Latest / Reformed Thinking / Faith in the Famine: The Sovereign Renewal of the Covenant and the Rejection of Worldly Pragmatism (Genesis 26:1-5)

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Faith in the Famine: The Sovereign Renewal of the Covenant and the Rejection of Worldly Pragmatism (Genesis 26:1-5) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. I'm your host and I am joined
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today by my good friend and our resident theological expert.
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We are so glad you are tuning in with us today.
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Yeah, it is really good to be here.
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And we have the coffee pot working overtime in the studio
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today because we have a massive stack of notes sitting on the
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desk. It is frankly a little
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intimidating just looking at it. Oh, absolutely.
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We are doing a deep dive today into two very dense, very
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thoughtful, exegetical and homiletical essays based on the
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book of Genesis. Specifically, we were looking at
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chapter 26, verses one through 5.
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And just to set the tone, if you were a regular listener, you
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know, we're coming at this from a confessional Protestant
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perspective. We hold to the Westminster
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Confession, but you know, we want to make this accessible.
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We are going to extract what the source is called, the central
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idea of the text regarding God's sovereign renewal of the
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covenant, and really look at the rejection of worldly pragmatism.
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Yeah, we are not skimming the surface on this one.
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We are looking at the life of Isaac.
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And Isaac is a guy who often gets overlooked, right?
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He is sandwiched between Abraham and Jacob, but he is right in
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the center of the covenant drama.
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He really is. We are talking about famine.
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We are talking about fear and, well, the specific practical
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implications of trusting God when the bottom falls out of
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your life. And honestly, when I first read
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through the source material, I was just struck by how modern
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the whole thing felt. Oh, sure, I mean, we're talking
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about a guy living thousands of years ago in a tent.
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But the pressures he faces, economic collapse, fear for his
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family, the temptation to just do what works rather than what
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is right. That feels like a Tuesday for
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most of us listening today. It feels very current because,
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well, human nature has not changed and God has not changed.
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The scenery is different, you know, we have skyscrapers and
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digital bank accounts instead of tents and flocks, but the
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conflict remains the exact same. The conflict is always between
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trusting what we can see with our eyes and trusting what God
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says with His Word. And Isaac is the primary test
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case for this in this chapter. He is the miracle baby.
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He was spared on Mount Moriah. He carries the entire weight of
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the future of God's people. If he fails, the whole line is
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broken. So let us set the scene for the
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listener. We are in the promised land.
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This is the real estate God swore he would give to Abraham.
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It's supposed to be the land of milk and honey, but verse one
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opens with this incredibly jarring contradiction and says
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now there was a famine in the land.
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It is the great irony of the text.
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You expect the place of God's blessing to be a place of total
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abundance. You expect that if you are in
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the center of God's will, the crops are going to grow, the
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business is going to boom, and the bank account will be
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completely full. Yeah, that is the assumption we
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all make, but. Here, the geography of the
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promise has suddenly become the geography of scarcity.
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The pantry is bare, the ground is cracked.
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And that sets up the central question we have to answer in
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this deep dive. Which is the question of
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interpretation. Yes.
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How do we interpret our reality when the famine hits?
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And by famine we could mean literal hunger, or we could mean
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a financial recession, or a spiritual dry spell or health
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crisis. Do we interpret God by those
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circumstances? Do we do that?
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We end up in fear. Absolutely.
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We conclude that God is angry with us, or that he is absent,
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or that he is powerless. Or do we flip it?
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Do we interpret our circumstances by God's word?
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That is the biblical definition of faith.
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It is looking at the barren field and saying God is still
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good because he said so regardless of what the dirt
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looks like. That is the massive tension
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right there. Isaac is standing in the dust.
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He's looking at his skinny livestock and he has a choice to
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make. And the text gives us a very
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specific historical marker right out of the gate.
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In verse one it says besides the former famine that was in the
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days of April, Abraham, now Moses wrote this and he don't
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just add that phrase to pad the word count.
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He's doing something highly intentional there.
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He is planting A narrative signpost.
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He is actively inviting a comparison between the father
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Abraham and the son Isaac. It establishes a pattern of
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testing. Think about it.
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Abraham arise in the land back in Genesis 12.
