So here now God's holy word from Genesis chapter 26 verses 1 through 33. Now there was a famine in the land besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven. and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, She is my sister. For he feared to say, my wife, thinking, lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah, because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah, his wife. So Abimelech called Isaac and said, behold, she is your wife. How then could you say she is my sister? Isaac said to him, because I thought, lest I die because of her. Abimelech said, What is this that 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 warned all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him. And the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possession of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him. Now the Philistines had stopped and filled with earth all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father. And Bimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we. Isaac departed from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar and settled there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given. But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, The water is ours. So he called the name of the well Essek. because they contended with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also. So he called its name Sitna. And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. From there he went up to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac's servants dug a well. When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzeth, his advisor, and Phicol, the commander of his army, Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me, and have sent me away from you? They said, We see plainly the Lord has been with you. So we said, Let there be a sworn pact between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord. So he made them a feast and they ate and drank. In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way and they departed from him in peace. That same day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, we have found water. He called it Sheba. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day. Grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's ask his blessing now upon that word. A moment of prayer. Lord, we come once more seeking your help, seeking your favor, seeking your grace. And we ask, Lord, that you would give it, that your Holy Spirit would help us during this time as we seek to open our ears and our hearts to the word which you have handed down to us. O Lord, God, enable us to receive it with faith, to learn from it, and to live in accordance with its precepts, all to the glory of your great name. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Genesis chapter 26 is the only chapter in the book of Genesis devoted entirely the life and times of Isaac. Have you thought about that? In the past, we have seen him walking up Mount Moriah with his father Abraham. We've heard tell of the way in which one of Abraham's servants went way off to find a wife for him. And soon we will find him caught in the middle of some family drama involving both his wife and his sons. This chapter alone focuses on Abraham's son Isaac in isolation, describing his sojourning and his dealings with God in the land that the Lord was giving to him. And as such, this account functions really as a brief interlude between Jacob's seizing of Esau's birthright and Jacob's seizing of Esau's blessing. And this sort of interlude is, I want to contend tonight, helpful because it shows us just what Jacob and Esau were fighting over. What was there that stood to be gained or lost among these two boys? What is included in the birthright that Jacob seized? What sort of blessing is he going to stand to gain in the following chapter? We need look no further than Genesis chapter 26 to find a significant answer to those questions. It doesn't tell us everything, but it does tell us quite a bit as it opens a window for us onto the progress and prosperity which accrued during Isaac's generation. And when we look through that window, as we're about to do, what we find is that in Isaac's case, the apple did not fall too far from the tree. In many ways, in these lines, we discover that Isaac greatly resembles his father Abraham, for good or for ill. He faces trials like his father. He faces temptations and sins like his father. But ultimately, what we're going to take away here is that he is also blessed by God like his father. And as we observe these similarities, what we learn is that God's covenant faithfulness transcends generations as he graciously bestows blessings on sinners all the way down to the present day. God's grace did not run dry in the life of Abraham. It wouldn't run dry in the life of Isaac. And it won't run dry for us because God is a faithful covenant keeper. And how this is so will be clear, I think, as we investigate three particular ways in our text in which Isaac was similar to his father Abraham. Tonight we're going to