Trusting God Amidst Adversity

If you have your Bible, I would invite you to turn with me to Genesis chapter 26 Genesis chapter 26 as we make our way through the second half of the book of beginnings: trusting God amidst ad. I don 't know what you're going through This moment, as I'm speaking to you, what difficulty you are facing, what adverse circumstances have come your way, or what's going to happen to you this week coming up or in the weeks ahead But the chapter in Genesis 26, the first 11 verses specifically, are going to speak to Your need this morning

And hopefully, my prayer for you and for me is that as we go through this chapter, we will learn how to trust God We will learn how to lean upon God in every situation we encounter so that He is glorified in our lives Genesis 26 Verse number 1 Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimele, king of the Philistines And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt Stay in the land of which I shall tell you So in this land, and I will be with you and bless you

For to you and to your descendants, I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham Multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands, and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws So Isaac lived in Gerar When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, She is my sister for he was afraid to say, My wife, thinking the men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah

For she is beautiful And it came about, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out through a window and saw, and behold, Isaac was caressing his wife Rebekah Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, Behold, Certainly she is your wife How then did you say she is my sister? And Isaac said to him, Because I said, Lest I die on account of her And Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us

So Abimelech charged all the people, saying, He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death God amidst adversity As we read the story, there are a lot of things that are familiar, like father, like son And yet there's a lesson that we need to learn, a lesson that a lot of us miss And like the other chapters in the book of Genesis, Genesis, you're going to see yourself in Genesis 26 And hopefully, the things you see will help you understand how you need to trust God even more today than you did yesterday Four things I want you to see

First of all, we want you to see the difficulty of In the land, then we want you to see the direction from the Lord, then the deception on the lips, and then some discoveries for our lives First of all, the difficulty in the land The Bible tells us that there was a famine That is the situation There was a famine in the land, a lot like there was during the days of Abraham back in Genesis chapter 12 And no doubt, Isaac had heard from his father About that famine In fact, the Bible tells us back in Genesis chapter 18, these words about Abraham

God says, For I have chosen him in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice In order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him Abraham was a man who would command his children, Abraham was a man who would speak to his children And so, no doubt, Isaac had heard about what happened way back in Genesis chapter 13. 12 About the famine that took place in the land where his father was, and his father made a journey down to Egypt

It reminds me that there are situations that are going to happen to our children that happen to us And we as parents need to be well-vers in the scriptures to be able to explain to our children how to handle trials from without and temptations from within We need to be able to sit down with our children and explain to them the situation Situations that are going to come their way in order that they might learn to trust God amidst their difficult situations

How many times, as a parent, have you sat down with your children and talked to them about your past, about your problems, your Failings and then how God intervened and worked through them, and how you learn to trust God through all those difficult times That's something we, as parents, need to do with our children That's important They need to be able to understand. I reminded of the words back in Psalm 71 of what David said when he said these words, O God, thou hast taught me from my youth, and I still declare thy wondrous deeds

And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me until I declare thy strength To this generation, thy power to all who are to come Psalm 71, verses 17 and 19 As parents, that should be one of our main ambitions in life: to train and to teach our children who God is and how God intervenes And God works through difficult times, and how we as His children need to trust Him in every situation That's one of the biggest responsibilities we have as parents But this situation, this famine in the land, tells me something very unique

That what Happens to the believer happens to the unbeliever as well When there is a disaster that strikes, whether it's an earthquake in Los Angeles, it just doesn't happen to the unbeliever, it happens to the believer too Or whether it's a hurricane, or whether there's a tornado, or Or whether there's a fire, or whether there is a terrorist attack Whatever happens happens to believer and unbeliever alike Take death, for instance Death happens to the believer as well as the unbeliever The key element is how

Do we, as believers, handle the situation? We, of all people, need to be able to handle it in such a way that the world around us sees the difference between us and the world They see how we handle the hardship, how we handle the disease, how we handle the Disaster, how we handle the distress, the difficulty, ultimately, how we handle the death There's something different about our lives Isaac had a wonderful opportunity to be a shining testimony for his God amidst the famine in the land, like his father, had the The same opportunity

You children are going to have the same or similar opportunities as your parents do today to shine for Jesus Christ Will you shine for Him? Will you stand for Him? Will you speak? Speak for him? Will you show the world that Jesus Christ reigns supreme in your life? The situation? There was a famine in the land The solution? Well, there's two You can either flee or you can fall Falling Your knees Isaac decided to flee the land He went to a place called Gerar, a very significant place You need to circle that in your Bible We're going to come back to it in a moment

That's a very important place today But he went to a Place called Gerar, he was on his way to Egypt Well, how do you know that? Because God says in verse 2: Don't go to Egypt, Isaac See, God knows you better than you think you know you Meaning that somehow, in the back of Isaac's mind, Was Egypt, the land of plenty The Bible speaks against that over in Isaiah 31, verse number 1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many, and in horsemen, because they are very strong

But they do not look to the Holy One of Israel nor seek the Lord Going down to Egypt is the Bible's way of saying: listen, I don't want you to trust in human resources, I want you to trust in divine strength. I want you to trust me. A hundred years earlier, his dad went to Egypt His dad did not consult the Lord before he went to Egypt And you will note that Isaac did not consult the Lord before he went to Made his journey You see, when a difficulty comes your way, you can either flee or you can fall on your knees before God

What do you do? How do you respond to adversity when it comes your way? You see, the solution for most of us is what? How Can I get out of this? Right? I gotta get out of this This is not the place I want to be The place of pain is where none of us want to be So the first question that comes to our mind is: how can I get out of here? That was Abraham's response The father of our faith That was Isaac's response And you know what? That's your response in mind, isn it? I got to get out of here. I don't like this Wrong question The question is: what can I get out of this? Not how

Can I get out of this? We asked the wrong question Listen very carefully God's going to speak to you today through His Word For those of you in the midst of a difficulty, God says, I got something I want to show you For those of you who are not in the midst of one, but I promise It's going to happen It's going to happen either this week or the next week or the next month or the next year But you're going to find yourself amidst a famine You're going to find yourself amidst a difficulty Listen carefully because God is going to speak to you today through His Word Lead us to point number two

Direction from the Lord The direction from the Lord Under two areas Number one, the prohibition Number two, the promise And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt Stay in the land of which I shall tell you He says, Listen, Isaac, I don't want you going to Egypt. I want you to trust me, not in human resources. I want you to lean upon me, Isaac You are my testimony in the land You are my symbol of Light in the land Don't go down to Egypt But like his father, he wasn't too eager to listen He wanted to do what he thought was the best

So God says, as a prohibition, don't go here. I want to give you a promise Listen to what he It says, Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you For to you and to your descendants, I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham, and I will multiply your descendants at the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands, and by your descendants, all the nations of the earth Shall be blessed because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws

God had yet to tell Isaac the promise, but you can bet that Isaac knew of the Abrahamic covenant You can bet that his dad told Him about how the descendants of his seed would be blessed and all the nations of the world would be blessed because of the seed that would come through Abraham and then through Isaac You can bet he heard it But God wanted him to make sure that he heard it from His lips So God spoke to him You want to know why? Because God says, in the midst of your famine, in the midst of your diversity, you need to hear from me You need to know what I say

So I'm going to come to you and I going to speak to you You and when I speak to you, you're going to hear my word because my word is that which blesses you So I'm going to give you my word And sure enough, God shows up and speaks Speaks to Isaac Because God says, if you will Obey my word as your father Abraham did Oh, you will see the blessings flow upon your life in ways you could never imagine He says, Listen, I want to bless you, so I am going to be with you Isn't that good? When disaster strikes, You need the presence of God Where is Isaac? He's in Ger

Do you know where Ger is in the land of Israel today? It's called the Gaza Strip Who owns the Gaza Strip today? The Arab nations They don't own that Abraham descend do How do you know? Genesis 26 Tells you It's not the Arab worlds It's a Jewish people Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, their descendants It's their land Because God gave the promise to them All the land of Israel And then he says, I'm going to Multiply your descendants, and through you will come the promised seed, the Messiah He says, Listen, everything is about what I'm going to do through your life, Is

And ultimately, there's going to come a seed that's going to bless the entire world That's the Same thing that motivated Abraham Having never seen the fulfillment of that promise, he believed in it And God says, Isaac, I want you to be able to believe in the exact same promise I gave to your father Trust me, believe in me God says, at the bottom of everything There is one word that needs to be supreme in your life, and that is trust Trust me Wrap your arms around me Live in the light of who I am Give your life to me Believe in me Don't doubt me And watch me bless your life

When you pass through that which overwhelms you, when you pass through that which can consume you, understand this: I will be with you. I will be With you Doesn Romans 8 tell us that nothing can separate us from the love of God? Oh, these fires, these floods are inseparable That is, they are unable to separate us from God who is present with us He is our presence And help in our time of trouble So God would come to Isaac in the midst of his adverse circumstances and say, Isaac, listen, I want to bless your life God comes to you today and says, Listen, I want to bless you amidst your adverse

Just listen to me as Abraham your father did, who was committed to my laws, my commandments, my precepts, and my statutes, who obeyed them without reservation Young Isaac, I want you to do the same thing: be just like your father You'd think that Isaac would say, Oh, this is great This is so good But it's hard for me to understand the next verse, verse 6 So Isaac lived in Gerar when the men of the place asked him about his wife Wife, he said, She is my sister For he was afraid to say, My wife

How can that be? After what God just said, how can that be? After God said, I'm going to be with you, Isaac Isaac, I'm here. I'm going to bless you Oh, your descendants are going to be so great. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless your descendants It's all about me, Isaac Just trust me You think, Isaac, we have the oh man, yes, God. I'm going to trust you But he's just like you and me Hear a great sermon like you're going to hear today And you go out there, and what do you do? You forget everything you just heard Everything You forgot about God's presence You wait and see

You're on your way home, you're going to turn the car radio on because your favorite football team's playing, and you're going to know what score is, and you're going totally forget about the presence of God You're going to go home, take a nap, and you're going to wake up from your nap and not even think for one moment about God's presence in your life Say, mark it down, it's going to happen today Same thing Isaac did He lived in Ger God said, Stay here He did But then he feared for his life Point number three: deception on the lips Deception

On the lips, three things: repeated, revealed, and rebuked It's repeated like father, like son Why? Listen, here's it is: it worked for dad, it worked for dad, it worked for dad twice Remember that? Twice it worked for dad And my dad was a man after God's own heart, man He was a great man of God And if it worked for dad, it's got to work for me How many times have you heard that one? You see, whenever we We seek solutions outside the will of God, and for that temporary moment, there's a reprieve from the difficulties We send a message to those who follow that if you sin, it works

If you sin, it works Work for long, but it works for now And you know what? In a world of instant gratification, we want it to work for now So we sin And that's what Isaac did He wanted it to work for now Just like the kid who says, well mom you got divorced and it worked for you I can get divorced now too and it'll work for me you ever heard that before I've heard that tons of times from families who who have been through a divorce