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He receives the incredible promise and almost immediately a
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famine hits. And what did Abraham do?
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He ran. He panicked.
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Yeah, he went straight down to Egypt.
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He looked at the problem, he employed his own human reason,
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and he decided that Egypt was the only logical solution.
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And it was a total disaster. He ended up lying about his wife
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Sarah to save his own neck. He compromised his integrity
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because he did not trust God to keep him alive through the
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famine. And now, decades later, Isaac is
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facing the exact same test. It is a generational trial.
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I think that is a concept we often miss in our modern,
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individualized culture. We think our struggles are
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unique to us, but so often we are fighting the very same
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battles our parents fought. The theological implication
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there is massive. Isaac is not a blank slate.
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He inherits the biological traits of his father, sure, but
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he also inherits the spiritual vulnerabilities.
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He has the promises of Abraham, but he is facing the temptations
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of Abraham too. So the question hanging over
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verse one is whether the Son will repeat the sins of the
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Father. Will he trust God in the very
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place where his Father stumbled? Right.
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And Isaac feels the heat, the pressure is really on.
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And the text says he moves. And Isaac went to Gerar to
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Abimelech, king of the Philistines.
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Now I was looking at a map for this while going through the
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sources. Gerar is not Egypt, but it is
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not the heart of the Promised land either.
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No, it is not. Gerar is what the sources
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describe as a liminal space. It is a borderland.
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It sits right on the southern edge of Canaan, pushing up
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against the coastal plain. It is technically still in the
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land, but it is as close to the exit as you can possibly get
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without actually leaving. It is the waiting room.
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It is a staging ground and this gives us a brilliant
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psychological insight into how we actually deal with sin and
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compromise. Most of us do not wake up 1
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morning and decide to abandon the Christian faith completely.
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Right, we do not just Sprint to Egypt.
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No, we move to Gerar. We position ourselves on the
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border. We tell ourselves, well, I am
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still in the land. I have not left the church.
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I've not denied the Creed, but our heart is already scanning
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the horizon for the door. We move to a place where if
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things get just a little bit harder, we have a very easy
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escape route to the world. That is such a convicting
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thought for you and me and anyone listening.
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We hedge our bets. We keep 1 foot in the promise
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and 1 foot ready to run. And the destination Isaac
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clearly has in mind is Egypt, because in verse 2, God has to
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explicitly stop him from going there.
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But let us talk about the lure of Egypt for a minute.
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Why is Egypt always the bad guy in these biblical narratives?
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Aside from the fact that they later enslaved the Israelites,
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what does Egypt represent here in the ancient Near East?
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You really have to understand the geography to understand the
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theology here. Canaan is a land of hills and
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valleys. Deuteronomy 11 tells us it is a
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land that drinks water from the rain of heaven.
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Meaning agriculture, there is an exercise in faith.
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Absolutely. You have to look up.
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You have to depend on God opening the sky to provide the
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rain. If he does not, you starve.
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There is no backup plan. But Egypt is completely
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different. Egypt has the Nile River.
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It is the only major civilization in that whole
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region that does not depend on rainfall.
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The river floods annually and it does so predictably.
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They built massive irrigation systems to survive in Egypt.
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You do not look up, you look down.
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You do not need faith, you just need engineering and human
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effort. So Egypt represents
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self-reliance. It represents a system where I
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am totally in control of my own destiny.
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Precisely. It represents worldly security.
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It is what we would call a functional savior when a
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feminist Canaan. The logical, rational,
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survivalist thing to do is to pack up and go to the place with
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the permanent water source. Egypt makes perfect sense on a
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spreadsheet. And this is where we get the
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term worldly pragmatism that the sources talk about.
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It is the idea that if it works, it must be good.
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Right, Pragmatism asks the question.
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Will this save my skin? Faith asks the question, is this
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what God commanded? The temptation for Isaac is to
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solve a spiritual problem, which is a test of his faith, with a
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secular, pragmatic solution. He wants to trade the insecurity
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of trusting God for the absolute visible security of the Nile
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River. So Isaac is sitting in Girar.
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He's parked in the lobby of the world.
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He's probably checking the grain prices in Egypt.
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And then we get the divine interruption in segment 2, verse
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2 says, and the Lord appeared to him.
