To A Thousand Generations

So, this morning we turn in the first book of the Bible to Genesis chapter 26. Genesis chapter 26 this morning. And we'll read the first 33 verses. And I'm not treating verses 34 and 35 until next time. Genesis chapter 26, we are working through this book. This morning we are in chapter 26. Let's give our attention to the Word of the Lord. 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 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 you've 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 possessions 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 Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us for you are much mightier than we. So 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 them. 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 Eset 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 Rehobo, saying, For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. From there he went 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 Ahuzath, his advisor, and Pichol, 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 that 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 not and have done to you nothing but good and has 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. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. I think one of the most shocking things about having children has been how many of my own weaknesses I have seen in these little guys. I'll never forget the first time I brought Kendall home and I sat her on the changing table and she threw a temper tantrum and I thought she was going to die. And I remember going to Darcy, what is wrong? Two-day-old babies are not to act like that. And she says, you act like that all the time. I have raised them and I realize more and more what the mercy of the Lord is. It's an amazing thing. Why it's so needed, and it's taught me patience and forbearance in raising children because ultimately what I've learned raising children is that they show me a lot what I'm like to the Lord. That's one of the things that I realized. They show me a lot of what I treat the Lord like. All the frustrations that I have, right? Even though you can't measure it the same way. Do you ever think about your children when you're dead and gone, what they will be like and what they will do with their lives and the kind of concerns that we have? Will they turn away? Will they do the same stupid things that, you know, we have done? You have all these kinds of questions. And this morning is fascinating. It's a fascinating section of Scripture because what it essentially is, is a rerun of the life of Abraham and Isaac. Rerun. And I mean that. The same old stuff. And you'd say, well, this is deja vu all over again. I think it was Yogi Barah said that. This is such an important message for us. What is God showing us in another rerun of this? Well, right at the beginning of chapter 26, we have the Lord restating his promise that he had made to Abraham, now to Isaac. And it's a glorious moment because it really is in the book of Genesis, God showing us, and this is the point of the passage this morning, God showing us that whatever he had given to Abraham, he is now taking that and giving it to the next generation, just as he had promised, just as he had said. Every bit of the blessing that Abraham enjoyed, the next generation enjoyed. And that God's commitment to Abraham is the same commitment that he had to Isaac and to Jacob and to a thousand generations. Well, look at this. All the way extending to you today, because the Lord had promised to Abraham, in you, Abraham, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And this is really exciting because as one generation comes and one generation goes, we often wonder, what is the Lord like to the next generation? What is the Lord? This is a very generational book. It's having us think about these things. And the basic message that is so beautiful in Genesis chapter 26 is God's message that He is committed to the next generation. That no matter how bad it looks or how bad it gets, he's not giving up on the next generation. And that everything he promised, he will extend until that day comes when the last of the elect come in. God comes to him in verse 2, to Isaac. 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. Listen to this language. For to you and 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. Here's what moves me. When God said that originally, When he made all those same promises back to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, what overwhelmed you about that? Do you remember when we started that sermon? I remember saying there were all these blessings that God unilaterally, unconditionally, meaning that Abraham would not fulfill these himself. We'll come back to that. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you. I will, he said in Genesis 12, make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And those who dishonor you, I will dishonor. And in you, Abraham, this is the fact. All the families of the earth will be blessed. All these seven promises God spoke before the life of Abraham had even really gotten off the ground. God spoke as if it was done. Here's what I'm doing. and this is why you're going, and this is what I'm going to fulfill. My benediction and my love comes down to this. I've decided to do this for you. I am blessing you, Abraham. I am blessing you. And then we studied a lot of failures. Now, isn't it amazing that God said those things before? Lord, what if I throw away my wife? What if I try to do this myself? What if I royally mess up? What if I wreck my life in many ways? Nothing changed it. And we studied everything that the Lord had done for him so that at the very end of his life, what was one of the last things that God said about Abraham? God blessed him in chapter 24 in everything. God blessed him in everything. his life ended with mammoth blessing. Abraham's dead and gone. What was Abraham's great concern? Well, you saw it when he took everything that he had and he heaped it upon Isaac. He sent all his other sons away because he knew that this was God's chosen son. And we open up Genesis 26, and what we have is one great chapter. We're not getting the whole repeat we get a summary chapter on the life of isaac and what moves you about it well verse two says god graciously condescends and makes the same promises and then verse three dwell in this land i will be with you and bless you for to you and your descendants i give all of these lands i will perform the oath. Now, think of what he's saying to Isaac now. Right at the start, before any of the rehearsing of his life, I'm committed to you. I'm committed to my promises to your father. I will provide. I have a heavenly inheritance set apart for you, Isaac. It's the greatest fulfillment for you. I've determined to bless you. So what does this all hinge upon? What the Lord said he would do. He mentions Genesis 15. You remember in Genesis 15, when Abraham was sleeping, the covenant was cut, and the Lord passed alone through those pieces to cut the covenant. Abraham had no fulfilling of that. God took everything upon him that would need to be fulfilled to give this kind of life to Abraham and to you. That was the message. Well, what do we have here? What is Genesis chapter 26 then? Isn't it something that we have this entire rerun now that plays out? It's striking. The question then could be asked, well, is Isaac going to wreck this? Could Isaac wreck this? Let's see. In verse 1, a test now comes. Now, there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. and isaac went to abimelech king of the philistines and gerar so so here we have it all replaying again a famine comes here these guys are pilgrims they're they're following and they're hit with famines and we study that we studied that that it's never an easy walk it's never an easy calling but notice here that this is a testing from the lord and just so that we don't think this is fabricated or some, you know, some kind of fabricated myth, the Lord makes it very clear. This was another real famine. It was an additional famine. It was not the same story. This is not the same story. It's an additional famine than the one that Abraham experienced. And the Lord mentions that to connect the two so that we see this. God is testing the next generation. And we looked at that last week, the importance of God remaining committed to bring the next generation to a place of faith. Isaac goes to Abimelech. Now, years ago, when Abraham was tested, he ran down into Egypt. It was a bad deal. That did not go well. He packed up his wife, and it was a real mess. You remember that. And it ended up in an awful thing. Well, here we are. God has sent the same test upon his son, and now God specifically commands Isaac. God appears to Isaac and specifically commands him and the Lord says to him, I don't want you going to Egypt. You stay in this land. This is the land I'm giving you. Now, we initially look at this and we say, well, Isaac kind of outshines here for a moment, Abraham. He doesn't go. This is great. All until verse six. And the men of that place asked about his wife. And he said, she is my sister, for he was afraid to say she is my wife because he thought, lest the men of the place kill me for Rebecca because she's so beautiful to behold. You've got to be kidding me at this point. Do you remember how destructive this sin was? This little sin, this little white lie. You remember how destructive this was? What was behind that little white lie? Well, for a great father, Abraham, Abraham ended up with this little lie outside of the land, throwing away the seed. He threw away God's promises. He erected with this lie. You know, one would think Abraham would have sat down with Isaac and said, you know, son, you really need to understand something. I had this particular sin in my life. And I had this particular sin of everywhere we went, we lied about your mom. And every time it didn't go well. And a word to the wise son, you might not want to try that one. That one created a nightmare for me. Now, when we first encountered Abraham, it was kind of, we thought, maybe a little bit funny. He's lying about his wife, lying about his wife. Would we do any different? you know you got a beautiful knockout bride and all the men are looking at her i don't want to get taken out for it just a little white line in the case of both abraham and isaac what was the reason behind it fear what was the fear that they were going to lose their lives that was the fear now any inquisitive reader of the bible is going to at this point say well wait Jesus had a little bit to say about that. Jesus had a lot to say about that. Jesus did not speak encouraging about that. Jesus said, whoever seeks to save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. So in other words, if you want to be James 5, and you want to run around trying to hold on to your life, and you want to lie and do these