see that Abraham and Isaac were alike in faith in verses 1 through 5. Second, we're going to see that Abraham and Isaac were alike in sin in verses 6 through 11. And then finally, we're going to see that Abraham and Isaac were alike in covenant blessing in verses 12 through 33. Alike in faith, alike in sin, alike in covenant blessing. We began by saying that these two men were alike in faith, as is brought out for us pretty clearly in verses 1 through 5. Now this story begins, if you've been with us here in our study of Genesis, with a scene that ought to seem quite familiar. Familiar scene, familiar circumstances. And there was a famine in the portion of Canaan where Isaac was dwelling, much like the one that Abraham had faced many years ago. Remember that back in Genesis chapter 12, shortly after Abraham had been called out of the land of his fathers and into the land of Canaan, there was a famine which sent Abram down into Egypt where he would sojourn stay with his wife Sarai until they were forced out of the land by Pharaoh on account of Abraham's indiscretions. And like his father, Isaac chooses not to hang around and starve when famine strikes. He's got a little common sense, and so he sets out for a place of greater agricultural fertility, somewhere where there's something to eat. And in this case, that brings him to an area called Gerar. It was a land ruled by a Bimelech, king of the Philistines, and it was located sort of in the southwest corner of what we think of as Canaan. And upon his arrival, we read that the Lord appears to Isaac. He appears to Isaac and he confirms Isaac's choice of Gerar over the alternatives which were available to him. When Abraham faced famine in Genesis chapter 12, where did he go? Well, he didn't go to Gerar in that case, though he would later spend time there. No, he went to Egypt. Only later would he have dealings with the residents of Gerar. But the Lord visibly manifests his appearance in the Theophany. That's what a Theophany is, a visible manifestation of the presence of God. And he warns Isaac against following his father's example and going down to Egypt. Instead, he's to stay in Gerar during the famine, near to the land of Canaan. Stick close to the land and live as a sojourner. But why would Isaac refrain from going to Egypt? Again, he's a man of common sense, and common sense would have told him that the Nile River Valley was a lush, fertile, abundant place. Why not go there? You know there's going to be food there. But what we're going to see here, God's going to explain to Isaac that if he could keep faith and trust the Lord, doing as he was instructed, staying in Gerard, there at the edge of the land of Canaan. Well, then the result would be tremendous blessing. Tremendous blessing. There would be no need for Egypt. The Lord would bless him. And that blessing is promised and it's outlined in verses 3 and 4 of our text. We look at the text when we read that He is sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands and in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. We see first of all that the Lord promises to Isaac, Isaac do as I say because I will be with you. I will be with you. God promises to Isaac the benefit of his divine presence, that very same presence which would eventually dwell in the tabernacle, which would dwell in the temple, where God would covenantally draw near to his people. The Lord would abide with him in his sojourning, which is a blessing greater than silver and gold. Let us not quickly pass over this initial promise to be with Him and look only at the land and at the blessing and the prosperity and the offspring. It continues to be one of the chief blessings of the Christian faith, does it not? That the Lord agrees to be with us. That the Lord God draws near to His people using His presence to comfort us rather than to terrify us. Jesus who we know as Immanuel, God with us, he told his disciples after the resurrection that he would be with them always, even to the end of the age. That's an abiding, valid promise, which is true right now. And so if your faith is in Jesus Christ tonight, then you don't have to walk through this world all alone. You don't have to go it solo. Even if everyone else abandons you, even if you're left all alone, humanly speaking, if you're in Christ, God will be with you. God will be with you as he was with Isaac. That's one of the great blessings of God's salvation. That's one of the great blessings of the covenant. And that's the first thing that God announces to Isaac. Yet the God who promised to be with Isaac also did recommit himself to giving Isaac and his sons all the land of Canaan. Remember, Abraham got a little patch of ground, a field and a cave. And Isaac, he's been traveling around from place to place, but God has not forgotten. God has not forgotten what He swore. And so according to verses 3 and 4, He still intended to give them all of the lands that they were currently inhabiting in fulfillment, we're told, of that multi-generational oath which the Lord had sworn to Abraham after Abraham had shown himself willing