All right, so they're in Genesis 26. So I'm going through Genesis, of course, because like I always
tell you guys, I like to go through one chapter per week. And on Sunday, we had our anniversary,
so we missed the chapter this Sunday. So we're covering it today here on Wednesday, Wednesday
night. So look at Genesis 26, verse 22. Genesis 26, verse 22. The Bible reads,
And he removed from thence, and digged another well. And for that they strove not. And he called
the name of Rehoboth. And he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us. The title for the
sermon tonight is, The Lord hath made room. The Lord hath made room. We'll start with verse number
one, Genesis 26, verse one. Now this story is going to sound so familiar with you guys.
I mean, it's so similar what Isaac does here, just like his father Abraham. And here in verse
number one, it says, And there was a famine in the land. Now remember, what land are we talking
about here? We're talking about the land of Canaan. Isaac is here living on the land of Canaan.
It's the land which God asked Abraham and his descendants to sojourn on. And you may remember,
in the early days when Abraham was in Canaan, he also suffered a famine in the land. And what did
he do when he suffered a famine in the land? He went down to Egypt. He went down to Egypt looking
for food, I suppose, the resources he needed for him and his servants and his people. And if you
remember the story there, that the Pharaoh of Egypt tried to take or did, you know, in almost
basically take Sarah to be his wife. And Abraham was fearful for his life. And he had lied to the
people of Egypt saying that Sarah was his sister. In fact, actually, he didn't tell an outright lie.
He told a half truth. You know, we know that Sarah was his half sister. And he did it to preserve his
life because he was concerned that the people of Egypt would slay him and take Sarah for
themselves. And then later on, we have another story. And this time, it probably is quite,
it's a very familiar name, probably the name of Abimelech. And Abraham travels as well to the
land of Jerah. And the same fear falls upon him. He's afraid that the people will kill him
and take his wife from him. And again, he deceives the people and says that Sarah is his sister.
And Abimelech, the king of Jerah at the time, desired to take Sarah as his own wife as well.
And so here we have this third story, which is so similar. We have Isaac going through the same
process almost as his father Abraham. So let's look at verse number one. And there was a famine
in the land beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. So this is now another
famine. And Isaac went unto Abimelech, king of the Philistines, unto Jerah. Now keep your finger
there and go to Genesis 20, please. Keep your finger there. Go to Genesis 20, just to show you
the similarities here. We have he goes to the land of Jerah and to the land where Abimelech,
the king of the Philistines lived. But Genesis chapter 20, verse one, the same story plays out
here with Abraham. And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country and
dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and so journeyed to Jerah. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife,
she is my sister. And Abimelech, king of Jerah, sent and took Sarah. Now go back to Genesis 26.
So we see the same king, this same king by the name of Abimelech. Now actually, when I say the
same king, it's actually not the same king. Okay, now, these events that happened in Genesis 20
with Abraham and Abimelech was about 100 years, give or take about 100 years before this happened
with Isaac. Okay, before these things happened with Isaac. So it's safe to say that this Abimelech,
king of Jerah, now in the days of Isaac is a totally different person. Now it could be
that it's just maybe the son of Abimelech. And he's also called him Abimelech.
What I've also heard is that Abimelech is, could very well be a title, will be a role,
kind of like the Egyptians, the king of Egypt was known as Pharaoh. Okay. And no matter which king
of Egypt he was, he was always known as the Pharaoh. And it could very well be that Abimelech
was a similar title to Pharaoh that's been used over and over by the kings of the Philistines
of this day. So it's not the same Abimelech. It's a totally different Abimelech. It just,
it's a very similar story. And the guy by the same name or by the same title. And so we see this,
because of famine, he travels, well, he's actually on his way to Egypt. You soon see this.
He doesn't make it to Egypt. He's still in the land of Canaan when he gets to Jerah. But verse
number two, and the Lord appeared unto him, that's unto Isaac and said, go not down into Egypt.
