tonight, and it's been almost a month since we were in Genesis, coming through Christmas, and I think, yeah, I think it was like the 4th or the 14th or something was the last time we were there. And so we continue our journey tonight. The last half of Genesis 26 is what we'll be looking at this evening. Genesis 26. Let's all stand together and we'll begin reading down in verse number 17. Genesis 26. And begin reading down in verse 17 down through the end of the chapter. The Bible says, And Isaac departed thence and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there. And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father. For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham, and had called their names after the names by which his father had called them. And Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water. And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdmen, saying, The water is ours. And he called the name of the well Isik, because they strove with him. And they digged another well and strove for that also, and he called the name of it Sitna. And he removed from tents and digged another well, and for that they strove not, and he called the name of it Rehoboth. And he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. And he went up from thence to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father. Fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants digged a well. Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Huzab, one of his friends, and Phicol, the chief captain of his army. And Isaac said unto him, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you? And they said, We saw certainly that the Lord was with thee, and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even between us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee. that thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace. the blessed of the Lord. And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. And they rose up at times of the morning, and swore one to another. And Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. And it came to pass the same day that Isaac's servants came and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water. And he called it Sheba. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day. And Esau was 40 years old when he took to wife Judith, the daughter of Berai, the Hittite, and Bashamath, the daughter of Elam, the Hittite, which were a grief of mine unto Isaac and to Rebekah." Let's pray. Father, we love You tonight. Again, thank You for the truth of Thy Word. Father, speak to our heart. Teach us, Father. Guide our minds, our hearts, our footsteps, our hands, Lord, that we may honor You in all that we do. For it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. You may be seated now. Thank you so much for standing. I just simply titled our study, Does Anyone Dig Another Well? I remember a number of years ago, I guess probably when Angs and I were married, Right around that time, maybe a year or two before or right after, I heard a song. I don't even remember how all the song went. I just remember the title or the first little phrase. It was, pick up a shovel and dig another well. And I'm like, I wonder what that means. And I understood there was a Christian singer and he was talking about this passage of Scripture, though I didn't connect the two that much at the time. But here we have Isaac. And Jacob, they've had one of their final encounters, one of those in the early part of this chapter. And now Isaac's on his way, and he heads toward the city of Gerar. Now, geographically, Gerar would be in the southern part of Israel today. It was at that time in the land of Philistia, or where the Philistines were, it would be east-southeast from Jerusalem. Isaac's journey for a well took him from the regions of Gerar there in Philistia, going eastward toward the Negev and ultimately to Beersheba. Beersheba is south-southeast from Hebron and Jerusalem, west of the southern part of the Dead Sea. So if you're familiar with looking at a map of Israel, and you know where the Dead Sea, you've got the Sea of Galilee, the two big bodies of water, and then down below that, the big portion of the Dead Sea, this region is going to be due east. of the Dead Sea. When Isaac begins this portion of his journey, he's in the region of Gerar, G-E-R-A-R, and that was sort of in land claimed or settled by the Philistines. And a lot of those cities would run north and south along that area. But as you move east from there, you're moving into more of what would later become part of Judah as far as the southern tribes of Israel. But I want you to notice something. The first thing we see in this text, there are about three or four things that I want us to notice tonight. And a lot of them are just locations. The first two or three are locations. The first are the wells. Now again, of course, Isaac's going to be a herdsman, as Abraham his father was. So they're always looking for grazing land and for water. And where there were no springs or streams, they would have to dig a well. And so now Isaac, he's heading back into very familiar