Our reading tonight will be the 26th chapter of Genesis. Genesis chapter 26. This is the one chapter that is occupied with Isaac's life. Probably some of it harkens back to even before the births of Jacob and Esau, as is clear particularly by one of the scenes. But it basically shows us what a man's life looks like who lives in covenant with God. Genesis chapter 26, and there was a famine in the land beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech, king of the Philistines, unto Gerar. And the Lord appeared unto him and said, Go not down into Egypt. Dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee and will bless thee. For unto thee and unto thy seed I will give all these countries. And I will perform the oath which I swear unto Abraham thy father. And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries. And in thy seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. And Isaac dwelt in Gerar. And the men of the place asked him of his wife, and he said, She is my sister. For he feared to say, She is my wife, lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah, because she was fair to look upon. And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out at a window and saw, and behold, Isaac sporting with Rebekah his wife. And Abimelech called Isaac and said, Behold, of a surety she is thy wife. And thou saidst thou, She is my sister. And Isaac said unto him, Because I said, lest I die for her. And Abimelech said, What is this that thou hast done unto us? One of the people might likely have lain with thy wife, and thou shouldst have brought guiltiness upon us. And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. that Isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year a hundredfold and the Lord blessed him and the man waxed great and went forward and grew until he became very great for he had possession of flocks and possession of herds and great store of servants and the Philistines envied him for all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father the Philistines had stopped them and filled them with earth and Abimelech said unto Isaac go from us for thou are much mightier than we. 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 after the death of Abraham, and he 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 Asic 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 thence and digged another well. And for that they strove or fought not. And he called the name of it Rehoboth. wide space 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 there to Beersheba and the Lord appeared unto him the same night and said I'm the God of Abraham thy father fear not I am with thee and will bless thee and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake and he Isaac built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord had pitched his tent in there, and there Isaac's servants digged a well. Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahazeth, one of his friends, and Phicol, the chief captain of his army. And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing you 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 now be an oath between us, and 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. Thou art now the blessed of the Lord. And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink, and they arose up betimes in the morning, early in the morning, and swear 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 to him 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 forty years old when he took to wife Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bazimath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah. Let's pray together. Lord, we do pray that you would bless your word to our hearts and teach us your ways that we may walk in your paths. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Life in covenant with God. What does that look like? Well, three things stand out in this chapter. In verses 1 through 11, we see God's amazing grace to Isaac. God's amazing grace. Notice in verse 1, famine. Now, the patriarchs. Abraham's already gone through one famine. This is a later famine. Lord, aren't we suffering enough? We're strangers and pilgrims. We're separated from the world. We have to wander from place to place. The world hates us. And then we've got to be hungry. And we've got to wander for bread, too. We need to remember that we are going to have our share of common troubles living in this fallen world. We are not exempt from them. We are not exempt from vexation in our families, in our callings, disease, even poverty. I know we've had a very stable kind of life here for some centuries now. But again, we need to remember this, that God tests the righteous. Now in those common troubles like famine, which would have impacted not only Isaac, but everybody around him, God has a special purpose in the lives of His children. And we need to remember this. He is sifting our faith. When those common challenges, job, family, health, He is sifting our faith. He is telling us, you need to look to me. You need to trust me. And of course, as we go through those common troubles, He shows His watch care over us as well in a unique way that He does not show to the children of this world. And that's evident by our responses to trouble. Our responses should be very different to health and family and personal and financial issues. When the world curses God, we bless God. And we learn to depend