So there it is. God knew Isaac's intention was to go to Egypt, but the Lord, he puts a stop to it,
right? Cause we saw with Abraham, he got into a lot of trouble when he went into Egypt. So the
Lord's telling Isaac, don't go to Egypt. Let's keep reading. Dwell in the land, which I shall tell
thee of. Verse number three, sojourn in this land. So God did give Isaac permission to be in Jerah.
Okay. God tells Isaac, well, just stay in this land. And again, it's not, it's not that he's
breaking God's command. It's that Jerah was on the land of the Canaanites already with the land of
Canaan already. So he is where God wants him to be. Not exactly where he started, but it's kind
of halfway to Egypt. All right. But God says, well, just sojourn in this land. And this is
the promise he tells Isaac and I will be with thee and we'll bless thee. I mean,
that should give Isaac a lot of confidence. Don't you think? If you heard God's voice,
God came to you and said, look, I will be with you. I will bless you. Wouldn't that give you
a lot of confidence? And that would give me a lot of confidence. Okay. And God promises us, look,
I'm going to be with you. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to protect you. And let's keep reading.
For unto thee and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries and I will perform the oath,
which I swear unto Abraham thy father. And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven
and will give unto thy seed all these countries and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth
be blessed. And of course we know the seed, we've gone through this multiple times. We know the seed
being referenced here is Jesus Christ. That the promise of Abraham, that he would have,
that the seed would come through him, the Messiah would come through Abraham, was now passed on to
Isaac. God sent Isaac, look, the same promise I made to your father Abraham. I'm making it to you,
Isaac. And because of this promise, I'm going to be with you. I'm going to protect you. I'm going
to bless you. You know, and Isaac should have been encouraged by these words. Isaac should have been
that God will protect him even in his land here in Jireh. God continues in verse number five,
because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my church, my commandments, my statutes and my laws.
And of course we know that Abraham was a very godly man. Verse number six, and Isaac dwelt in
Jireh. Now here we have the story playing out in verse number seven. And the man of the place
asked him for his wife, of his wife, and he said, she is my sister. For he feared to say,
she is my wife. And notice that. Was, was Rebekah Isaac's sister?
Not at all. If you remember the story, Rebekah was the, the Isaac's cousin's daughter. So I think
some of us might, we might refer to it as second cousins. Okay. So not even close. Look, when,
when Abraham tried to deceive Abimelech and Pharaoh, he said about Sarah that she was his
sister. Okay. It was half a truth. It was half a truth. But this time Isaac tells a bold-faced lie.
Okay. It's a complete lie. You know, at least with Abraham, Sarah was a half-sister. But you know,
in this case, Isaac's just gone with a bold-faced lie. And, and what the lesson that I think we
can take from this, especially parents, you know, with children is that we need to be careful about
our sins, the sins we've committed. All right. And we can see here that Isaac commits the same sin
that Abraham did. It doesn't look like Abraham taught Isaac very well in this area about telling
the truth, telling the full truth, trusting in God. We see that Isaac had a fear of the people,
but God just finished telling him, I will be with you. I will bless you. I mean, look, God just,
just, just finishing encouraging Isaac. And I'm reminded, you know, we can go through spiritual
highs sometimes in life. You know, we had a great weekend celebrating our anniversary. You know,
I thoroughly enjoyed that. I hope you enjoyed that as well. You know, the fellowship, the visitors,
the people that traveled, the people that are blessed by our church.
I hope you've been blessed by those people. I hope you've been blessed by the preaching
over the weekend. We can have spiritual highs and then Monday can come and we have fears.
You know, Monday can come and we start to forget the promises that God gave. We start forgetting
the victories we had. We start forgetting those things and we give into our fears and we start
telling the lies and it's like getting into trouble. You know, we see this with Isaac,
but it happens with us. I've heard many times where pastors speak about
Mondays for pastors as being one of the worst days. You know, where they've had a great weekend
and they've had great church services. They've preached great messages. I mean, I've heard this
from more than one pastor. I've heard it said that the devil will try to attack you on Monday.