territory, and we'll see that in just a moment, but he starts to dig the wells that his father had dug. Notice verse 17 and 18 back here in chapter 26. It said, And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father. for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham." Now, we don't know exactly why they stopped them. There are two very probable options, one or the other. Either they didn't want Abraham and his family coming back in, so they just filled them full of rocks. Or they weren't settling that area yet and they just didn't want anybody coming in there. And if you find water, you know, you can settle. So they would stop up the mouths of these wells with stone so that people would not have easy access to water and you would literally just have to move on. Well, Isaac's familiar with this area. He knows where those wells were. And so when Isaac begins to come, if I can say it this way, when he's coming back home, he begins to re-dig the wells of water that his father Doug. I touched on it a little bit this morning, but a rewriting of history and redefining of things, part of destroying, and it can be a nation, but it's also the same within the church and among believers, is trying to erase the memory of who we are and where we've come from. Sometimes it's by disfaming or demeaning or trying to destroy those who've gone before us as if they are known more by their faults than their successes. I say that for this reason that we all have faults and failures. I hope we all realize that. There are none of us who will ever look in the mirror and see perfection looking back at us. We all have issues of our present and our past we have to deal with. But I notice a beautiful thing when you come to the Word of God, and God gives us literally a clear portrait of man. I mean, we see David, a man after God's own heart, and yet God doesn't stop there. He tells us David's whole story. He tells us of David's great faith, of David's journeys, of David's victories, of David's battles, of David's faithfulness, of David's honoring King Saul even when Saul wanted to kill him. And we can stop there, but God doesn't stop there. God continues to tell David's story. And it tells how David rose to be king and how God blessed him as the greatest king in the nation of Israel. And then it tells how he failed and how he faltered and how he stayed whole when kings go out to battle and what happened when he fell into sin and those things and the consequences on his own family and his own life and the nation. What are you saying? God gives us the whole picture. whether it be Moses, whether it be David, whether it be Noah, on down the line, God always gives us the whole picture. But here's what I want you to see, when you come to the New Testament, when you come to the New Testament, you come to the Hall of Faith, in the Hebrews chapter 11, all God talks about is their faith. He talks about Noah, how a great man of faith and how he preached and how he built the ark and how he did what God wanted him to do. God not one time in that reference talks about how Noah stumbled and faltered and how he had the issue with the fruit of the vine and was drunken. God doesn't even mention that in the New Testament in Hebrews 11. He just talks about his faith. It doesn't mean that it's not there. It's in the book. God records it. But when God recalls Him for us, He doesn't want to recall for us His failures. He wants to recall for us His faith. By the way, that is a very healthy pattern for us as God's children. You'll never find a man or woman that doesn't have a fault or a failure. And there's the understanding of that. In the story of our lives, that's a part of the story. But what we need to draw strength from is their faith. What we need to draw strength from is what God did in their lives, how God used them, etc., etc. That's what strengthens us. That's what encourages us. It never encourages us to reminisce about Benedict Arnold. You know what I'm saying? And yet he was very close to being an American hero, but he made a really bad choice and all of a sudden became the traitor that everybody said, you're a Benedict Arnold. I mean, his name became synonymous with treachery. But when we remember one another, when we remember those that have gone before us, Isaac doesn't reminisce on the failures of Abraham, and he had his faults. He just tries to go back and dig the wells of water that his father dug. He wanted to re-establish. He wanted to just get back to his roots of faith and the promises of God. And so here in these first couple of verses, verse 17 and 18, he starts finding those wells, the wells that Abraham dug. And I like what it says here. It says in the end of verse 18, And called their names after the names by which his father had called them. He didn't need to rename them. His father had named them. He was going to call them the names by which his father had called them. But not only did he find those wells, but verse 19 through 21 tells us he had some issues there. He was finding those wells, he was uncovering the wells, he was going to rename the wells just what his dad had named them. But then all of a sudden, verse 