So we are thinking about Genesis
chapter 26 and verse 1. And we're going to read down
to verse 17. 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 shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed, because that Abraham obeyed my
voice and 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
Rebecca, 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 was sporting with Rebekah his wife. And Abimelech called
Isaac and said, Behold of a surety she is thy wife, and how 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
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. Then 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 art much mightier than we. And
Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar,
and dwelt there. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. So here we have another famine. And indeed, in some respects,
we have another copy of the experience of Abraham, the father of Isaac. Perhaps that was quite a long
time ago, maybe even a hundred years from that famine which
had afflicted Abraham and caused him to travel to Abimelech. And this famine, that was a problem
to Isaac. This shows us surely that every
believer has his own trial. And even young people have trials. We're speaking particularly to
young people, perhaps the children amongst us today. Children have
trials too. Children have difficult experiences,
difficult times. And even those who are blessed
of God do not find life easy. But they have promises given
to them and they are called to trust and depend upon God. That's what faith is. That's
what it is to believe God. And so these trials that we are
given, these trials that are brought upon us are sent to test
our faith and to prove that it is real faith. The Lord used this occasion of
the famine and Isaac's need to find somewhere where he could
maintain his family to restate to Isaac his promises that had
first been given to Abraham. You remember how God had promised
Abraham that through his line and from his seed would come
the promised Messiah and also that there would be a possession
of the land of Well, God uses this occasion to restate those
promises to Isaac, and we have that before us here in this passage. You see, the Lord had not forgotten. The Lord remembers his promises
to his people. Isaac was tempted to go into
Egypt, but God said to him, don't go there. Stay here. This is your land. And if you
stay here, I will be with thee and I will bless thee. I'll stay
with you here in this land and I will send my blessings upon
you. And we're reminded of a little
verse in Isaiah 43 when we think of these troubles that Isaac
had to endure. That verse 2 of Isaiah 43 says
this, listen to it. When thou passeth through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. The troubles that we have in
this life, the troubles that we have to experience and the
trials that we have to endure will sometimes feel like deep
water that is ready to overflow us, or rapid rivers that are
ready to knock us over and carry us away, or indeed even fire
that is going to consume us altogether. But what the Lord is promising
to His people in this verse in Isaiah, and what He promised
to Isaac, was that He will bring us through with His mighty hand. He will deliver His people who
trust in Him. And the Lord Jesus Christ said
the same to His disciples. I will be with you. I will never
leave you nor forsake you. Luke, He says, lo, I am with
you always. and repeated promises are given
to us in scripture in order to reassure us. Isaac had this promise
given to him again because it was to reassure him of the Lord's
continuing presence with him. So he repeated that covenant
promise to Isaac, both for the land and even more wonderfully,
with respect to the coming Messiah, the Saviour Jesus Christ who
would come from the line of Isaac, the Lord Jesus in whom all the
nations of the world would be blessed. And that future coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ promised long ago was eagerly believed
by Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and Samson and Job
and all those other Old Testament characters. They believed that
Jesus was coming and we might think that Abraham and Isaac
were were alive a long, long time ago and we have very little
in common with them or very little connection to them. But they
were called to trust in the very same Jesus who is set before
us today in the Gospel. And as we are called to trust
Him, we are trusting the same Jesus. We are believing in the
same Saviour. We are praising the same Messiah
because He is the only way of salvation, the only way for peace
with God and therefore we have that in common with these old
people, these old men and women of the Bible times. Verses 6
through 11 in this little chapter that we read is a little bit
like déjà vu. I don't know if you know what
déjà vu means, but it means that we've already seen this before.
This is very, very familiar. And of course, it shows us that
Isaac acted very much like Abraham, his father. that Isaac harboured
those same doubts and fears concerning God's provision. And like Abraham,
he lied when he felt that he personally was at risk. And I think this is very notable.
You see, we are called to trust the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal
things, for things to do with heaven and hell. for our eternal
salvation, but yet we often stumble over little things, over everyday
things, over our well-being and the well-being of our families. Let us trust the Lord for both,
the here and now, and for those things that are yet to come. Despite Isaac's doubting, the
Lord was faithful to him and he provided plentifully and richly
for Isaac and for Isaac's family as he said he would. The Lord
blessed him a hundredfold in one year. You know what that
means? That means that for every one
that he planted, he got a hundred back. Such was the richness and
the blessing of God's provision for his servant. And such was
Isaac's prosperity that the Philistines became envious, and they tried
to make life hard for Isaac by filling in his wells with soil
and blocking up the sources that he had to water and feed his
flocks. And finally, they became so envious
that Abimelech, the king, asked Isaac to leave. And in Genesis
26, verse 16, we read, Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us,
for thou art much mightier than we. You know, often it is that
there is a material prosperity comes to God's people in this
world. It just is the case that if we
live in obedience to the ways of God and the works of God,
often there is a relative prosperity and wealth comes to us. And sometimes
that can be envied and we can be rejected by those who do not
hold the principles that we hold and follow. But I think rather
there is another sense here. This land in which the Philistines
dwelt and this land in which Isaac now dwelt was to become
his possession. And I don't know how much the
Philistines knew about this, but I suspect quite a lot. They
knew that Abraham and Isaac would one day inherit all this land. That the posterity of this man
would own this land and its wealth. and not their own children. So God's promise was to Abraham
and Isaac, and the very presence of Isaac amongst the Philistines
provoked their anger and their envy. When we trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ and follow him, we don't try to upset the people
around about us, but very often our very presence our faith,
our belief about the Lord Jesus Christ, about heaven and hell,
about sin and judgment, about forgiveness and mercy, provoke
all who deny what or rather who we believe in. So know this,
know this, whether we're younger or whether we're older, We shall
never find true peace in this world amongst a worldly people. We might want to be friends with
this world, but the world won't have those who trust and believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Like Abraham, rather, we lift
our eyes to heaven, for this world is not our home. We desire a better country, that
is, an heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called our
God, for he hath prepared for us a city. May the Lord, our
God, be pleased to give us grace to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ
and to look beyond this world to that heavenly city that he
has prepared for them that love him. Amen.