Faith, Fear, and Prosperity || Genesis 26:1-22 || Session 43 || Verse by Verse Bible Study

Ever wondered how ancient promises hold power across generations? Join us in our latest verse by verse Bible study, as we unravel Genesis 26 and witness Isaac's incredible journey marked by divine directives and unwavering promises. Discover why God repeatedly reassures Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of the Abrahamic covenant, and see how these reassurances highlight the unconditional nature of God's promises, even amidst human frailty. You'll learn the profound significance of God's steadfast commitment and gain a deeper understanding of the covenant's timeless relevance. This episode promises rich insights and thought-provoking reflections.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:46

As we reason. Through Genesis we've been following Isaac and his son, jacob and Esau. Well, today we're in Genesis, chapter 26, and we're going to see what happens to Isaac as he stays in the land and runs into some challenges. There's going to be a famine. So let's go ahead and read. Starting in Genesis, chapter 26, says this Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham.

Speaker 1 1:16

So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. The Lord appeared to him and said do not go down to Egypt, stay in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father, abraham. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and will give to your descendants all these lands. And by your descendants, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws. So Isaac lived in Gerar. With this, we're told, there's a famine.

Speaker 1 2:03

The writer of Genesis realizes that the reader might have a question, so he says it's not the same famine as was in the days of Abraham. He goes south towards the king of Bimelech. It says of the Philistines. This was a southernmost area in the land before travelers would go down to Egypt. Then, in verse 2, god appears to Isaac and tells him to not go to Egypt because of the promises that he made to Abraham. In this passage he repeats all three parts of the Abrahamic covenant. So, steve, what are the parts again of the Abrahamic covenant.

Speaker 2 2:43

The three parts of the Abrahamic covenant are I'm going to give you this land and God gives them the boundaries of the land many times. Through your descendants, you're going to become a great nation. And then the third thing is that, through your seed, you're going to be a blessing to all the other nations.

Speaker 1 3:01

If we remember, god appeared to Abraham in a couple of three different chapters, told Abraham about the three parts to this covenant. He repeated it to Abraham. In this chapter he's repeating all three parts to Isaac. The covenant is very, very important and God here again says I will do these things. God is going to repeat these again later to Isaac's son, jacob. We have many times in the book of Genesis God repeating this covenant. Steve, why would he say it so many times? Must be because my thick skull and how many times I need it repeated to me to tell me how many times this is important.

Speaker 2 3:44

I also think it's there to reassure each of these members Abraham Isaac and Jacob and to also reassure the readers that the promises are to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and not to any of the other siblings that we see within the text. Very sure, abraham Isaac and Jacob. That's where the promises come through, that lineage.

Speaker 1 4:07

One of the reasons why we spend so much time back here in Genesis on this Abrahamic covenant is because there's large sections of the rest of the Bible that hinge upon whether the aspects of this Abrahamic covenant are still in place for the nation Israel and how they play out into the Lord Jesus and the church. Where we get into some questions is in this chapter chapter 26, verse 5, because in verse 4, god appears to Isaac and says I will multiply your descendants. He talks about the three parts again verse 5, because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments. Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws. Here we run into a condition, a because Abraham did this. Therefore I'm going to do this to you, isaac. So this brings a question, steve, for our listeners that were with us all this time. We mentioned every time the Scripture said God said I will, I will, I will, especially like in chapter 17, it became crystal clear God says I will do these things. The question now is is Genesis 26, 5 now a condition? Is the Abrahamic covenant conditioned upon Abraham's obedience? Well, here would be my response and I'll ask yours in a second, steve. But even if verse 5 does put on a condition, and I'm going to maintain that it doesn't. But even if it did, what it is saying here is that Isaac is being blessed. God tells him I will bless you because Abraham did obey. What he's telling Isaac here is that, okay, I will give this blessing to you. Abraham obeyed, I'm going to give you this blessing. That's the statement, even if we were to hold that.

Speaker 1 6:04

This 26.5 gives a condition of obedience on Abraham. We can't say he disobeyed Abraham circumcised his son, circumcised his household, sacrificed Isaac. And right here the point God is making to Isaac is I'm going to bless you. It's not the case that he's taking away the covenant because of disobedience. Nowhere in the text does it have any, even here. Doesn't say that. Oh yeah, continued obedience by everybody, that's, ever your descendants, from now through all eternity, especially the Messiah, lord Jesus.

