F4F | Twisted Scripture with Sean Smith: Genesis 26

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. So, let me kind of let you in a little bit on how my life works.

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And what I mean by that is kind of like the challenge that I have in putting

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Fighting for the Faith together. And that is, is that when I started Fighting for the Faith more than a decade ago, what year was that?

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It's like 2008. So yeah, it's going back a ways now.

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It originally started off as a podcast and now we're here on YouTube. And back in the day,

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Bible teachers or pastors or people like that, even if they were

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Bible twisters, they would try very hard to create the veneer that they were teaching from the

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Bible. And that was an important thing. And I've noticed that as the great apostasy, which by the way, there's nothing great about the great apostasy.

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It's like great apostasy has widened and deepened and things have gotten worse.

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There are a new generation of pastors, pastrixes, by the way, there's no such thing as a pastrix, who are, they make very little effort to actually preach

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God's Word. And it barely makes an appearance. And then when it does make an appearance, it's totally twisted up.

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And so as I've been kind of lamenting this big change, because it becomes a little bit more challenging here at Fighting for the

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Faith, because I mean, isn't the whole slogan comparing what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God, the thing that I'm supposed to be doing?

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What happens if like, you go like through a big, big message and they haven't really spent a lot of time talking about the

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Word, but they've talked about it a little bit, okay? You know, one of the things we've talked about here at Fighting for the

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Faith is maybe coming up like a Word of God -o -meter, you know, how much of this sermon actually contained the

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Word of God or was intentionally set about to properly exegete that biblical passage, as opposed to whatever the other, whatever the person speaking was talking about.

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The percentage is getting worse by the minute. So all of that being said, I'm musing at the moment, kind of working through my own thoughts on this, is

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I thought it would be a good idea to start kind of a new thing that we do here at Fighting for the Faith.

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We do dumpster fires. We do prophecy bingo. Now, I know it's been a while since we've done prophecy bingo.

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Hang in there. It'll come back. I needed a break from it. Prophecy bingo legitimately is one of the saddest and most difficult types of segments that we do here at Fighting for the

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Faith. It is, it rubs me the wrong way in so many ways. And it's so hard to hear

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God's Word blasphemed so egregiously that I have a love -hate, but mostly hate relationship with prophecy bingo.

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Yeah, you get the idea. So we have prophecy bingo. We do normal standard Fighting for the Faith episodes. Then we do dumpster fires.

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So I thought what would be fun was to like put a new type of focus in here. And we're going to call it

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Twisted Scripture, trying to play off the word, you know, Twisted Sister. Remember that?

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I'm a kid of the 80s. 70s and 80s is what I grew up in. I'm Gen X. So, yeah, people who call me

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Boomer, they just don't know what they're talking about. So, you know, the spirit animal of Gen Xers is snark.

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So all of that being said, we're going to, we're going to experiment with that today.

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We're going to, we're going to experiment. This will be our first Twisted Scripture segment.

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And I've got some, I've got, I've got a good contender for you. So let me explain here.

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Hold on a second here. I'm going to whirl up the desktop. Manhattan Skyline took that back in, what was it, 2019, yeah, this was the days before COVID.

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I was able to take that photograph. Anyway. All right. So let's do this. I am going to now, hold on a second here, pull up the, there we go.

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That's, that's, that's what I'm looking for. All right. So this guy, I don't think I've ever reviewed him before, but he's from the

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Global Awakening YouTube channel. And his name is Sean Smith. I never met this guy before.

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Can't say I remember ever reviewing him. In fact, that's kind of the thing is, is that a lot of the old guard folks that I've covered in the past, they've completely flamed out.

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I mean, you know, Driscoll had his spectacular fall. Think of Carl Lentz, think of Brian Houston.

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I can think of other names too, but you get the idea. A lot of the people I've reviewed in the past and said, these people are wolves.

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They're terrible. Don't listen to them. They're twisting up the scriptures. They've all had like these meteoric falls. And so I just always kind of chalk that up to, well, yeah,

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I tried to warn you. You know, it's too bad that you wrote thousands of dollars of checks to these people because the whole time they were just taking your money.

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That's a whole other story. But anyway, so Sean here, in our first ever twisted scripture installment of Fighting for the

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Faith, he's going to be going to the book of Genesis chapter 26. It's about Isaac having wells that were dug by Abram and then he ended up digging that ended up being stopped up by people who were jealous of him.

