Genesis Chapter 26 We have the only record. The only chapter I should say we have the Onley chapter dedicated to the promised son of Abraham. We’ve spent 13 chapters hearing God promised to Abraham, You’re going to have a son and we get one chapter dedicated to the sun. Because in those 13 chapters, the focus wasn’t the son. The focus was the promise, not just the promise of a son, but the promise of a seed. And ultimately, the seed that was promised is the seed that would bless all nations of the Earth.
And ultimately, the seed promise wasn’t about Isaac. But Christ, it was about the savior. It was about the one who would come through the seed of Isaac through the seat of Jacob ultimately through the seed of Judah through the seat of David. But the seed it was Christ. And as we get to Genesis Chapter 26 we see a glimpse into the life of the son of Abraham. Now, before we get into Chapter 26 go to Genesis Chapter 18 Genesis, Chapter 18 verse 10. And he said,
I will certainly return to you according to the time of life. And behold, Sara, your wife shall have a son. Sir was listening in the 10 door, which was behind him. Now. Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age, and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore, Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord, Being old also. And the Lord said that Abraham, Why did Sarah laughed, saying,
Shall I surely bear a child since I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? So who made the promise, as he was standing there, who made the promise to Abraham that within a year Sarah would have a son, The Lord did God in the previous verses. Up until the point where this statement is made, there’s no identification with clarity on Abraham’s part that the person who’s in front of him, the person who’s there with the two companions, the person that he’s just fed dinner, too,
is God. But now this individual speaks and we’re told clearly by Moses that the Lord, when you see in the in the English versions, Lord and you see the capital l with the capital. But that small capital org. Or in some translations or some versions, you see just all caps. L O R D. What? They’re indicating to you what the translators were indicating to you is that is a use of the Hebrew term. Yeah, Way Jehovah. Jehovah Says to Abraham, you will have a son.
You’ll have a son by Sarah. But notice this. Sara denies laughing verse 15 then for 16. Then the men rose from there and look toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to send them on the way. And the Lord again, Jehovah is speaking. And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham? What I am doing since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. Jehovah says to the two who are with him. Well,
I hide what I’m about to do, considering that Abraham is the I’m gonna paraphrase here the chosen one through whom the chosen nation through whom the chosen seed will come Well, I hide from him. What I’m about to do. It’s a rhetorical question. By the way, God’s not looking for an answer from his two companions because there’s not one. Do you have a comment? Correct. Correct chapter before. Yes, So Verse 19 though God says this is the one who I’ve chosen to become a great and mighty nation.
He has no Children yet. He’s almost 100 years old. He has no Children, and he’s the chosen one through whom I’ve chosen to bring forth a mighty nation and the want to whom All nations of the earth will be blessed. But then this statement, verse 19 4 I have known him. God says, I know something about Abraham. I have known him in order that he may command his Children and his household after him. We’re told that there was a result from Abraham knowing God. The result.
Waas Abraham directed his Children’s path. God says I have known him on because I have known him. He will do this. And so while we only have one chapter dedicated to Isaac before Isaac’s ever born, we know exactly the kind of person Isaac’s going to be. Now we’re gonna find out in this chapter he’s not a perfect person, but guess what. Neither was Abraham, and yet he knew Jehovah. Notice what we see, he says. that he may command his Children in his household after him,
that they keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him. The declaration concerning Isaac the declaration concerning Abraham’s path that he will set his descendants on after him is he will command them. He will direct them as a as a officer does his soldiers, he will command them in the ways of righteousness and justice, and they will keep those paths. So in Genesis Chapter 26 we read concerning Isaac. There was a famine in the land.
Besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham and Isaac went to a bim elect, King of the Philistine Sze in gear are. Then the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt, live in the land of which I shall tell you you look at a map. Isaac’s dwelling kind of. In the midst of the land of Canaan, famine begins. It’s a great famine, like in the days of his father,
and Isaac begins to move, Move out of the land where the famine is begin to move towards the place where they’re still food.
Why would he begin moving? What? What does he have with him? Animals? And when there’s a famine in the land,
what is there quite often stopped being grass and water because usually a famine is a result of a lack of water or a some some form of of invasion by,
uh, critters of some former fashion in sex grasshoppers or or such lying that have eaten the plants. So it’s a lack of plants,
or it’s a lack of water, generally speaking, so he begins to move. He comes to gear,
or a place where Abraham has been before, and God appears him and tells him what stay. But more specifically,
Don’t go where Don’t go to Egypt. Egypt will become the salvation of Jacob’s family. But it’s not time to go to Egypt,
and I firmly believe God’s telling Isaac don’t go to Egypt because there’s some knowledge that God has that if he goes down to Egypt,
he’s not coming back. That’s just purely Aaron’s judgment. That’s that’s not Scripture there. But there’s a reason God says you go where I tell you and don’t go to Egypt.