more upon His promises. And we learn to be satisfied with His Word alone. So within God's covenant, there are testings. And so Isaac picks up a huge household, many servants, tens of thousands of head of various livestock, and he starts going south. He is heading toward Egypt, according to verse 2, like Abraham's father did. And God says he gets out of the land of promise. He's going south. He comes to a border town in Philistia called Gerar. He's going to go meet Abimelech, probably not the same Abimelech, If it is the same Abimelech, he is very, very old because we ran into him about 80 years ago. The word Abimelech means my father is king, and so it was probably a royal title. In fact, almost a thousand years later, in David's day, the kings of Philistia were still called Abimelech. You can see this in Psalm 34. But Isaac goes, wants to give him a greeting, and the Lord stops him and says, I don't want you going to Egypt. Now Isaac may have said, well my father went down to Egypt, why can't I go down to Egypt? We need to remember God knows how much temptation we can bear. His providences in each believer's life is different. So maybe what I, Abraham, kind of a lion of faith, and he struggled. Isaac, more of a peace-loving man, more reflective. God says, it's not a good idea. I have other purposes for you. And we always need to remember that God adjusts his dealings with us, with each generation, according to what we can bear. Now, one of the challenges of that is maybe we ought to work on being able to bear more. by walking more closely with the Lord and trusting his promises. But instead, God has something different for Isaac. He gives him an Abraham moment. Notice at the end of verse 2. Do not go down into Egypt, dwell in the land which I will tell you of. Does this remind you of something? About a hundred years ago, okay, Abraham. Abraham, I want you to leave your father and your father's country into a land that I will show you. Isaac, he says, you don't have to know where you're going. You don't have to know where your bread's coming from. What you need to do is follow me and walk humbly with me and trust me that I am going to provide for you. And then he proceeds in a time of famine, note the contrast, to give Isaac this huge filling. Filling with what? His covenant. He renews the covenant with him in verses 3 and 4. Basically many of the components you're used to because the Abrahamic covenant that we've looked at. I will be with you, verse 3, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to give to you and to your seed who is Christ. And notice the expansion. All these countries. Now where was Isaac? He was in Philistia. I thought you were giving us Canaan. Yeah, I'm giving you Canaan, giving you Palestine, but I'm also giving you Philistia, and I'm giving you all of these countries. Remember Romans 4.11? Turn there quickly if you want to read it with me. Remember what God, the promises that God made to Abraham? We often think it was just for what we think of as Israel, but Romans 4.11, Romans 4.13, for the promise that he, that is Abraham, should be the heir of the world. And so in this time of famine, God even expands the covenant promises. And he says, I'm going to bless you and all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed in you. Wait a minute. It's a famine. We don't know where our daily bread is coming from, Lord. Remember, Isaac didn't have three people to feed. He had hundreds, he may have had thousands of people who were dependent upon him. There's no rain, there's famine, and God says to Isaac in his Abraham moment, don't go to Egypt, I'll tell you where I want you to go, trust me, I am the God of your father Abraham, these promises I'm giving them to you, I'm gonna give all the nations to you and to your seed, and all of them will be blessed in him. It's interesting how much famine times in the believer's life, struggling times, God often turns those times into filling times, blessing times, if... we learn to live and walk in dependence upon Him and to trust His strength, to trust His wisdom. I don't understand why I'm going through this. I don't understand why I'm having to wait for this in my life that I think is good and yet God's not giving it to me. I don't understand why I'm having to go through this difficulty and why Don't forget, in the famine, God showed Isaac his covenant, his word, and his strength. We often think that we need to be in a position of strength, and we'll really do something for the Lord, or then we'll really make progress, or then we'll really start praying and reading the Bible. That's completely backwards. God often does his greatest work when we're in a position of weakness. When we're in a position of, Lord, I'm not sure where my bread's coming from. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to feel better. I'm not sure if my marriage is ever going to be what I think it ought to be. I'm not sure. And the Lord says, trust me, depend upon me, walk with me, remember my promises, and I'll show you my power. I'll show you my faithfulness and my strength. In fact, the Lord says, Isaac, I'm going to give you your daily bread. I'm going to feed you. But there's another bread you need more. And that is you need my word. And so I'm going to give it to you and fill you with it. And then I want you to trust me. And of course, Isaac had to learn what we have to learn. And that is we can have everything we think we need in this world. And yet if we're estranged from God or we're not walking in his word, we're starving. But we can have very little. And if we have God's promises and God's covenant and we're looking unto Jesus and meditating upon His glory and thinking of what's going on at the right hand of the Father right at this moment, the worshiping church, the spirits of just men made perfect, Jesus the mediator of all, if our affections are there, then whatever God brings us through in this life, it's okay, because His living word is more important to us than to know where our bread is gonna come from. And if we trust Him, He will provide. Now notice in verse five, the Lord and immediately, and all this under the idea of what is it to walk with God? There's famine, but then in famine, God gives His word and He gives His promises to us. Remember obedience. because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. By the way, just looking at flying over that verse in an airplane for a minute, I mean, all those phrases, I mean, commandments, statutes, laws, obeyed my voice, kept my charge, what is this bringing out to us? That Abraham, he was not perfect, but he was committed to meticulously obeying God. Now, I mean, all the phrases here, they're somewhat self-explanatory. He obeyed my voice. Abraham considered God's word to be his living voice. Remember, for us, it's the same. Hebrews 4.11, the word of God is living and powerful. Why? Because it's the voice of Jesus. When we open the Scriptures and read them publicly, privately, remember Jesus stood in the synagogue of Nazareth and He opened the scroll and turned to Isaiah. I'm sure the paper was trembling as its eternal divine author read those very Scriptures. And so when we read the scriptures and when we meditate on them, that's the same thing as if the living personal Christ, it is the same thing, standing to us and with us and giving us his word. That's how Abraham considered, he kept my charge, he put himself and his life under my authority. And then notice these words that will become famous later, commandments, statutes and laws. The specific commandments, the regulations, the teaching. Whatever God told Abraham, he didn't even have the Ten Commandments. They hadn't been given yet. But whatever God told him, Abraham put himself under. Now is this meritorious? Is God saying here, now Isaac, I'll give you these promises because you obey me and you're, you know, without obedience. You know, obedience is how you earn my favor. No, Isaac was already in God's favor. Isaac was already a recipient of God's grace. But God says, but Isaac, the way you enjoy life with me is obedience. We've lost this idea in the modern church. Grace has been so cheap. Grace means I can live like I want to and God will still bless me because grace, grace, grace, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. But that's not grace. That's license. Remember Titus 2.11? The grace of God has appeared in Christ, teaching us what? To live like we want. No. Two, denying ungodliness and worldly lust to live soberly, godly, righteously in this present age. Or, if you want to hear it from the mouth of Jesus himself, John 14, 21, look there, lay this up. Keep it close to your heart. If you want to know more of Jesus, if you want your faith and your walk with Him to be more vibrant, if you want to enjoy the blessings of the covenant more, Jesus tells us the way. The same thing all of Scripture teaches from Deuteronomy to Revelation. Who are the saints? Those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. John 14, 21. He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that's a big fat legalist. Does anybody have that translation? He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me. And he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest or show myself to him. You might say, wait a minute, it's kind of hard to navigate those waters. I mean, so what is the connection between grace and law and commandments and obedience? It's very simple. God comes to us as dead men, dead in our trespasses and sins. We have nothing to offer Him. He lays all of our transgressions upon the back of His Son. And Jesus gives His back to the smiters. He gives His cheeks to those who pluck off the beard. He gives His face to shame and spitting, and He heals us by His stripes. And then He says, Do you love Me? Do you want to walk in fellowship with Me? Now remember how I walk in fellowship with my Father. Go back to John, John chapter 15, the very next chapter. He tells us we need to see this. It's so explicit in the Bible, John 15, 9 through 11. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, even as I keep my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." There it is. Jesus said, how do I walk in communion with my Father? I obey Him. I love His Word. I love His voice. I delight to do those things, John 8, 29, that please my Father. So He says, now disciples, do you want my joy? Do you want the blessedness that I have as the God-man, as the mediator of the covenant? Well, it's not going to be different for you. So if you want to come into this holy circle of love, this holy circle of joy, then you've got to walk like I walked. In obedience. Now, does your obedience merit your entering the circle? No. Obedience is how you stay in the circle of love and walking with God. Of course, it's all of God's grace. Abraham's obedience was imperfect. We're going to