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And in this sermon, it's titled,

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We Must Redig the Wells of Revival. You just sit there and go, what?

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What's a well of revival and why do we need to redig one? And how does one go about doing such a thing?

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Do they use a backhoe, a shovel, maybe a spoon?

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I don't know how this procedure is accomplished. So all of that being said, we're going to note here is that we're going to hear him at the beginning of this message, read out a biblical text from the book of Genesis chapter 26 out of context, not really paying attention to it.

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And then from there, no sooner does he lay down this biblical text that we just take a hard turn to, you know, now we're off -roading and he goes on like this until the 20 -something minute mark.

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And yeah, you get the idea. Work with me here.

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I think this is bizarre. So anyway, so let me back this up just a smidge. This is Sean Smith of Global Awakening and We Must Redig the

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Wells of Revival and this is Twisted Scripture, Genesis 26. Let's see what we can do with this. You got a

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Bible? Go to Genesis 26. Genesis 26. Yeah. I'm truly, again, I'm honored to be here.

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My heroes are here, man, and I'm just so glad. We're so blessed to be able to be at a gathering that has this kind of emphasis, this kind of focus and the anointing and the mantle that's on this ministry,

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Global Awakening. Anointing and a mantle at Global Awakening. Do you have a prophecy bingo card?

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This will tell you where we are theologically. We're already a hot mess. Thank God. Genesis 26, and we're going to start reading at verse 12.

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It says, then Isaac sowed in that land and reaped. Why are you starting at verse 12, then

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Isaac? What happened before then? You know, you've got plenty of time.

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You know, it says here that the sermon went on for more like an hour.

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You have plenty of time to like put this in context, you know, preach the word, help people to understand the proper sense of what's going on here.

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By the way, we'll do that, you know, we'll fix this up here in a minute, but, you know, okay, why are we starting in the middle of the story?

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Because context helps. All right, let's continue. In the same year, a hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him, and the man began to prosper and continued prospering until he became very prosperous.

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You think we could squeeze the word prosper in that verse anymore? The thing about the Lord blessing you and prospering you is not everyone is going to celebrate that.

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There's... Okay. Now, here's the thing. He's not a hundred percent wrong here about the

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Lord blessing and prospering you and not everyone being happy with that. But that's actually kind of one of the aspects of this text.

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But that's really the proper aspect of what is going on here is just like completely over this guy's head.

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It's an urban term. Young people would say haters gonna hate. So in other words, when God blesses you, some people are going to get jealous.

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And how does God bless Christians? We're not promised wealth, by the way.

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Could incur attack as well. So watch this. It's actually going to happen. For he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and great numbers of servants.

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So the Philistines envied him. Aha! There it is. Now the Philistines had stopped up, say stopped up, all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham, his father, and they had filled them with earth.

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And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us, for you are much mightier than we. 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, say 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. He called them by the names which his father had called them.

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Also Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well of running water there. And we're going to stop.

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Why? Many times. Why are you going to stop? Now, note here, we are one minute, 53 seconds into this hour long message, all right?

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And this guy has plenty of time. Why did we take this tiny snippet from Genesis 26?

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By the way, you really have no concept of what the context is by what he did here. That's hidden by the edit that he's made, you know, but I'm going to say these verses and no other.

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Now, watch what he does here. This is where he just goes right off the road and we lose complete touch with this text until the 20 something minute mark.

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Let me explain this. Let's let him spin this part out. In our vocabulary, the

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English vocabulary, we confuse words. Sometimes the confusion is understandable. For instance, the word cereal and cereal.

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I can understand why that would be mistaken. One is the profile of a psychopath, right?

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The other is a contents of Captain Crunch, okay? But you've got to understand your context, right? Sometimes there's other words that maybe a letter can differentiate them, elicit, illicit.

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One speaks of something forbidden, the other means to draw or to invite something. But every now and then we confuse terms that's confusing that we confuse them.

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And these are two words, normal, typical. How many of you know you go to a doctor, he or she, you're coughing up the mucinex men, you're slightly feverish, you're shaking a little dizzy, and he or she, the doctor, they check you out, they run you through the battery of tests, and they say to you, what you have is normal.