19 comes. Isaac's servants digged in the valley and found there a well of spring and water, and the herdmen of Gerard, remember these are Philistines, did strive with Isaac's herdmen, saying, the water is ours. That's not good. when you're in another man's land. And again, you can go back and we'll reference that in a few minutes. Back in chapter 21, there had already been a peace treaty made, if you will, between Abraham and the earlier Abimelech or king of that land. And it should have already been a settled deal. Those were Abraham's wells, and by inheritance, those were Isaac's wells, but they're still in the land of the Philistines. So here comes these herdsmen of Gerar and they start fussing and fighting and arguing over those wells that Isaac could have said, no, these are my wells, we're going to have at it right here. But he didn't. The Bible said, they told him the water's hours, middle of verse 20, and he called the name of the well Esed because they strove with him. The word Esed means contention. Many have defined it as the quarrel well. Can I tell you, the coral well is not where you want to dwell. It's just not. It's not a place of peace. The sheep aren't going to be watered. They're not going to be fed. And so you know what Isaac does? He said, that's all right. You can have it. I'll pick up my shovel and go dig another well. And that's what he does. His herdman, he names it the quarrel well or contention, but they just picked up their shovel and had to dig another. Verse 21, and they digged another well and strove for that also. And he called the name of it sentna. The word sentna means adversary or enemy or opposer or persecutor. or strife, that's what the word means. And so he names it that, again, because that was his experience. That was what happened at that well. But you know what he did? He didn't quit. He didn't give up. He just picked up the shovel. Guess what? He dug another well. He just kept digging. He kept pursuing God's blessing. He knew eventually they'd get tired of fussing if he just kept digging. They'd get tired of fussing. Finally, look at verse number 22. He found those wells of his father, verse 17 and 18, but the enemy, the Philistines fought for those wells and he named them correctly. Quarrel well and the adversary well or contention. But finally God gives him peace in verse 22, the Bible said, and he removed from fence. and digged another well, and for that they strove not." I was going to say, I'd put hallelujah right there. But he said, and he called the name of it Rehoboth, which means open or broad spaces. He named it Rehoboth, and he said, for now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. You know, a lot of times that's the way life happens. You know, you make progress, you start making headway, and then adversity comes. And you're like, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not why I dug the well. You want the well, have the well. I'll go dig another well. And so you just go start again. And you dig another well. And you get going. You're like, man, praise the Lord. We're going to have another well here. But then along comes the adversary. And again, just fussing and quarreling. It's like, that's all right. I'll go pick up a shovel and dig another well. Eventually, you're going to find the space. Eventually, you're going to find the place. But it's faith. It's trusting God. It's just depending on God to lead and to guide. Finally, God gave Isaac and his herdman peace. And then, finally, once peace has come, we see these. So let me just give you this. We're going to hit verse 23 through verse 25. So principles. When I read those verses, verse 17 down through verse number 22, there are three things that just jumped out at me. I'm going to give them to you. We're going to keep moving. Number one, never stop digging. Just never stop digging. I'm just hearing that song in the back of my mind. Me and Olak have a lot in common. And the Lord blessed me with a beautiful woman. He gave me a house, he gave me a home, and all those kind of things. And that little song, that's from a long time ago. I'm hearing this song playing back in my head. But he talked about the adversary and how he'll come fill up your wells, how he'll come and cause problems and try to discourage you. He said, but you can't quit. I mean, the gist of the song is you just can't quit. You just got to pick up the shovel and dig another well. Pick up the shovel and dig another well. What do we learn? We never stop digging. We never stopped digging. Second, we never stopped trusting. Isaac kept digging and his servants kept digging because they knew they could find water. God would make a way. God would show them a place where they could find water. Never stopped digging. Never stopped trusting God and never stopped believing. Never stopped believing. We're going to come back in verse 23. Flip over to verse 33, I believe it is. 32. Yeah, verse number 32. Now, we're going to come back and deal with these verses right before this, but I want you to notice what happens. Now, Isaac is going to have a conversation with the king there of that region and some of his men, but