You know, he doesn't like it when you have the victories. He doesn't like you, you know,
rejoice in the blessings of God and come Monday he's going to put something in your way. He's
going to try to make you fall over, but I don't think this just applies to pastors. I think this
can happen to any believer that goes through these spiritual victories and we see these
fears have fallen upon Isaac. And so, you know, let me just remind you brethren, you know,
when you're having those spiritual victories, be ready because the devil doesn't like it.
Your enemies will not like it when you're having spiritual highs in your life and they may
very well come and bring you down, but you need to get back up. You'll soon see in this chapter
that Isaac just gets up again. He doesn't give up. He keeps going. He keeps going.
Let's keep going here in verse number eight. And it came to pass. Sorry, did I finish verse
number seven? Maybe not. He said there in verse number seven, she's my wife, lest said he, the
men of the place should kill me for Rebekah because she was fair to look upon. So that was
his fear. He was afraid that he would be killed and his Rebekah will be taken as another man's
wife. Verse number eight, and it came to pass when he had been there a long time,
that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window and saw and behold Isaac was sporting
with Rebekah his wife. Now the term there sporting is another way of saying playing with his wife or
you know, they were, I guess, you know, they were being affectionate toward one another. You know,
the king of Abimelech could tell, hey, this is not a brother and sister. This is a husband and wife.
The way they're speaking to another, the way they're being, I guess, flirtatious toward
one another, the way they're caressing one another, the way, you know, they look at one
another. This is not a sister. You know, Abimelech realizes this, you know, and here's the problem
with telling lies. Eventually, everyone finds out you're told a lie. Eventually, you know,
you can be, what did it say there, a long time verse number eight, been there a long time.
You can tell a lie for a long time thinking you got away with it. And then all it takes is for
someone to just randomly look out the window and see that you're told a lie, that you weren't
telling the truth. We need to be believers that strive to tell the truth all the time.
Just do it. What's the problem? Why lie? Yes, you think you might get away with it,
but at some point, the lie will be revealed for what it is. Just tell the truth at the beginning,
you know, God had promised to protect Isaac and because of his fears, he told a lie.
He got found out anyway. Okay, verse number nine. And Abimelech called Isaac and said,
behold of a surety, she is thy wife. And how says thou, she is my sister. And Isaac said unto him,
because I said, lest I die for her. And Abimelech said, what is this that thou hast done unto us?
One of the people might lightly have lying with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought
guiltiness upon us. And Abimelech charged all his people saying, hear that touch of this man,
or his wife shall surely be put to death. Now, what I like about this contrast with Abimelech
and Isaac is we see that Isaac made the same mistake that Abraham made, right? It doesn't
look like he learned the lesson. I don't know if Abraham did not pass on this lesson, or Isaac just
wasn't listening. And you know, he's given into the same temptations here. But we see the contrast,
we see godly men make mistakes. And we see ungodly, unsaved men learn from their mistakes.
Because the first Abimelech, right, he had made the mistake, God had told him, look,
if you don't return Sarah to Abraham, I'm going to kill you. And then Abimelech man,
he has a fear of God. He's like, man, just, I gotta return Sarah back immediately to Abraham.
And it looks like this Abimelech has learned the lesson. You know, if the other Abimelech
was his father, or maybe the previous king, looks like he's learned the lesson. Looks like he says,
look, why did you lie to us? You could have made us guilty before God, someone could have taken
your wife, you would have brought, you know, guiltiness upon us. And then he puts this law
down in verse 11. Look, do not touch this man or his wife, or we'll put you to death.