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How many of you know they've confused the term normal and typical? Because what you have is not normal compared to a healthy person.

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What you have is typical with a person that has your condition. Now already I just got to ask the question, what does this analogy, this metaphor, this sermon illustration of his, have to do with rightly understanding this text?

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He noted that when God blesses you, some people might not be on board with that and might persecute you.

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Okay, that shows he has some understanding of what this text is about, but what is this?

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Now what I'm going to do here, I'm going to speed this up, and we're going to put this at two times speed at this point.

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And the two times speed is just to kind of show that there ain't nothing here.

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You'll get what I'm saying here in a second. So I apologize for the chipmunk speed here, but it's to make a point.

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Let's continue. So often when we think of North American Christianity, and it's going to sound like I'm negative, but I'll be positive in two minutes, I promise you.

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So often we compare ourselves by ourselves, and what we think is normal Christianity isn't normal. It's typical of North American Christianity, but when you compare it to the book of Acts, it's not normal.

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It's subnormal. It's abnormal. And the reason why we need revival is that in revivals, God gives you a new normal. In revivals, God shows you what normal ought to look like.

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In revivals, God gives you a new normal. That is a funky taste here in this particular sermon.

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What on earth does this have to do with Genesis 26? God's going to establish a new normal, and because of Acts, right, but what does this have to do with what you just read?

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Answer, it doesn't have anything to do with it. Until that happens, you don't know, because you're looking at what you're looking at, and kind of like, hey, we've got great presentation, we've got great lights, we've got great media, we've got this going on, but then when you read the book of Acts, or you understand church history, it could break your heart to know that we've settled for something less than what

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God would want to give us. Have you settled for something less than God wants to give you Genesis 26?

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It doesn't work. What is this? I went to Jesus Christ when I was in college. I grew up, as I mentioned, inner city, Oakland. Long story. I'm not going to bust out my testimony, but suffice it to say, it is a three -part

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Maury Povich episode, okay? So can't bust it all out now. I was raised by a grandmother who was an alcoholic. My dad was not in the picture. Then he was in the picture.

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Then at nine years of age, my dad was murdered by policemen. Thank God for godly policemen. I've got relatives and friends, but these policemen, particularly the policemen that shot my dad, had a background in a racist hate group, profiled my dad.

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My dad committed no crime. Didn't look like anyone committed a crime, but one day they gunned him down, and so I lived in the aftermath of that. Grew up in high school, experimenting, trying to grasp a hold of something that could answer an empty place in my heart.

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There was awards monies given for the unlawful death of my dad, who was shot in San Jose, California. The San Jose Police Department had to give monies. The monies enabled me to get higher education and go to college, otherwise we couldn't have been able to afford it.

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So I chose a small private college in Northern California, University of Pacific, and majored in computer engineering. When I was at this school, it was all of a sudden, there comes this point, I think, where you can run as far as you can without Jesus, and then the emptiness catches up, and I believe it's happening in our nation and in the nations of the world.

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There's a generation that is discovering that all the rest of this stuff has simply been cotton candy, and what we need is something of substance. All right. Now, we're going to switch gears here for a second, because I think

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I've demonstrated what's going on here. He will not come back to this text until the 20 -minute, 16 -second mark.

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That's when he steers back. Everything between the two -minute mark and the 20 -minute, 16 -second mark has nothing to do with that biblical text.

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So let's kind of note here, I want to throw this in just to remind everybody, the job of a pastor is to do what?

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What is one of his primary responsibilities? So that is going to be found in 2

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Timothy chapter 3 and 4, and so here's what

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Paul writes to young Pastor Timothy, Timothy, who is a pastor of one of the congregations in the city of Ephesus.

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He says, you, however, this is 2 Timothy 3 .10, you, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, at Lystra, which persecutions

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I endured. Yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Okay. So persecutions,

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God rescued him. Keep that in mind. That has something to do with our text here.

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Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be what?

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Persecuted. Huh. Do you think that might have something to do with what happened to Isaac? All right.

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Okay. Now, while evil people and imposters, they're going to go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceit.

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But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

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So I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who's to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.

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Okay. So we're supposed to preach the word. Okay. Be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching or sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

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And they're going to turn away from listening to the truth and they're going to wander off in the myths.