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I love the phrasing there. Isaac is not seeking God in this
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moment. He is plotting his escape route
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and God interrupts him. God steps right into the crisis
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and this tells us something vital about the nature of divine
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guidance. Isaac is not left to read the
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omens or cast lots. He is not left to just follow
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his heart. God speaks to him directly.
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God governs his people by clear revelation.
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And this is a huge contrast to how we often talk about guidance
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today. You hear people all the time
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saying I feel led to take this new job or I have a piece in my
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heart about making this massive life change.
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It is all very subjective and internal.
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That is the drift toward modern mysticism.
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In the church today. We have elevated our own
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internal impulses and feelings to the level of divine
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revelation. But true biblical guidance is
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objective. It comes from outside of us.
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For Isaac, it was a literal theophany, a visible appearance
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of the Lord. For us today, standing in the
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Reformed tradition, we hold to the cessation of those extra
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biblical revelations because we have something infinitely
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better. The completed scripture.
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Yes, the closed Canon of Scripture.
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We do not need a new voice from heaven, because God has already
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spoken perfectly in His Word. So when you are in a famine, you
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do not sit around waiting for a dream, you open the book.
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You look at the objective commands of God, and usually
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those commands cut right across our natural survival instincts
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because God tells Isaac plainly, do not go down to Egypt.
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It is a direct prohibition and from a human perspective it
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makes zero sense. Imagine telling a starving man
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with a starving family do not go to the only grocery store in
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town that has food. It highlights the ultimate
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conflict between human reason and divine command.
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Reason says go where the food is.
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Revelation says stay where God is.
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This is the ultimate test for Isaac.
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Are you going to be a pragmatist or are you going to be obedient?
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God is calling Him to defy the pure logic of survival in order
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to obey the logic of the covenant.
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The command continues in the text Dwell in the land, of which
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I shall tell you. And then he says sojourn in this
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land. Now, our sources point out a
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really fascinating nuance in the Hebrew vocabulary here.
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There's a market difference between the verb yashav and the
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verb gur. Yes, this is a beautiful
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linguistic detail. Yashav means to sit, to settle
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down, to dwell permanently and securely.
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It implies ownership and stability.
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But gur is the root for the word sojourner or stranger.
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It means to live as a resident alien.
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God specifically tells Isaac to sojourn in the land.
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So he is saying stay here physically but do not get too
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comfortable. He is saying live here, but
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understand your status. You are a stranger.
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You do not own the security of this place.
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You are entirely dependent on me for your protection because the
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land itself is hostile to you. Right now, Isaac is called to be
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a Pilgrim in the middle of his own inheritance.
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That brings us to what the source calls the theology of
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staying. I think that concept is going to
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resonate with a lot of people listening.
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Sometimes we think that being faithful requires these big
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dramatic actions. We think I'm going to start a
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huge ministry or I am going to sell everything and move to the
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mission field. But sometimes the most faithful
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thing you can possibly do is just stay put.
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Stubborn patience. That is what it looks like.
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Staying in the marriage when it is incredibly hard.
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Staying in the local church when it is struggling or annoying.
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Staying in the secular job where you are the only believer and
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the culture is toxic. The pragmatic impulse is always
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to flee to somewhere easier, to find a new Egypt.
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But God often calls us to stay in the place of discomfort
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because that is the exact place where our sanctification
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happens. One of our sources draws a
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direct parallel here to the seeker sensitive movement and
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modern church growth strategies. Connect those dots for us.
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How does modern church methodology relate to Isaac
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sitting in a famine? It is a perfect parallel of
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pragmatism. The seeker sensitive movement
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looked at the secular world, which is our modern Egypt, and
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asked what works? How do these corporations and
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entertainment venues get massive crowds?
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Well, they use marketing, they use psychology, they use concert
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level entertainment. So a lot of church leaders said
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we're facing a famine of attendance, let us go to Egypt
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and borrow their methods to survive.
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We try to import the water the Nile because we do not want to
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and trust the rain from. Heaven, spot on.
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We stop trusting what the Reformed tradition calls the
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ordinary means of grace, the unadulterated meat of the Word,
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prayer, the sacraments. Those things look very weak to
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the world. They do not seem like they will
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work to fill up an auditorium. So we run to worldly wisdom.