And what is Isaac Do? Exactly what God tells him to do. He doesn’t go to Egypt. He will go to gear.
Or And he will dwell there. But he’ll have some of the same misgivings about the people in the land that his father had.
And you’ll make them the same mistake his father made without half the excuse that his father had notice what we read.
Dwell in this land. Verse three. This is the Lord speaking toe. Isaac and I will be with you and bless you for to you and your descendants.
I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham. Your father.
Now God is meeting with Isaac. God is speaking to Isaac and revealing to him I will be with you.
I will bless you. And I will perform the oath. The covenant that I made with your father.
I will perform it with you. What should that have done to Isaac? Mentally speaking, relieved. His anxiety assured him that he was going to be fine.
Why? Because God says I’ll bless you not. You’ll travel down to the land of the roar, and I and yet still much like we see in the life of Abraham and the life of Sarai.
He’ll attempt to solve his problems his way instead of God’s way. But let’s not fault him too badly.
We do the same thing, don’t we? Too often, instead of looking for God’s wisdom and following God’s path and allowing God to direct our path,
we go for our solutions. Well, look, as far as we can see, right just past the end of our nose and think we’ve got to figure this out.
So Isaac is told I will make verse for your descendants, multiplies the stars of heaven I will give to your descendants all these lands and in your seed all the nations of the Earth shall be blessed because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge.
My commandments, my statutes, my laws. God said I chose your descendants because of the actions of your father.
He kept my commandments. He kept my charge, my statutes, my laws. If any people in the Old Testament beginning with Moses,
who recorded these events through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and wrote them down and gave them to Israel,
if anyone in Israel had wanted to know what they needed to do to make sure that the covenant continued through them and to make sure that they were blessed way Abraham was.
All they needed to do was come right here because God said, Here’s what caused me to use Abraham for this.
He kept my charge, my commandments, my statue to my laws. Had Israel wanted to know what it was that they should be doing There it is my charge,
my commandments, my statutes of my laws. And if you go through the entire book of Deuteronomy and the last year of Moses is life,
what you will read over and over and over and over and over again is keep his commandments, keep his statutes,
keep his laws, do what he has told you to do. I love the Lord, thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all my mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
And by the way, Jesus said those two ideas keeping all of God’s statutes, laws, judgments, commandments charges and loving the Lord thy God with all my heart,
with all thy soul with all thy strength with all thy mind and loving thy neighbor’s myself, he said.
Those two things are synonymous. Those two things are on an equal plane because the loving the Lord thy God and loving one another as yourself is the underpinning of all of those commandments,
statues and laws. So if we want to be the Children of Abraham in a spiritual sense, what will we do?
Jesus and John, Chapter eight told the Jews, You aren’t the Children of Abraham. Who did he accuse them of being the Children of the devil?
Now wait a minute. These are Jews, these air direct descendents of Abraham. They are the bloodline of Abraham.
How is it that they could be the Children of the devil, what Jesus accused them of doing, keeping his law?
But he said, I know you’re the Children, the devil, because you do the works off your father.
He was a liar from the beginning, and so are you. He accuses the Jews of being the Children off the one whom they followed the deeds of he tells because this this again,
this is Aaron’s judgment here. But the Jehovah that we read about in Genesis Chapter 18 I firmly believe is Christ.
But he tells Abraham, I know you, that you will charge your descendants to keep my statutes in my judgments on.
Then we read about Abraham that he kept his statutes and judgments, and if Isaac does what Abra him did,
he’ll keep his statutes and judgments. But the Jews in Jesus’s Day, he said, You’re nothing like your father.
You’re nothing like Abraham. You’re just like your father, Satan, because he rejected God from the beginning and continues to to this day just like you now,
because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge. My commandments, mice, Angie to my laws. So Isaac dwelt in G roar and the men of the place asked about his wife and he said,
She is my sister, for he was afraid to say she is my wife because he thought less. The men of the place kill me for Rebecca because she is beautiful to behold because Moses doesn’t write in chronological order.
