Well, good morning. We're going to be back in Genesis chapter 21 this morning. And maybe a poorly named sermon, perhaps. I'll tell you the reason I gave it this name. Just because it limits the scope of who it appeals to. I titled the sermon this morning, Will Your Children's Children Be Christians? And this passage focuses on Abraham making oaths and vows and commitments that he expects his children 400 years later to keep. That's expecting a lot of your descendants 400 years later. There's certain things that have to be in place in order for your children's children 400 years later to remember the vows that their great-great-grandfather made and to actually follow through with them. It's a special kind of man that has that kind of impact upon his children. And I want to be that kind of man. I want my children's children's children to be Christian. I've got six. And I'm hopeful that my children will have what today they call a big family. Historically, that six is not a very big family, but today people think of it as a big family. But if they do as their father did, and each of them have six children, I'll have 36 grandchildren. That's not bad. I don't want to do the math from there, but just in a few generations, just a few generations, tribe of Shepherd. But I don't want to have a bunch of kids just to have a bunch of namesakes out there. If they're not following Jesus, if they're not living for the Lord, I don't care if they're billionaires. That would not bring me joy. I want them to be rich. and heavenly riches. I want them to be men and women that fear God and want to keep His commandments and walk before Him. I want them to be a covenant-keeping people. And I want that for your children. I want that for Church of the Word's children. Now, if we talk about Church of the Word's children, the way we're having children here, we're talking maybe tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands in 400 years. I would rather this church not grow in number anymore and have your children's children's children 400 years from now serving Jesus than be a mega church today. Amen? Is that not good? Now, of course, I wanna see the household of faith grow, and I wanna see people come to know Jesus, and I wanna see churches planted in my lifetime, of course, because there's multitudes of people out there that need Jesus. Like it says in Joel, multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. The day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. Multitudes of people perishing without Jesus, and of course, we care for them. But in an effort to win the world, I don't wanna lose my children. I don't want to lose the people that sit under the teaching of the Word of God here. And I say this may be poorly worded because this sermon text has a lot to do with being a covenant-keeping people that keeps their vows and oaths because our Heavenly Father is a covenant-keeping God who keeps His vows and oaths. And so if you're single, if you don't have children, There's very much of a passage here that God wants us to be a covenant-keeping people that keeps their word, that keeps the covenant, that renews the covenant frequently, that attends to the means of grace, so that we would be the type of people that leave an impact for generations to come. If you'd stand with me now for the reading of God's word, we're going to read in Genesis chapter 21, starting in verse 22. At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do. Now, therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear. When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized, Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me and I have not heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart, and Abimelech said to Abraham, What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart? He said, These seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well. Therefore that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath." So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines. O Lord God, we call upon you, the everlasting God. El Olam, the everlasting God who endures from generation to generation. Father, even now at the beginning of this sermon, I pray for our children, our children's children, and those we come in contact with. God, we long for their repentance and their salvation. We desire to lay up treasure in heaven, and what treasure is more dear to our hearts than our children and our grandchildren after us? Lord, I pray that you would grant us a great outpouring of your Holy Spirit that our children would know you and worship you in spirit and in truth, not merely in formality or outwardly, not merely culturally, but that they would know you and love you and live for you and passionately speak of you to others. God, make us such a people. Make us a light in a dark generation. A dark where many fall aside, they turn away. Much apostasy everywhere we look. Many people not continuing in the faith of their fathers. God, save us from this fate. Show us, Lord, the way to establish multi-generational faithfulness. God, you would raise up our children's children to stand firm in changing times. Lord, as Islam increases and humanism and atheism abounds, God, make us a people that endure faithfully, that do not turn aside, but continue in the way of the Lord. Put that in our hearts, God, in our children. Let them know that you are the living God, the everlasting God, that this isn't a religious show, but you are the one and only living God, and there is no other way, and there is nothing else worth living for but you alone. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. All right. This passage, first I'm like, whoa, what are we gonna preach on in this passage? But I see it now. Abraham is making oaths and promises that he expects his children's children to keep even 400 years later. Let's look here at verse 22. At that time, at that time, what time? Earlier in the chapter it tells us. At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of the army, said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do. Now therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear. At that time, what time? Well, we looked last week at the beginning of the chapter, Isaac has been born and Isaac has been weaned. So he's like three or four years old. So it's a very specific time. It's when God had kept his promise, the promise that he had made at a very old age, he made a series of promises to Abraham and to Sarah that Sarah would actually conceive even in her old age. And God keeps His promises. That's the context. God has kept a spectacular promise that it seems impossible to keep. And it's at that time when Ishmael is sent away. Last time we talked about how Ishmael, God made promises concerning Ishmael that God is keeping to this very day. That Ishmael also would become a great people but he would not be the covenant people from whom the Messiah would come. And it's at that time that this event takes place. It tells us the time. Now we're going to see here in a couple chapters, which I'm also going to read, fast forward a little bit, in chapter 26. Isaac, his son, has to be at least 40 years old because he's married, and I know that Isaac didn't get married until he was at least 40 years old. So a good 40 years later, there's disputes with this group of people. By the way, who are these people? Who is Abimelech? Who is Phicol? Who are the people that are in this place? Well, they're the Philistines. And if you've read very far into the Bible at all, you find out that the Philistines become the enemies of Israel, and Israel has to deal with them constantly. The Philistines oppress them, and at times, they're able to banish the Philistines. They make an oath. They make a covenant promise, but the promise is not, I'll never do anything to the Philistines. It's, as I've treated you, treat my descendants. So they don't exterminate the Philistines, but the Philistines become threat and they have to deal with them. So this passage of scripture being read by an Israelite coming out of Egypt about 1490 BC, and he's like, you know, who are these people? What are their history? Where do they come from? Last week we talked about the Ishmaelites, how they became Saudi Arabia and Islam came out of the Ishmaelites. Muhammad was an Ishmaelite and was aware of it and knew it. He knew who Ishmael was and who Abraham was. They were aware of that. And so we learned about who the Ishmaelites were. And now we're telling us about another group of people, the Philistines. And Abraham's been getting along okay with these people. They've had some decent dealings. But the Philistines, very quickly, they're not a covenant-keeping people. They make promises, and when it's not convenient for them, they break them. But God's people are not to be like the Philistines. Abraham and the Philistines make a covenant. The Philistines don't keep it, but Abraham and Isaac have every intention to keep it. Listen, we live in a land of Philistines. And there's covenant breaking all over the place. There's divorce all over the place. There's people that don't take church membership seriously, or their covenants to other people seriously. They make promises and break them left and right. People say, I swear to God, and it's just over light, trivial things. We don't live in a covenant-keeping generation. Our civil magistrates swear on the Bible to uphold the Constitution. How many covenant keepers are there? If we were a covenant-keeping nation, our nation would change overnight. We make treaties with other nations. Historically, we went to war for some foolish treaties with other nations. But we make treaties and we break them. If I were a foreign nation, I would be very, very hesitant to make a treaty with the United States of America. I'd be very hesitant to do it. There's a lot of people in Afghanistan that relied upon promises of Americans to do this or that that ended up getting abandoned and killed by Al-Qaeda and all that over there because we make covenants all the time as a people and we break them. But this is not to be the characteristic of the people of God. God is a covenant-keeping God. When he created the worlds, he did it by speaking them to existence. When we make a promise, when we make a covenant, when we swear a vow, when we make an oath, we can't create ex nihilo worlds out of nothing, but we can create a covenantal bond that God expects us to keep. So what happens here is it tells us that Abimelech and Phicol The commander of the army comes to Abraham and says, God is with you in all that you do. Now, therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants. In other words, Abraham has grown and become powerful enough that it is convenient for the Philistines to make a covenant with him. Who initiates this covenant? The Philistines do. They say, hey, you're becoming awful powerful around here. You're very wealthy. You're very rich. We already see the trajectory of you as a community