Speaker 1 6:41

If you reject him, I'm going to take away the land promise. It doesn't say that here. It doesn't say it anywhere in Genesis. If you were with us when we went through those passages, say it anywhere in Genesis, if you were with us when we went through those passages. It doesn't say it in the other places, where it reinforces the land promise, even after they disobeyed. He's merely saying I'm going to bless you, isaac, notice what happens. Isaac is heading in the direction where he might go out of the land. God approaches Isaac and stops him and says out of the land. God approaches Isaac and stops him and says Isaac, don't go into Egypt. I'm going to bless you, Stay in the land. That's the thrust of this passage. So, steve, your thoughts.

Speaker 2 7:20

I'll say it again you can't take a unilateral covenant and then later add a condition to it and keep it a unilateral covenant. We've talked about and you said that the Abrahamic covenant was a unilateral covenant that God says I will do this. We're under a unilateral covenant. Expressing faith and belief in God's promises of what Abraham did is not a condition. Our expressing belief and faith in Jesus Christ and the promises of everlasting life that he has provided to us through his death, burial and resurrection, that's not a condition either. And that unilateral covenant is that God says I will give you eternal life. So if you add something to it later of works, you can't have that in a unilateral covenant. Adding it here is not the case. What is it then?

Speaker 2 8:15

I believe that it's a way for God to be expressing to Isaac the responsibility that is carried with the passing down of this covenant. Your father, abraham, kept the statutes, kept my charge, kept my laws, and now it's being passed down to you, isaac. You've got that responsibility too, not in a way that if you don't do it then you're not going to get the blessings, but in a way that here it's coming through you now and at some point you're going to pass it down. That here, it's coming through you now and at some point you're going to pass it down. You need to be at a situation where, just like your father, obey me, keep my charge, my commandments and statutes that I'm going to give to you, stay within the land. That's what he's telling Isaac. So it's all in this context that he comes to Isaac and says don't go down to Egypt, stay in the land and keep my statutes and laws, just like your father did. I think that's the context of what God is talking about Isaac.

Speaker 1 9:21

The reason why we can say that the Abrahamic covenant is unconditional and unilateral on God's part we've said this before is that back in Genesis, 15, 17,. Only God walks between the animals. He puts Abraham to sleep. So it's completely crystal clear Only God is making this promise. And in chapter 17, I will, I will, I will do these things. Therefore, god makes this unilateral covenant. As you just said, steve, he can't come back later and add conditions on it.

Speaker 1 9:54

Therefore, Steve, one of the other reasons that I think it's worth repeating here. Yes, it's because of the land promise to Israel. But the other part of the Abrahamic covenant is that the part through your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. That was unilateral too. Well, the New Testament tells us that that is salvation in Jesus Christ, no less than our. Salvation in Jesus Christ is a promise made by God. Again, Genesis 15, 6,.

Speaker 1 10:26

Abraham believed God. It was counted as righteous. He didn't have to earn his righteousness. If I have to earn my salvation, I'm in trouble, You're in trouble, Can't get there from here. I can't earn enough goodness to pay for a past sin. Jesus can give his life and pay for my sin. Therefore, that is an eternal promise that's made by God unconditionally, that is not dependent on me working hard enough to earn salvation. That is a product of the Abrahamic covenant too. The apostle Paul picks it up in Romans 4 and Ephesians 3. Therefore, a promise of salvation happens because of a unilateral, unconditional promise of God that if we merely but have faith, therefore, we can be saved. Now what?

Lessons From Isaac's Fear and Faith

Speaker 1 11:19

I think the message here is that Abraham Isaac, you're expected to obey. Yes, abraham believed God has counted as righteous, but you're expected to obey. Yes, abraham believed God was counted as righteous, but you're expected to obey. Afterwards, god's giving them commands to do. If they disobey, consequences will follow. Same thing with our salvation. We're saved by grace, through faith. But again, ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10, we're saved through faith, not of works. But it says in Ephesians 2.10, we're saved unto good works. We are saved in order to go out and do good works. So good works are a part of salvation, in the sense that that's what God empowers us to do after we're saved. And if we're not doing those good works, then something is amiss. That is the product of these passages. Moving on in this next section, we're going to start at verse 7 and go down to 11. Steve, if you could read that.