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As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, work, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

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Okay. Pretty straightforward stuff, but the job of a pastor is to preach the word. And we also have an

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Old Testament text. Let me see if I can find this really quick. I think it's in Nehemiah, Nehemiah chapter, is it eight?

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Yeah. Ezra reads the law. So consider, this is an example of what it is that is supposed to be happening when a pastor is preaching the word.

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So in the book of Nehemiah, that's kind of how you pronounce it in Hebrew. It says, all the people gathered as one into the square before the water gate.

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And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law or the Torah of Moses that Yahweh had commanded

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Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard on the first day of the seventh month.

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And as he read from it facing the square before the water gate from early morning until midday in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

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And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood

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Matathiah, Shema, Ananiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, Maasaiah.

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And on his right hand, and then Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbanan, Badana, Zechariah, Meshulam on his left hand.

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And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was above all the people as he opened it, all the people stood and Ezra blessed

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Yahweh the great. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands.

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And they bowed their heads and they worshiped Yahweh with their faces to the ground.

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Also, Jeshua, Bani Shearabiah, Jamim, Ahub, Shabbatai, Hodaiah, Maasaiah, Kalita, Azariah, Jehazabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the

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Levites. They helped the people to understand the law while the people remained in their places.

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They read from the book, from the law of God clearly, and then they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.

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A good way to think of a pastor's job is to preach the Word, teach what's in accord with sound doctrine, help the people in the congregation to understand the proper, the true sense, so that they can understand the reading.

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That's really the job of a pastor. So, Sean here, in our Twisted Scripture segment, he's read out a portion of Genesis 26 out of context, went and talked about a whole bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with the text that he read.

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And then at the 20 minute 16 mark, he then decides that he's going to now come back to the text.

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Let's see if he's going to help them, the people that he's supposed to be serving here, to understand the proper sense of what's going on in Genesis 26.

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And I assure you, before we're done, I'm going to help you understand it, because it's an interesting passage and one that has something to do with persecution.

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But let's get on with this. And what I'm going to do here, I'm going to speed this up just by a smidge, just a little bit, just to kind of keep things moving.

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But here we go. To the ancients, water, as it is today, water is life. One of the things you would find out for the ancients is the moment, let's say

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God's people, the moment God gave them a land, one of the first things they would do is build an altar to thank the Lord for the land. And one of the next things they had to do was dig a well.

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Why? Because water is life. You don't have water, you cannot sustain life. Your wife, your junior, your daughter.

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Yeah, that's true. Water was a necessary component. Digging wells was a thing of the ancient world.

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Okay. That totally true. And for all of them, they dehydrate. Your cattle cannot survive. They were an agrarian culture.

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You cannot water your plants. Water was everything. To have a plot of land and to put a well on it, it was very similar to us having a title deed.

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To have a well on a land meant you owned the land. You guys following me? Not exactly, because Abraham dug a well and he was considered a sojourner.

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That the well spoke of ownership. So when the Philistines stopped up the well, it wasn't simply an act of vandalism.

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It was an act of blatant takeover. It's saying you don't own the land. We are going to revoke your right to this land.

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We're taking your inheritance. It wasn't simply, again, an evil heinous act. It was a statement that we are taking the land and you have got to go.

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What commentary are you reading on that, by the way? Abraham, he digs a well.

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The well is passed to Isaac, but here is the process. He says, remember the story, right? Abraham dug a well.

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Philistines came in and stopped up the well. Isaac re -dug the well. Notice when the

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Philistines stopped up the well. They waited till Abraham died. Are you with me? They didn't do that when he was alive.

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The enemy always tries to stop your flow in times of transition. What? Oh no.

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The enemy is going to try to stop my flow in a time of transition. Has nothing to do with this text.

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We're now officially into the twisted scripture bit. Okay. And they're all, yay.

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He didn't say anything. I believe we can look at it in terms of historical narrative.

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I believe there are places in history where the enemy tried to stop a well in transition. In transitions.

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In our lives, personally, we go through transitions in life that we go through kind of chronological stages and maybe after we come out of college, all of a sudden there's a transition and we kind of are young married or you get your job and the enemy always tries to stop your flow and for that matter,

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I believe America, this is a T right here, I believe America is in the big T. We are in transition right now. I believe UK is in transition right now.

