At the start of chapter 26, we see that a famine sets in the land, just like the one at the start of Abraham’s life of following after God— “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.” At the end of Genesis 25, Isaac had settled at Beer-lahai-roi. But because of the famine, he journeyed to Gerar, the very region where his father Abraham had once lived for years. In fact, Gerar was the place where Abraham was dwelling when Isaac was born.
As you work through Genesis, you’ll begin to notice just how often famines appear. There was a famine during the time of Abraham, a famine now with Isaac, and a famine during the life of Joseph. So, God wants us to see and understand that nothing, and I mean nothing, falls outside of God’s control. God has always been in the business of using hardships like famine and loss to build the faith and trust of his people. Only God can use famine and drought to water the souls of his people.
Now, if you’re reading Genesis closely, the name Abimelech should catch your attention. Abimelech was the name of the king who ruled while Abraham was in Gerar. So, the obvious question has to be asked, “Is this the same Abimelech that was ruling while Abraham was king?” The answer here isn’t specifically answered in the text. But, I think we can speculate.
It’s likely that this moment occurred somewhere between 80-100 years after Abraham’s encounter with Abimlech in Gerar. We say that because: Abraham interacts with Abimlelech in Gerar before Isaac was born. Isaac was then born when Abraham was 100 in Genesis 21. Then, in Genesis 25, we see that Isaac was 60 years old when Jacob and Esau were born. And then at the end of Genesis 26, we see Jacob and Esau are grown enough to marry at age 40.
So, it seems likely that Isaac’s time in Gerar was decades after his father Abraham’s. This means that it’s most likely that an entire generation has passed since Abraham’s early encounter with Abimelech. …which means that this would be a different Abimelech.
Most scholars highlight how the name “Abimelech” means father-king (Abba-melech) or “my father is king.” Therefore, many would say that this was a royal title rather than a personal name, similar to the name Pharaoh in Egypt. So, it seems likely that the Abimlech Isaac will encounter in Gerar is the son of the Abimelech Abraham encountered in Gerar.
As we see in verses 2-5, the LORD appeared him him and said, “[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.”
Egypt would have been a place of refuge, a place of plenty during a time of lack. So, the temptation to go to Egypt, like his father Abraham did, would have been strong. But, God gives Isaac a specific command not to go down to Egypt.
So, the first thing I found myself asking, “Why not go to Egypt?” There’s something in us that wants to know why. When a parent says, “Don’t go do ____,” our knee jerk response as a child was, “Why?” So, why not Egypt?
Well, it could be that God knew something we didn’t know. It could have been that there were temptations lurking in Egypt that we didn’t know or see. It could have been that it wasn’t time for God’s people to go there. Or, it could have been that God was ready to show to Isaac his faithfulness, the same faithfulness he had showed his father, Abraham.
This is what I believe God was doing. I believe he’s saying, “Don’t go to the land of ease and comfort like your dad did. Stay here in this land of empty, and I will be with you and bless you.”
I love what’s taking place here. Right next to the command to stay sits the promise of blessing. God doesn’t simply call Isaac to remain in Gerar; He promises him that his presence and favor will remain with him.
And the beauty here is found in the fact that God is giving to Isaac the same promise he gave to Abraham. The very promises once spoken over Abraham are now spoken directly to Isaac.
Like, let that sink in! All of Isaac’s life, he’s probably heard of these promises given to his father. He’s heard the stories. He’s heard of the covenant. He’s heard of the blessing. He’s heard of the faithfulness of God toward his father. Now he’s hearing these promises for himself!
This is the first encounter Isaac has had with God recorded in Genesis. We’ve seen him pray to God, and God answer his prayers. But, now we see God speaking directly to him, just like he did with Abraham!
What had once been an inherited testimony is now becoming a personal encounter!
As I sat pondering this reality, I found myself praying the same would be true for my own children and for the generation behind us here at Harbor. May they not only hear about the faithfulness of God through our stories, but may they encounter it for themselves. May they be given the opportunity to see and experience for themselves the faithfulness of God. May their faith grow and become their own. May their testimony evolve from, “I’ve seen what God has done for my dad/mom,” to “I’ve seen what God has done for me!”
This is a transitional moment for Isaac, a moment where the promise of God becomes his own. His father’s inheritance has become his own living hope.
Look what happens next— “So Isaac settled in Gerar.” Isaac did what God told him to do. He obeyed.
When God told Isaac to “sojourn in this land, and i will be with you and bless you,” Isaac did just that. When God said stay, he stayed. He put his packed bags down and began to dwell in the land God had told him to dwell.
This is a tremendous display of faith by Isaac. He knew that he was safest with God, therefore he did what God told him to do! He held onto God’s promises and followed him by staying.
Friends, faith without works is dead. Our life and our actions should demonstrate someone who trusts God. Isaac demonstrated his faith in God by obeying God. Belief and obedience should always go hand in hand.
Instead of going to Egypt, Isaac settled in Gerar, just as God had told him to do. And when he settles in Gerar, he has men who approach him asking about his wife, which strikes fear in his heart.
Look at verse 7, “[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.”
Does this sound familiar? It should.
This scene feels almost like a replay of Abraham’s story. It’s almost a verbatim encounter from when Abraham was in Egypt and Gerar.
Back in Genesis 12, right after God called Abraham to leave his homeland with the promise that he would become a great nation through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed, a famine struck the land. Abraham went down to Egypt, and there, out of fear, he told everyone that Sarah was his sister because he thought they might kill him on account of her beauty.
Then again in Genesis 20, Abraham sojourned in Gerar and said of Sarah, “She is my sister.” Abimelech took Sarah into his household to be his wife, but the LORD intervened, appearing to Abimelech in a dream and preserving Sarah before restoring her to Abraham.
And now Isaac is walking down the same worn path as his father before him. He’s doing the very thing his father did.
Like Abraham, he feared what man might do to him because of the beauty of his wife. And out of that fear, he reached for the same faulty refuge his father once did. The fear of man led him to find safety in the shadows of a lie, just like his dad.
I want to camp out here for a moment.
I’ve always been a little squirmy toward the concept of generational curses. It was a phrase that was never clearly defined for me, and it was a concept that seemed a little too mystical or vague to me.
But, I do want to highlight what I think is taking place here, which is the fact that there can be recurring sinful patterns in people’s lives that are passed from parents to children.
Sinful patterns can echo through generations. The saying, “The apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” has some truth to it! There are ways of thinking and acting that parents can model, and children can follow.
Now, to be clear, guilt is not automatically inherited. You will not be held responsible for the life your parents live. Every person stands responsible before God for his or her own sin.
But, the Bible does teach us that the consequences of sin and the patterns of sin can be passed down from one generation to the next.
And that’s exactly what we see here with Isaac. In Gerar, Isaac follows in his fathers footsteps. Under pressure, he walked the same road his father once walked.
And I guarantee you Abraham didn’t teach Isaac this practice. I guarantee you that Abraham didn’t sit Isaac down and say, “Here’s how you lie about your wife when you’re afraid.”
And yet, when pressure was applied, Isaac sinned as his father sinned. When fear tightened its grip of Isaac’s heart, he instinctively reached for the same sinful refuge as his father had done before.
So, I want you to see and understand that sin always leaves a wake behind it. It has ripple effects across generations.
You will likely be tempted to sin in ways your parents have sinned. And you will likely sin as you parents have sinned.
Can I press a little further here and say this: Be careful with your heart towards your parents, especially your parents sins who have become public.
I know I’m wading into dangerous waters here. So I want to be careful.
But, I just want to remind us that we are guilty sinners, too, just like our parents. We have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, just like our mom and dad.
Sometimes when we search our hearts, we begin to discover that we have the same sinful patterns in our hearts that our parents do.
But, with that being said, please do not let fear rule your life here. Do not hear this and lose heart because here’s the beauty of the gospel:
2 Corinthians 5:17 says that we have become a new creation in Christ. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; the new has come.”
This means that, in Christ, those patterns can be broken. Sinful patterns don’t have to become permanent chains. Because Christ is in you, cycles can be broken. Sin can be put to death. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, you can put sin to death… and, by God’s grace, you can walk in holiness in ways that you never could before…
Isaac sinned as his father sinned. And we have sinned as our earthly father has sinned. But, we are now adopted sons and daughters of the most high God. So, now we can begin to walk in righteousness and holiness… as our Heavenly Father has walked.
Now, I do want to camp out of the issue at hard here for a moment. Isaac feared man, and because he feared man, he lied. Fear became the doorway through which sin entered.
The fear of man is a dangerous poison that can rot away Christian faithfulness. It’s like salt water on a non stainless steel screw. It quietly corrodes faithfulness and slowly pulls our hearts away from trusting God.
Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.”
If I’m honest, this is something my heart feels often. More often than I would like to admit, I find fear crouching at the door of my heart.
In our day and age, I think we disguise fear with the word anxiety. And obviously anxiety is real and it’s complex. But, I think that the more layers you pull back on anxiety, the more you will begin to find fear underneath it all. The fear of rejection, the fear of failure, the fear of losing control, the fear of disappointing people, the fear of being hurt, the fear of dying.
A few years ago when we started Harbor, I found myself being ruled by fear.
I desperately wanted Harbor to grow numerically. And that desire for numerical growth led me to fear those who threatened that growth.
Harbor is far from a perfect church, I will be the first to admit that. But, early on when the pandemic hit, there was a lot of transition that took place here at Harbor. We had families move simply to be closer to home, and we had families leave because Harbor just wasn’t what they were expecting. And I can remember many nights laying my head on the pillow feeling like we were moving backwards as a church, feeling like I was failing as a pastor.
During that season, there was one family in particular who was very vocal about their frustrations. They struggled with our vision, our leadership, our outreach. It felt like every phone call centered on another disappointment or another thing we were doing wrong. And eventually this family left, which really hurt. And others left with them, which hurt just as bad.
But, out of this season, I began to realize how I was allowing the fear of man to rule how I pastored. Instead of primarily asking, “What does the Lord think about this decision?” I found myself subconsciously asking, “What will this family think about this decision?” Without realizing it, I was stepping right into the snare Proverbs warns about. I was laying a snare for myself.
The fear of man makes a terrible god. It demands constant approval, and it never gives any rest. It drives us into unhealthy places, and it distorts how we love and serve others. It leads us to do awful things.
For me, practically speaking as a pastor, the fear of man leads me to isolation. It forces me to withdraw from people. When I’m afraid of being hurt by people, I pull away from people. And pulling away from people will lead to me experiencing the very thing I’m afraid of. My fear of not being a good pastor leads me to not being a good pastor, the very thing I’m afraid of. The fear of man forces me to not shepherd God’s flock well because it pushes me away from God’s flock. So, a verse I have to cling to often is Hebrews 13:6, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid; what can man do to me?”
At the end of the day, freedom from the fear of man is not found in becoming tougher or less emotional. Freedom from the fear of man is found in seeing God more clearly. The bigger God becomes in our eyes, the smaller man becomes. And when we truly believe that the Lord is our helper, we are finally free to obey him without being enslaved to the opinions or actions of others.
Following this, Abimelech saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife. This isn’t just a “ha-ha, hee-hee” encounter. This is a flirtatious encounter between lovers. Abimelech approaches Isaac and says (v.9), “[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.”
So, like with his father, Abimelech addresses the lie at hand. It is ok to address sin! It is good to not allow lies to continue. But, what Abimelech does next is profound! Rather than punish Isaac for lying, he speaks a blessing of protection over Isaac and Rebekah.
And as you see in verse 12, the LORD blessed Issac. Isaac sowed in the land of famine and reaped in the same year a hundredfold.
In a normal year without a famine, a hundredfold harvest would have been viewed as extraordinary. For context, a tenfold return could be considered good. But, in a time where conditions were viewed as terrible for farming, Isaac had an abundant harvest. And Isaac’s harvest wasn’t a result of Isaac’s skill. It was a result of God’s blessing— “The LORD blessed him, and the man became rich and gained more and more until he became very wealthy.”
There are two final take aways I want us to pull from this:
First, I want us to remember God’s faithfulness.
If God says he will do something, he will do it. His faithfulness endures to every generation. God has promised Abraham he would do something… and he has now promised Isaac he was going to do that something… and, thus, he will do that something.
Second, I want us to see that man’s stupidity will not thwart God’s good plan. Isaac was dumb, and he lied, just like Abraham was dumb and lied… But, Isaac’s lie didn’t dismantle God’s good will. Isaac’s dumb decision didn’t throw off God’s good plan of redemption. Perhaps you feel like you can relate to Isaac. Perhaps you feel like the tension present in verses 6-7 are a synopsis of your life. One moment you’re walking in faith, the next moment you’re walking in fear. If that’s true of you, please know that you’re not alone. But, please see here that your stupidity doesn’t have to be the end of the story for you. God can still do great things in and through your lowest moments!