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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, Philistine 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.

Resistance

Now that Isaac had repented and had begun to reap repleting returns, then suddenly surged the serpent’s head in furious envy. His blessings were bizarre to Abimelech. He could not factor out why a repentant lair should earn a plethora of God’s blessing. Here was he struggling to keep the economic landscape of Philistine in good shape in famine. Of course, attention was beginning to shift from the powers-that-be to this foreigner. The bush was burning with famine, but Isaac was unconsumed. Instead, his greenery lushes were impassable. “How is he doing it? How come?” must have been the question on the lips of the citizenry. Isaac’s flourishing must have projected the Philistine government’s officials as clueless figureheads. They either need now bow to Isaac or seek consultative counsel from him. But to have this nomad rule over them, they will not concede. How can a wealthy man keep such a high moral standard of maintaining one wife? These and more are the questions Abimelech, and other Philistine rulers must answer if Isaac remained in Gerar.

Can a man rejoice in tribulation? Be afflicted but not crushed; perplexed but not despairing; persecuted, and not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed, and not attract the attention of the fainting sinner in this fleeting world? If yes, the lot that befell Isaac cannot but be the experiences of everyone under the Abrahamic covenant. One may not understand the shame Isaac underwent until one imagines the city soldiers marching a man and his sizable fighting servants inherited from Abraham out of the town. It must have been a Gerar-wide event. I see the humility Isaac displayed by not lifting a finger to fight back. I perceive him matching on reasoning, “after all, I seek a city whose maker and builder is God. The Valley is a city if God decides to build it.” Who is the architect that will suddenly build a relief camp where they were headed, whose landscape they do not know! What a destabilizing resistance!

Furthermore, his wells were blocked. What about the resources committed? What about the time wasted? What about the animals? How would they be watered? Isaac’s servants must have both old and young offspring; how would they survive the Valley of Gerar. The enemy does not mean it well for any Christian. Neither will his incarnates.

Following the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, every stride of his for mere survival has been a struggle. We are always up against someone or something – tangible or intangible. To face the north is to back the south, whereas the ways of life in the north may be an utter alteration of the beliefs in the south. Motion and friction are elements of cause and effect. To avoid friction is to be steadily motionless. Thence, whatever stands one take in life, whatever truths one holds, whatever route one plies in life, there are bound to be opposition. Why? Truly Christians have been saved from the power and penalty of sin but not the presence of sin. The rule that governs the sin-cursed earth is “In sweat shall you eat.” We are not taken out of this world yet under Jesus’s instruction in His prayer in John 17. Thus, the lot that befalls all men in struggling for survival betides us too.

Anyway, we are spies in this world, for our King who has gone on exile to receive a kingdom. The world is under the power of its possessor – the devil who is not the owner. Therefore, all Christians in the court of Satan are guilty of high-level treason. We are liable for a felony. But alas, he has power over everything but not the life of the spies. Every Christian is a threat to him and a reminder of his irreversible doom. Mr Christian, have you decided for Jesus? Satan does not mean it well for you. It is better to press for nearness to God as can be. Satan has no grace for forgiveness. He prides himself in being like God with his ability to take revenge. All the arsenals of the kingdom of hell are loosened against every disciple of Jesus. Whether he knows it or not. We have a saving grace. Given Satan is spoilt of option in the afflictions he can bedevil a Christian with. God does the final evaluation of the Christian’s strength and chooses the extent of the affliction’s reach.

We are not Holy Spirit-endued to wrestle against humans but are wrestling against filthy-spirit-possessed humans. Thence the employment of non-carnal weapons of warfare.

However, this resistance was not a waste. So many are the afflictions of the righteous the bible iterates and illustrates, “but the Lord will deliver him from them all.” See the salvation of the Lord. Were it not for this unprecedented hostility, Isaac might not have independently taken the initiative to depart Gerar. Oh, he had reached the heights of blessings and could not conceive that God had more in stock for him. He was a hundred-fold blessed man; he had transcended the heights of riches to that of wealthiness. Unknown to him, God intended his blessing to be a blessing a city built by him could contain. One may look gluttonous to be coveting such gifts. But since Isaac would not have envisaged this, God too was not under compulsion to tell him but used external resistance to reorder His steps.

How gracious is it to welcome resistance with God’s blessing! Didn’t Jesus promise us persecution disguised blessing for being sojourners that follow Him like Isaac? The blessings of the new testament pilgrim are in two: restoration of father, mother, land, family, and life in the Christian fold (deferred blessings); and persecution (disguised blessing). Persecution was expressed by Jesus as a blessing. Why?

In context, unprecedented expansion like growth in love, faith, and grace, cannot be comprehended by human understanding, which the bible bid us not to rely upon. I wonder how the apostles in Jerusalem would have perceived the messenger that would have told them God would have them spread into the other parts of the world. When Peter was asked to absolve the centurion, he refused at first. They would not fathom it. In return, God raised Paul as a cruel vessel unto dishonour that dispersed these “Men of the Way,” bearing the invaluable seed of Christ-life in them. Thanks to that resistance by Paul, you and I can handle the precious word of life in the freedom that exists alone in God’s presence.

More so, resistance, that is, persecution is evidence of progress in the upward way. It is in a bit to scale upward heights that Satan’s dart, at you, will be hurled. If you press on, Satan will employ pressure. But be sure that the dividends that follow triumph through troubles, and the consolations from God with which we bring endurance to the fore, will bring a good sense of salvation, satisfaction and thanksgiving for the difficulties passed through to the promised land.