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I believe the nations of the world are in transition and it's in those times that the enemy seeks to stop wells, block wells, stop flows.

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I don't think he's giving us the proper sense so that people can rightly understand what he read there.

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I do not see Hodiah, Maasai, Kalita, Azariah, Jehazabad, Hanan, Peliah.

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I don't see these guys that, and this is all about the devil trying to stop flows during times of transition.

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No. No. That ain't how this works. So let's see if we can figure out what's really going on here.

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And remember the three rules for sound biblical exegesis. They are context, context, and context.

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So I'm going to back up a little bit. Okay. I am going to see if I can back up and see what we can do here.

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All right. So Genesis 26, we'll start at verse one. Now, there was a famine in the land besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham.

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And Itzhak went to Gerar to Abimelech, king of the Philistines.

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And Yahweh appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt, dwell in the land of which

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I shall tell you, sojourn in this land. So we got a problem here.

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Had he gone into the context, he wouldn't have said that the well that was dug is talking about ownership because God specifically told

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Itzhak, that's Isaac, to sojourn in that land. Now let's, let's do another thing here.

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I'm going to grab Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 11, and I want to show you this.

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Okay. So talking about Abraham, by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place.

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This is Hebrews 11, eight, that he was to receive as an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he was going.

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By faith, he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Itzhak and Yehovah, heirs with him of the same promise.

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For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is

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God. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.

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Therefore, from one man in him as good as dead were born descendants, as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore.

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These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles.

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Where? On the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

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If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.

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But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their

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God for he has prepared for them a city. So, they didn't receive these things.

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They died in faith, having not received them. So, we've got a problem here because this guy's theology isn't taking into consideration the very themes that he's not addressing that are invoked in this very text when you put it back in context.

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So, God tells Itzhak, Isaac, sojourn in this land. I will be with you and bless you for you and your offspring.

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I will give all these lands. I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.

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I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands.

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And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

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So, here we've got a clear word from God spoken to Itzhak, Isaac, and promising him blessings and renewing that theme that from Abraham's offspring, the whole world would be blessed.

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That's a prophecy regarding Jesus, by the way. But God commanded him specifically to sojourn there.

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Now, we get then to the story of Abimelech. And so, Itzhak settled in Gerar.

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When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, she's my sister, for he feared to say my wife, thinking less the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah, because she was attractive in appearance.

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When he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of the window and saw

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Itzhak laughing with Rebekah, his wife. So, Abimelech called Itzhak and said to him, behold, she is your wife.

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How then could you say she's my sister? Itzhak said to him, because I thought lest I die because of her,

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Abimelech said, what is this that you've done? One of our people might have easily lain with your wife and you would have brought guilt upon us.

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So, Abimelech warned all the people saying, whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

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All right. Then Itzhak sowed in that land, in the land where Abimelech is, and he reaped in the same year a hundredfold.

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Yahweh blessed him and the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy.

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He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants so that the

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Philistines envied him. Now, the Philistines had stopped and filled with the earth all the wells that his father's servant had dug in the days of Abraham, his father.

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And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us for you are much mightier than we. Now, here we can see here the

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Lord has blessed Itzhak. Now, in this particular case, it's a very tangible blessing and it's seeable and understandable by other people because Isaac, Itzhak, has become very wealthy.

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And yes, people are envying him because God's blessing is upon him. So, Isaac departed from there and encamped in the

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Valley of Gerar and settled there. And Itzhak dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham, his father, which the

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Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them.

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But when Itzhak's servants dug in the valley and found there was a well, a spring of water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Itzhak's herdsmen saying, the water is ours.

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So, he called the name of the well Esek. Esek means contention because they contended with him.

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And then they dug another well and they quarreled over that also so that he called its name Sitna.

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Sitna here means enmity. And he also moved from there and dug another well and they did not quarrel over it.

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So, he called his name, its name Rehoboth. Rehoboth means broad places saying, for now,

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Yahweh has made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land. From there, he went to Beresheba and Yahweh appeared to him at the same, that same night, said,

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I am the God of Abraham, your father, fear not for I am with you and I will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant

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Abraham's sake. So, he built an altar there and called upon the name of Yahweh, pitched his tent there and there

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Itzhak's servants dug a well. Now, so far so good.