to sacrifice Isaac. That's when the Lord says, I swear this to you. As he had formerly promised to Abraham, so now he promises to Isaac to multiply his offspring as the stars of heaven. Give them an inheritance as well. And eventually the Lord would make those same children the channel through which his blessings would flow out of the land of Canaan, out of the land of Israel, into the nations of the world. And Isaac could be assured of all of this because God had covenanted with his father Abraham. who obeyed God's voice and kept His charge, His commandments, His statutes, and His laws. Now, it might strike you as strange that that point is raised here again in the text, that the Lord is going to give these things because Abraham obeyed His voice. This strikes us as strange because, again, when we read the Abrahamic story, most of what we find is God making unilateral promises to Abraham. Before Abraham ever goes looking for God, God comes to Abraham and He tells him, this is what I'm going to do with you, for you, through you. But we've seen this concept arise once already in the book of Genesis, and it arises in chapter 22. There in chapter 22 you have that tying, we saw this when we were there, this tying together of promise fulfillment and obedience. Where after Abraham obediently offers up his son as a sacrifice to the Lord, the same God who graciously promised to give Abraham all these things before Abraham had done anything, He in His grace and in His kindness agrees to grant these, in a sense, as a reward for his submission to the divine will. God didn't know it. It was not merited. But the Lord takes his imperfect works, and he places his blessing and his reward upon them. And God's now telling Isaac he had not forgotten Abraham's submission. He had not forgotten his devotion. He still plans to reward that, and Isaac stood to benefit from it. So despite the famine in Canaan, Isaac was to remain in Gerard. He was to keep the faith. He served his father's God, and his father's God would be with him. That God would keep the covenant promises for him. That covenant God would keep the promises for his offspring. Abraham and Isaac, you see, they were alike in faith. They were alike in faith and thus God's presence and his good pleasure towards the men, they were alike as well. I think this stands as a testament to the fact there is nothing more important that we can pass on to the next generation than our faith. Long after Ishmael was out of the picture. He's living in relative obscurity at this point. We've dealt with his genealogy and we've kind of set him aside at this point. Long after that has taken place, we see here in Genesis chapter 26 that God was still looking after that child of promise. The one who had faith like his father and he faithfully provided for his needs. And that ought to stir in us the desire, which God's Word, I think, impresses upon us, that desire to strive to pass on the faith. We know that God is sovereign. He will do what He's going to do. Abraham wanted Ishmael to inherit too. It wasn't God's plan, it was His will that was, in many ways, heartbreaking to Abraham. Nevertheless, we don't know what God's secret will is. And so it should be one of our primary goals in life to pass down the faith to children and grandchildren and even other children in the church. It doesn't matter if you have children or grandchildren. It should be your desire to pass these things down in whatever way you can to the next generation. Why? Well, we see the example here in the text. So that we all might be alike in the faith, thus receiving the same inheritance. In the presence of the selfsame God. That's what really matters. That's what really matters. And that's why Isaac's life at this point looks so different from that of Ishmael. He's the one who has received the faith from the hands of his father. And so as we see Him beginning to prosper, Him receiving the promises, the Lord placing His blessing upon Him, we have to pray for the next generation. We have to pray for children. We have to teach the next generation. And we have to point the next generation to Jesus at every opportunity that arises so that the Lord, as He has done with us, might go with them and might bless them. as Abraham's God went with Isaac and blessed him. That alikeness in faith was the most important bond that Abraham and Isaac shared as God kept covenant throughout the generations. But unfortunately, we find in our text that even though they were alike in faith, father and son, They were also alike in sin. And this comes out very clearly in verses 6 through 11. Once Isaac gets down to Gerar, he's faced with the same temptation that his father had been faced with. And it's a temptation that Abraham had encountered both in Gerar and in Egypt earlier. Despite all of God's promises to be with him, now for Isaac, the fear of man, temporarily at least, eclipses the fear of God and he foolishly lies. This is a negative example of the apple not falling too far from the tree. We see here in the text that having settled in the land of Gerar, Isaac, he lies to the residents