Following in Your Father's Footsteps - Genesis 26:1-25

©Copyright July 07, 2019 by Rev Bruce Goettsche

In the Ten Commandments we read some chilling words,

You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. (Exodus 20:5)

These words tell us God views idolatry as a serious sin. When we give something else priority over Him in our lives, we are committing a much more serious sin than we realize.

However, the chilling part of the text is what comes next "I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected -- even children in the third and fourth generation . . . " most people believe this is talking about the consequences of our sin that trickle down from one generation to the next. It could also mean our children will tend to follow in our footsteps and commit the same sin (sometimes much more boldly).

This is what we are going to see in this text. There is a famine in Israel, so Isaac moves out of Israel to get food. This necessitates him coming to live in Gerar. The King is a named Abimelech. If you have a good memory you know Abraham had dealings with an Abimelech. This is not the same guy. It is possible it is his son or "Abimelech" may have been a title.

7When the men who lived there asked Isaac about his wife, Rebekah, he said, “She is my sister.” He was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “They will kill me to get her, because she is so beautiful.” 8But some time later, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out his window and saw Isaac caressing Rebekah.

9Immediately, Abimelech called for Isaac and exclaimed, “She is obviously your wife! Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?”

“Because I was afraid someone would kill me to get her from me,” Isaac replied.

10“How could you do this to us?” Abimelech exclaimed. “One of my people might easily have taken your wife and slept with her, and you would have made us guilty of great sin.” (Genesis 26:7-10)

The men of the town asked Isaac about Rebekah and Isaac follows in the sins of his father Abraham and tells them she is his sister! To quote Yogi Berra, "it is deja vu all over again!" Isaac is doing exactly what his dad did . . . twice!

The Lesson of Example is Powerful

Isaac wasn’t around either time Abraham lied about Sarah being his sister. So why does Isaac do what his father did? Did Isaac hear the stories from someone? Did it have something to do with a character flaw that Isaac picked up from his dad?

We have all had the horrifying experience of seeing our children do something wrong or inappropriate and realizing they were acting just like us!

Many of us have quoted Proverbs 22:6 from the King James Version:

Train up a child in the way he should go:

And when he is old, he will not depart from it.

The New Living Translation translates is:

Direct your children onto the right path,

and when they are older, they will not leave it.

Most of us cling to this verse and hear: "If you do your best, your kids will turn out good." But that is not what it is saying: It says: If you want your children to travel the right path, you need to train them in that path. That training must come from words and from actions.

Like it or not, we are training our children in the way they should go. We are modeling behavior our children will internalize.

How to handle conflict and deal with failure

What it means to live a life of integrity.

Whether or not God really does get first place in our lives.

What it means to seek the Lord, witness to your friends, and care for hurting people.

How wives and husbands treat each other.

What is proper discipline of children.

What we, as a family, really

How you balance family and career.

We can tell our kids all we want to put Christ first in their lives. They will listen to little that we say unless they see it backed up by our lives. Many people who study trends will tell you that families are going to church less today because they value other activities more, and that trend will continue leading us into an increasingly post-Christian society. The only way to avoid this is to seriously take what the Bible is saying, to heart.

When You Lie in One Area of Your Life People Wil be Hesitant to Trust You in Other Areas

Isaac was caught in a lie. It is a lie that could have cost Rebekah and the people of Gerar dearly. What follows next in the story is Isaac being asked to leave the area. He was very successful . . . too successful for the likes of the people of Gerar. I think these events are directly tied to the lack of integrity seen in Isaac earlier. The people felt they were shown no respect and they returned the favor.

Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.”

17So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. 18And 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. 19But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, 20the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.”

We know the Golden Rule is true: "Do to others what you would like them to do to you." If you state that negatively it is: "if you don't treat others with respect and honor they will not treat you that way either." Another way of stating that is: "What goes around comes around."

What is sad about the story is how much these people could have learned from Isaac.

Isaac could have told these people about His God but . . . because of his lack of integrity regarding his wife, he met hostility and vandalism. This is the same message we saw in our first point: people will discount what we say if they see that we don't believe what we say! We show our faith by what we do; the choices we make; the priorities we set.

Do you want to have an impact on the people around you? Live consistently. These words of Paul from the book of Romans certainly apply,

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2)

The MESSAGE drives home the point more clearly,

Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.[1]

Our tendency is to live and compete in the world as everyone else does. If others say a certain course is most important, we tend to agree and follow the crowd. Paul is saying, "Don't do that!" Follow the Lord! We need to ask better questions:

The path before me is a good one, but is it the best one?

Will this path allow me to pursue God's priorities for my life and family?

Does this path have an eternal benefit?

What are the long-term consequences of this choice? What does it teach my children? What does it do to my Christian witness? What does it say about the genuineness of my commitment to Christ?

Does this choice lead me along the path toward holiness?

Much of the time we live as if we are saying to the world around us, "I want to be a follower of Jesus BUT . . . I want to be just like you!" Such an approach to life leaves those around us confused. Our testimony becomes easy to dismiss.