I mean, somehow this man had a knowledge of God, had some fear of God that had been passed down by
the previous Abimelech. And I think it's kind of embarrassing for Isaac, you know, as a believer,
as a Christian, as a godly man, to have made this mistake, the ungodly are actually behaving better
in this scenario. Okay. And, you know, but here's the thing, though, sometimes I think about these
things. And I don't know if you've ever heard these things said within churches, I've definitely
heard it said, where people get discouraged in church, because people in church lie,
people in church do wicked things, you know, brothers and sisters don't treat each other
properly with love, you know, and they'll say, well, you know, the people of the world are just,
they're just better than Christians. Why is that? Why are the ungodly better than people in the
church? And when that happens, it's sad. It's sad, because it can be that way. It can be that way
where people in church, the Christians, the believers, treat you worse than what the world
treats you. It can happen. Okay. But here's the thing, you need to remember, you need to remember
a couple of things. Number one, when you're going through hardships, when you're going through
conflicts, when you're being discouraged by people within the church, remember, that is a child of
God, that is your brother or sister in the Lord, number one. Remember number two, that we're
spending a lot of time together, right, several times throughout the week, you know, together,
and we're going to sometimes, you know, rub each other the wrong way a little bit, right,
get on each other's nerves a little bit. And sometimes you can just be out in the world.
All you know is a little bit about that person in the world. That's a wonderful person.
But you don't know how much sin that person has. You don't know how much wickedness is
in their lives. You don't know the wicked thoughts that are going through their heads
and through their hearts. And I would say you would always, you will always be safer in the
house of God amongst believers, even when it's not going smoothly, even when there's famine,
and you think it's time to go. No, the best place to be where God will bless you is in His house
with the brethren. Okay. And God may just be allowing you to go through some difficulties
with brethren to teach you a few lessons, maybe to humble you, okay, maybe so you can grow in
the Lord, maybe so you can grow in love, maybe so you can ask the Lord God to help you grow in
faith, to help you grow in love for your brethren, maybe so you can take that person in prayer and
be an encouragement to them, you know, to learn to love those that maybe hurt you or sadden you
or frustrate you. And we need to remember these things, okay. But let's keep going here in verse
number 12. Verse number 12. Then Isaac sowed in the land and received in the same year and hundred
fold and the Lord blessed him. Okay. So Isaac stayed in the land. He did not go to Egypt. He was
obedient to God and the Lord blessed him. How much? And hundred fold. Wow. You know, he was very fruitful
on the land. When I thought about this, how God blessed Isaac a hundred fold, I immediately thought
of some New Testament truths. So please hold your Bible there. Keep your finger there and go to
Matthew 13. Matthew 13 verse 8, please. Matthew 13 verse 8. And I'm sure you're all very familiar
with this passage that we're turning to, but it's the parable of the sower. Okay. The parable of the
sower. Matthew 13 verse 8. We're not going to go through the full parable, but just one of the
truths that came out of it there in Matthew 13 verse 8. The Bible says, but other fell into good
ground. And then we're talking about the seed of the word of God, right? And brought forth fruits,
some an hundred fold, some 60 fold, some 30 fold. God often talks about the hundred fold.
He wants to bless you a hundred fold, right? But you need to sow the seed. And with Isaac,
it said here that he sowed in the land. If you want to be blessed by God, if you want to receive
an a hundred fold, it's going to require you to sow to the Lord. It's going to require you to work
for the Lord, to serve the Lord. And the truth that we get here with a parable of the sower
is that if you're someone who goes out there and preaches the gospel, takes the seed of the word
of God, you know, preaching the good news, that you can see 100 people saved every year.
Because every year we have these trees bring forth fruits, but maybe not a hundred fold,
maybe 60 fold, maybe 30 fold. These numbers aren't here for no reason. I believe it's more,
it is totally realistic for you to see 30 fold people saved, to see 30 people saved in a year.
I think that's very realistic. Think about it. There's 52 weeks in a year, right? 52 weeks.
Let's say you go out sowing in once a week. You knock on doors once a week.