We don’t know the exact point in time that this happens, but the indication is it is after the death of Abraham,
which means who’s already born Jacob, and it’s all because how old were Jacob? And he saw when Abraham died?
Come on. Abraham died when he was 175 years old. Isaac was born when he was 100 years old.
Isaac was 60 years old when Jacob and Esau were born. 60 subtracted from 170 5 115. Subtract 115.
Okay, so they were born. They were 15 years old when Abraham died. And the indication of all of these statements is Isaac’s now the patriarch,
which means Abraham’s died. Which means Jacob Denise, although they’re not mentioned in this whole account, are a minimum of 15 years old.
And they’re there somewhere in this process. When their father says to the men of the land, She’s my sister.
Yeah, but we were never told, though it’s sure a coincidence if they came up with the same.
Why? But maybe Sarah told him. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t answer that,
but tells the same lie with half the justification. Because at least Abraham was half brother to Sarah. It was a lie.
It was a lot. Yeah, yeah, All right. Either way, here’s the Here’s the problem.
Isaac makes the same mistake Abraham did. He believes the people of the land to be those who didn’t fear the Lord.
And so he feared for himself. When God told Isaac, you stay here, don’t go to Egypt.
God told him, You stay. He should have known he was safe to stay. He should have trusted the Lord turned Proverbs.
Chapter three. We keep going back to this passage because this this passage keeps bringing forward the lesson. We ought to keep learning every time Abraham and Isaac make a mistake.
Proverbs, Chapter three, Beginning of Verse five. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and there’s the key.
There’s the hard one and lean. Not on your own understanding. No one ever said the wise sayings of People are hard are easy to deal with because that one’s not.
We’re taught our entire life. Think through the process. Think through what’s going on. Make sure you make a good choice all of these things that we tell our Children,
which are good things, by the way. But we’re supposed to be reminding them. Think through them according to God’s commandments,
not think through what you do but think through what you do and weigh it against what God says. It’s not enough to weigh it against ourselves.
It’s not enough to weigh it against our wisdom. The wise man says. Stop judging yourself by yourself.
I think another wise person said that, didn’t I? Stop judging yourself by your own wisdom. Start judging yourself by your trust in the Lord and in all your ways.
Acknowledge him and he shall direct your path. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord.
And apart from evil, when you start judging your direction based upon fear of the Lord, and that path is evil,
I’m going to not go that direction. What would Isaac have chosen Toh Lai or not like If he fear the Lord and departed from evil,
he wouldn’t be lying. Now again, we’re emphasizing the fact Isaac’s not perfect. Neither way, Isaac is righteous,
but he’s not perfect. And this is another opportunity when Moses has the ability to emphasize to the Israel lights.
You may be the chosen nation, but they’re something to learn from the people around you. Because here are righteous people who will again,
they won’t rebuke Moses there, Rebuke Isaac as they rebuked Abraham. This is the lesson toe Learn that just because you might think you’re the only righteous person doesn’t mean you are.
We learned in the days of Elijah. Elijah thought. I’m the only faithful one of the Lord and God tells Elijah there 7000 who haven’t about the need to bail.
You think you’re the only one you’re not. So if I don’t hurry up, we’re never gonna get done.
And then nobody’ll have birthdays or cake or ice cream. Now it came to pass that he had been there a long time.
That happens when Moses writes you. You get a lot of detail and then go skip right past whatever,
whatever was going on, it’s, It’s fine, it’s fine. You didn’t need to know that he’s been there a long time.
That’s not a day, not a month. He’s been there a long time. When he had been there,
a long time would have been like the king of the Philistines looked through a window and saw that there was Isaac showing endearment to Rebecca his life.
Then a Bill Malek called Isaac and said, Quite obviously she is your wife. Whatever they were doing,
they wouldn’t have been doing if they were married. Quite obviously she is your wife. So how could you say she is?
My sister, Isaac said to him, Because I said, lest I die on account of her and a bit,
Malek said. What is this you have done to us? One of the people might soon have lain with your wife,
and you would have been you would have bought brought guilt on us. Here’s a nation. Here’s the people who understands the guilt of adultery,
and they’re not descendents of Abraham. And they’re not those who have have been given the law of Moses.
And they already know adultery is wrong and it carries consequences. Guilt, he says. Notice. Yeah,
this there’s a indication, and the answer is, we’re not certain. But there is an indication that a bim elect might be a position and not an individual’s name.