things, and you don't want to you don't want to surrender you're going to lose your life but anyone who willingly lays down his life for my sake and follows me well that person will save it and at some point that's a little bit distressing isn't it because these are very easy common sins that are being shown to us in genesis common sense that we do every day to hold on to our lives now here's the thing Isaac's heading right back into the same sin of Abraham. It's the same sin, and it was the same lack of trust. So it's not just about a little white lie with his wife. This is a constant quest that we're on to hold tight to this life. That's the reality. We hold tight here, and we evade the calling to follow as we should. I get so tired of looking at all this, the health stuff today. Even Suzanne Somers, she drives me nuts. Telling everyone how to, and I mean it, save your life, I quote. Save your life. I just don't convince myself. I know you can take care of yourself and maybe have a good quality of life. I'm not going to convince myself that if I go run and do all these things and put on the jogging shorts and do all that all the time, I'm going to extend my life. I'm just not going to convince myself of that. I can be responsible. But you see what can happen with all that? Holding tight, holding tight. Some guy at the gym the other day told me we need to reclaim the economy for Jesus. And I said, what does that mean? I don't understand that. We're all worried about 401ks and retirement and all this stuff. God is telling us something here. Learn from the fathers. You have gone before me. Listen, look at what he did for them. Don't fear. Stay with me. here's Isaac in the same situation there's nothing new and the Lord says to you today your test is nothing unique in the history of dealing with my people your test is not unique your your trial is not unique it's not something that's never been seen in the history of the world your test is just like their tests and God is telling you something this morning the Lord wants you to know I'm faithful and I am testing you so that you would learn to trust me in every single circumstance. That's what I want for me. Haven't you seen this repeatedly? Every single one. Now why does God do this? Here's what mind boggles. I'm mind boggled about the text. All I see in this text is relentless grace. We find showering down a blessing on this man. Mercy to the next generation. Blessing, mercy, mercy, blessing, grace. Look at verse 12. Then Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. Can you imagine if you did that in the stock market in one year? Verse 13, and the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. He had, verse 14, possessions and flocks and herds and many servants. And then you have a picture of him being given a place in the land. These wells were all stopped up, and he was having conflict with the Philistines until he comes to Rehoboth, which means spaciousness. And what does Isaac say? Verse 22, for now the Lord has made room for me, and we shall be fruitful in the land. And by the time this is all said and done, the king comes out and wants a blessing from Isaac, telling us that foreshadowing and giving us an initial kind of picture of nations coming, coming to the sun and giving blessing. And it's an amazing account. It's overwhelming. The same thing that happened to Abraham is now happening to Isaac. And the scene ends in Beersheba. And if you remember Beersheba, this is where Abraham dwelled. God brought him full circle all the way at, to the place where Abraham dwelled, and there would have been the tamarisk tree, and there would have been the running water that Abraham enjoyed, and Isaac is there worshiping the Lord. What a beautiful scene. What do you have here in this section? You have the Lord showering blessing on this man. Showering. More blessing, more blessing, more grace, more grace. The whole thing is telling you look at what God's doing for Isaac. Look at his commitment. If you were to survey this passage three times, it says in every single tense, God's with Isaac. In verse three, the Lord says, I will be with you. In every future direction you go, in every future choice you make, I will be with you. And then, verse 24, the Lord says, I am with you. Right now, Isaac, I'm with you. And then, Abimelech looks at Isaac and says, I can see that God has been with you. He never left him. Never won. Why is God doing this? Do you ever stop and ask the question, why does God love? Do you ever stop and ask, why does God bless this way? Why does God shower me with blessing? Why does God never leave me nor forsake me even when I'm doing these kinds of things? If you look over life, what have you known? Well, I would think that if I surveyed the congregation today and I asked what you've known, you've known a super abundance of provision and care. And I'm not saying it's not a tested free life. I understand it's full of tests and hardships, but in them, as we've seen, He's guided you the whole way. You're here today. He's speaking messages of peace to you. And then there's all the blessings that if you really look down the course of life, that He has continued to shower repeatedly and over and over and over again. And you rehearse all of the years of mercy. What if you started tallying up all of the mercies? If you really could see, as we ask the Lord in prayer, to open up our eyes to see, if you really could see all the mercies how great is it why how would you answer that this morning would anyone put up their hand and say because i've been so good would anyone put up their hand and say because of my righteousness i've accomplished this what would you say that was israel's fault when they entered the land the one thing that made the lord just furious that they were running around when that god gave them a yes material blessing and saying we did it don't say that says the lord that by your own righteousness i've given you all these things don't say that well after all of that we have one major problem in the text what is it after listening to everything god said a promise look at verse 5. I am giving you all of this because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my law. And the Reformed people are really nervous right now. You can't say that. What does that mean? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We just got done studying the life of Abraham. If I were to ask, was Abraham obedient, I'd probably give him 50-50. if i was on a good day i think more yeah i you know what would you give him god told him to go to the promised land he left and then i find him doing it himself and then god says abraham i mean is god saying here that isaac abraham generally did enough good for me for me to do this that i'm going to continue all this for you what what what is god saying is this half obedience i i i kind of want to know that and the question then is does that then this the question then would come is does then the the jacob's stuff and promise and blessing all depended upon isaac's obedience because houston we've got a big problem if that's the case because isaac chooses esau wrong choice isaac and we've had a whole kind of idea well covenant succession people taught this idea of covenant succession on the faithfulness of the fathers will god be able to say to jacob i'm doing this because of isaac's obedience what will god will god be able to say to your children i'm doing this because of your obedience how do you feel about that what's fascinating to me is that we have a replay of the life of abraham and isaac now so let me understand this on the one hand this comes because of the obedience of abraham and in the next scene were shown reruns of abraham's sins in isaac and this is deliberately provoking i believe that the hebrew is glaring it's deliberately provoking was abraham righteous yes and i have no doubt that abraham made great progress in the life of sanctification but i'm still wrestling with the question this morning does god give us all this because of the blessing of the Father before me or the blessing of Abraham himself, the obedience. Here's where the second commandment really helps us this morning. I want everyone to listen to the second commandment. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Punishing the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. Now, I don't know if any passage demonstrates stronger the sins of the fathers, right? Sins of the fathers and the sins of the show up in the sons. But here's what's remarkable about the text. Do you have God holding the sins against Isaac and punishing him? No. You have God, instead of punishing, heaping blessing and mercy. Heaping it. In the law it says that the sins of the fathers would be punished to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Him. But mercy to a thousand generations. Notice the difference there. Not three or four. A thousand generations. Countless of those who love me and keep my commandments. Now, if there's a need for mercy, that means that some commandments aren't being kept. So what does God mean here? Well, the first is this, there is a general encouragement here, and I think Calvin is absolutely right on this. There is a general encouragement here that God describes you, his people, with this kind of language to encourage you. That love covers a multitude of sins. And this is how he describes you. This is how he sees you. Amidst all of Abraham's sin, God says, he's one of my obedient children. And God is saying to Isaac, I want you to know that, Isaac. My promises to Abraham, he believed them and he lived according to them. That is true of his life. He lived according to them. That was the drive of his life. And that would have meant something to Isaac. Because where's the only place that said of Abraham that he obeyed his voice in that kind of way? Guess where? Genesis 22. Right after he had Isaac on the altar and he removes Isaac and he puts the ram there, God says this, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you've done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand on the seashore and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you obeyed my voice. Isaac looked at his father, hand him over in obedience to be sacrificed because Abraham had so believed the gospel promise that what followed that belief, Abraham, by the time we get to 22, we see a man resting, believing, responding in obedience. And from that faith, from that good root, flowed that out of him. And the Lord wanted Isaac encouraged that that's how he sees us. But it's much more than that. Abraham's obedience is not the ultimate reason you could say that all of this is given to you today. You just can't say that. Nobody can say that. It's not Abraham's obedience or my obedience that I'm giving it to my kids. It's not my obedience that I'm getting eternal life. And here's where the text is telling you to look a little deeper. Something else is being shown to you. It gets to how you