immediately see that Isaac falls into lying just like his father. So there's never any thought that, you know, well, if we obey, then we are in God's favor. But the Lord tells to him, tells him, Isaac, remember Abraham, your father. Remember, He walked in meticulous obedience to me. Now, let's take this one more step, because this is not an age of meticulous obedience to God, is it? Even in the church, I mean, in fact, if you talk about that, and I praise God that that's not the case here, if you talk about that in some circles, I mean, you're ridden out on a rail. We don't want to hear about duty, we want to hear about Jesus. As if you can talk about Jesus when not talking about obedience and love. Because in fact, the real formula in the Bible is love equals obedience. Obedience equals love. It's a beautiful circle that leads to joy. What was Abraham aware of that we've lost our sensibility to today? I mean, because you know, I don't want to have to really think now, okay, so it's the Sabbath, and I know what the confession says, but you know, people are looser, and they have different views, and I know I probably shouldn't spend all my time watching this or that or the other, and money, and then we go, and meticulous obedience to God, that's just too difficult, it's too challenging. I'd rather just fall back on the white cloud of grace, the cotton candy of grace. What did Abraham know? Well, turn back to Genesis 15. A great place to start. We can't trace this out because I do want to look at the rest of the chapter. Genesis 17, verse 1. And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, he was ninety-nine. He was still a young man, although he didn't know it. And when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be perfect. that the Lord came to Abraham and said, Abraham, let me tell you something. I am El Shaddai. I am the all-powerful, faithful God. Walk before my face. David says the same thing in Psalm 119 at the end. He says, all my ways are before you. That's what we've lost. We've lost God consciousness. We've lost any sense or much sense of the majesty of God and the privilege of the covenant. What's the main promise of the covenant? I will dwell with you and I will walk with you and I will be your God and you will be my people. Why did Jesus, the eternal Son of God, take upon himself our flesh? So that his name would be what? Immanuel, God, with us. And the more conscious we are of the privilege of walking before the face of God, obedience stops becoming a bore, a burden, a frustration. It becomes passion. That's what it was for our Lord Jesus. In our flesh, with all the weakness, subject to every temptation, it became His delight. Because He was aware, I walk before the face of my Father. I want to please Him. Nothing makes, now listen, nothing makes us happier than to please God. Everything that displeases God ultimately must make us miserable. Now, the short term, the pleasures of the world, you know, they're there. I mean, you know, if all the pleasures of the wicked things in the world were like eating spinach covered with Brussels sprouts with a heavy beet sauce, okay, nobody would do them. So there is a momentary, that's what, you know, Paul called them in Hebrews 11, the pleasures of sin for a season. But yet for the believer, there's a higher pleasure. And that is the pleasure of obedience to God. So the Lord tells Isaac, Isaac, don't forget. Now what does Isaac do? Verses 6 through 11, he forgets. Now remember I said I kind of like to title this heading, God's Amazing Grace. So here's a famine and God gives Isaac his word and his covenant and even expands the promises a little bit. And then he tells him, I want you to walk in obedience to me. And what does Isaac do? He falls. Okay, you know the drill. He falls into the same sin that Abraham did. He's afraid for his life. He's afraid, you know, that the men of Philistia will kill him. Rebecca is a beautiful woman. So he pretends that, tells people who asked, she's my sister. This is one reason why this is probably pre-birth. Jacob and Esau because obviously they had little children walking around. It would have been very difficult for him to pass her off as his sister. So he tells Abimelech that, the king of Philistia. And then one day, verse 8, after they've been there some time, he sees Isaac and Rebekah You'll have to fill in the blank. The word sporting here is kind of a, maybe a euphemism. Let's just say he saw that Isaac and Rebecca were not brother and sister. And he basically, I think he suspected it the whole time. Verse nine, he says, because of a surety, she is your wife. There's some emphatic here in Hebrew. Yeah, she really is your wife. Almost as if he knew it the whole time. And notice Abimelech's sensitivity very much like his father. One of us might have committed adultery. I mean, can you imagine here? I mean, there seems to be still some remnant of God's law written on their hearts. And he's very sensitive to, you almost brought up a judgment on our land. And then he does what most theologians today would be too squeamish to do. In verse 11 he pronounces a death penalty for adultery. I mean, you know, here we go, here's an ancient king who's wiser than a lot of theologians are today. And it's interesting though, there's been some progress. Now you have to bear with me for just 10 seconds. Remember what happened to Abraham when he tried this trick? It brought all kinds of trouble. And