Much like the name Faeroe was so the it could be, it could be that a bit. Malek is the designation of the family of the kings of the Roar as,
and so there very well might be his son. It might be the same one. It might be the same Obama like that that Abraham comes to,
but it very well might be a descendant of his, uh, and not not him, that, you know.
Okay, there was once this guy who came and claimed that his wife was his sister and Nick caused all sorts of trouble.
And by the way, I let him have this land. Yep. Well, anyway, we’ll get to that in a minute.
What is this you have done to us? One of the people might soon have lain with your wife,
and you would have brought guilt on us. Or Dim Elect charged all his people saying he who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.
A bill elect becomes the protector of Isaac, who becomes the protector of Rebecca and noticed. Then Isaac sewed in that land and reaped in the same year.
Ah, hundredfold. And the Lord blessed him. Where have we read about selling and reaping hundredfold in the New Testament,
where we read about the word of God being sold by Christ and some reaped 30 fold and some 60 fold.
Some 100 fold Isaac sos on reefs a hundredfold. What he sos? God said, I’ll bless you.
Then we read. The man began to prosper and continued prospering until he became very prosperous. He was no small account when he got there.
Now he begins farming and becomes more prosperous to the point where he’s exceedingly prosperous. The notice what happens for He had possessions of flocks and possessions,
have herds and a great number of servants. So the Philistine Sze envied him. Now the philistine had stopped up all the wells with which his father servants had dug in the days of Abraham,
his father and they had filled them with Earth and obey. Malek said to Isaac, Go away from us,
for you are much mightier than we. Here’s a nation of Phyllis teens, a city at a minimum,
a city which Abraham had made a covenant with. But the king comes to Isaac and says, You’ve grown so much since you’ve been here.
You need to leave. You’re bigger than we are. One family and his two sons and all their servants have become mightier than an entire city.
Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Is, uh, he got a philistine. Oh, I think the indication is its Phyllis teens of this time based based upon the text,
because that’s what Moses calls them. Um, again, we know this is the land of Phylicia. This is the land that will become the Philistine.
But the indication is the philistine sze of this day are anything like the Philistines of David’s Day. Okay,
so or even the Philistines of the days when Moses is leading Israel out of the land of Egypt and God says,
Don’t don’t go through late the Philistines because you’ll fight, you’ll face war. Okay, So then Isaac departed for 17 and pitched his tent in the valley of gear are and dwelt there.
And Isaac Dougall again, the wells of water that they had dug in the days of Abraham, his father for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham.
He called them by the names which his father had called them. Also, Isaac servants dug in the valley and found a well of running water there.
But the herdsmen of gear are quarreled with Isaac’s herdsman saying the water is ours. So he called the name of the well.
He sick because they quarreled with him. Then they dug another well and they quarreled over that one. So he called its name sitting a and he moved from there and dug another well,
and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name rehab off because he said, For now the Lord has made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land.
Then he went up from there to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him that same night and said,
I am the god of your father, Abraham, do not fear for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for my servant Abraham’s sake.
So he built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. And he pitched his tent there.
And they’re Isaac’s servants. Dug a well. Then of Emelec came to him from gear are and from a who’s at one of his friends and fight call the commander of his army and Isaac said to them,
Why have you come to me since you hate me and have sent me away from you? Then they said we have certainly seen that the Lord is with you.
So we said, Let there now be an oath between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you that you will do us no harm since we have not touched you.
And since we have done nothing to you but good and have sent you away in peace, you are now the blessed of the Lord.
So he made them a feast and they ate and drink. Then 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. And it came to pass the same day that Isaac servants came and told him about the well which he had dug and said to him,
We have found water. So he called it Sheba. Therefore, the name of the city is Behr Sheba.
To this day when he Saul was 40 years old, he took as wives Judith, the daughter of Beer I,
the hit tight and bass math, the daughter of Ellen, The hit tight and they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebecca.
Isaac doesn’t necessarily at least not quickly make the same preparations that Abraham did How old was Isaac when his wife was brought to him by the servant of Abraham for him to marry 40.
How old is he? Saw when he saw Finds his own lives. Authority. Isaac doesn’t make the same preparation that Abraham did,
and it seems like he suffers for it. Actually, it’s clear he suffers for it because the daughters of the hit tights will be a grief to him.
And to Rebecca. You don’t get to always pick your family, and sometimes you get stuck with someone who you wish.
I sure wish I wasn’t related to them. No.