read the Bible. In verse 23, then he went up from there to Beersheba. And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not fear for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake. Abraham looked for something. One day, John said something of Jesus that must have startled the whole community. Matter of fact, they wanted to kill him for it. The father loves the son and has given everything into his hand. Everything. And immediately after that, he says, he who believes in the son has it, has everlasting life. He gets everything. In other words, the father loves the son so much, he has everything. And the one who believes in the son is given everything. If you were to go through the book of Ephesians, be amazed if you take your pen and circle, how many times it says in him, in him, in him, in him. In him, we have redemption through his blood. In him, we have the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. You could never say that of Abraham. In him, we've obtained an inheritance. There's always been only one through whom all that you get to enjoy comes. And that's why 2 Corinthians says, this is the reason you get this kind of life, dear brothers and sisters. This is the reason because of, Paul says, Jesus' sake. He fulfilled it for you. And when you read, Isaac, don't go down to Egypt. I'm going to show mercy. I'm committed to you. I will bless you. I'm going to fulfill the oath that in you all the nations would be blessed. I'm doing this for Abraham's sake because I made the promise to him that the seed would come from him who is Jesus. Abraham looked for him. That secures for you everything. Everything. It's all yours. Corinthians, why are you flirting with all that other stuff? You've got it all, he said to the church. Isaac then starts down the same old path, same old sin. And if grace were not the principle operating here of how God relates to us, it would have been done. Isaac is going to give his loyalties to the wrong son. It's through Jacob, says the Lord. But snapshotting his life, this chapter ends with Isaac being brought back to Beersheba. All of us, so that we would all know this morning that as Abraham stood by that tree, as Abraham worshiped the Lord, as Abraham bowed the knee in Beersheba, so did Isaac. and called upon the name of the everlasting God. God wooed him back. And God is showing us today why he continues this great redemption program to a thousand generations of those who love him. Do you love him? That's a good question this morning. Do you love him? I'm not asking if you sin. I know you sin. Do you love him? He wants you to know that he cares about you and your children. And why does He forbear generation after generation and put up with the same stupid sins? I mean, come on, right? He wants you to know that He's not losing one of the adopted sons because of His beloved Son. Jesus secures this for us. And the New Testament floods down on us all these blessings and it says that all these same promises that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob enjoyed, these same promises, Ephesians 3, are all yours. And the promise is, I'll be with you. I will bless you. I'll always be with you. I was yesterday, I am today, and I'll be with you tomorrow. And what in the whole of it, when it's over, I will give you eternal life because I'm pleased with my love son. For his sake, I will do this. So it's the greatest encouragement this morning to know that he characterizes you as obedient children. Keeping his law. And that's the greatest encouragement to us who lament and struggle this morning over the weakness of their faith and the fruits that follow. The weakness of their love and their constant stumbling. God says something amazing about Isaac in Hebrews, and I'm closing with this. I've never gotten over that he says, Isaac in Hebrews, this. He was not ashamed to be called his God. And God did not hold those failures against him, and he's not ashamed to be called your God. If that's true, what do I have to fear? If God is with me, we should trust him. Unless I want to turn away and reject him and live in unbelief, well then there's a whole different message this morning that the wrath of God abides on those who do not believe. But as we see here, Isaac called on the name of the Lord and built an altar at Beersheba. He worshiped the Lord. And we should do the same this morning, walking worthy of the calling that He has given us, not trashing how He characterizes us as obedient children, desiring what He desires because He has given you everything for Jesus' sake. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we praise You this morning and thank You that You characterize us this way and encourage us this way. Amidst all of our failures, You show mercy to us and love us to a thousand generations of those who love You and keep Your commandments. And Lord, then let us keep Your law. Let us love your law, but we say that realizing ultimately that our life and righteousness and all things are fixed upon the person and the work of Jesus, and that in him we have everything, forgiveness of sin and everlasting life. I pray for all of your people here today that they would be encouraged by this. They'd not lose heart in the famines and the struggles. They'd remember how you see them and that you're with them and that because of this life that we've studied you heap upon us blessing and grace and more grace as we learn from john grace upon grace we praise you for it in jesus name we pray amen