of that place about the nature of his relationship with Rebekah. Just like his father had done with Sarah in the past, Isaac quickly claims that Rebekah was his sister in the hopes that the men would not kill him to get to her. No, this is not about protecting Rebekah. This is about protecting Isaac. He doesn't want to die. You see, there was evidently a penchant for beautiful women in the Abrahamic family, and that continued to be a problem for them. And they were frequently fretting about how others would treat them on account of their attractive wives. And so consequently, they regularly turned to lying in order to save their hide, thereby putting others at risk of harm, putting others at risk. But it wasn't long in this case before the jig was up, though he did live there for some time. We read that after Sometime he was found out. Now we know in Abraham's case, supernatural signs gave him away as affliction came upon the Egyptians and as a dream came when Isaac was in Gerar. But Isaac is given away because he's careless. He's careless. He slips a little. Looking out his window after some time, Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, he sees Isaac. And Isaac is, our text says, laughing with Rebekah, his wife. There are a couple things to note about this incident. First, let's start with this. There is debate over whether this is, maybe you've already flagged this in your mind, over whether this is the same Abimelech that Abraham lied to back in Genesis 21. Remember? Rengarar, Abimelech, lie about the wife, same thing, both stories. And given all of those similarities, it may just seem obvious to you that this must be the same person. And some do argue that. How many kings named Bimelech could come from Gerar? But there are a couple of complications to this, and one of those is that many, many years have passed since that occasion. Decades and decades have passed since that occasion. And there seems to be no recognition of what had happened in the past when it happens again. And so some have mused, and I think that this is possibly the case, that Abimelech here is a name which functions as a throne name. We have examples of this that we can point to today. Think of even in the Bible, the Pharaohs, who all conveniently had the name Pharaoh. All the Pharaohs were named Pharaoh. And we have examples of this in the modern day. There was just recently a new Pope who became Pope, and there was much to do about the name that the Pope chose for himself, because the Popes don't keep their given name. They often choose the name of a predecessor. Even in the history of kings in this part of the world, English kings, they would, you know, you have King George III, examples of of names that get passed down. And so you have throne names. And since Abimelech means my father is king, it would have been a fitting throne name to pass down from generation to generation. And so we should not immediately assume that this is the same person that Abraham had dealt with earlier. But that's not the only thing debated here. The second thing that is debated here is it's debate over just what Abimelech caught Isaac doing with Rebekah. The ESV says that he sees them laughing together, which feels a bit euphemistic. He sees them laughing together, which conveys a similar notion to the King James, which says that he spotted them sporting with one another. Many translations today use the more suggestive word caressing instead of laughing. And both of those can be legitimate translations of the word depending on the context. But either way, the text, I think, is intentionally vague. The Bible doesn't throw all these details in our face to scandalize us. It's not afraid of them, but it doesn't scandalize for scandal's sake. And so either way, the point is that whatever Isaac exactly was doing with Rebecca, it's not something that one would do with their sister. not something they would do with their sister. And so when Abimelech sees Isaac doing this, whatever this was, he had told on himself. He had told on himself. Immediately, Abimelech calls on Isaac and he confronts him, this man who he's allowed to live peacefully in his land for apparently some time. And he confronts him and he says, why would you lie about your relationship with Rebekah? Why did you say, my sister? You should have said my wife. What's the answer? It's the fear of man. It was the fear of man. He said, because I thought lest I die because of her. In other words, I was afraid y'all might kill me, so I'll lie. He thought that someone might kill him to take her, even though they had been perfectly welcoming up to this point. And in response, Abimelech is reasonably angry. Because someone, as he explains to Isaac, might have taken Rebekah as a wife. Someone might have easily lain with her, thinking her to be unmarried, as Isaac had said she was. And thus, they would have acquired guilt. They would have committed adultery. You see, sometimes we choose to sin because we think the consequences of not sinning will be too difficult for us to bear. If I don't sin, bad news." That was Isaac's frame