Do you know why many people don't go to church today? It is because they, or their parents, used to attend a church but something happened and it seemed everything that had been proclaimed was a lie.

God's Faithfulness is not Tied to Ours

The people of Gerar made it very difficult for Isaac. Every well Isaac's men well opened, the people of Gerar either filled it in or claimed the rights to that well.

These were people who lived in an arid area. They needed water. Wells were vital for survival. There were different kinds of wells. Shallow wells tended to dry up in the arid desert. Real deep wells took much time and effort to build. It is unlikely that these were real deep wells. The most common well in those days may have been formed by digging until you were below the water table and the incoming water exceeded digger's bailing rate. So, the water was flowing at a good steady rate. The well would then be lined with stones, brick or other material to prevent collapse, and then covered with a cap or wood, or stone.

Let's read the rest of the text.

26One day King Abimelech came from Gerar with his adviser, Ahuzzath, and also Phicol, his army commander. 27“Why have you come here?” Isaac asked. “You obviously hate me, since you kicked me off your land.”

28They replied, “We can plainly see that the Lord is with you. So we want to enter into a sworn treaty with you. Let’s make a covenant. 29Swear that you will not harm us, just as we have never troubled you. We have always treated you well, and we sent you away from us in peace. And now look how the Lord has blessed you!”

30So Isaac prepared a covenant feast to celebrate the treaty, and they ate and drank together. 31Early the next morning, they each took a solemn oath not to interfere with each other. Then Isaac sent them home again, and they left him in peace.

32That very day Isaac’s servants came and told him about a new well they had dug. “We’ve found water!” they exclaimed. 33So Isaac named the well Shibah (which means “oath”). And to this day the town that grew up there is called Beersheba (which means “well of the oath”).

Notice a couple of things. First, Isaac did not become defeated. Imagine how tough it would be if everything you did to provide for your family was taken away from you. Imagine someone stealing your paycheck shortly after you cashed it. It's kind of like the bully who steals your lunch every day. That's what was happening here. They would uncover a well and it would be stolen. They would dig a well and the water rights were claimed by the people of Gerar. It would have been easy to give up or at least to raise a holy ruckus. But that doesn't appear to be what happens. They just kept digging wells.

Second, notice God kept leading them to more water. Isaac had lied. He had failed the integrity test but still God blessed him. His crops were many times better than the people of the area and they kept finding water.

It is an amazing truth: Even when we are not faithful, God is. Where we fail, He will not. This is where the words of Romans 8 become so powerful,

35Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36(As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) 37No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

38And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This does not mean we can do whatever we want, and God won't care. The book of Hebrews reminds us that those the Lord loves, He disciplines (Hebrews 12:6ff; Proverbs 3:11-12). Like any good parent, the Lord will work hard to teach us from our mistakes. Sometimes that is living with the consequences of our choices. At other times there could be some other punishment. However, we must never doubt His love. He will NEVER leave us or forsake us.

The world's hostility can never overcome God's love in the life of His children. NEVER.

Conclusions

One of my favorite things to do with passages like this is ask the question: "Where are you in this story?"

Are you paralyzed by fear and making some bad choices because of that fear? Are you like Isaac who was willing to lie and even put his wife in jeopardy in order to save his skin?

Are you suffering from an integrity problem? Do you profess faith but act like the values of the world are most important to you? Are you guilty of idolatry because you have put other things (Work, Family, Hobbies, Sports, Travel, Pleasure) before the Lord?

Do you look at your children, drifting away from devotion to the Lord because they are following in your footsteps rather than listening to your words?

Have the choices of your life led your friends and neighbors to discount Christianity rather than surrender their hearts and lives to Christ?

Are you reeling from one bad circumstance after another and wonder if God has cast you aside?

There is something to challenge each of us in this text. We are challenged first to make sure our commitment to Christ is genuine. Do you want to submit to Christ as Savior and Lord or is going to church simply what good people do and you want to be a good person? God does not want people who want to be better than the people who around them . . . He wants people who are willing to be made new. Does that describe you?

Second, we must ask a question: What am I actually teaching my children, grandchildren and the world around me? Are you teaching them that Christ is first in our lives . . . no matter what? Or are we teaching them that following Christ is something you can do when you don't have anything better to do? Are we teaching them that some things ARE more important than the Lord? Are we leading others to a superficial faith?

Third, if I am heading down the wrong road, am I willing to make the necessary changes? Confession and repentance results in looking for ways to change sinful behaviors. Talk is cheap. Integrity can be restored . . . but only by consistency in the way we live. Consistency will require hard choices. Don't miss this! Failure does not have to be the last word in your life. God has not given up on you. He has not written you off. He waits like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son. He waits for you to come home.

Maybe it has been a long time. Maybe the rebellion has piled up for years. It doesn't matter. He is willing to help you to begin again. It is tough to establish integrity again after it has been lost . . . it is tough but not impossible.

Learn from the mistakes of Isaac. Let's make every effort to pass on to the generations behind us a faith that is growing, rather than one that is diminishing. The eternal destiny of our friends, family, and society is at stake.

[1] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Ro 12:1–2.