Genesis 26:12-22
The Treachery of the World and the Faithfulness of God

1. The Lord Proves Trustworthy; Abimelech Doesn't (12-22)
   1. The Background
      1. Isaac tempted to leave the Promised Land
         1. There was a famine, just as in Abraham's day
         2. Tempted to use Abraham's solution: Go down to Egypt and look for food there rather than trusting the promises of God
      2. The Lord appeared to Isaac and promised blessing
         1. Don't go down to Egypt - i.e. don't trust in this world
         2. I will be with you
         3. I will bless you because of Abraham's righteousness
      3. Isaac believed but faltered
         1. He stayed in the land
         2. But he lied about Rebekah, repeating Abraham's sin
      4. Abimelech promised him safety (11)
         1. Abimelech found out and rebuked Isaac
         2. And he threatened anyone who "touched" Isaac or Rebekah with death.
      5. So we saw that the Lord cared for Isaac in spite of the weakness of Isaac's faith
      6. Where is Isaac's faith?
         1. In Abimelech's promise?
         2. Or in the Lord's?
   2. God's Character and That of the Philistines Revealed (12-16)
      1. God's character is revealed
         1. God fulfills his promise to Isaac
         2. He had said, "Dwell in the land and I will bless you"
         3. Isaac dwelt in the land and the Lord blessed him (12,13)
            1. The Lord was as good as his word. He is faithful
            2. Isaac sowed and he reaped a hundredfold
               1. 100 times as much!
               2. In our measuring, he took one cup (the kind you use for cooking) of grain and tossed it on the ground. And the Lord made it grow until he got back 6 gallon milk jugs of the stuff and 4 cups more besides. The Lord did that with every cup of grain Isaac planted.
               3. If God had given him only 30 fold, Isaac would have no reason to fault God or say that God had failed in his promise
         4. So the blessing is abundant in other ways
            1. Look at v. 13. I pick on the NKJV sometimes, but here it gets the translation just right, and your other versions don't
               1. The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous
               2. Do you hear the repetition? That's exactly what's happening in the Hebrew.
               3. Literally: The man became great and he kept on becoming great until he was exceedingly great.
               4. Isaac got rich. And the next thing that happened was, he got richer. And that kept happening until he was as rich as he could be, owning sheep and cattle and commanding many servants.
         5. The Lord could have given a much more modest blessing to Isaac and still kept his word.
            1. But his word allows him to give this much; so he does.
            2. God delights in giving even more. He is generous beyond reckoning. No one can accuse him of doing less than he promised. He always gives more. Until he gives as much as he can give … in Christ Jesus, his only-begotten Son.
            3. God revealed this most fully in Christ
               1. He promised Abraham a seed
               2. So he gave him Isaac. But, ultimately, he gave Abraham (and us) Christ, the true seed to whom all the blessings would come.
               3. He promised the seed of Abraham a land.
               4. To Christ, the true seed of Abraham, he gave a universe. A new creation in which every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord.
      2. The Philistines' character is revealed
         1. They envy Isaac (14)
            1. What has Isaac done to them?
            2. Did he become rich at their expense?
            3. No, the Lord did not make Isaac prosperous by stealing from the Philistines.
            4. Indeed, Isaac's prosperity probably enriches his neighbors, introducing great wealth into the local economy.
            5. But they can see none of this.
            6. All they know is that Isaac is rich and they can't stand that.
            7. Their envious nature is revealed in the next sentence
         2. They had previously stopped up Abraham's wells (15)
            1. The Scripture here goes back in time a little to tell you something very revealing about what the Philistines had already done.
            2. Once Abraham had moved his family out of the area, they stopped up his wells.
            3. Why? Pure envy. They couldn't use them, so they didn't see why anyone else should. When they can't make themselves richer, envy dictates that they make someone else poorer.
            4. Are they not true sons of their father the devil?
               1. When he had lost heaven and could not regain it, he thought only of tempting Adam and Eve to lose heaven too.
               2. So he tried to tempt your Savior also, that he might deprive Christ and you of what he could not gain.
               3. Pure envy!
            5. As well, this is black-hearted treachery on their part
               1. The previous Abimelech had made a covenant with Abraham to deal loyally with him
               2. Yet as soon as Abraham leaves the area, they trash his property.
         3. Abimelech tells Isaac to leave because he fears him (16)
            1. The Philistines could have been aroused to a godly desire
               1. See how the God of Abraham blesses Abraham's son
               2. Let us seek the God of Abraham and so be blessed.
            2. Instead, a powerful Isaac can only mean one thing: a threat
            3. "Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we."
         4. Ok, technically he hasn't violated his command "don't touch Isaac or Rebekah."
            1. But come on!
            2. Isn't he doing a lot less than Isaac could have expected?
            3. He is God's very opposite.
      3. Who seems more trustworthy, God or Abimelech?
         1. This is the thrust of this story. Who is Isaac going to trust?
         2. Abimelech and the Philistines break their promise to Abraham as soon as his back is turned.
         3. God keeps his promise to Abraham even to the next generation, Isaac.
         4. The Philistines envy Isaac's prosperity and want him poor.
         5. God pledges himself to Isaac's good and makes him rich.
         6. Abimelech decrees Isaac's protection and then does less than expected. He gets off on a technicality by not hurting Isaac, just showing him the door.