is growth and we know that you're going to multiply and you have multiplied and you're going to be a threat so it's convenient for us to enter into a covenant with you so that you will not do us harm when you become powerful or wealthy, or politically connected, there's lots of people that will want to make a covenant with you. When it's convenient to do so, Abimelech and Phicol are like, hey, swear with us because we're a little worried. You're a growing demographic. You're becoming people of substance in the land, and therefore, you could upset things, so we want to make sure that we're on the same team because, you know, you're a demographic we're interested in having an agreement with. And Abraham said, okay, I'll swear. That's a reasonable thing. To treat you in a just manner, I'll swear to that. I'm supposed to do it anyway. So yes, I'll do that. I'm agreeable to that. I wanna treat you right. I will treat you well. I will not go and just take your possessions or harass your people and I'll expect my children to do the same thing. I'll swear to that. I'll swear." Now the word swear, shavah, it's going to come up a lot in this chapter. I'll come back to it in a moment. Verse 25, and Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized. Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me and I have not heard of it until today. Now, is he telling the truth or not? Well, it doesn't tell us here. Maybe he really didn't know. It's a very real possibility. But we're going to see that these people do this sort of thing. They fill up wells. And the behavior doesn't get corrected. But one thing I want to bring out here is that Abraham, sometimes at weddings, they used to do this. They used to say, if anybody has any objections, speak now forever, hold your peace. And we've kind of gotten away from that. We don't like that tradition too much. But the whole idea was, listen, if you've got serious complaints or you've got serious issues, speak now. Don't bring it up later after you're already married. Bring it up now because we don't want anybody Speaking evil of the groom or speaking evil of the bride and bringing up beef from beforehand if you've got any issues get it settled now Bring it up now Something I admire about Abraham is is you know, this is be a lot of times like well, they're being friendly with me I'm just gonna I'm just not gonna mention this problem, but Abraham he's bold and he says hey You know what? I had a well that I dug and your servants They they stole it. They seized it. They pushed us away and and that's not right and I'm bringing it up to you. I think as Christians... We need to be man enough, woman enough to tell people to their face their issues. And we need to be willing to receive reproof and we need to be willing to give it, because a lot of times people will go and they'll whisper over here and they'll whisper over there and it sows discord and contention and it harms the unity of the body. It harms, as a covenant community, one of the things we do when we become members, we go through the membership and when you agree to become a member of the church, one of the things you say is, and one of the things that we agree to is, We understand that bringing division to the body can be something to get excommunicated over with. Now, we wouldn't do that right away. And it's not about our ego. What it is, is I don't want to see people poisoned where they can't get from the word of God. It's funny, because I had an illustration regarding a well. I was thinking about how sometimes families will poison the well. a lot of years ago, there was a family that came, and there was a wife that, when she originally came, she was enjoying the Word so much, she was growing so much, she was getting CDs and listening to it at home, and she was growing, she was learning, she was excited, and then all of a sudden, wasn't getting anything out of the service anymore, and problems started arising. And I just, it's like, what happened? Well, somebody said something negative. and it got in the brain and they just couldn't get rid of it and they couldn't receive anymore. It doesn't even necessarily hurt me, right? It hurt her. It hurt her because she can't receive anything good anymore because she's got beef in the back of her mind. Something's bothering her. And we had talks and we talked things through eventually. But for how many people go to a church and they got beef with someone that shares the word or somebody that sings and worships, and they can't receive anymore because someone's poisoned their well. They thought, well, you know, I think this is true, so I'm gonna say it. And then the people can't receive the word anymore because they've had a poison that's working in their system and it robs them of their joy. Something I know here about Abraham is Abraham, he's got an issue with Abimelech, he goes to Abimelech, he talks with Abimelech, and he brings it up. It's probably uncomfortable. I always find it uncomfortable. I don't like it. But Abraham was the type of man, he had beef, and he brought it up to Abimelech. We can learn from that, and it's valuable. I bring it up also because I knew a pastor's family where, it was a friend of mine, And he grew up and he'd hear his parents talking about the issues of the church. Now, I imagine probably things were saying, now this is to be kept in the car, kids. We don't talk about this beyond here. But hear about people. So in other words, pastors can gossip too, right? And they're