you know, he's rebuked, Abraham was rebuked by Pharaoh here, Habimelech rebukes Isaac. But the Lord seems to restrain a little bit some of the negative consequences of this. Turn with me briefly to Exodus 20. We've often heard the adage that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. And it is kind of an odd thing that angry fathers often beget angry sons. But we need to remember, and other sins can be passed down through family line. Odd, isn't it? There's got to be a covenant at work. Genes don't know, per se, about, oh, this family's got the lying gene. Click. Okay. Imitation, God's judgment. Accept. Accept. Notice in the second commandment, Exodus 20 verse 5, you shall not bow down yourself to them nor serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Now we often times read that first part, visiting the iniquity. Oh yeah, I mean it's going to be bad. I've done some bad things and God is really going to whack down my children because of that. But you notice the last five lines of verse 5, of them that hate me. And showing mercy, verse 6, unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. The cycle of generational sin need not continue if the parents repent. Now if the parents remain hardened and obstinate, they might fall into the of them that hate me. But those like Abraham, and I'm sure Abraham did, he repented of what he did. And so even though Isaac, that sin is still there, the consequences are not as bad and the Lord remembers mercy to Isaac and doesn't allow anyone to take her away, anyone to touch her because he is gracious and merciful to his people. Isaac continues, verse 12 through 25, basically this whole section, Isaac is looking for water in the wilderness. Isaac is looking for water in the wilderness. It's pretty straightforward. But it is odd, isn't it? Verse 12, that in that land, in the same year, Isaac sowed and His crop was a hundredfold what he sowed. Now, according to agricultural reports from antiquity and now in that region of the world, 20 to 30 fold is a fabulous, unheard of yield. Hundredfold. Abimelech scratching his head, wait a minute, this man's just lied to us. This man may be known as, you know, a follower of God, but he almost brought judgment on us, and yet God blesses him? God never treats us as our sins deserve, does he? He is always full of mercy and willing to forgive, as if to remind Isaac and us, you know, yes, you need to obey me and walk in close fellowship with me, but I'm merciful to you and I will forgive all of your sins and very often bless you despite your sins. And that leads to presumption. If we take, for example, the idea that, well, you know, God's blessing me, so He must be winking at my sins. He must be winking that I don't pray very much, and yet He's blessing me, so everything must be good. Sometimes God blesses His people when He's about to lower the boom on them and chase them. So, remember what Paul said in Romans 2, 4, that the goodness of God leads us to repentance. Why would God's goodness lead us to repentance? Because the more God gives us, the kinder He is, the more patient, the more forgiving. What should that do to us? Why is He forgiving me? Why is He being good to me? And by the way, that's one way you can tell that you're really walking before the Almighty God. That even the little blessings of life that you look at and say, why did He give that to me? Why was He so kind to me? Why did He give me these children? Why did He give me this blessed wife? Why did He give me this husband? Why did He let me live in a place where we can meet and worship the Lord without fear of our lives? Why? Why has He been so good to me? That's why the goodness of God leads us to say, you know what? I've got sins in my life and God's so good to me. I'm not just going to sit there with Him and think, well, you know, God must be closing His eyes and I'm all good. No. He's been so good to me. I want to walk with Him all the more closely. But it didn't have that effect on the Philistines. They didn't understand God's grace. They didn't understand God's covenant. Verse 13, Isaac grows greater and greater. He had herds, livestock. Verse 14, Galorah, verse 15, he starts digging out the wells from Abraham's day. The Philistines had stopped him up. Talk about spite. Okay, I mean, why even if... why wouldn't you just keep them for yourself? Okay, no, we don't want any reminder of this stranger who came in our midst. We don't want that light. We don't want Abraham's descendants getting rich off of our resources. And so Abimelech, verse 16, comes to Isaac and says, leave. The people become envious. Okay, which is said there at the end of verse 14. You know, look at this man, he's prosperous. You know, we see that in our own day, you know. Think of a company like Chick-fil-A and maybe other small businesses. The world hates Chick-fil-A. There are some public places that Chick-fil-A has a hard time getting into because the world hates it when Christians prosper. They want the prosperity, but they don't want the covenant. And they don't want to have this thing traced back to God. That's why increasingly they're willing to get rid of the light, willing to get rid of the prosperity, just so they're not reminded of the God from whom prosperity and blessing and peace comes from. So Abimelech says, get out of here, you're too great for us. So Isaac leaves. Verse 17, he's looking for water. I mean, he's got tons of people, tons of