Speaker 2 12:12

When the man of the place asked about his wife, he said she is my sister. For he was afraid to say my wife, thinking the man of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is beautiful. It came about when he had been there a long time that Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out through a window and saw, and behold, isaac was caressing his wife, rebekah. Then Abimelech called Isaac and said Behold, certainly she is your wife. How then did you say she is my sister? And Isaac said to him, because I said I might die on account of her. Abimelech said what is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife and you would have brought guilt upon us. So Abimelech charged all the people, saying he who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

Speaker 1 13:03

With this, isaac commits the same sin and the same lie as his father, abraham Steve. It just floors me that he would do this. It's the same sin and the same lie, committed by the son, that the father committed. What can we learn from that?

Speaker 2 13:22

It's also in the same area before. So you know that this is a story of what happened before with Abraham. Here comes Abraham's son-in-law doing the same thing, and you have the same reaction from Abimelech what is it that you have done? Why is it that you've done this? Maybe it's a story that Isaac heard from his father, abraham, and he decides hey, that's a good thing, my dad did it, maybe it's a good thing for me to do it too. One thing I am seeing, though, glenn, through all of this, is there must have been some type of a custom that if you had a beautiful wife and a king wanted to take that wife, that the husband got killed. Because we see that happens with Abraham. He does it on two occasions. Isaac does it. Here, too. I'm making these lies up because I'm afraid that my wife is so beautiful that when you take her, you're going to kill me. That must have been some sort of a custom or something that happened, because it has obviously caused both Abraham and Isaac to come up with these lies.

Speaker 1 14:26

What I see here is that the sins of the father are followed by the sons. We have the son committing the same sin in the same way as the father. What that tells me, as parents, is that if we don't want our children following in our footsteps, we need to stop the sin now. I need to stop my sin now and you need to stop your sin now because you don't want your children to follow in the footsteps and follow those same sins. I've had in my extended family alcoholism, guess what? The sons tend to become alcoholics when the fathers become alcoholics. That's not always true, but there's a tendency there. Just look around us. Many times, the sins of the parents are followed by the children. If you don't want your son or your daughter to follow in the same sinful footsteps, stop the sin now. How can we do that? Through the power of the Holy Spirit. That's what we don't see here.

Speaker 1 15:30

Is that Isaac praying to God asking okay, god, should I do this with my wife? What do we see with David? Many times in the life of David, god says where should I go next? What should I do next? Should I do this action? And God would guide him in that regard. And he'll guide David, he'll guide you and he'll guide me. The other thing I see here, steve, is that Isaac was afraid as you pointed out must have been some sort of a custom but he was afraid that he would be killed because of his wife. Now, god had already told him that through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. In fact, the passage we just read and the exact preceding verses, and the very next thing he does is he gets afraid that he's going to be killed and cut off. What does fear do to our faith?

Speaker 2 16:27

It causes us sometimes to have a lapse, not in the faith, necessarily, but in our actions and our confidence that God is with us and God knows what's going on.

Speaker 2 16:41

Instead of turning to God in those situations, we tend to turn within ourselves and say I've got to figure some way out of this, I've got to do something. I think part of it's because we're attached to this world. We're here, and I think it does cause a little bit of a lapse from the standpoint of not going to God and trusting that he's going to take care of the situation or at least give you direction as how you should proceed in the situation, or at least give you direction as how you should proceed in the situation. Through these stories and through the things that happen in our life, whenever we take things over and don't let God and see what happens, we should just have confidence, go to God with it. He knows what's happening and let him give us direction. It seems simple, but I think this world has such a hold on us that we want to think that we have to do something.

Speaker 1 17:33

We just saw the exact preceding verses. God came to Isaac, appeared to him and said I'm going to build a great nation from you and through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. His very next action was to be afraid for his life and tell a lie because he was afraid he was going to be killed. That fear caused a sin. Isaac should have recognized that God's going to be with him and God's going to protect him. It's easy for me to sit here and say, isaac, you should have known, you should have had faith, you shouldn't have been afraid.

Speaker 1 18:09

Well, what happens to me when I get into a situation? I know the Bible too, I know what God said, and I get into a situation where now I'm afraid, I tend to fold like a cheap suit. Why, when I've not only had all of what Isaac knew, but all the rest of the scriptures, my faith should be stronger than his? It's not always Times where I have trusted God, even though I was afraid. Then it comes out well. That's the lesson here, my friends, is have faith, stand on the Word of God. If God has truly promised, if you obey him, therefore, blessings will come. Then don't be afraid. Stand on his blessings. There may be some earthly consequences. His life might have gotten threatened by Abimelech, but he wasn't going to be killed because God had already told him that Fear will cause a lack of faith and sin.