talking and all. And that young man grew up and walked away from the Lord. He got poisoned by his own parents, his own pastor parents. That's sad. I think it happens a lot. You wonder why so many pastor's kids go astray. I think a lot of them say, you hear the pastors, the parents, the dad, the mom, talking about conflict and division. Oh, this person said this and this person did this. We got to be very careful what we say. We say it to the right people because we can poison people to the point where they can no longer receive nourishment from preaching the word because they got beef. In this case, it was all these people in the church are against my parents. So what, Christians are just like everybody else. And you know what, Christians, yeah, we struggle with every kind of sin that everybody else does. If you've got a church ranging from baby Christians to elder Christians in a church, you're going to have gossip. People say, oh, I don't wanna go to churches full of hypocrites. Well, the church is a place for sinners and all kinds of sins committed, but I'm addressing it because be careful, you can actually do more harm to the person you're talking to than the person you're talking about. Usually we think about gossip, we think about the damage done to the person we're talking about, the most damage very well could be the person you're talking to. And be very careful thinking that, well, I'm immune to it, I'm above it. It's very hard sometimes when you get something that may or may not be true, stuck in your head and you got something against somebody, it'll affect the way you relationship with them and a wall gets built up. But Abraham was a man. And Abraham had beef with the Bimelech and he brought it up because he's a man of his word. He's a straightforward, transparent man and that's admirable. All right, verse 27. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to a Bimelech and the two made a covenant, a bereath. Bereath, covenant comes from the word cutting. You cut a covenant. You remember earlier in chapter 15, Abraham brought the animals and cut them in half, and Abraham did not walk between the animals, but God walked between the animals. What did this symbolize? We talked about it at the time. It's called a cutting. They would cut animals, and then in ancient times, the two people making the covenant would walk through. It's what's called a self-maledictory oath. Most of you aren't going to remember that, but it's fun to say, so I said it. Self-maladictory. What's been done to these animals, let it be done to me if I don't keep my covenant. We cut these animals in half. We walk between them. If I don't keep my covenant, let the same thing be done to me. We have different symbols. Different groups have symbols where they do this kind of thing, secret societies and that sort of thing. It's basically saying, if I don't keep my vows, then let me die. Well, that's the idea of you cut an animal. So he gets these animals, and they split them apart, and they would walk through them together. In the case of God, only God walked through, because God was gonna keep that covenant to Abraham. Abraham had promised to make him as numerous as the stars of heaven, et cetera. God was gonna keep this covenant, and so he has. It depends upon him. But here, Abraham and Abimelech, they make a covenant, which implies they cut the animals and they walk through them. If I don't keep my covenant, let me die the death. Let me be cut like these animals are cut. That's the idea behind a covenant, which means they took covenants very, very seriously. At least they stated. Today, it's just people make covenants and swear and make oaths way too lightly. This is why Jesus said, you have heard it said, you shall not forswear yourself or swear falsely. But I say, and you swear not at all, neither by heaven above or the earth below or the waters under the earth, neither by your head. You cannot make one hair white or black, but let your yea be yea and your nay be nay. Now, there is a place for swearing. We swear when we get married, we make an oath. In a court of law, you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But Jesus speaks a little hyperbolically here because what he's addressing is people that swear and make oaths for all sorts of light and trivial issues, and a yes and a no 99.9% of the time ought to be enough. Hey kids, after church we're gonna get ice cream. You promise, Daddy? I don't need to promise that. We don't need to add the word promise to everything that we do. It's just, nope, I said we're gonna go get ice cream, we're gonna go get ice cream. But they make a covenant and they had a ceremony, solemn events, like weddings. Just went to, I think, the most beautiful wedding I've ever seen on, what was that, Friday? Friday. And you've got an exchange of rings. We gather together, we call upon God to be present. You do that in a wedding ceremony and Abraham does it here. They call upon the name of the Lord to be the witness to this ceremony. And in weddings, there's an exchange of rings. Here, there's a slaying of animals and vows are taken and oaths are taken because it's serious business. And a covenant is necessary because if the family breaks down, the nation breaks down. So serious. Divorce is such a heinous thing in God's eye. God hates divorce. He hates it. Now like all other sin, it can be forgiven. And God restores and works in second marriages. He's a God who makes all things new. But I just want to be very clear that marriage is so serious, vows are so serious, and God wants His people to be a covenant-keeping people. He swears to His own hurt and changeth not, Psalm 15 says. And verse... 28, Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart, and Abimelech said to Abraham, what is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart? He said, these seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well. Now, seven ewe lambs, this isn't, seven ewe lambs, a ewe is a female sheep. So he's giving Abimelech the start of a flock that could grow into a multitude of sheep. Yews are valuable. Good, solid, strong yews are valuable because you can make quite a herd from seven. But why seven? It says seven here three times and earlier in the verse it mentioned the word swear three times. I didn't call that out. But what's interesting is the word swear and the word oath and the word seven, they're the same Hebrew word. So there's word play going on here. He sets aside these seven eulems and they are to remind him. Every time he looks at that herd, he looks at the seven, the herd that comes from those seven eulems, he's gonna remember, oh yeah, Abraham gave that to me. He gave those seven new lambs to me to testify as a witness that he dug that well, that is Abraham's well. By exchanging what in contract law they call consideration, there's a quid pro quo, and you give this for that. Well, Abraham here knows that words are cheap, so he says, listen, I set aside these seven lambs You lambs, as a witness to you that I dug this well, and by receiving those seven lambs, you are agreeing and testifying, that is my well. So you gotta keep your servants away from my well, this is understood, correct? Yes, I understand, I got it. It's your well. It's your well, it's not our well, it's your well, and I'll take the seven lambs, which is the same word for swear, sheva is seven, sheva is also to swear. And it's a word play. Verse 31, therefore that place was called Beersheba in Hebrew, or Sheba, Sheba, Beersheba we say in English, but it's Beersheba, which means, because there both of them swore an oath, so they made a covenant at Beersheba. So it's, if you look up the name Beersheba, it'll say, it's either well of seven or it's well of the oath. Well, it's actually both. There's seven eulems, Shavuot, and they took an oath. It's called the well of the oath, but it's the well of seven. There's wordplay going on here to help them remember, this is an agreement that I expect you to keep. Just being clear, this is my well. I even gave you seven eulems, and I want you to remember it. I wanna show it to you, it's a better scene. Here, you can look at the shapes of the letters, and you'll notice that they're pronounced a little bit different. Sheva is to swear, and Sheva is seven, but the same Hebrew consonants. So it's wordplay going on. The name of the well is Beersheba. What is he doing here? Every time he's like, oh yeah, the well, the well at Beersheba. I'll say it, the English word, Beersheba. that he names it Beersheba as a permanent reminder that an oath has been taken. That's to help them remember the covenant that they've made. Because the biggest enemy to keeping your word is a forgetful memory. To forget when it's not convenient for you any longer. So he names the well Beersheba. Later the place will be called Beersheba. The very name of the place becomes a reminder so that future generations will know covenant promises were made in this place. Every time they go to the well at Beersheba they're reminded a covenant was made. I love, I'm really into name meanings. One of the reasons why is as we've gone through Genesis, Adam named the animals. He characterized them, he named them, he classified them. The names, as we've looked chapter by chapter, people and places are given names and the names are significant. And so even in the naming of my children, I want to know what that name means. It may sound really cool, but if it's got a bad meaning, there's some names that I think sound really cool. And I look up the meaning, I'm like, I'm naming my kid that. But names serve as reminders. Names of cities. Across the United States, there are certain names that are used over and over again. Of course, everybody knows Springfield, that's an obvious one. Must be a field, must be springs there. We'll name it Springfield, real creative. But you'll also find places like Salem. named after like peace. You'll see cities with spiritual names. You'll see places with Greek names like Athens, Athens, Georgia. People name places because if you name your place Athens, you must really value Greek culture, something about the Greeks. You want to be associated with it. When you name a place something like Shiloh or Zion or a biblical name, it's saying we identify with a Christian root, a Christian meaning, Abraham names places that reminds his descendants, those after him, promises were made, covenants were made, and I expect you to keep them. All right, I better move on, I got a lot of text here. Then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. They have their boundaries. The Philistines have their place, their allotment. Abraham has his. They make their commitments and they go their separate ways, leaving on good terms. What does Abraham do? Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of Yahweh, the everlasting God, El Olam. He plants a tamarisk tree. I tried to research tamarisk tree. There's a lot of opinions about what a tamarisk tree is. Some of the older opinions I read that it was an oak. A lot of newer opinions is it's an evergreen tree. One thing I read was it's believed to be a very slow growing tree. One of the theories is it's a tree that grows about an inch per year and it lives for a long time. So that 400 years later, one of the children of Israel go into the promised land. They're gonna be able to go to Beersheba that's still called Beersheba 400 years later. And they're gonna be able to go to the well at Beersheba. And they're gonna be able to go with their children and see a historical place with either a tree or a grove of trees. Some opinions is a grove of trees. And they'll say, this is the grove that our great, great, great grandfather planted here. and made a covenant that he would deal truthfully and rightly with the Philistines. And because we're a covenant-keeping people, we are not going, we have a pact of non-aggression with the Philistines. If the Philistines attack us, we're gonna go after them. But we're not going to attack them unprovoked. We have a non-aggression pact that was made 400 years ago, and we are expected to keep it. That's multi-generational covenantal thinking. The tree is still there. The place is named Beersheba. The tree can be seen. And what does He do? He calls there upon the name of Yahweh, the name of the Lord, the El Olam, the everlasting God, because God is an everlasting God who keeps His promises, and God wants His people to be a people that has covenant continuity and keeps their promises multi-generationally. But he calls upon the name of the Lord. We've seen this of Abraham over and over again, and chapter after chapter. In many chapters, he named a place, he built an altar, and there he called upon the name of the Lord. What is he doing? He's taking his kids, he's taking his family to church. And when he lived in Beersheba, planted a nice shady grove by the well, and there he called upon the name of the Lord. That tree ... Now some people, pagan peoples, they worshiped trees and thought the spirit lived in trees. I believe the issue here is that tree is to serve as a ... If it's an evergreen tree, it serves as a reminder of the everlasting God whose shade we live under. We call upon his name, but you see the habit of Abraham is to lead his family in worship and to teach them to be a God-fearing people. A couple of chapters ago, in chapter 18, God said, should I keep from Abraham that thing which I'm about to do, seeing as how he will become a great and mighty nation, and he will teach his children after them, and they shall keep the way of the Lord and obey my commandments? Why won't God keep a secret from Abraham? Because he's a faithful man who's gonna be a faithful father, and he's gonna have faithful children, and I'm making a covenant with him, and therefore I don't wanna keep a secret from Abraham. I'm gonna give Abraham an opportunity to intercede for his lost relatives, because he's a faithful man. He led his children in worship. He calls upon the name of the Lord. Every place he goes, he builds an altar, and he calls upon the name of the Lord. Now that's application for us. Not just take our children to church, but to speak of Him frequently in our life, in our home, in our verbiage, the way we talk, the way we walk, the way we live. Let Christ just be breathing out of us. Once a week religion isn't gonna get your children there. That's just some little convenient we do. It's a social club we go on Sundays. Our children need to see that we are passionate about Jesus, that we love Him. and that we want to live for him, and there's no greater privilege and honor than to live for him. That's the kind of faith that gets passed on to sons and daughters. Verse 34, and Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines. He sojourned there for many days. He was there walking before them. It serves as a reminder. He lived for many days, which I think becomes relevant because what we're going to see is eventually, as long as Abraham's alive, things run smoothly, but eventually Abraham dies. And we get to chapter 26 and now it's Isaac's turn. Like I said, it's at least 40 years later, maybe more. I could probably find the math on it. Maybe by the time I get to chapter 26, I'll do some more math, but I know he's married and therefore he's at least 40 years old. And chapter 26, fast forward a little bit and we kind of get some more of the story and there's a lot of interesting stuff, one through 11, but we're not going into that. Chapter 26, we went from chapter 21 to 26, fast forwarding at least 40 years. And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold and Yahweh blessed him. God is blessing Isaac. Remember the chapter where our text started with God blessing Abraham and the Philistines see it and say, hey, let's make a covenant. Same people. Verse 13, 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. The same names Abimelech and Phicol are mentioned, but these may not be the same people. The word Abimelech, Av means father, Melech means king. It's thought that it may be a title, and I think so because there will be more Abimelechs even in the reign of King David. Abimelech, when David is running in the land of the Philistines, the king's name is Abimelech. So kind of like Pharaoh was a title for the king of Egypt, Abimelech very well may be a title for The king of the philistines it means My father is king or king father. You can arrange it in several different ways In and in of itself. It's a claim to succession. My father was king. So guess what that means That means I have a right to be king And my son will have a right to be king later on Gideon. They'll try to make him king and he'll turn it down and But he'll have a rotten son that he names Abimelech. Makes you wonder if he kind of regretted his decision. And he himself tries to become king and live that out. And really bad things happen in the book of Judges. So the word Abimelech, it may very well be a title. And these may not be the same people. But it might be the same people. 