when they finish their business in verse number 31, the Bible says in verse 32, and it came to pass the same day that Isaac's servants came and told him concerning the well which they had digged and said unto him, guess what? We found water. Amen. We have found water. And He called it Sheba, therefore the name of the city is Beersheba, unto this day. We finally found water. Well, how did they find water? Because they wouldn't quit. They wouldn't quit. They just kept picking up the shovel and digging another well. They never stopped digging. They never stopped trusting. They never stopped believing that God was going to make a way. that God was going to make a way. And so we see God bless that faithfulness. God always blesses faithfulness, church. You try to serve the Lord, I'm just telling you, you're going to face adversity. It's just part of it. I've often described it this way, you know, if you're a fish swimming downstream, you're just going with the flow. I mean, that's the way everything's going. Everybody's going, man, it's all good. But you trust Christ as your Savior and you turn upstream, And you start going contrary to the flow. Everybody looks at you like, where are you going? You're like, I'm going the right way. What are you doing? You're like, I'm following the Lord. They don't understand it. Why? Because everything's going the other direction. So what do you do? You just keep swimming. You just keep doing what God's told you to do. You just keep trusting the Lord. And God blesses that. That's throughout the Scripture. You just keep trusting the Lord. And so we see the principle of the well. But second, not only do we see the well, but look in verse 23-25, we not only see the well, but all of a sudden we see the altar. We see the altar. Remember I mentioned at the beginning of this study tonight that this was a familiar place to Isaac. This was not a new place for him. This was a place where they spent time as a family. Brother Morris says this in his book called the Genesis Record. He said years ago, Abraham had made a covenant with the Philistines at Beersheba. It was called, and that's what the name means, it's the Well of Covenant, or the Well of Seven. And he built there an altar, Abraham did, in this exact same place where Isaac's going to build an altar. You read that story back in Genesis 21, verse 32 through verse 34. There too, Isaac himself had lived after the sacrifice on Mount Moriah. You see that in chapter 22 of Genesis, verse 19. In other words, when they came from Mount Moriah where Abraham took Isaac to offer him, you know where they went when they came down? They went to Beersheba. I mean, this was a special place in the life of Isaac. He had been there with his dad on some very, very special occasions, and especially that time coming off Mount Moriah when he was laid down to be the sacrifice that God had demanded. He's remembering. He's remembering the goodness of God. He's remembering the promises of God. And so, his pursuit of digging these wells has led him back to Beersheba. Well, what does he do when he gets there? Verse 23, remember, the well of water hasn't sprung up yet. That's in verse 32. But he goes to Beersheba in verse number 23, And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father. Fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for My servant Abraham's sake. What happened at the altar? God spoke to him at the altar. What did God say? God told him, I am. He said, I am. Notice what he says there. I am the God of Abraham. He says more than who he is. He says, fear not, the second thing. And thirdly, he says, I am with thee. This was a very sacred place and a very special place to Isaac. It's a place he had met with God before. It's a place he had seen his father worship God before. So now he's come back there himself. He's now the father. Abraham's gone. What happens when he gets there? God speaks to him just as He did Abraham. So He says, I'll bless thee. He says, I'll multiply thee. And then Isaac builds the altar. And he went up from thence to Beersheba, and the Lord appeared to him, I'm back down in verse 24, and told him, I am the God of Abraham, my father, if you're not, I'm with thee, I'll bless thee, multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. And then Isaac, the Bible said, verse 25, and he, Isaac, built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there, and there Isaac's servants digged a well. What did he do? Well, when God spoke to him in this place, a familiar place, a place he had seen God meet with him before, he built an altar. And three things, I want you to notice what he did in this verse. Three things in verse 25. He built. And when he built that altar, he called on the name of the Lord. He pitched his tent. That means he planned on staying there for a while. And Isaac's servants digged a well. They dug. He called, they pitched, and he dug. I said, what do you mean, preacher? Well, let me give it to you this way. The Word of God, verse 24, led them to worship. It led them to worship. He built the altar. He called upon the name of the Lord. But worship led them to work. Worship led them to