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But God's command to the church today is the exact same as it
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was to Isaac. Stay in the land.
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Trust the Word. Do not dilute the message just
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to get a better result on your quarterly spreadsheet.
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That is a hard word for the modern church, but a desperately
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necessary one. We have to trust that God's way
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is right, even when it temporarily looks like it is
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failing. But here's the comforting part
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of the text. God does not just bark a command
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at Isaac and walk away. He does not just say stay here,
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starve, and be happy about it. He gives him incredible
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assurance. This brings us to the logic of
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the covenant, which is central to our deep drive today.
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In reformed theology, we frequently talk about the
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indicative imperative dynamic. Let us unpack that for the
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listener, the indicative and the imperative.
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The imperative is the command itself.
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Sojourn in this land. It is what you must do.
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The indicative is the statement of fact, the bedrock reality
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that grounds the command. God says sojourn, for I will be
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with you. He provides a massive promise to
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undergird the difficult obedience.
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He is essentially saying you have the ability to do this
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difficult thing only because of this true thing.
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So let us look closely at the four beams of covenant assurance
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that God gives Isaac in verses 3 and 4.
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These are the theological pillars he is supposed to lean
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his entire weight on when his stomach is growling.
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Beam 1 is divine presence. I will be with you.
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This is the ultimate antidote to fear.
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Why was Isaac afraid? Because he felt totally
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vulnerable. He was sitting in a foreign land
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with a hostile king and no food for his family.
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God says I am here the believers.
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True security is not a full pantry.
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It is the newness of the Lord. And notice something highly
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crucial about Providence here. God sovereignly ordained this
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famine. He brought the lack, but he did
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not abandon Isaac to it. He is with Isaac in the middle
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of the famine. That completely changes how we
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view our own suffering. We so often think that suffering
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means God has left the building. We think he is mad at us.
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But here God says I am, right here in the dry season, standing
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next to you. Beam 2 is the land God says for
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to you and your offspring. I will give all these lands now.
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Our first source material makes a specific point here about a
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dispensational distinction. We need to address that, because
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while we are reading this through a confessional
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covenantal lens, we have to deal honestly with the stubborn
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details of the text. Right.
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The source points out that these are literal territorial
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promises, yes. When God says all these lands
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plural, he is talking about the physical geography of Canaan,
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the actual dirt, the rocks, the hills.
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He is speaking to the ethnic descendants of Abraham.
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As reformed thinkers, we have to be careful not to over
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spiritualize or allegorize this away.
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We cannot just wave a theological wand and say, oh,
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the land just represents heaven. Because we do that, we actually
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weaken the integrity of the promise.
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Absolutely. Think about it, if God can break
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His specific literal promise to Abraham's physical family about
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the physical dirt, then what makes us think He will keep His
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spiritual promises to us regarding salvation?
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The literal fulfillment in history validates God's
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character. He is the Lord of actual
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history, not just the Lord of spiritual metaphors.
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That is a great point. The dirt actually matters.
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That brings us to beam 3 which is the seed.
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Verse 4 says I will multiply your offspring as the stars of
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heaven. This is where the camera really
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zooms out in the narrative. This is the Christological
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focus. The word offspring or seed is
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singular in its ultimate biblical trajectory.
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The apostle Paul picks up on this heavily in Galatians 3.
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He argues that the promise to Abraham and Isaac was not just
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about a multitude of people, but about one specific person who
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would eventually come from that physical line.
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The Messiah. Yes, Jesus Christ is the true
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singular seed of Abraham, and I love the comparison our source
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material makes here. It calls Christ the better
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Isaac. Break that down for us.
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How is Christ the better Isaac? We'll look at the contours of
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the story. Isaac is the beloved son of the
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father. He is told to stay in the land
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during a severe famine. He has to trust God completely
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for his physical survival. But look at Christ.
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Christ is the ultimate beloved Son who left the total comfort
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of heaven to enter the ultimate famine, which is this fallen,
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broken, sin, cursed world. And he did not just risk death,
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He actively embraced it. On the cross, Jesus experienced
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the absolute famine of God's wrath.
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He was cut off from the Father's favorable presence.