40 years later, Bimlech and Phicol, which might also, according to R.C. Sproul's study Bible, it may be that Phicol also is a title for the commander of the military. So that's why years later, decades later, we have people with the same names that may be their positions and may or may not be the same people. But in any case, what happens? Isaac is blessed and they get filled with envy. And they're not keeping their word. The Philistines aren't keeping their word. They're treating Isaac in a bad way. And the wells that Abraham had dug, they start filling them up. Like, no, no, there's no room for you here. There's no well here. They're filled up. So Isaac departed from there. And he camped 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 Esek. because they contended with him. Name the place, contention, because they contended with him. So there's this whole thing about the Philistines are filling up wells and he's having to re-dug them and rename them. But it's interesting, he names them the same names that his father named them, he honored them. One advantage, I preach out of the SV now, I used to preach out of the King James. One of the great advantages of preaching, in fact, In my opinion, it might be one of the only advantages of preaching out of the King James, and I know that offends some people, but one of the great ... There's a couple of them. One is it's beautiful. I love the King James. If you understand it and you're used to it, it's beautiful. The other thing is, is the King James, written in 1611, because 400 years of generations read the King James Bible. English language has been very stable. It had a very stable language. You'll still find King James Word appearing in newspapers. There's a lot of languages. You go back and say like French or something. The language 400 years ago was radically different. And as we've gotten away from the King James Version, our language is changing very fast. King James English, people reading King James stabilized the language. And now it seems like every generation wants to be different than their parents, come up with new words, new slang that their generation, their parents didn't know. They want to get away from old words. They want to get away. I notice here that Isaac, he names the places the same names his father gave him. He honored his father and he gave him the same names. Same places. And it reminded him of the same God and the same covenants and the same promises and the same wondrous acts. Every time a God does a great act for Abraham, they name the place. They name the place something that reflects that great act so that the generations that can come can remember this is where the Lord appeared to Abraham and did such and such. In the next chapter, chapter 22, we're gonna read about the offering up of Isaac, and they named the place Mount Moriah, or Jehovah-Jireh, which means in the mouth of the Lord it shall be seen. And they would remember the promises made by God to Abraham and Isaac that he's going to keep and he did keep when he sent Jesus to die for us in our place, just like he sent a ram in the thicket. But these names have significance. And each generation is remembering them. And it's a battle to keep them because they're being filled in by Philistines. And this tells me that each generation, we need to learn the great lessons that our fathers have to teach us. That's a good thing. It's a bad thing. My father was born in 1925, had me at 52, 53 years old, which means I haven't had him since 2010. But one of the great advantages of having a father so much my elder is I feel a connection to that World War II greatest generation. My dad was in World War II and I heard personal stories about life in the 30s and life in the 40s and I heard them over and over again and I remember them. I have a connection to them. It's just one generation ago my father told me about the Dust Bowl in the 30s. I feel connection. My mother born in 1937 had me at the age of 40. My grandmother, 1920, my mother's mother, and I have a connection to them. And I loved hearing the stories of that older generation. It's so good, kids, while you can talk to seniors, they got, there's so many lessons that they learned and things you can learn from them and how the world has changed since they were young. Value them, value those conversations. There's conversations, I took it, I availed myself of opportunity to talk to older people. When I was a child, I'd mow lawns and I'd talk to seniors back then and I learned so much. I love talking, to seniors. I love talking to people and hearing about times gone by and we need to honor them and learn because, man, they've seen a lot take place. And Isaac honors his father, he renames the places, he remembers the promises, he remembers the obligations, but the Philistines don't. They don't honor past commitments because it's not convenient to do so. Then they dug another well They quarreled over that also. So he called the name Sitna, which again is the word oath. It's another word for vow. And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. I'm going to move forward. 