work. There's a lot of emphasis today on worship, worship, worship, worship, and I'm all for worship. but true biblical worship will do two things. Number one, it'll bring you to a place of humility before God, realizing how awesome our God is and how wonderful He is, but it will also move you to work. It'll make you want to do something. I remember at 21, I was saved as a nine-year-old boy, but I remember at 21 when I just really dedicated my life to the Lord and a lot of things happened in that period of time in my life. But I remember the closer I got to God, the more I wanted to do. I mean, you just couldn't throw it up at me. I mean, we just, my wife and I both, I mean, whatever, whatever you ask us to do, it didn't matter what it was. I mean, we were teaching a Sunday school college and career class. We were working with the teenagers, helping the youth directors and just being assistants. And we always ended up taking care of babies. That's what we always did. I don't know why. We've always taken care of kids. I mean, from the time we were teenagers. If there were kids around, we took care of them. I don't know. That's why we love you kids back there. It's just part of our DNA. We just love kids. But we just love doing. And at mission trips, we're going. We're out. We're going. We're going to do it. If it's going out, knocking on doors, if it's passing out tracts at a fair locally, you just couldn't give us enough to do. Why? Because we realized who God was. And God was more and more real to us. And our worship of Him, our worship of Him drove us to want to do more for Him. And that's what we see here in Isaac. Isaac, God speaks to him. The Word of God comes to him. But that Word causes him to want to worship. The Word of God made him want to worship, but the more he worshipped God, the more he wanted to do. And so he pitched his tent, he settled down there, and they started digging another well. Remember, he's already had two fights over wells not long ago. But what does he do? When he gets the Word and he starts worshipping, he just starts digging another well. That's the way it works. You feed your soul on the Word of God and you start worshipping the God of the Word. There's just something about it that helps you overcome the adversity. It helps you rise above the trials and difficulties and challenges that life throws at you. And you're just like, it's ok. God's got this. It's going to be alright. Let's just keep doing what God's given us to do. That's what we see in the life of Isaac. He just starts worshipping God. He builds that altar where his father built the altar. He's praying and worshiping the Lord. And so we see the wells and how God worked in His life at the wells. We see the altar and what God did in Isaac's life at the altar. But then thirdly, I want us to see the oath. Notice, if you will, verse 26-31, we see the oath. Then Abimelech went to him from Gerard. Abimelech is really a title of the king there because you see the same title with Abraham back in chapter 21. And Uzziah, one of his friends, and Phicol, the chief captain of his army. Again, Phicol would have been another title, not necessarily a name, but a title. And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you? Like, all you've done is caused me trouble, and you ran me out of your land. Because by now, his progression from Gerar toward Beersheba, he's now moved from really inside Philistia, he's now over outside of sort of their jurisdiction where they had settled. He's now more in what we would know as the Negev region, which is in southern Israel, and a region that will be Judah eventually, when you see the two divided kingdoms. He's like, why are you coming to me now? You hate me. You ran me off. You caused me all sorts of trouble. And so they said in verse 28, we saw certainly that the Lord was with thee. Wow. I want you to think about what they are saying. We saw the Lord was with thee. You ran me off from everywhere I stopped. Your herdsmen wouldn't let me settle anywhere. And they said, but we saw the Lord was with you. We sometimes think the Lord is only seen in our victories. No. The Lord is seen in our faithfulness. whether it's victories or battles or challenges. It's not the absence of adversity that reveals the grace of God. It is actually the presence of adversity that God pours His grace on us and through us that allows others to say, how are you doing that? Why are you still carrying on? Because no one should be doing that because the Lord's with me. It's not because of who I am. It's not because of anything. But God's with me. And God strengthens me. And God gives me grace. That's why I pick up the shovel and dig another well. It's not because it wasn't frustrating. It's not because it was bothersome that that was our well, but you wanted to cause a stir or a stink over it. He said, but hey, I'll just pick up the shovel and dig another well. And the king, the leader, he said, we saw that God was with you. We saw Him in your faithfulness. We saw Him in your digging. We saw in how God blessed you through all those events. We saw certainly, verse 28, that the Lord was with thee, and we said, let there