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He cried out. My God, my God, why have you
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forsaken me? He took the scarcity upon
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himself so we could have the plenty.
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Isaac stayed in the land and lived.
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Christ came to the earth and died to provide the true bread
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of life for His people. So when we read about the seed
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all the way back here in Genesis 26, we are seeing a direct,
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unbreakable line to the Gospel of Luke 24.
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The promise to Isaac is the vehicle that brings Jesus into
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the world. And that leads perfectly to 4,
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which is the blessing to the nations, God says, And in your
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offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.
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This is the global scope of the Covenant.
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The covenant was never meant to be tribal selfishness.
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God did not choose Abraham and Isaac just so they could have a
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nice, comfortable private club out in the desert.
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He chose them to be a conduit. The blessing was designed from
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eternity past to flow through them to the Philistines, to the
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Egyptians, and eventually to us. To the Gentiles.
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Yes, the mission was always global.
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From Genesis 12 to Genesis 26 all the way to the Great
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Commission in Matthew 28. The plan has always been to
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redeem a people from every tribe, tongue and nation through
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the finished work of the Messiah.
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So Isaac has these 4 massive pillars holding him up, Divine
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presence, the physical land, the promised seed, and the global
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blessing. That is a ton of theological
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assurance. But then we hit verse 5, and
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honestly, this is the verse that gives a lot of Protestant
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theologians serious heartburn. Verse 5 is what the sources call
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the rationale of obedience. God says I will do all this
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because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my
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commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
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Because that is a very scary word in this particular context.
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It sounds highly conditional. It sounds like God is saying I
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am blessing you today, Isaac, because your dad earned it with
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his good behavior. It sounds suspiciously like
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works righteousness. Is God paying Isaac for
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Abraham's accumulated merit? If you read it superficially, it
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absolutely sounds like that. And this is exactly where our
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Reformed theology, and specifically the precise
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language of the Westminster Confession, helps us keep the
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car on the road. We have to be crystal clear
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about the order of salvation here.
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We need to maintain the distinction between the root and
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the fruit. Precisely.
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Abraham was not justified by his works.
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We know this definitively from Genesis 15.6 where it says
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Abraham believed the Lord and he counted it to him as
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righteousness. That justification happened
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years before the specific acts of obedience mentioned here in
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chapter 26. So Abraham was already right
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with God by faith alone. So the obedience we see in verse
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5 was the fruit of that prior justification.
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It was the necessary response to grace.
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It was the covenant of grace in action.
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God saves us freely, without any merit of our own, but He saves
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us unto good works. Abraham's obedience was the
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visible vindication of his internal faith.
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It proved his faith was actually alive and in verse 5 God is
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holding that up to Isaac as the standard pattern.
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He is saying this is what a covenant man looks like.
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He listens to my voice and he obeys.
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It is highly interesting that the text uses these heavy legal
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words here. Charge commandments, statutes,
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laws. Moses has not gone up Mount
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Sinai yet. There are No 10 commandments
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written on stone tablets. So what laws is God even talking
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about? It is a fascinating window into
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the patriarchal age. It shows us that the moral law
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of God did not just pop into existence out of nowhere at
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Sinai. God has always had a moral will
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for His people. Written on the heart.
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These law words are used here to show that Abraham lived a
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discipline regulated life under God's total authority.
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He did not just float around in the spiritual fog doing whatever
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he felt like doing. He had specific charges from God
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to keep. This brings us right to the
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third use of the law. We throw that term around a lot
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in reform circles, but let us define it clearly for the
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listener who might not have a systematic theology textbook
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sitting on their night stand. The Reformers historically
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distinguished 3 uses of the moral law.
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The first use is a mirror. It shows us our sin, it shows us
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our absolute inability to save ourselves, and it drives us to
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Christ for mercy. The second use is a restraint.
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It restrains evil in society and keeps civil society from turning
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into total anarchy. And the third use.
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The third use is for the justified believer.
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It is the guide. It shows us how to please the
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God who has already saved us by grace.
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It is the path of gratitude for Isaac, knowing how to live,
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staying in the land, digging the wells, worshipping God properly.
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That is the third use in action. He is not obeying to earn the
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land. He already has the land by
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divine promise. He obeys because he's the
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grateful heir of the Promise. So we are walking a very fine,
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very important theological line here.
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We totally reject legalism, which says I obeys that God will
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love me and save me. And on the other side we totally
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reject antinomianism, which says God loves me and saved me so, so
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I do not have to obey his law at all.
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And we also have to reject the prosperity gospel here.
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That is a massive application from this text.
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The prosperity gospel says if I have enough faith and if I obey
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well enough, I will never have a famine.
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I will always be healthy and wealthy.
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Isaac blows that entire theory out of the water.
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He's the man of faith. He is standing right in the
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center of God's will, and his family is hungry.
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That is such a crucial point for you to hear today.
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We so often interpret hardship as divine punishment.
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We think I must have done something terrible because
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things are going wrong in my life.
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But here, the famine is simply the setting for faithfulness.
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Right. Famine is not always penal.
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Sometimes it is pedagogical. God is using it to teach us
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something about Himself and about our own hearts.
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So let us bring this home in Segment 5 with some contemporary
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application. We do not live in tents, we do
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not have sheep to feed, but we absolutely have famines in our
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lives. What are the modern Egypt's that
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we run to when things get hard? We have to identify our own
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functional saviors. What do you trust when the
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pressure is really on? Financial security is the most
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obvious one for most of us. When we hit a financial famine,
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inflation is up, you lose your job, there's a massive
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recession, what is our immediate reaction?
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Do we panic? Do we make career moves that
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violate our Christian conscience just to feel safe?
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That is a very practical example.
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Taking the job that pays double what requires you to miss
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corporate worship every single Sunday, or requires you to be
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slightly dishonest in your accounting, or moves your family
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into a total spiritual desert where there are no healthy
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churches, That is going down to Egypt.
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You are trusting the Nile of the corporate paycheck more than the
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provision of God. Another massive Egypt today is
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psychological philosophies. When we face a famine of the
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soul, depression, intense anxiety, relational trauma,
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where do we run first? Do we run to the sufficiency of
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scripture and the pastoral care of the local church?
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Or do we run immediately to secular therapies that deny the
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reality of sin and replace biblical theology with self
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esteem and self actualization? We want the quick fix, we want
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the pill or the mental strategy that makes the pain go away
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instantly. We do not want to sojourn in the
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difficulty. We do not want to endure.
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Right. We want immediate relief, but
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God wants long term reliance. We also talked earlier about
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pragmatism in the church, doing what works to get numbers.
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It is an absolute plague in Western Christianity.
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We measure success by attendance numbers, by weekly cash flow, by
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cultural applause. If the secular world says you
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need a light show and a fog machine to get millennials in
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the door, we go by the lasers. We are actively going to Egypt
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to buy their grain because we do not think the manna from heaven
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is attractive enough anymore. But true faithfulness is asking,
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what has God actually commanded us to do, regardless of the
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visible outcome? This idea from the sources of
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the famine as discipline is incredibly helpful.
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We need to reframe our struggles entirely.
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We really do. God uses the pinch of Providence
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to expose what we truly trust. When everything is going great,
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when the bills are paid and everyone is healthy, it is very
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easy to say we trust God. But when the famine hits, you
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find out very quickly where your anchor really holds.
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God squeezes us through hardship to see what comes out.
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So the practical question for the listener today is, when you
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get squeezed by life, do you run to the world or do you run to
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the word? That is the ultimate test.
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And Speaking of running to the word, let us talk about decision
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making for a minute. We touched on the I feel LED
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culture earlier. How should a reformed thinker
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actually make decisions in a crisis?
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The source material calls for a cessation of sanity.
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I absolutely love that phrase. It is brilliant.
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It is about being rational and deeply biblical.
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We do not need a voice from the sky to tell us what to do.
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We do not need a fresh, private revelation.
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We have the completed Bible. God has spoken definitively.
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If you want to know God's will for your life, look at His clear
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commands. Do not steal.
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Love your neighbor, be holy. Flee sexual immorality.
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You do not need to fast and pray for six weeks about whether to
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obey those things. You just need to obey.
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Them. So if I am deciding on a cross
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country move, or taking a new job or pursuing a relationship,
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I do not wait for a mystical peace to wash over my body.
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I look at the scriptures. Is this move wise?
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Is this job righteous? Does this relationship help me
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serve God better? Absolutely.
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You use Christian wisdom sanctified by the Word of God in
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corporate prayer. You do not rely on internal
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impulses because our impulses are so often just our own
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fleshly desire or honestly just our own indigestion dressed up
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in super spiritual religious language.
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We have the mind of Christ revealed in the Scriptures.
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We just need to open the book and use it.
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That is so freeing, actually, it takes all the crushing pressure
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off of trying to decode secret, hidden messages from God in our
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daily circumstances. It is incredibly freeing.
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It means we can walk in joyful confidence, knowing that as long
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as we are operating within the clear bounds of God's revealed
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moral will, we are totally free to use our sanctified wisdom to
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make choices. We are coming to the end of our
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time for this deep dive, but we need to land this plane firmly
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on the gospel. We've talked a lot today about
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Isaac and the necessity of obedience and the massive danger
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of running to Egypt. But for the person listening
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right now who feels incredibly weak?
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The person who feels like they have already run to Egypt a
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dozen times this year, Where is the hope?
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The hope is that our ultimate refuge is not a geographical
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place. It is not Canaan.
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It is a person. It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Union with Christ. That is the great doctrine that
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holds this entire thing together.
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Yes, we are not Isaac. We are in Christ, and Christ is
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the one who stayed perfectly. He obeyed Florida State in the
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middle of the worst famine imaginable.
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Think about his temptation in the wilderness in Matthew 4.
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He was physically hungry, literally starving after 40 days
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and Satan came to him and essentially said turn these
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stones into bread. That was a direct temptation to
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pragmatism. Satan was saying you have a
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physical need. Use your own power to fix it
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right now. Spot on.
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It was a temptation to step outside the Father's will and
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relying on self to survive. And Jesus answered him using the
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objective word of God. Man shall not live by bread
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alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
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He stayed in the will of God when his physical body was
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screaming for food. He passed the test that Adam
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failed in the garden, that Israel failed in the desert, and
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that you and I fail almost every single day.
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He did not go down to Egypt, he went straight to the cross.
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He went to the cross, and because he succeeded perfectly,
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His impeccable record of staying and obeying is legally credited
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to our account by faith alone. So when we fail, when we panic
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in a crisis, when we look for security in our bank accounts
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instead of heaven, we are not cast out of the covenant.
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We are disciplined by a loving Father.
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Yes, God corrects us to bring us back, but we are eternally safe
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because our standing before God is not based on our shaky
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performance, it is based entirely on His perfect
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performance. So the call today from Genesis
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26 is really a call to repentance.
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It is if you have been relying on yourself, if you have been
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trusting your career or your clever strategies to get you
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through the famine. Repent, turn away from those
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broken cisterns, turn away from Egypt, and rest completely in
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the finished work of the promised offspring.
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And. What would you say to the
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believer who is just exhausted? The person who feels like the
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famine is never going to end. God's oath is immutable.
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He cannot lie. He said.
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I will be with you. That promise stands forever.
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It stood firm for Abraham. It stood firm for Isaac.
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And through your union with Christ, it stands firm for you
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today. He will not leave you.
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He will not forsake you. The pantry in your house might
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be empty, but the throne of the universe is occupied.
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And because that throne is occupied, we can get up tomorrow
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morning and go to work in faith. We do not work for our life.
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No, we work from our life. We obey God because we are
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already alive in Him. That is the vital difference.
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That is where the freedom is found.
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It is the only freedom that actually matters in this world.
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Well friends, that is going to do it for our time on this deep
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dive Genesis 26. It is a brilliant story about a
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starving man, a perfectly faithful God, and a covenant
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promise that absolutely refuses to fail.
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We hope this has challenged you to look at your own famines a
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little differently this week. And here's a thought for you to
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chew on as you go. Later in the same chapter, Isaac
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actually goes out and re digs the exact same wells wells his
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father Abraham had dug years before.
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It shows us that true faith does not always invent something new.
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Sometimes it just faithfully reclaims the old ground that was
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lost. That is a great word.
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Keep reading your Bibles, keep resting in Christ, and keep
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trusting the Word over the world.
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Thanks for listening to Reformed Thinking.
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We will catch you on the next deep dive.