Genesis 26:1-35: The Promise of God’s Presence

Genesis 26:1-35: The Promise of God’s Presence

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Genesis, and today the next passage we come to is Genesis 26:1-35, so I’ll be reading a selection of verses from that passage. It says,

1 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. 2 And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 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. 4 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, 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” 6 So Isaac settled in Gerar. 7 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. 8 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. 9 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.’ ” 10 Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” 11 So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” 12 And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, 13 and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. 14 He had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him….16 And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.” 17 So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there…. 23 From there he went up to Beersheba. 24 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.” 25 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. 26 When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army, 27 Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?” 28 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, 29 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.” 30 So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. 31 In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths. And Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace….

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, we’re told that the one who delights in your Word is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season and that has leaves that do not wither. We want to be that tree. So please, open up your Word to us this morning so that we can be rooted in your Word, nourished in your Word, and sustained by your Word. Holy Spirit, use the things taught in this passage to change us from within. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen. Several weeks ago, my family and I came to the church building on a weekday evening with some supplies that we were bringing from our house to the church—and we had a little situation. Everyone was busy doing their thing and taking the supplies into the building. And, of course, while we were in the building and putting the supplies where they needed to go, the kids were running around in the back area of the auditorium there having a good time. And, after about 5-6 minutes, it dawned on me that we were missing one of our kids. So, I went back out to the van—which was parked on one of the top-level parking spaces here—and discovered that, sure enough, our three-year-old son Luke was still in the van, strapped in his car seat, and had evidently been crying quite a bit. His eyes were all red and puffy. 

And, when I opened the van door, he just gave me this accusatory look that clearly communicated, “You left me here.” And he was right. The rest of us had all been so busy carrying in supplies and having a good time that we totally forgot about poor little Luke, out there in the van, all alone. Hopefully, being stuck in the van for those 5-6 minutes didn’t inflict too psychological trauma on the little guy. But kids are resilient, right? That’s what they say. So, hopefully, he’ll be okay. It kind reminds me of that movie Home Alone, where a young boy named Kevin McCallister is forgotten at home by his family when they travel for Christmas and subsequently has to fend for himself for several days. That was us, just a few weeks ago. 

Yet, in all seriousness, maybe that’s similar to the way you’ve felt during certain seasons of your life. Maybe it’s the way you feel right now. I think it’s relatively common for people—especially in the midst of difficult situations—to feel alone as they try to deal with whatever difficulties they’re facing. Maybe you’ve lost a loved one and feel alone in your grief. Or maybe you’ve recently gone through a divorce and feel alone as you try to pick up the pieces of your life and move forward. Or maybe you’ve unexpectedly lost your job or are experiencing significant financial hardship for some other reason and feel alone as you struggle to make ends meet. Or maybe you’ve been the victim of some sort of abuse and feel like you’re carrying that pain alone. Or maybe you have a chronic illness or disability and feel like you’re having to bear that burden alone. Or maybe you just feel depressed most days and aren’t sure why and feel alone in that struggle because no one else seems to understand what you’re going through. 

There are so many reasons why we often feel alone. And, many times, we feel a certain distance not only between ourselves and other people but also between ourselves and God. Sometimes, it even feels like God’s forgotten us or abandoned us in the midst of our difficulties. Who knows? Maybe we’ve failed him one too many times, and he’s decided to keep us at arm’s length from now on—or so we’re sometimes tempted to think.

Thankfully, though, God’s revealed to us a precious truth in Genesis 26 that helps us in the midst of all these kinds of struggles and experiences. As we go through this chapter, we’ll see the truth that God is present with his people. This truth is revealed through the story of a man named Isaac. God’s present with Isaac throughout everything that takes place in this chapter. We even find three declarations of God’s presence with Isaac. The first declaration is in the future tense and is stated in verse 3. God says, “I will be with you.” The second declaration is in the present tense and is stated in verse 24. God says, “I am with you.” And the third declaration is in the past tense and is stated in verse 28. Some other characters who have been observing Isaac’s life say to him, “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you.” Three declarations of God’s presence with Isaac. 

So let’s work our way through this passage and fill in some details surrounding God’s presence with Isaac. The story begins in verses 1-3: 1 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. 2 And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 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.

So, we see here that Isaac finds himself in the midst of a crisis. Verse 1 tells us that “there was a famine in the land.” And a common response to a famine in that region of the world was to temporarily relocate to Egypt, since Egypt had the Nile River flowing through it and therefore wasn’t as affected by the droughts that caused famines. However, verse 2 tells us that God appears to Isaac and tells him, 2 “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you….” So, this is a substantial test of Isaac’s faith. God’s telling him to stay in the land that’s being affected by the famine. And Isaac’s even more vulnerable than most of the others in that region because he’s residing there as a foreigner and has no legal status and is therefore highly dependent on the goodwill of the pagan communities around him. So, to stay in that land would be to take a huge risk. Yet, God’s instructions are explicit. God tells him to stay in that land and promises that, if Isaac does so, God will be with him and will bless him. God then reaffirms to Isaac the promises he had made to Isaac’s father Abraham. 

The story then continues in verse 6-7. It says, 6 So Isaac settled in Gerar. 7 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. So, even though Isaac exhibits commendable faith in obeying God’s instructions about staying in the land, he nevertheless also exhibits a lapse of faith in another regard. Following the example of his father, who had told this same lie on at least two previous occasions, Isaac falsely tells the Philistines that his wife Rebekah is his sister. He does this because Rebekah’s very attractive and he’s afraid that, if people know she’s his wife, they’ll kill him so that they can have her. 

So, Isaac wavers in his belief that God’s truly with him. Even though he might have claimed to believe God was with him, his actions in this particular instance show that he doesn’t really believe that as thoroughly as he should. And don’t we all have that struggle? Don’t we all claim to believe certain things about God but then live lives that, at least at times, reveal that perhaps we don’t believe those truths about God as much as we like to think we do? Friends, the fact is that, if you’re not living it, then you don’t truly believe it—or, at least, you’re not functioning in belief during those moments. 

We then read in verse 8 that “When [Isaac] had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife.” Now, as you can probably tell, when it says that Isaac was “laughing with Rebekah,” they weren’t just enjoying a funny joke together, alright? This laughter was, we might say, a bit more intimate than that. You may also remember from earlier in Genesis that Isaac’s name literally means “he laughs.” So what we have in this passage is a wordplay on Isaac’s name. There may have been literal laughter involved—I don’t know—but let’s just say it wasn’t the kind of laughter a brother and sister would share together. And Abimelech recognizes that and, in the subsequent verses, confronts Isaac and gives him a much-deserved rebuke. 

And you might think that, at this point, God would withdraw his presence and blessing from Isaac. After all, Isaac had messed up pretty badly and was a public embarrassment to everyone around him. Yet, God doesn’t do that. Instead, we read in verses 12-13, 12 And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, 13 and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy. And remember that all of this is taking place in the middle of a famine. Scholars tell us that a hundredfold harvest would be quite rare even in normal conditions. So, to have a hundredfold harvest in the middle of a famine was nothing less than miraculous. It was, without a doubt, the result of God’s supernatural power. So, even though Isaac had totally blown it through his deceptive behavior, God was gracious to him and continued to be with him and bless him just as he said he would. Likewise, for those of us who are Christians today, what a blessing that God’s still faithful to us even when we’re unfaithful to him. 

In fact, as we continue reading in Genesis 26, God blesses Isaac so abundantly that the Philistines among whom Isaac is residing become jealous of him so that King Abimelech actually has to ask Isaac to leave that area and set up camp somewhere else. So, Isaac does that and goes to a neighboring territory and digs a series of wells because the Philistines keep taking the wells that he digs. Yet, time after time, Isaac keeps finding water—even in the midst of the drought that was taking place. To say that Isaac was lucky in finding all of this water would be an understatement. I mean, this is the kind of luck that would make many people today want to immediately hop on a plane and go to Vegas. And, of course, we know that it wasn’t actually luck at all but rather yet another indicator that God was indeed with Isaac and was blessing him, just as he said he would. 

God then appears to Isaac again and says to him in verse 24, “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, again, we find another declaration of God’s presence with Isaac. And Isaac responds in verse 25 by building an altar to the Lord and calling upon the name of the Lord. 

We then learn that Isaac has become so wealthy and so powerful that King Abimelech—the same king who had previously asked Isaac to leave—comes to Isaac, along with the commander of his army, and seeks to make a treaty with Isaac. Look at verses 27-29: 27 Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?” 28 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, 29 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, even this pagan king recognizes that God’s with Isaac and therefore wants to make a treaty with Isaac just to make sure he’ll never end up on Isaac’s bad side. The two of them then do that and peacefully part ways once again. 

So, as you can see, this chapter’s filled with both direct statements and practical examples of how God is with Isaac. We find three separate statements that specifically tell us how God’s with Isaac as well as several examples of God being with him in order to bless him such as the miraculously abundant harvest Isaac enjoys even during a famine and the water he keeps finding even during a drought and also the way God protects Isaac and enables him to enjoy peace with the Philistines in that area through a treaty. Everywhere you look in Isaac’s life, you can see God’s blessing. So, if you’re taking notes, the main idea of this passage is quite simple: Isaac prospers because God is with him. Isaac prospers because God is with him. 

And as we think about the blessings Isaac experiences in Genesis 26 that are attributed to God being present with him, that’s a great reminder for us of how dependent we are as well on God’s presence and blessing. The fact is that, without God, we can’t do anything. It reminds me of what Jesus teaches in John 15:5. He says to his disciples, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “apart from me you can’t do very much” or “apart from me you can’t do as much as you’d otherwise be able to do.” In our pride, we might sometimes be tempted to think that, but that’s not what Jesus says. He says, “apart from me you can do nothing.” That means, apart from Jesus, we can’t live godly lives, nor can we make a meaningful impact—or any genuine impact—for God’s Kingdom. 

And that’s true not only for us as individuals but also for us as a church. If we don’t have God, we don’t have anything. We may have more resources than we’ve ever had as a church. We may have more people than we’ve ever had and a bigger budget than we’ve ever had and, once the renovations are done, a nicer building than we’ve ever had. But if we don’t have God, we don’t really have anything. We’re just as dependent on God being with us in order to make a meaningful Kingdom impact as Isaac was on God being with him in order to be prosperous. 

And that’s where prayer comes in. To what degree are we devoting ourselves to prayer—and not just as a matter of routine but really leaning on God and wholeheartedly relying on him in our prayers? Are we making time for personal prayer with an awareness of our dependence on God? Are we faithfully gathering together for prayer, both in Community Groups and at our Wednesday Prayer Gathering, with an understanding of how much we need God’s power? Friends, you just can’t do the work of God apart from the power of God. And that power is obtained through prayer. 

In addition, as we think about how God was the source of every good thing Isaac enjoyed, it reminds us that all of the good things we have are blessings we’ve received from God. Contrary to what we’re often tempted to assume, we don’t enjoy these things because we’ve pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps and managed to make something of ourselves. Instead, the only reason we have anything good is because God’s been gracious to us. As the Apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV), “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” 

For us to act like we’ve acquired for ourselves the things we possess would be kind of like the children of wealthy parents acting like they’ve earned the nice things they enjoy. Imagine, for example, a teenage boy whose parents buy him a super-nice car for his sixteenth birthday. He might be driving that brand-new Mercedes or BMW around town with his sunglasses on and acting like he’s the coolest person in the world, but his money didn’t buy that car. His parents bought it for him! Similarly, every good thing we enjoy isn’t a feat we’ve achieved but rather a blessing we’ve received. 

So, I really appreciate, in Genesis 26, how Isaac builds an altar to the Lord in verse 25. That altar, and the worship it facilitated, is an indication that Isaac recognized that every last ounce of his prosperity came from God. Do we live with a recognition that the same is true of us and the blessings we enjoy? Do we humbly acknowledge God as the Giver of every good thing in our lives and express appropriate thankfulness to him for those blessings?

And, pressing even further into this idea, do we recognize that God’s given us these material blessings for a reason? He has expectations for the way we use what he’s entrusted to us. So, we need to get out of the ownership mentality that we so often have and instead embrace a stewardship mentality. Because, in reality, all of the money we possess actually belongs to God. It’s God’s money that he’s temporarily entrusted to us with the expectation that we’ll use it for his glory and according to his instructions. Kind of like when you entrust money to a financial advisor, that advisor isn’t free to do whatever they want with it. If they decide to use your money to take their family on a cruise in the Caribbean, that’s not cool, right? That’s generally frowned upon. There’s a good chance the financial advisor would end up doing some jail time for pulling a stunt like that. Because, humanly speaking, that money was yours, not theirs, and therefore needed to be managed according to your instructions.

And that’s the mentality we should have when we think about the money we possess. We should have a stewardship mentality rather than an ownership mentality. As John Wesley once said, the question we should be asking ourselves isn’t, “How much of my money will I give to God?” but rather “How much of God’s money will I keep for myself?” Make no mistake: the day’s coming when we’ll have to give an account for how faithful we’ve been as stewards.  

So, just as Isaac’s prosperity in Genesis 26 was the result of God’s presence with him and God’s blessing in his life, all of the wealth we possess comes from God as well—and is given to us with the expectation that we’ll use it for God’s glory. 

Yet, as we return to this idea of God being with Isaac in Genesis 26, there’s an aspect of that theme that we haven’t yet explored. And, in my opinion, it’s the richest and most glorious deposit for us to mine from this entire passage. The fact is that God’s with us not just as he was with Isaac but in an even greater way than he was ever with Isaac—or with anyone else in the Old Testament, for that matter. 

First of all, God’s come to be with us not just spiritually or in a manner of speaking but quite literally in the person of Jesus. In Isaiah 7:14, God had promised the coming of one who would be called Immanuel, which means “God is with us.” Then, after 700 years, Jesus finally came and is specifically said to be the fulfillment of that Immanuel prophecy in Matthew 1:22-23. Jesus is Immanuel. God’s come to be with us in the flesh in the person of Jesus. 

And the reason Jesus came to this earth was to rescue us from our sin. You see, in our natural condition, God isn’t with us at all. Instead, he’s actually against us because of our rebellion against him. Our sinful rebellion has alienated us from this holy God and made us deserving of his wrath. 

However, this God of holiness and justice is also a God of love and mercy. And God loved us so much that he sent his own Son Jesus to come to this earth on a rescue mission to save us. Jesus did that by living a perfectly sinless life and then by dying on the cross in our place and to pay for our sin. Think about that. Jesus died not for good people or for deserving people or for people who had done something for him. He died for sinners. As Romans 5:6-8 reminds us, 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

Jesus then rose from the dead so that he now stands ready to save everyone who will put their trust in him for rescue. That involves us humbly acknowledging that there’s nothing we can do to rescue ourselves and instead putting our trust in Jesus alone. As the old hymn says, “Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling.” That’s the only way we can be saved from our sins and made right with God. 

So, God didn’t leave us in our sins but came to be with us in the person of Immanuel. God was with Isaac in a certain sense in Genesis 26, but he’s come to be with us in an even greater and more profound way in his Son Jesus. 

Yet, God’s presence with us doesn’t stop there. After Jesus resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit not just to be with his people but to actually dwell in his people. That’s huge. God isn’t just “with” us as he was with Isaac in Genesis 26. He’s actually taken up permanent residence inside of us through the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul writes, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” Just as God’s manifest presence was located in the Jerusalem temple during Old Testament times, the Holy Spirit resides within those of us who are Christians. Each one of us is a New Testament version of the Old Testament temple. That temple language Paul uses isn’t just a figure of speech or some sort of illustration but an actual, metaphysical reality. The Holy Spirit dwells within God’s people. 

No longer is God just “with” us, as he was with Isaac, in order to bless certain aspects of our lives—such as, in Isaac’s case, helping him acquire material wealth. Instead, the God’s present inside us, ministering to us from within our hearts in the most profound ways. Just to name a few of the ministries the Holy Spirit has in our lives, according to the New Testament, the Holy Spirit helps us to understand and apply the Bible (1 Corinthians 2:10-12). He also shapes us to be more like Jesus by exhibiting the so-called “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23). He also stirs our affections for the Lord by pouring the love of God into our hearts (Romans 5:5). The Spirit also empowers us for ministry to other Christians in unique ways through the use of spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). He also empowers us in our witness so that we can share the gospel with boldness (Acts 4:31). He even guides us in the words we say in our gospel witness so that we have no need to be anxious (Luke 12:11-12). And the Spirit also provides more general guidance as well for the various decisions we make in life (Acts 16:6-7). And, of course, all of this only scratches the surface of what the New Testament teaches about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. 

So, the difference between the Holy Spirit being “with” someone like he was with Isaac in Genesis 26 and him actually being “in” us as he is in New Testament times is truly a night and day difference. Perhaps we might compare it to the difference between having a handy neighbor next door who’s happy to lend a helping hand from time to time for small home improvement projects and having full-time handyman actually living in your basement and continually doing major renovations on your house. 

And the best part is that the Holy Spirit’s presence within us is permanent throughout our lives. That means we can have utter confidence that he’ll be with us and in us no matter what we face. You know, at the beginning of the message, we talked about how it’s not uncommon for us to feel alone in the midst of various difficulties in our lives. Yet, the truth of the matter is that we’re never alone. God’s present within us even in the midst of the most difficult situations we’ll ever face. He literally couldn’t be any closer. And even when we stumble spiritually and fall back into various sins, the Holy Spirit doesn’t leave us. Instead, he’s present within us no matter what we face or how we fail. That’s the confidence we have, as Christians. 

And it’s a confidence that also empowers us in the mission Jesus has given us of spreading the gospel and making disciples. I mean, let’s not forget what we recite every Sunday at the conclusion of our worship service. Jesus tells us to make disciples of all nations and then encourages us in a very deliberate way. What way is that? “Behold,” he says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” 

So, what about you? Do you have the confidence that the Holy Spirit dwells within you? Have you ever experienced the indescribable joy of his presence and the transformative power of his ministry and the wonderful comfort of knowing that he’s with you no matter what you face so that you’re never alone? Christianity isn’t just about going to heaven when you die but about experiencing the glorious presence and power of God in your life in the here and now. And I’ll just say, if you’re missing that in your life, then you’re missing everything.