be now an oath between us, even between us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee. We've determined this. God's with you, and so we want to be on your side. God has blessed you. You faced hindrance after hindrance after hindrance, but you just don't stop. And God has blessed your faithfulness. And we want to make a covenant with you. By the way, at this point, Isaac's herds, I mean, herds, they're growing. God's blessing and making them fruitful and multiplying them. And they said, well, we want you to be our friend. That's what they're saying. Verse 29, that thou wilt do us no hurt as we have not touched thee. They just said, we didn't physically attack you. We haven't touched you. And as we have done unto thee nothing but good, that would be debatable. But that's sort of the way the adversary talks sometimes. Thou art now the blessed of the Lord. And He made them a feast and they did eat and drink. Whoa, whoa, whoa. These are the guys who have been hounding Him for months. And you know what Isaac does? He fixes them supper and says, let's sit on that table. Why? Because God was good. And God had watched over him and God had preserved him and God had cared for him. And it was God who he was seeking to honor. He knew all that they had done. You see that in his first response. You hated me and ran me out. Why are you here? They said, we see that God's on you. God's blessed you. God's with you. And we acknowledge that. So we want to be friends. We want to get along. We want to make a covenant, a compact together, if you will. And so he says, alright, sounds good to me. And so they make a feast and they eat and drink. Verse 31, they rose up big times in the morning and swear one to another. In other words, they made their covenant, made their oath, and I said, send them away. And they departed from him. in peace. Again, notice how God's working. It starts, He's wanting to do right. He's wanting to re-dig those wells His Father dug and rename them what? That He named them because this is the place of God's blessing. And what happens when He starts doing right, He faces adversity. But He don't quit. He just picks up the shovel and He digs another well. And He picks up the shovel and He digs another well. He just keeps doing what God has given Him to do. And God blessed Him for it. God blessed Him. God blessed him. How did He bless him? He gave him strength. He gave him wisdom. He gave him direction. He gave him great servants to keep digging. And eventually, God gave him water. God gave him peace. And then God gave him water. Notice now that pact has been made. It was after that pact is made. Look in verse 32. His servants come in in the middle of verse 32 and told him concerning the well which they had digged and said unto him, We have found water. I find it very interesting that they found water after Isaac made peace with those Philistines who had been causing him so much trouble. Isaac had every right, if we want to look at it from a very selfish human perspective, to be open to those guys and say, you've done nothing but cause me trouble. Get out of my face and go home. I don't want peace with you. I don't want nothing to do with you. And from our perspective, humanly speaking, he probably just would have said, I'm going to kill them all for you. But Isaac said, no, no, no, no, no, no. He said, God is my Lord, and I'm serving Him. I'm honoring Him in what I do. You've done nothing but cause me trouble, but I'm here to do nothing but give you blessing. I'm here to give you blessing. I'm here to show you the power and the goodness of my God." So he says, if you want peace, then great. That's what I want. I want peace. He said, let's have a meal. Come on in, sit down. They eat a biscuit or whatever. My dad would have to have a biscuit. You know, if they're going to eat, you've got to have biscuits and a piece of meat and something to drink. And when that was done and they left, His servants come in and they said, guess what? We got water. We got water. We got water. It's amazing how God works in our lives sometimes. Sometimes He wants to bring us to a point of dying to self and just reflecting Him to those who don't deserve it. By the way, when we love those who deserve it, that's not reflecting God. The world does that. Reflecting God is when you do good to those who don't like it all. You say, well, I can't do that. I can't either, but God does. But God commended His love toward us, and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's a God love. And so when we exhibit that kind of kindness and care to those who show us none in return, that's when we're truly showing the Calvary love of Jesus. And so as he showed that love to him, all of a sudden, boom! We got water in the well! I don't think it was lost on Isaac what had just transpired. The Word came. He worshiped. He said, Lord, we're just going to keep on working. And when he did, here comes the guy who had been causing him all the trouble and said, hey, I want to make peace. God's blessing you. Let's be friends. And so he just, all right, let's be friends. And all of a sudden, a well filled with water. And then what happens? And