of mind. But we see here, as Abimelech reminded him, and as Abimelech reminds us, we're reminded that our self-saving sins may have serious consequences for others. We think we're saving our own hide and we're hurting others. We're bringing guilt on them. We're dragging them into our sin. And thus we're compounding our sin. We become more guilty in the eyes of the Lord. And so remember that. As you hear Bimlech's rebuke of Isaac, remember that the next time that you are choosing the path of least resistance, even though it's at odds with the law of the Lord. You may be causing more damage than you realize when you treat God's law lightly. So don't wait for some pagan to have to point it out to you. Don't wait for some pagan to have to tell you you're being a fool. Listen to Genesis 26, we already read it. So listen to God's Word and commit to following Him and obeying Him in advance, regardless of whatever anticipated complications there might be out there. Trust that the Lord is with you. Trust that the Lord will watch over you. And that He will not easily cast off those who choose to obey Him at cost to themselves. The Lord will bless his people. But Isaac forgot that, and so he brought others into the circle of his sin, and he put them at potential danger. But for now, the Gerarites, they've been spared. So Abimelech is content on seeing that continue. He pronounces here in the text a death penalty on any of his people that would touch either Isaac or Rebekah. He says, So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death. They're not to touch Isaac to kill him. They're not to touch Rebekah to lay with her. Because anybody who does that brings guilt upon Gerar. And Abimelech is intent on saying that not happen. He doesn't want that to happen. And so we see that just as Abraham and Isaac were alike in faith, so also Abraham and Isaac were alike in sin. They were alike in sin. And this is a useful point for us to recall that it's not unusual, it's not unusual that the sins of the father become the sins of the son. And sons who once thought they would never act like their fathers or daughters who never thought they would act like their mothers, it's not unusual that they suddenly find themselves looking at the mirror and seeing their parents stare back at them. I think the Bible and experience both teach us that we must be especially vigilant, especially diligent in dealing with those temptations which ensnare our parents. Because those are often the temptations most likely to snare us. That was certainly the case for Isaac. And it also ought to be a warning to those of us who are parents, knowing that sins we treat lightly, sins we allow to fester, we may well pass those along with everything else we give our children. Nevertheless, the important part to note here, And the part that gives us hope is that God did not cast Isaac off for this sin just as He did not cast Abraham off for his sin. Because not only were they alike in faith, not only were they alike in sin, they were, importantly, alike in covenant blessing, as we see in verses 12 through 33. Immediately after this story about the sin, we are told that Isaac sowed in that land and he reaped in that same year a hundredfold. Huge harvest, an overabundant harvest. The Lord blessed him and the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants so that the Philistines envied him. God clearly did not treat Isaac as he deserved. He did not treat Isaac as he deserved. He did not punish him in proportion to his sin. Instead, he treated Isaac the way that he had promised to treat him in proportion to his covenant, in proportion to his word. While he had formerly experienced famine, Isaac began to flourish in Gerar. He had plenty to eat. He had plenty of possessions. So much so that we read here that the residents of the land, they began to envy him. They were downright jealous. Isaac wasn't just keeping up with the Jones. He had far surpassed the Jones. He had the best house on the block. God just kept pouring out covenant blessings on Isaac's head well beyond what he had earned for himself. Thanks be to God that he does not give us what we deserve if we are in Christ Jesus. In union with Christ, through faith in Christ, we are given what he deserves as the righteous son of God. not the punishment that we deserve as sinners. 2 Corinthians 5.21 explains that for our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. You see, God can bless us when we deserve judgment because Jesus took judgment on the cross when He deserved blessing. Thanks be to God that for Christ's sake, we are blessed far beyond anything that we have merited. If only we rest ourselves upon him and his finished work. God blessed Isaac far beyond what his immediate actions had earned him. And yet that covenant blessing did quickly become a source of conflict in Isaac's life, as the residents of the land become envious of his prosperity. In a jealous rage, we see them quickly trying their hand at retaliation. Isaac thinks he can just run his flocks all over Gerar, does he? All of his herds? He thinks he can do