livestock. Verse 18, they dig more wells, they uncover more wells. He's moving gradually northward, heading back to the land of promise. Verse 19, they're in a valley, they dig, and they find water. Praise the Lord. By the way, isn't it interesting? Everywhere Isaac digs, he finds water. Okay, is Isaac worthy of this? No, God's faithful. When you obey him, don't go to Egypt. Okay. I don't understand, where am I going? I don't know. But God has said, do this. He's obeying God at every step, and God's blessing him as he goes. Well, the Philistines don't like this, and they say, that's on our land, so they fought over it, so they named that well Esek, which means strife or contention. The same thing happens in verse 21. They move a little further north, and they find another well. They call it Sitna, which means contention or strife. Same general idea. So, they go further. I mean, Isaac's just filling Philistia with water. Isn't that interesting? Okay, I don't want to draw, you know, symbolisms galore in this but, you know, the righteous They're watered by the Lord. And it's not because Isaac here is, you know, worthy and has no sin. It's because of God's grace in his life. So this time, verse 22, they find one Rehoboth, which means wide place, space. And then he travels there, verse 23, very significant, and crosses the border. Beersheba is back in the land of promise. So this section probably covers the 20 years of perhaps barrenness of Isaac and Rebekah. Now they're back in the land. Moses wanted to give us one whole chapter to look at the life of Isaac. And the Lord that very night came to him, verse 24, and said, Abraham, I mean Isaac, I'm the God of your father Abraham. I'm with you. Don't be afraid of anything. Don't be afraid of famine. Haven't I brought you back? Don't be afraid of running out of water. Haven't I been your water? Don't be afraid of the Philistines. You're sitting there, you know, they're chasing you and I'm blessing you everywhere you go. Trust me. Walk with me. And so, verses 25 and 26, how does Isaac respond? He worships. I mean, he's thinking back over the last probably 18, 20 odd years, They're back in the land. I mean, he's probably here. This is probably connected to even the time when he's praying for Rebecca to be able to conceive. And he just builds an altar and he says, Lord, I'm back. I'm yours. I want to love you. Can I just for a minute here? You know, our worship on the Lord's Day, I personally would love to see our evening time be a form of worship service as well. I'm not going to push that. You know, we need this. We need to remind ourselves that all of God's blessings, small and great, they're designed to lead us to do what? Build an altar and call on the name of the Lord. to worship Him, to praise Him for His goodness, to celebrate His goodness, and to thank Him. You know, you read the Psalms this week, I hope you're reading through them and you may, you know, Psalm 34, 1, I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise will continually be in my mouth. Is it? Are we singing in our homes? Are we blessing God for His goodness to us, all of grace? Can any of us say, I've obeyed God's voice, His charge, His commandments, His statutes, His laws, my life is just eaten up with obedience? Very often we find our lives eaten up with weakness. and disobedience, and yet God, even though we provoke Him to His face, He's our Father and He loves us and He forgives us, and the Lord Jesus is praying for us. You know, our Lord's Day worship, I know it's standardized now, we do it every week. Do you get ready for it? You know, I know the time changed, the God players were at work again this weekend, and so we all lost sleep, you know, but normally speaking, Normally speaking, I know the Lord's Day, we're used to it, we do it every week. You ought to come here thinking, God's been so good to me. Think back over your whole life, even when you're young. Why did God let me hear His gospel? Why did God give me a mom or daddy who would thank me and discipline me and tell me about God's ways? Why didn't God just let me go and be a whirlwind? He's been so good to me. Why is He giving me my daily bread? Why did He lay all my sins on the back of Jesus Christ? I want to worship Him and bless His holy name." Boy, then we'd sing, wouldn't we? We'd confess, and we'd love, and we would encourage each other. And in His temple, we would all speak of His glory. Now, 26 through 33, quickly, right when Isaac crosses the border, Habimelech may have been a little bit sly here. Habimelech comes back to him. Now, Habimelech, He's been watching. He's had people telling him he didn't have spy cameras like we have today. But his servants have been telling him, man, that Isaac, he is such a lucky snake. I mean, everywhere he digs water, it just comes flowing out of the earth. Now, Abimelech is probably glad to see Isaac back up north, and so he comes to him with also Phicol, which you may remember that lovely name in English, Phicol. It means strong. I doubt it's the same Phicol that Abraham knew some 80 years earlier. It means strength. It's probably the standard title for the Philistine chief military officer. They come to Isaac right when he crosses the line and border and says, hey, can we make a covenant? You're so great and we've been so good to you. Isaac is a little bit peeved. Verse 27. Why are you coming to me now? I mean, you chased me all over the place, you hate me, you