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Now, the question is, what does this mean? Now, here's where we're going to take a little bit of a break.

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And we're going to talk about the sponsor of today's episode of Fighting for the Faith. We do have a sponsor today.

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And today's sponsor is The Word of the Lord Endures Forever. If you are not listening to this podcast, this podcast is a podcast you need to be listening to.

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The days that we live in, we have so many wingnut wackerdoodles running around twisting up God's word, that you, if you are looking for a resource to help you to understand what

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God's word means and the proper sense of understanding biblical texts, this is your podcast.

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We've interviewed a couple of times now, Pastor Will Whedon, who is the host of The Word of the Lord Endures Forever.

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And we're going to put a link to their website, thewordendures .org down below. Important to note that recently,

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Pastor Whedon has begun a series on the Book of Acts. As of the time that we're recording this, he's into episode 10, part 10 of his study of the

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Book of Acts, and has only made it to chapter 3, verses 11 through 16. He's going verse by verse, line by line, dare

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I say it, precept by precept, through the Book of Acts, through the biblical texts.

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When you go to their website and you click on the archive, the click on the archive link, a drop -down menu comes and you can see all the different books of the

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Bible that Pastor Whedon has worked his way through. So, if you are looking for a proper understanding of God's word, you are looking to become a better student of God's word and a faithful disciple, and you want to understand the true sense of what these biblical texts are teaching, and you want extended

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Bible study so that you can properly understand it, so that you're not deceived, so that your faith is grounded in a proper understanding of God's word, this is your podcast.

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So, again, thewordendures .org, you will thank me. This is a fantastic resource for all

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Christians. Now, let's come back here to what we've been studying. All right, so the question now for Genesis chapter 26.

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What is this all about? What are we to make of this?

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Now, one good resource, in fact, let me show you this. I'm going to go here and I'm going to do a quick search.

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Kretzmann, Kretzmann, hang on a second, Kretzmann Commentary. All right, so, the kretzmannproject .org

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website, okay? This is a website that has a free copy of a lay -level commentary that was written a long time ago, and I mean long time ago.

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And so, when you go to kretzmannproject .org, you can select the book of the

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Bible. So, if we go to Genesis chapter 26, and of course,

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I got to make this bigger because my eyes are too old, right? So, it begins, obviously, with the story of Isaac and the land of the

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Philistines. But I want to show you this, a good resource for, you know, kind of at least checking historically, how has the church understood this stuff?

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And since Kretzmann's been in his grave for a long, long, long time, he's never been influenced by the word of faith heresy or today's modern wingnut

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NAR kind of stuff going on. So, all that being said, hang on a second here, I'm going to scroll back here.

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Went too far. And in Amnesty with the Philistines, that's verse 17, here we go.

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All right. So, Abimelech charged this, people saying, all right, I now know where we're at. So, Amnesty with the

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Philistines. Isaac departed there thence and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there. You're going to note that in the

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Kretzmann commentary, he has the King James version as kind of the basis for it.

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So, he left the city of Gerar and the domain of the Philistines in the narrow sense, putting up his encampment farther to the west in the undulating country toward the mountains.

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And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which he had digged, as in the days of Abraham his father for the

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Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham, thus disregarding the covenant which has been made between them and Abraham.

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And he called their names after the names by which his father had called them, having gone over the field.

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Often while his father was yet alive, Isaac was familiar with the entire country. Isaac's servants digged in the valley and found there a well of springing water, one which was filled with water from a living spring and not a mere cistern for rainwater.

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You got the idea here. The herdsmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdsmen, saying that the water is ours.

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And he called the name of the well Essek, contention, because they strove with him.

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And they digged another well, strove for that also. And he called the name of it Sitna, hatred. Isaac suffered all this injustice and harm with great patience and forbearance, preferring to endure rather than to inflict injury, as he probably might have done.

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So, note here, the story tells us of how Isaac became great and wealthy and powerful.

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If he really wanted to flex his muscles, he could have, but he didn't.

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Instead, Isaac chose to suffer harm. So, he removed from thence and digged another well.

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And for that, they strove not. And they called the place Rehoboth, which is expanses.

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And they said, for now, the Lord has made room for us and we shall be fruitful. This camp is located still farther to the west.