whatever he wants to? Well, good luck doing that without any water. Good luck doing that without water. Because the Philistines had plugged the wells that Abraham had dug in his lifetime decades prior. Isaac would have to re-dig those if he wanted to use them. And he wouldn't be able to use the wells nearer town because with hostility growing between Isaac and the men of Gerar, Abimelech finally steps forward, whether on his own accord or because of the demands of the people, but he steps forward and he sends Isaac away. for fear that Isaac had grown too mighty. In verse 16, Abimelech says to Isaac, Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we are. You see, ultimately, at the end of the day, it's not for his lies, but for his wealth, for his blessing that Isaac is sent into Exodus. But he doesn't go too far. He moves out of town. He leaves Gerar for an encampment in the valley of Gerar, okay? He doesn't go far. And he does, in fact, re-dig the wells which had been established by Abraham. He gives them the very same names that his father had given them, and when he gets done digging those, he keeps on digging. He's going to water these flocks. He's going to water these herds. And in short order, we see that his servants, they'd found an additional wellspring. They dig it. God gives water. Here come the herdsmen of Gror. They're quickly on the scene to fight over. This is their land. This is our water. You can't have this, Isaac. We thought we sent you out. We thought we pushed you off. And so he moves a little way and, well, a similar incident quickly occurs as he digs a second well. They come back again. They're upset. This is our water. You've got to give it to us. And so he names this well Sitna, which is a word meaning hostility or enmity. But then the third time's the charm. Because he digs yet another well, which the herdsmen of Gerard did not come to fight about. And so he calls it a much happier name, Rehoboth. Meaning broad places. Saying, for now the Lord has made room for us. Enough room for all of us. And we shall be fruitful in the land. Isaac's not a fighter. He doesn't want to fight. He's happy to peacefully coexist alongside these people. He just needs water. He just needs water. You see, even amid conflict, the covenant blessing on Isaac, it doesn't stop. God makes a place for Isaac, as He promised to make. And this blessing follows him wherever he goes. With the famine evidently subsiding, he travels. to Beersheba, which is a place where he has dwelt before. And on the night that he arrives back at Beersheba, having departed Gerar, the Lord appears to him again, perhaps in a dream, saying to him, I'm the God of Abraham, your father. Fear not, for I am with you. God didn't stay behind in Gerar. I am with you. and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake." God makes clear here verbally what must have already been apparent, that he is not going to break his word on account of Isaac's sin. That's not changed. Isaac's sin was not strong enough to break the Lord's resolve. He's still there. He's still blessing, and he will still multiply Isaac's children in order to uphold the covenant. And in response to that pronouncement, Isaac does exactly what he should have done. He builds an altar, he falls down and worships before the Lord, and he calls upon his name, just as Abraham his father had done so many times. Every time the Lord blessed him, it seemed Abraham was building an altar. He was lifting up his voice in praise of Yahweh. And so as Abraham bows down, excuse me, as Isaac bows down before the Lord, well, the Lord, well, He just keeps on blessing because Abraham's, excuse me, Isaac's servants are off digging another well there in the land of Beersheba. But Beersheba is not too far from Gerar. And so after sending him away and saying that the Lord is continuing to provide for this man, Abimelech starts to have second thoughts. He starts to have second thoughts and he decides, you know what, maybe it's best, for our sake, if we could establish some sort of agreement with Isaac. And so the text tells us that he goes up to meet with Isaac. When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuza, his advisor, a person we've never heard of, and Phicol, the commander of his army, again there's disagreement over whether this is the same person or whether this is a position being named here. Not certain, but the point is they go up in the attempts to come to agreement with Abimelech's tail, we must say, somewhat tucked between his legs. He's singing a different tune than he was when he had forced Isaac to get away. And this has Isaac confused. given the fact that he was unceremoniously sent away, and then even after he was sent away, he still had to deal with angry herdsmen. He asks them, in verse 27, why have you come to me? Saying that you hate me, and you sent me away from you. Isaac, he's scratching his head. I thought you wanted to put distance between us, and here you're coming to me. What's up with this? Well, they've got an answer. They've got an answer. And they say in verse 28, we see plainly that the Lord