I'm done. We see the wells, we see the altar, we see the oath, but really verse 34 and 35, and it's going to pull in more into chapter 27, Lord willing, probably next week. It really is the introduction of where we're getting ready to head. The Bible talks about the family, or the grief. I simply called it the wells, the altar, the oath, and the grief. Verse 34 and 35. And Esau was 40 years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Berei and the Hittite, and Bathsheba the daughter of Elan the Hittite. I thought this was a crazy way to end the chapter. Which were a grief of mine to Isaac and to Rebekah. That's not good. Say, what in the world did you get from that? Well, two things that I've done tonight. Number one, the importance of family. That verse begins, verse 34, and Esau. That's family. The importance of family. And Esau. There's some people, Brother Brent, we can disconnect from. They're not family. They're just acquaintances. They're co-workers. There's no real deep connection. But when it comes to family, we're stuck. I feel sorry for my dad because I'm always going to be his son. He can't stop it. Oh, goodness. But family is important, and it is. I know in our life in ministry, Family has been essential for us. I've seen a lot of men in my lifetime give their life to the ministry and lose their families. And in the process lose their ministries. Because the greatest testimony of your ministry is your family. And so even great preachers, great pastors, great missionaries, great evangelists, who were so devoted to the work and lost their family. I don't know a man's heart, but I know my own. If I thought I was going to lose my family for the ministry, I'd do something else. And I don't mean that in an unkind way. I want to do what God wants me to do. But God gave me my family first. When you read the Scriptures, God instituted the family first, human government, the church, and all of them had their place. They all had their place, but the family was first. I've said this laughingly but very honestly and truly, the minister we had back in North Carolina, God blessed in so many ways and those kinds of things and the vision God gave us and what he did. I was laughing talking to Charlie before about driving. You know, we drive 20 minutes to get here. We don't drive an hour. We just drive 20 minutes to get here. And he's like, man, you've got a long ways to drive. I said, that's pretty short. I said, most of my life I've driven 30 minutes. to church when I was a youth pastor. It's 30 minutes away. When I pastored nearly 20 years, it was 30 minutes away. I said, so 20 minutes is close. It's just right down the road. But in all those years and how God blessed that ministry, I honestly, in my heart, a lot of that had to do with my family, my wife and my kids. I have a lot of wonderful memories of our young people in that church. And we had a lot of young couples and older couples, middle-aged couples. But always challenging those young people. And Gideon would remember, because he was just a little smaller, smaller version in those days. But I mean, they would pack out, the young men would pack out the front rows. I mean, they'd be pushing over to get their little backsides in there to sit on the front row of the church. I've been in church for 53 years now. I'm 53 years old, and I don't know that I've ever been in a church where young men, you know, teenagers, preteens all the way up through their late teens and almost into their 20s, fight to get to sit on the front row of a church. And it just don't happen. It just don't happen. They may fight for the back row, but they don't ever fight for the front row. But God blessed. You say, preacher man, they must have liked your preaching. No, they like my voice. They loved my boys. They had great respect for my sons. Who were their peers? Who were their likes? And my boys loved to sit on the front row. Not that they had an option, but they loved sitting on the front row. And they loved serving God. They loved singing. And it infected those other young men. It was the same with my daughters as they started getting older. Of course, we left before they got too far on that trail. But it was my family. It was my family impacting those young people. They all wouldn't come in and hover. Oh preacher, oh preacher. No, no, no. They were around my kids. It was my family. But for me, my family is my ministry. It's how I expand myself. It's how I minister to people. I minister to my family. And they minister to the others around us. And God will give me specific people that I minister to. But if you're going to minister to the people, then you've got to minister to your family. In fact, I make this statement when I went on the mountain. I said, I love you. I said, I'll be there anytime you need me. You call me day or night. And they did sometimes. Often, but sometimes. And I love it. That's my life. That's what I love doing. I said, but I'll tell you this. I said, I'll never sacrifice my family for you. I'm just not. And I don't mean that in an unkind way. I'm just saying they're my ministry. They're my front line. They're my first. If I had lost my