Speaker 1 19:02

To me, it's not a power thing that I'm going to somehow screw up enough courage to where now I've got more powerful faith than my fears. I don't see it that way at all. I don't think that's how faith works. I think faith works upon truth. Faith works upon truth. Do I know what's true? If I know what's true, I'm going to walk there. That's my faith. That was what Isaac should have done, and it's what I should do, and it's what you should do.

Speaker 1 19:28

The next thing I see in this that I think we can take a lesson from this, steve, is that we have this pagan king of Bimelech that was worried about adultery and worried about the consequences. He was worried, in verse 10, about the adultery causing guilt upon him, and I find it interesting that a pagan king had more integrity than Isaac did. Isaac was the one who God had appeared to. Isaac was the one who knew the real God. Isaac was the one who should have had integrity, but he didn't. King Abimelech was more concerned about adultery than Isaac was. I find that to be interesting In our day, steve. What should a Christian do about morality, especially sexual morality? If anything, we should be the ones that uphold the integrity, and not the pagan people around us.

Speaker 2 20:23

Yeah, that happens to us. We feel that we need to appease the pagan people around us, so we lower the standards that God has put in place of us as far as morality and we go along with what the pagan people say here. The question is is that Abimelech says you would have brought guilt on us? Well, who is he appealing this guilt to? Because he does put a law down that says whoever is going to touch his wife is going to be put to death. Well, he says there's going to be guilt. He's saying that the guilt is going to come on them from someone.

Isaac's Wealth and Wells

Speaker 2 21:01

I think that this again is something that in his ancestry from before with Abraham, that Abimelech had been visited by God. He knew who Yahweh was. While we don't have an indication here that this Abimelech is a worshiper of God, yahweh I think it would be safe to say he's at least heard the stories of what happened said that Yahweh, god, closed up the wounds of the people. I think that that is something that we could understand. That has been passed down and this is the guilt that this Abimelech is associating with. It's not just something that he's coming up with his own moral standards. He is associating it that there's going to be guilt if this happens. But to follow up finally on your question, we should stick with the morality of God and stand up for it and not let the pagan immorality influence us into a point that we compromise, because when we compromise then we're sending the wrong message to the world. We also need to think about what we're doing when we do that compromising.

Speaker 1 22:10

It's interesting that this ancient pagan king of Bemelech had more morals than modern people who don't think that adultery brings any guilt at all. My friends, it's a tremendous guilt. It needs to be driven out of our lives and out of the lives of people in our churches. Let's move on to the next passage, starting in verse 12. Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold and the Lord blessed him. And the man became rich and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy, for he had possessions of flocks and herds and great household, so that the Philistines envied him.

Speaker 1 22:50

Now, all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham, his father, the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth. Then Abimelech said to Isaac Go away from us, for you are too powerful for us. And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar and settled there. Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father, abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham and he gave them the same names which his father had given them. But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing water. The herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying the water is ours. So he named the well Essek because they contended with him. Then they dug another well and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Sitna. He moved away from there and dug another well and they did not quarrel over it, so he.

Speaker 1 23:49

So Isaac, goes to the land, he plants crops, and the Philistines got jealous of him because Isaac's crops were much greater than theirs. He got very, very wealthy. God's hand of blessing is upon Isaac. Isaac had these great, great harvests and became very, very wealthy. Now what I see here, steve, is that the Philistines in the same area had some sort of envy or jealousy over it. Repeatedly, isaac's wealth caused some sort of envy until the Philistines went and poured dirt down his wells to stop him up. If you have dirt then you can't water your flocks. What emotion does the Philistines have here, and why is it a?

Speaker 2 24:42

problem. The emotion is just that. It's an emotional response. This is happening when there's a famine in the land. That's how this whole thing started. To send Isaac down to that area. God comes to Isaac, says stay in the land, I'm going to bless you. Isaac stays in the land. Guess what? God blesses him. Now this has caused this strife between the other people because presumably this famine is still going on.