sent me away. Oh no, we haven't touched you. We've been good to you. So let's make a covenant. And Isaac, what, before it was even written? He's a perfect example of when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. And Isaac has been calling on the name of the Lord. They have a feast, verse 30. They make a covenant the next morning, probably to respect each other's territory. And verse 32, as if the Lord says, OK, Isaac, I'm always going to be with you. Never be afraid, no matter what happens. And remember what's about to happen? Jacob and Esau, birthright. the blessings stolen, the very next chapter. Isaac's life's about to get a little bit more challenging than it has been. And that very day, by the way, isn't that funny, that's the third time in this chapter, that very day. Either they found water or that very day God appeared to him, the Lord was with Isaac and his servants come to him and says, hey, we found more water. I'm sure some people say, man, if we could only know their trick for finding water. It's God's blessing. And so he called the name of the place Sheba, Oath. It already had that name, Beersheba, so verse 33 is probably a confirmation. In Isaac's mind, remember originally when Abraham and Abimelech made the first covenant, the well of the oath, God's kept his promise. God has fulfilled his promises to me and he's brought me back. But, verses 34 and 35, Life with God has its challenges, and we're skipping ahead probably some 40 years. And Esau, in the same day, buries two Hittite, Canaanite, unbelieving women, Judith and Basimoth, And so what Paul says in Hebrews 12, Esau, that fornicator, Esau became a fornicator on the day of his wedding. Not only a spiritual fornicator in that he married unbelievers, but that he also married two and became a polygamist on that day. And notice verse 35, they were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah. Let me remind By the way, an interesting, how old is Esau? Forty. Now, why didn't Isaac and Rebekah do what a lot of parents do today? Oh, no, that's not a grief of mine. I mean, Esau's got to find his own way in life and we want to respect the fact that he's over 18 years old. I mean, by the way, we're having a lot of compromise among the parenting generation today. Kids coming up, oh, I think I'm a boy, I think I'm a Martian. I think I'm a girl. I think I'm both. No, we wouldn't dare correct because we would not want to inflict any emotional damage on these precious little sunflowers. And so we're going to change the cultural rules to where, you know, gender bending and perversion of various kinds. No. Whatever other weaknesses Isaac and Rebecca had and are about to be exposed, they understood God's Word and God's covenant and the need for believers to marry within the believing family. It's a burden to them. Well, what are we to do with this chapter? Life in covenant with God. Don't forget these three or four things and then we'll close. Don't forget God's grace. that no matter the famine times we go through, the waiting times, some of you may be going through them right now, or you may be going through good times, our hope, our stability in this life is that God has made a covenant with us in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where all of our joy is, all of our righteousness, all of our stability, and in those bad times especially, what are we supposed to fall back on? And God, why am I going through this? I don't understand. I'm already, you know, a stranger in a pilgrim, and now I'm going to be hungry. Or now I'm a wife, or my husband, or I don't have a wife, or I don't have a husband, or my children, or I don't have children. God says, listen, man does not live by bread alone. We do not live by those things we think are necessary for our happiness. We live by the Word of God. There's a joy there. I hope you know it. I hope I'm truly speaking to the choir. But there's a joy in God's promises and in God's Word that when all the other joys somehow go away, Jesus loves me, this I know. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me. No matter what else I have or don't have, I have God's covenant. I have the Lord Jesus Christ. That's my joy. That's what the Lord was teaching Isaac. Here, Isaac, look to your seed. So don't forget God's grace. Second, don't forget the importance of obedience. Hebrews 12, I mean 13, 14 comes to mind. Remember what Paul said to the Hebrews? Without holiness, no man will see the Lord. We just ought to breathe for a minute. Take that. Without holiness, nobody will see. Wait a minute. Could that possibly mean Jesus' holiness? No. And without our holiness, we're not going to see the Lord. Wait a minute. Well, what that means is, this is assuming, you know, unlike the thief on the cross, even though he was very holy by the end of that day, you know, that when we come into union with Christ, He makes us holy and obedient. And who was Abraham in union with? Christ. The Christ to come. Abraham rejoiced to see his day. John 8, 56. And so I would encourage us. You hear a lot about duty. Young people, your parents probably say to you a lot, now children obey your parents and the Lord. And maybe as you get older you think, well how convenient you have a verse that basically covers anything that I don't want to do. that you tell me to do, or anything I want to do that you tell me I can't do, it covers everything. Okay, did God like set that up ahead of