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. I am with you and I 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. Again, the habit of his father to build an altar and call upon the name of the Lord, that habit continues. It has to continue in our household as well. Our children, our children's children need to have the habits like Isaac does of building altars and calling upon the name of the Lord. It's got to become ingrained in us. So now God's blessing comes upon Isaac in a greater way. He's already been tremendously blessed. But look at what happens next. Went to him from Gerar with Ahuza, his father, his advisor, and Phichol, the commander of the army. Again, that may be titles, Abimelech and Phichol. 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 Yahweh 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 done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace, you are now the blessed of the Lord." See, every time it's convenient for a Philistine to make a covenant, they'll make it, and when it's convenient to break it, they'll break it. Are you a Philistine or are you an Israelite? They do the exact same thing, and they say, we've done you no harm. You lie. You've harassed us over and over again. You've stolen our wows over again. But we want peace. We want to be a peaceful people. So he made them a feast and they ate and drank in the morning and they rose 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. He goes back to the place of his father, redigs the well, re-utters the oath, and he remembers the covenant that's been made. Why is it written here? Because the generation coming out of Egypt needs to know, we made oaths and pacts with the Philistines, but Philistines don't keep their oaths. The non-aggression pact continues, but just be prepared, the Philistines are going to harass you, and they're gonna persecute you, and they're gonna try to enslave you. We are not to be initiators of violence, but if they attack us, no, it's just, but we're to honor them, and we're not to do them harm, but if they address first, we're going after them. All right. I got to go to the New Testament. Keeping you along today. Hold on. Acts 2.29. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh seek corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses." Okay. Just going to summarize quickly. God made promises and he keeps his promise. He made a promise that he would make one of the seat of David to seat on the throne and he has kept the promise and he's saying we are witnesses of it, we have seen it, we have experienced it. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel know therefore for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. I wanted to highlight that this promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off. As many as the Lord our God shall call. The promise can be held out to your children, but we need to live in such a way that covenant is renewed. When we get baptized, he commands them to be baptized. We get baptized. This is kind of like Abraham planted his tamarisk tree. At a wedding, you exchange rings. When we get baptized, it is a public affirmation. Yes, he died for me. I am going to live for him. It's a public vow. It's something you can look back on and you can remember. Yes, I vowed my allegiance to Christ. I confessed my sins. I confessed my faith in His death on my behalf, and I confess that He is my Lord, He is my King, and we confess it before all. It's a covenant ceremony. And when we take communion, it's covenant renewal. What do we do? We remember his body that was broken for us. Oh yeah, he died for me. I need to live for him. And we remember the blood of the new covenant. That's right, he purchased me. And we renew it week after week. We come to the communion table and we remember because the number one enemy to keeping the covenant is forgetfulness. That's why we build an altar, metaphorically. We come to church. We worship God as families. We get baptized with our vows of baptism. We take communion. We worship God together. We fellowship together. With many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received the word were baptized and were added that day about 3,000 souls. They were baptized as a witness. Abraham made covenants with witnesses, the seven new lambs, naming the place Beersheba, planting a tamarisk tree, calling the region Beersheba, and reminded and taught his children. Isaac's only an infant. He had to hear about this covenant later on. His parents had to tell them and knew it, but God wants us to be a covenant-keeping people. and that we would teach our children and they would serve us after him. This promise is to us and to our children and to all that are far off. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you, Father. You are El Olam, the everlasting God. You keep your oaths, you keep your vows, you have kept your commitment. You have sent Jesus Christ into the world to bear our sins in his own body, to die on our behalf, And death could not hold him, but he rose again. Lord, I pray that this truth would rest peacefully in our hearts, all of our hearts. That we are redeemed by the blood of the lamb. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you loved us, that you gave yourself for us. You are the everlasting God and we worship before your throne. In Jesus name.