family, if my boys hated that ministry and distrusted everybody on the pews, my ministry's done. It's over. But my kids loved everybody in that church. So what in the world did you tell them? I didn't tell them nothing. Except I loved the people in the church, that's what I told them. There were tons of things that happened in that ministry that were hard, that were hurtful, that were a challenge sometimes. For me to deal with, and my wife, and dealing with the people and personalities, they were hard things. But my kids never knew that. All they knew was to love me. Family is important. But the second thing we see in I'm done, not only is the importance of family and Esau, because Esau is part of the mix here. But we see the importance of marriage, who you marry. And I got three more in the wings that ain't quite there yet, and I'm trying to slow them down. But anyway, good grief. Abigail's 19, will be 20 this year. She's hating it with a passion. She wants to be 13. No, she loves being 19, going to be 20. But she's like, Dad, I have too much responsibility. I just want to get a kid at home. That's good. That's good. She's going to hit 20. Gideon's going to hit 19. Lydia will be 17 here in a month or so. I'm going to get in trouble for saying all this and their mama talking about this thing. But I know in the next 30 years, they're probably going to get married at some point. Oh my goodness. That's critical. That's huge. Who do they marry? It's not, oh, they're in love. I'm like, OK, all right. But who are they? Who are they? Where are they going in life? Are they going where I want my son, my daughter to go? But they love them. I don't care. Where are they going? Are they saved? Do they love God? Do they have a desire to just do what God wants them to do? They don't have to be missionaries. They don't have to be preachers. Especially the woman. They don't have to be exactly who... They don't have to be all... No. Do they love God? Do they have a passion for God? Do they have a humble heart and a humble spirit? Those are the keys. Because who you marry is huge. Who you marry is huge. And I think of these three little ones back there, and they're not little. They're phew. You're going to turn around and look twice, Jane. You're going to be looking at some of them eyeball to eyeball. You know that, and I do too. And you're going to shake your head and say, where'd time go? What happened? Whoa! You're going to be talking about taking J.W. hunting in a few years. J.W. is going to be helping you up the hill. Come on, Dad. Let's go. But as much as loving and raising those kids is vital, and it is your primary mission, who they marry is equally as important. That God would give these precious girls a godly man, a God-fearing man, who will love God and love them. A young lady who will love and honor And I went, wow. But I remember when I was looking down the road, he's just a little toad on the front road. But who they marry is so important. And what we find here in Esau, there was always friction there. There was always some issues. But Esau chose to marry two young ladies, error one, both of which had no interest in the God that he was supposed to serve. And the Bible says both of those relationships were a grief unto his mom and dad. I'm just telling you, that ain't the way to go. And so we need to pray. I pray for Luke. If I prayed one, I'd get to see him more often. But I know he's got responsibilities in the churches that he goes to. But he's at that age. And I'm like, God, protect him. God, help him. Because that is so crucial. I think of our teens that are off in college and those things. I'm like, God, build the family. Strengthen the family. Strengthen the family. But God, when that time comes, give them wisdom. Help them to have the principles and priorities in life that they'll know. They'll know. They'll know. We end this chapter. God's blessing, the wells, the contention, the blessing of God, the peace that God brought. Everything is awesome until we get those last two verses. And then Esau marries these two girls and it's a mess. But the story's not over. The story's not over. Let's pray. Father, we love You tonight. We thank You and praise You for Your Word and its truth. God, You teach us through the lives of these men and women who've gone before us. And You teach us the importance of relationships. You teach us the importance of family. You teach us the importance of loving and caring and making the right decisions and being consistent and persistent. But Lord, as You teach us all these lessons through Isaac and Abraham and the other men and women of the Scriptures, Father, help us to apply them to our life. Father, help us to put into practice the truths of Thy Word. Father, that we may be an example, we may be a witness, and that others may see Christ in us. That others may look at our life and say, I see God in you. I see His blessing. I see His grace. Father, we pray for our families, for our children, Father, grandchildren even, Lord, that You would help us to be the right influence and to lead and guide in a way that's honoring to You in everything that we do. For it's in Jesus' name