Snapshot
Key Character: Isaac.
Rebekah: Isaac’s wife, not sister.
Abraham: Isaac’s dad, progenitor of the Jewish race.
Gerar: The supposed capital city of the Philistines.
Abimelech: Title of the ruling Philistine Lord.
👀: See here for part 2 and here for part 3.
Rehoboth
There are different stations in the walk of a man with His God. Abraham, for example, travelled from Ur of the Chaldeans through Haran, Egypt, and the land of the Philistines to Canaan. Different landscapes had different connotations, demands and challenges. Similarly, Isaac traversed different terrains. God interrupted him in an attempted economic relocation to Egypt like Abraham, his father. In concession, he sojourned at Gerah. Now Gerah was a place of many conflicts mixed with blessings. But Rehoboth was a blessed roomy place – a delight to one who has painfully sought rest from conflict attendant to obeying God.
The correlation between Abraham’s and Isaac’s sojourn holds for us a mine of truth, into which we may not explore in vain, should we endeavour to do so. Therefore, in this series, we shall consider the roughness and the smoothness the route leading to the Rehoboth poses.
Reassurance
The appearance of God to Isaac was not a sudden strike of the moon at noontide. God came with promises. According to Genesis 22, If well recalled, Isaac became God’s being offered as a relegated idol on Mt Moriah. He cut a covenant with God as a living sacrifice – holy and acceptable to God. Thence, God’s appearance to Isaac in Philistine was devoid of that famous line, “Fear not.” Also, God’s appearance contrasted with Jacob was bereft of the ignorance displayed by Jacob. He said, “God was here, and I know it not.” He, in fact, did not know God. For if he knew Him, he would have anticipated Him on this journey, such that His appearance will not come as a rude shock.
That notwithstanding, based on the existing relationship between God and Isaac, God visited Him to reassure Him. What was the reassurance all about? Abraham had taught Isaac about God’s covenant with his lineage and how to obey the God of that covenant. The fulfilment was necessary to help this man in his pilgrimage. Therefore, God needed to speak to reassure. No doubt, Isaac knew about his father’s ordeals. Abraham witnessed territorial famine, Isaac, too. So he wouldn’t be wrong following his father’s footsteps to relocate.
How God speaks once and makes us hear twice. Fast-forward to the challenges he faced seeking the fulfilment of God’s promise. I do not suppose that if he had not been ministered to with a second visit by God, he wouldn’t have easily fled to Egypt. How beautiful, for your journey, brother, that for a landmark pilgrimage in your life, you seek reassurance. Marriage is one of those lifelong sojourns; career is another.
There was an existent promise to Abraham, his father. Isaac had also had an encounter with God. But God knew his need and came to reassure Him that this generational promise would be fulfilled. Dear brother, you may not find God doubly advancing towards you for your journey. But has He not asked us to seek His face? Upon assurance, seek reassurance: it is not an act of doubt but of faith deepening. For not you, but the One who leads know what lies ahead. And He would be faithful to help.
Note, however, the matters surrounding this reassurance. It had instructions: “Do not go down to Egypt… dwell in this land”; connected to promises: “…I will be with you and bless you… I will perform… I will make… I will give…” There is also a basis for reassurance – all the “I will’s” were “…because Abraham obeyed” His “voice and kept” His “charge, commandments, statutes and laws.”
Are you seeking reassurance on a subject with God to no avail? Check how well you have kept your side of an erstwhile bargain of His. If you have messed it all up, kindly make it all up by repenting.
Repentance
As with every man with whom God walks begin in imperfection, Isaac started out to Rehoboth a liar. However, Abraham’s lie was reasonably mild compared to his. Apparently, Sarah was a cousin, yet God would not let a lie that she was a sister pass. On the other hand, there was a glaring record of the distance between Rebekah and Isaac. A few generations have passed for her to be a sister to Isaac. In any case, the closest God called Rebekah after Sarah’s death was like his mum. But she was too beautifully and complementarily young to be called a mother. Therefore, calling Rebekah, a sister is a calculated lie and a sin.
His defence for lies was death and loss. It will take a seer to nose into the new testament to see that God’s perfect will was for the man to be truthful till death (Rev 2:10). And if need be, Isaac should give himself in defence of Rebekah as Christ had done for the church. Obviously, he had no Christ that had given Himself for the church as an example and as such could be excused. Conversely, there is no defence for any New Testament Christian for committing such or similar acts.
Isaac was a man with hundreds of servants. We know Esau inherited the 400 he came against Jacob at Peniel with (Gen 32:1-6) from him. Therefore, no barn of crops could have sufficiently sustained him in draught without sowing. I put forth that the “sowing” in the land accounted for in verse 12 was not the first of Isaac’s peasant farming adventure. He had sowed severally but was not recorded. God was not proud of it. God’s blessing was not on it because it was filled with lies.
At some point, through some midnight suspicious gazes and touches, Abimelech found out the truth. How was Isaac outstanding? Like many of us who wound up lies to cover lies, Isaac used the truth to oust the darkness of lies in his track record. He confessed the why. And in it, his sincerity was seen, and his iniquity pardoned by God.
What are the little sins that has till now borne no apparent negative consequences on you, yet you know they are aberrative to God? They are called secret faults. If not exposed by the actions of the Holy Spirit, the mind may become petrified and unaffected by them. But, on the other hand, suppose the external person – the Holy Spirit – does not expose them. In that case, they remain concealed at our detriment and that of our fruitfulness. O that we may pray, “Lord, search me.” If I do it, I’d be biased. And cleanse me from all secret faults.” The heart is a dragnet for them all. Because that heart is deeply deceptive, its depts can hide secret faults for years. Meanwhile, it will relish in the little wins of meagre reaping for each sowing. It will convince itself it is doing good, whereas irritable decays are lying locked within.