has been with you. What did God promise? I will be with you. Even these outsiders can see that God He was keeping His word. So, we said, let there be a swarm packed between us, between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you, and have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord. You see, why have they come to Isaac? They've come to Isaac because of that same covenant blessing that had made them jealous. It now brings them back because they see that Isaac's God is indeed with him and his location is not changing that. And thus they want to work out a covenant agreeing to live and let live before it's too late for them. We do see here that in making this offer, Bimelech sort of downplays. He downplays any potential offense that might have been caused when he sends Isaac away. He says, we've not done anything to you. And I guess it's true that they had not killed him over the wells, but they perhaps had not treated him as well as they could have. But anyways, Bimelech, he wants to put that behind him. Let's not talk about that. sore subject. Instead he focuses on, more positive note, Isaac's blessings from the Lord. Isaac's blessings from the Lord are the thing which necessitates a peace agreement. We want you to promise, as you get stronger and stronger and stronger, that you're not going to come back and wipe us all out. So what's Isaac going to do? What would you do? I don't know, I may have been a little sore over getting forced out. And I may have been a little sore over them telling me they had never done anything wrong to me. But Isaac's maybe a better man than I am. Because Isaac quickly shows his openness to peace. He's open to peace and he shows this openness by making a feast for the delegation that has come to him from Gerrard. They sit down, they eat and they drink together. They go to sleep. Next morning they get up, And they're ready to exchange oaths, promising not to attack and harm one another. They will dwell in the same region without doing harm to one another. And this path of peace, it's not going to cause Isaac to miss out on any blessings. For in God's providence, it was on the same day that this deal was struck that his servants showed up and they tell him about the new well that they've dug, right there in Beersheba. And so he calls that new well Sheba, which sounds like the Hebrew word for oath, leading to the naming of the town as Beersheba. Presumably it was something else before then. Now he dwells in Beersheba, the place, the well of the oath. Isaac was truly a blessed man. At the end of chapter 26, we see that the Lord has poured out his abundance upon him. He has plenty. He's walking with his God and he's living at peace with his neighbors. The Lord and the Lord alone has made that possible. That's what stood between Jacob and Esau, as we'll see Lord willing next week. But for now, congregation, do you see how gracious and faithful God is? God made all sorts of promises to Isaac. Promises to be with him, promises to prosper him, promises to multiply him. And Isaac, what did he do? He turned right around and he sinned. In the same way that his father had before. In the same way that his father had dealt with consequences before. But Abraham and Isaac's alikeness in faith triumphed over their alikeness in sin. leading, as we see here, to their alikeness in covenant blessing. As God showed his steadfast commitment to the covenant which he had made, the birthright and blessing which would be inherited by Jacob would be great indeed. And from this, we learn of God's faithfulness to the promises which he makes to his people, then, now, forever. His commitment to Abraham's offspring is still firm. And we are his offspring by faith. The book of Galatians tells us. And as we read earlier from Luke chapter 1, as Mary announces and muses upon the announcement of the birth of Christ, what does she do? She sees it as a fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham. In Luke 1 we read, His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation. And He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy as He spoke to our fathers. to Abraham and to his offspring forever. In other words, the help that we're about to get from Jesus is in remembrance of that mercy which He promised to the patriarchs. God's Word never fails. It never fails, even when we sin. Even when we sin, praise God, but He remains steadfast from generation to generation. So tonight, if you're here, and you have repented of your sin, if you haven't, you must, if you've repented of your sin and you've placed your faith in Christ, you must, then these promises, they're good for you too. These are those promises that are yes and amen in Christ. God will be with you through Christ, our Emmanuel. He will bless you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And He will prepare a land, a home for you in heaven, which is unstained by your sin. Thanks be to God, that for those with the faith of Abraham, the apple does not fall too far from the tree. Covenant blessing has come to the nations, just as God promised to Isaac.