time? Yes. Why? So that when we're young, He's telling us, do you want to be happy? Obey me. Because here's the secret of the universe in terms of happiness. Nobody but God knows what will make men and women happy. Nobody does. The magazine writers don't. The television celebrities don't. The movie stars don't. The rock stars don't. The politicians don't. Isn't that amazing when you start looking at it like that you realize all these people are scam artists. They're all trying to sell us something. There's only one person in the universe who knows what will make you happy and fulfilled and his name is the Living God. who has revealed himself to us in his son. And he says, if you want to be happy, you've got to recover the purpose of your creation, which is to do what? Walk before me and love me and obey me. And now, and remember what, oh, let's look at it in the words of the Holy Spirit. Look at 1 John 5, 3. I'll quote, I'll read it, you probably already know it. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. 1 John 5, verse 3, For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not a burden. Wait a minute, they are a burden. I mean, it's like law and legalism. No, to the redeemed heart. Were God's commandments a burden to Jesus? Well, you know, I've got to obey Him. He's the big guy upstairs. You know, He'll strike me with a lightning bolt. Is that what He thought? No one ever knew the Father better than the Son. And no one was ever, therefore, more devoted to obedience than the Son. Because He knew what a pleasure it was to obey His Father and to live in communion with Him. Same thing with us when we walk with God. And lastly, expect trouble. It is through many tribulations that we enter God's kingdom. By the way, remember the first five or six Beatitudes? What an exciting way to begin your public ministry if you're Jesus. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Oh yeah, and by the way, blessed are those who mourn. Oh yeah, and by the way, blessed too are those who are meek and broken. Oh yeah, and blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty. Oh yeah, and blessed are those who are persecuted. What? I mean, Jesus didn't start off with a glossy book. Hey, follow me five ways to fix your life. Okay, he starts giving the realities of walking with God. He's holy, he's wise, he's good, he's just, and so he's going to try our faith. and he's going to sift us, and we're going to learn obedience like our Savior did. But at the end of the day, what's God going to do for us? He's going to bring water in the wilderness. I'll leave you with this one verse, you can look it up later, John 7, 37 I believe. Jesus stood up on the last day, the great day of the feast, and do you remember what he said? He shouted with a loud voice, probably at the water-pouring ceremony during the Feast of Tabernacles, when they poured water on the ground, remembering in the desert how little water they had, and now they had abundance, and Jesus used that opportunity to stand up and say, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. So you might think, I don't know if I want to really give myself to Jesus. I don't know that I want to walk in covenant with God. Jesus says, I'll give you rivers. Isaac found these springs everywhere he went at some level as a reminder to us that when we walk with God, the water is abundant. He'll water our souls. It may be at the last moment. We may not know how he's going to do it, but he says, if you believe in me, I'm gonna give you my Holy Spirit and I'm gonna give you everything you need in this world. Praise God for his grace. Let's pray together. Father, we praise you for the life of Isaac and for his wanderings, his testings, his faith, your covenant to him, the way you fed him with the living manna in a time of famine, and the way you brought him back home. to the land of promise and the way you blessed him to find water everywhere he went. Our blessings are so much more, but we're so slow to lay hold on them. We're so slow to really want to get to know you. I got important things to do. There's places to go. Maybe we're afraid of you. Afraid of what you might require of us, but here you tell us I'll be your God I'll be with you and now of course you've given us Isaac seed who is the Lord Jesus and you've made him our prophet priest and king and great high priest and our Advocate and surety and righteousness and you've said everything belongs to us in him so help us to walk humbly with you this week and to love you and and to be more concerned about pleasing and obeying you than we are about pleasing ourselves and then bring joy to us and Lord Jesus we are thirsty so we come to you and ask that you would give us those living waters give us your Holy Spirit work gifts and graces in our congregation in our families may there be works of ministry and love and service and government and teaching and may the church grow and expand not only here but all around the world until your church is the praise of the whole earth, because you are the God who gives grace and water to your people in the wilderness. And we thank you that the enjoyment of these blessings does not require that we be in a position of strength, that you often are so gracious and even more good to us when we're weak. We bless Your holy name. We thank You for giving us Your Son and pray that we would be strengthened on this Sabbath to live for Your glory this week. In Jesus' name, Amen.