         7. God decrees Isaac's blessing and does more - abundantly more - than expected.
   3. The Philistines Harass; the Lord Blesses (17-22)
      1. Isaac re-digs old wells in faith
         1. The Philistines have testified, "these are not yours."
         2. Isaac replies, "Oh yes they are. God gave them to my father Abraham."
         3. His faith is not in the Philistines' testimony but God's
      2. He gives the wells the same names Abraham gave them
         1. Thus he rebukes the Philistines
            1. To name the well is to assert ownership
            2. To give it the same name Abraham did is to remind the Philistines, this isn't my well because I just dug it.
            3. This is my well because Abraham dug it. You had no right to steal my inheritance
         2. Thus he shows his faith in God
            1. God will bless him because of Abraham (4,5)
            2. So he claims the blessing of Abraham by reclaiming that which God had first given to Abraham.
      3. But God's blessing again grows larger
         1. Isaac not only gets back all that Abraham had lost
         2. His servants find new wells also
         3. They dig in the valley and find a well of spring water
            1. The best kind
            2. Other wells dry up eventually
            3. But this one is fed by an underground spring
            4. It is of this kind of well that Jesus spoke when he promised to be "a well of water springing up to everlasting life.
            5. So this well represents the blessings of God which are new every morning
      4. The herdsman of Gerar quarrel with him over the well. So he names it Esek, "Quarrel"
         1. This does two things
         2. It notes that the blessing of God is not complete for there is still strife and Isaac is not yet delivered from all his enemies.
         3. By naming the well, Isaac asserts his ownership. He claims the land that God is giving him, and thus he asserts his faith in the promises of God.
      5. The same thing happens with another well, so Isaac names it Sitnah, "Enmity."
      6. When will the Lord fulfill his promise to give Isaac peace?
      7. He digs another well and there is no quarrel. So he names the well Rehoboth, "Spaciousness." "Room."
         1. Because the Lord has made room and we shall be fruitful (22)
         2. Abimelech and the Philistines did not provide this water. They were busy taking water away
            1. They filled up Abraham's wells
            2. They chased Isaac away from wells that he dug
            3. The Lord is the one who gave the life-giving water (remember, the chapter begins with a famine)
            4. The Lord is the one who caused the life-giving grain to grow
            5. Abimelech is no protection at all. He's a pain in the neck!
         3. Abimelech and the Philistines (which, by the way, would be a great name for a rock group. Right up there with Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs … ok I won't say that from the pulpit) did not provide room
            1. They chased Isaac away
            2. And when he went away, they crowded him some more.
      8. Every time they push him, he meekly moves away.
      9. Yet still he asserts his faith in God's promises
      10. This meek one has just inherited the earth.
      11. Which one does Isaac trust, Abimelech or the Lord?
      12. Trust in the Lord, children of God!
          1. Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will dwell securely, and enjoy security…. But the meek shall possess the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity…. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their refuge in time of trouble. The Lord helps them; he delivers them from the wicked, and saves them, because they take refuge in him!
          2. What can this world offer you?
          3. What can the people of this world do for you?
          4. Sinners are treacherous and the world is a liar. Trust in the Lord!
2. The Context in Which All This Is Written
   1. The Context of Israel in the Wilderness
      1. Have we forgotten the original audience?
      2. Moses is setting these stories down, by inspiration of the H.S. to speak to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who have left Egypt behind to cross the desert and enter the promised land
      3. They have been tempted to return to Egypt, to rely on the waters and the food that are there.
      4. So their Lord reminds them that he is the true giver of food and water.
      5. This story should sound a little familiar to them.
         1. The Lord blessed them in Egypt and multiplied them (just as the Lord blessed Isaac and multiplied him)
         2. Pharaoh (like Abimelech) grew nervous and harassed them
      6. But God cared for Isaac and fulfilled his promise to bless
      7. Now, even though they must go and redig all those wells yet again, they know God is giving us this land. What can men do to us?
   2. The Context of Christ
      1. And Israel is in turn a picture of Christ
         1. Israel frequently called God's son in the OT
         2. Hosea - Out of Egypt….
         3. Matthew applies this to Christ, the true Israel who was faithful to God and kept all his commandments and earned all these blessings.
      2. So the Devil envied Christ and tried to make life difficult for him
      3. So the sons of the Devil, the pharisees and the Herodians did as well.
         1. They envied his popularity and complained that the whole world had gone after him
         2. Pilate tried to release Jesus, Matthew tells us, "For he knew that they had handed Him over because of envy"
         3. What good did it do them to hand him over?
         4. Did it make them richer?
         5. It was like filling Abraham's wells with dirt. Pure spite
         6. This is how the Philistines viewed Abraham and Isaac
         7. This is how unbelievers viewed your Savior
         8. This is how the world will view you
   3. The Context of Christ's Church
      1. The Philistines hated Isaac for his material blessings.
      2. How much more will the world hate you for blessings in Christ that they cannot even understand
         1. You eat the bread of heaven and are satisfied.
         2. You drink from Christ, a well of water springing up to everlasting life
         3. The world cannot understand this
         4. But they can hate it, just as they hated Christ
      3. The world can do everything its power to take these blessings from you.
         1. They can tempt you with riches that are nothing compared to what you have in Christ
         2. They can urge you to trust in their commitments, but what commitment does the world make that it does not break?
         3. They are like Abimelech, promising peace and giving grief
      4. But do not fear, Christ has overcome the world.
      5. You can be like Isaac, meekly moving on when the world attacks.
         1. Are you weak?
         2. No, by God! You are strong in him!
         3. The Lord is the one who overcomes the Philistines
         4. Christ, through the weakness of the cross, has overcome the strongest of your enemies.
         5. What do you have to fear?
         6. He has made room for you in heavenly places, in the true promised land.
         7. God, who delights in giving more than what he promised, has finally given you everything in Christ!
         8. What more could anyone offer you? What more do you need? What more could you ask for or think?
         9. Trust in the Lord. Be of good courage. Wait for him and he will reveal the blessing he has bestowed.

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