-wife motif.

Not legitimately, some commentators, that's what they actually call it, but it happens this often in Genesis. Thankfully, this is the last time we're going to see this, but as you see, Genesis can't be real.

No way someone could be that dumb. In fact, two people could be that dumb to pull this off again. My simple response is, have you met human beings? People are people, and sometimes people, even different groups of people, years separated from each other, can do the same dumb things all the time.

I am really not surprised by this. In fact, again, we don't know this for certain. This is, call this a filling of the gaps for me a little bit. I have no doubt that Isaac probably heard this story from his dad towards the end of his life as Abraham has matured he had probably sat his son down and said, okay, listen, I need to tell you about some of the mistakes I've made.

So no doubt he probably heard, you know what, I did this twice. I did this once in Egypt, once with the Philistines. It really didn't go well. Isaac, don't do this. And I have no doubt in my mind that Isaac probably thought, you know what, again, it didn't work for dad, but I think I can get it right this time.

So he decides, as it were, to run back this same play one more time. And actually verse eight tells us that it worked for a while. So verse eight, when Isaac had been there for some time, but verse eight goes on, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife, Rebecca.

I have to be honest, my curious mind has so many questions that this text has no answer, which probably means I shouldn't answer them, but I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask them anyway, knowing that I don't get answers in text.

Why is Abimelech looking at people's houses from window? That's a bit weird. Um, on top of that, why are Isaac and Rebecca who have told everyone, this is my sister, you know, the area in which you live, why are you engaged in PDA, knowing the ruse that you've put in?

I have so many questions. The text doesn't answer those questions. So it's probably best that I leave those alone, if I'm really honest, but what it does say is a little bit striking. So you see then 26, eight, that word, at least in the Christian Bible, it's the translation I preach out of, uh, it says caressing.

Interesting. The word comes from the same root as Isaac's name. Remember Isaac's name means laughter or to laugh. It's from the same root. It carries, this word carries an idea of playfulness. It's not sexual in nature by any stretch.

It's more, they're just joking around with each other, like happy couples do, but there's more to it than even that because actually you've seen this word before. If you've been with us in our series in Genesis, it just was translated a little bit different.

If you're taking notes, Genesis chapter 21 verse nine, remember Genesis 21, the birthday party that starts to go a little bit pear shaped between Ishmael and Isaac. This is 21, nine, but Sarah saw the son mocking the one Hagar, the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, the word mocking same word that's used here for Isaac caressing Rebecca.

One writer puts it like this. The choice of words is interesting. It is as if Moses was writing that Isaac's lapse of faith, going to Gera and calling his wife, his sister made a mockery of the great promise embodied in his name.

In fact, Isaac made a mockery of Abimelech by the deception caressing his wife is intended to be seen as a mockery to Abimelech whom he tried to deceive at the heart of the problem with this action on Isaac's part is ultimately he's trying to do the things of the past and hoping for a different result.

I think I quoted it recently. Remember Einstein definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Abraham had faltered at this exact point, not once, but twice.

And now Isaac is missing the mark in exactly the same way. Isaac is failing to trust in the good word of God. When the promise should have been more than enough. It's almost as though when Isaac's mind, he's thinking, I know what God said, but God, can God do what he has said?

But that doesn't make sense because Isaac himself is a manifestation of God's ability to do what he has said. It's almost as though Isaac forgot his own story. And since he somehow got it into his mind that God couldn't do what he said, he decided, you know what?

I'm going to revert to a tried and true plan. Well, it was tried. I don't know about the true part. Cause look at verse nine. Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, so she is really your wife. How could you say she's my sister?

Isaac answered him because I thought I might die on account of it. Just like Abraham thought. Then Abimelech said, what have you done to us? One of the people could have easily slept with your wife and you would have brought guilt on us.

And I'll pause for a moment. I have no doubt in my mind that Abimelech had probably heard the story from his dad, maybe grandfather, about what happened the last time Abraham came to town. The jump from not your sister to bringing guilt on our people.

I don't think he's being dramatic there. I think he's just, he knows history because back in Genesis chapter 12, when this happened, God struck the nation. It was not good for them. Isaac could have avoided all of this with a little honesty.