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You get the idea here. So, note, in saying all this, Cressman's notes, in the midst of the persecution, which

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Isaac was enduring, this encouragement came with all of its uplifted strength. The believers are strangers and pilgrims on earth and as such are subjected to many indignities.

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But the Lord's assurance of his everlasting presence is always the one certain to prop up their faith.

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And now we know what this text is about. This isn't about digging revival wells. This is about giving us an example that we can follow.

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And we have a biblical precedent for reading this text in this way. First Corinthians chapter 10 says,

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Paul writes, I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud. All were at pass of the sea.

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All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And all ate the same spiritual food.

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All drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them. And the rock was

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Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

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Now, these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did.

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Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.

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We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did. And 23 ,000 fell in a single day.

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We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents. Nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.

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Now, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.

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So, the idea here is that these stories in the Old Testament, the Apostle Paul makes it clear they're written for our instruction.

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And here we see an example then of Itzhak, Isaac, enduring persecution, even though he has the promises of God and he has the power and the wealth to retaliate if he wanted to, and he didn't.

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So, this kind of gets us into the big theme. I already asked the question, what about this persecution thing, right?

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Jesus says in the Gospel of John chapter 15, remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master.

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If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

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Christ promises his disciples persecution. Matthew chapter 10, we have a whole section of this chapter dedicated to the topic of persecution.

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Jesus says, behold, I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents, innocent as doves.

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Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts, flog you in their synagogues, and you'll be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the

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Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious about how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given you in that hour.

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It is not you who speak, but the spirit of your father speaking through you. So, brother will deliver brother over to death, the father, his child.

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Children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

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But the one who endures to the end will be saved. For when they persecute you in one town, flee to the next.

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For truly I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

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A disciple is not above his teacher or a servant above his master. Is it enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master?

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If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household?

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Have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden, that will not be known.

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So, you get the idea here where Isaac has left us an example of suffering injustices.

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In fact, 1 Peter chapter 2 picks up on that same theme in Scripture.

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Servants be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and to the gentle, but to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.

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Isn't that exactly what Isaac did? He suffered unjustly. For what credit is it if when you sin and you are beaten for it and you endure?

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But if when you do it, you do good and you suffer for it and you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

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For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

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He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

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When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

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By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and the overseer of your souls.

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Are you beginning to see the picture? Isaac has left us a great example of suffering, being persecuted, bearing up under it, even though he had the promises of God.

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That is an example that we can follow, and that's what this text is about. So, coming back then here, let's just listen a little bit more.

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And for the sake of argument, what I will do is I'll just speed him up just a little bit more, just so you can see what he does here, and how it has, what he's going to do with this text is not helping his people to understand what is written here at all.

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And note the banner, Voice of the Prophets 2018. Now, in this stoppage, and it's interesting, because I feel like they're major giants.

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And just recently, obviously, Billy Graham, we were actually speaking in Charlotte, North Carolina. We literally, I got up that morning to get on the plane, and that's when

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I got the news, Billy Graham, if you could have posters of, man, spiritual giants, Billy Graham's poster would be in my room as a prophetic evangelist.

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My God, awesome. And I wept, and as I was weeping, I felt like the Lord says, but the mantle of mass evangelism did not leave the earth.

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In fact, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground, it dies, it abides alone. But if it dies, it bears my truth. In fact, there's a multiplication of mass evangelism.

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I think about the T .O. Osbornes. I think about the Oral Roberts. And my cry is, is that many times in trends, heretics, spiritual giants pass, the enemy tries to block the well, the fountains, the flow, the truths of what they represent.

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And we have to be particularly careful and conscientious that in times of transition, that we're not allowing ancient wells to be blocked up because this is exactly...

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During this time of transition, we got to guard those ancient wells so they don't get blocked up. Twisted scripture, indeed.

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Hopefully you get the point. So if you found this helpful, all the information on how you can share the video is down below.

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And I just want to give a quick shout out and a thank you to everyone who is a member of the crew, our pirate

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Christian crew. You are the ones who make it possible for us to continue to bring this outreach to you and to the world.

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And for us to compare what people are saying in the name of God, with the word of God and to proclaim sound doctrine and Christ and Him crucified for our sins.

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So if you would like to support us, all the information on how you can join our crew is down below. And again,

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Ben, big thank you for those of you who've already joined our crew. So until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross.