BLESSED BECAUSE OF HIS OBEDIENT FATHER

PROCLAMATION

“And The Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, ‘I am The God of Abraham thy father; fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake.”  Genesis 26:24 (KJV)

 

EXPLANATION

These are the words of God which were revealed to and written by Moses under the influence of The Holy Spirit of God.  And again there was a great famine in the land and Isaac was going to leave the land and go down to Egypt as his father Abraham had done during the previous famine. (Genesis 26:1)  However, The Lord God appeared to him in a dream and told him not to leave the land. (Genesis 26:2)  God told him to stay in the land and He would bless him.  He said that He would give him and his descendants the land as He promised Abraham.  God said that He would make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. (Genesis 26:2-6)  Isaac stayed in Gerar.  When the men of Gerar approached him regarding Rebekah, he lied and said that she was his sister, just as his father Abraham had lied about his wife, because he feared for his life. (Genesis 26:6-7)  After some time had passed, Abimelek king of the Philistines saw him caressing Rebekah.  He summoned Isaac and questioned him as to why he said that she was his sister when she was his wife.  Isaac answered that he feared for his life if he had been truthful. (Genesis 26:8-11)  Isaac stayed in the land and became very wealthy.  Abimelek told Isaac to move away because he had acquired too much.  Everywhere that he moved to and dug wells, his herders quarreled with the herders of the Gerar until he came to Rehoboth, and there he prospered. (Genesis 26:12-22)  It was there that The Lord appeared to him again and repeated His promise to bless him and his descendants for the sake of His servant Abraham. (Genesis 26:24-25)  When Abimelek saw how much Isaac had prospered, he knew that The Lord was with him and he went to Isaac to make a treaty with him. (Genesis 26:26-33)

 

APPLICATION

As the saying goes, “Like father, like son.”  Like his father, Isaac committed some of the same sins that Abraham committed, but he lacked his father’s seal for obeying The Word of God.  Isaac stayed in the land as God told him and dug a lot of wells.  What we can learn from Isaac is that it pays to be patient.  He dealt with a lot of rejection while he patiently waited on the blessings which The Lord had promised his father.  With patience and obedience to God comes prosperity and blessings.  “… Wait, I say, on The Lord.” (Psalm 27:14)