Speaker 2 25:09

There's this dynamic that is happening here, where you have somebody that is staying with God, trusting him in such a way that God is then blessing him, but the outside forces are getting jealous of that to a point that they're just getting mad at him and want to try and stop everything that's going on. I think sometimes it's just like the things that happen to us today. We express our belief and faith in Jesus Christ, we go about our business and maybe we find some blessing that comes along our way. Then the lost people, the unbelievers they want to come along and just put wrenches into the gears of our life because they're jealous. They just can't stand it to see this person that is getting blessed not just that they're getting blessed, but because they give their credit for being blessed to Jesus Christ that for some reason just seems to stick in the craw of unbelievers to where they can't stand it and they have to take action, to do something to disrupt a believer's life sometimes.

Speaker 1 26:19

We see here that the Philistines were envious and envy can cause great problems. It can cause great sins because of envy. There's no indication here that Isaac getting very wealthy caused any problems to the Philistines. That's not recorded in here anywhere. All the Philistines were just doing as they always did but they saw Isaac getting very, very wealthy, being blessed.

Speaker 1 26:47

That made them envy. If they hadn't seen Isaac, they would have had the same amount of money and flocks as they had before. They just saw somebody else that had more and got envious. Sometimes our leaders play on that emotion and try to get us to be envious. It causes dissensions in families, causes dissensions in countries. Just because somebody else has more than me doesn't mean I should be envious of them, because we don't always know what goes on in their private lives.

Speaker 1 27:16

The Philistines were so envious that they came and filled the wells of Isaac. Now the well, of course, was the water wells, and water is life. Isaac goes and then re-digs the old well so that he could have the source of life again. Isaac wanted to go back to the time when his father, Abraham, was there and the life was there. Somebody had come along. The enemy had come along and taken away the life. Isaac wanted to return to the time when there was life.

Speaker 1 27:49

And, Steve, I think we can make that application in our lives. The Word of God is the water of life. The Word of God is what brings life. Our ancestors had the Word of God. The enemy has come along and filled in our wells and taken away the source of life. I think we should go back and re-dig some of the old wells. We should go back ourselves and find what our Christian ancestors knew about the Word of God and learn from them and re-tap into those sources of life Because, again, the Word of God is the water of life. If we go back, some of us should go back and re-dig some of the old wells and give them the same names and follow in our ancestors' footsteps.

Speaker 1 28:35

The other thing I see here, Steve, is that Isaac moves on and digs another well and they follow him and fight. He moves on and he keeps going until they're not fighting. He Isaac was very passive in this. He wasn't aggressive. He didn't take out swords and kill the Philistines. King David wouldn't have just kept moving. No doubt what David would have done. You wouldn't have taken David's well twice. You wouldn't have filled it in twice. You would have learned real quick what would have happened if you go fill in King David's wells. But Isaac has a very different approach. Isaac was quite wealthy by this point. Why would he fight over a well? Let's just move and I'll move again until there's no fight. I submit Isaac, in this sense, was a very spiritual man. He knew that he had enough. Why should I fight, why should I quibble over these things when I can just move and solve the problem? I think there's a desire on Isaac's part to not be contentious with people, and I think that's commendable to him.

Speaker 2 29:39

You think that he finally has realized that God is blessing him because he is doing what God wants him to do. Therefore, he doesn't need to be contentious with the people. I think you're right on that. He says I'm just going to move on and dig wells somewhere else, I'm going to let God handle it. If anything else, I'm going to not be contentious. I think that's a good insight you have there.

Speaker 1 30:04

Isaac knew that it was more noble to move on and not fight over these things than it is to stay and fight over something that, in the grand scheme of things again, he was very wealthy at this point he didn't really really need those wells to survive. Instead of being contentious and argumentative, he's a man of peace. I get the impression here that he's a man of stable faith. He's calm, he doesn't get incensed, he doesn't get angry. Angry people that want to fight all the time end up driving people away and end up making more enemies and end up with a shorter life simply because the anger gets the best of them. I think we can learn from Isaac here that there's a time to back away and not quarrel and just move on and be a man of peace and not a man of war. I think we could all learn from that.

Speaker 1 30:59

God says in the New Testament that it's better for Christians to allow ourselves to be cheated than to go to court against a Christian brother. He says that in 1 Corinthians 6-7. Sometimes it's best to allow ourselves to be taken advantage of rather than quarrel with somebody. In this case, that was one of them. I just find this to be a very spiritual thing that Isaac did.

Speaker 2 31:24

Yeah, I think he's letting God handle it, because he can handle it much better than we can.

Speaker 1 31:29

We'll stop there for today. We're out of time. We'll pick up next time, as we continue to reason through the book of Genesis.

Speaker 2 31:35

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.