You may, it's not impossible to see one person saved there, okay? If you're seeing one person
saved per week, what do you have? 52 salvations in a year. Now you're not going to see someone
saved necessarily on the Sunshine Coast, see someone saved every week, are you? There's going
to be some weeks that you don't see that person saved. So getting to 30, is that impossible?
It's very realistic, okay? When I started going sowing in once a week for a whole year,
I was getting, I was reaching the 30 numbers, the 40s, the 50s. It was happening, okay? But it
required the sowing. It required the work. And sometimes you can go through those weeks and see
nobody saved. But the point is that you don't give up. Again, once again, you don't keep up.
You don't give up. You keep going. That's the theme that we'll get out of this chapter.
Go to Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10 verse 28. Mark chapter 10
verse 28. Mark chapter 10 verse 28.
Then Peter began to say unto him, that's unto Jesus, lo we have left all and have followed thee.
And Jesus answered and said, verily I say unto you, there is no man that have left house or
brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the Gospels,
but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time houses and brethren and sisters and mothers
and children and lands with persecutions and in the world to come eternal life.
There's a hundredfold. Now what's this teaching? This is teaching if you get saved, right? Praise
God, you get saved. But now you have a desire to serve the Lord. You desire to be in church.
You desire to grow in the Lord. You desire to win souls. You know, you desire to get into the work.
It may very well cost you your family. It may very well cost you relationships with your brothers
and sisters, with your mother and father, with your children even, okay? Because listen, the
ungodly, the unsaved cannot understand the love you have for God. They cannot understand the
appreciation you have for eternal life, you know, to have your sins forgiven. You know, if you're
someone that truly appreciates what God has done for you, you're going to be driven to work for
the Lord. You're going to be driven to be in church. You're going to be driven to win souls,
aren't you? And when you do that, the world's going to look at you and go, man, you're weird.
You're unusual. And they'll try to stop you. And when that happens, sometimes it's time to leave
those people. And if that happens, okay, organically, God, Jesus Christ promises you
100 fold in eternal life. Whatever you lose, God's going to give you back times 100 in eternity.
All right. Now, again, I've used this term like investments, right? If I said to you, look,
just invest, give me $1. You know, be willing to trust me with $1. And at the end of it all,
you'll get $100 back. That's 100 fold. How many of you would not do it? All right. But here's the
thing. The 100 fold is going to come in heaven, eternal life. And that's the challenge because we
don't see heaven with our physical eyes, do we? We do see it with our spiritual eyes. We do see it
in faith. But here's the thing, all the work you do for Christ here today, whatever you have to
give up to serve the Lord, God's going to reward you back 100 times. I like to work in double time
hours, right? Sometimes I would work public holidays for work and that you had to pay your
employees or pay myself double time. That was awesome. I loved it. What about if they paid me
100 times? Man, I'd work every public holiday, right? I'd work every weekend to get the 100 time.
That's what Jesus Christ is promising us as his believers. Please go back to Genesis 26.
Genesis 26 verse 13. I'll have to speed up a little bit now. Genesis 26 verse 13.
We saw that the Lord blessed him. Verse number 13. And the man waxed great and went forward
and grew until he became very great. So not only does it get all the things from Abraham and
Abraham was very rich, Abraham was very great. Isaac becomes even greater. Not only does it
get everything from Abraham and now he's doing really well with what he's got. Becomes very
great. Verse number 14. For he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and great
store of servants and the Philistines envied him. Now, when you have success in the Christian life,
when you're flourishing, I already covered this, you're going to have people that will begin to
envy you, okay? This case is the Philistines. This case is unbelievers. And let me tell you now,
we've just celebrated two years as a church. Now, I know two years isn't a long time,
but it's a great success. It's great that we've been able to continue as a church for two solid
years. What I'm telling you guys is there are Philistines out here that will envy us for that.
They're not going to be happy that we've had two years of success. And they're going to want to
take us down. They're going to want to discourage us. And a sad reality, I'll tell you the truth,
it's not just the Philistines that will do that to you. It's not just the unbelieving world.
It is fellow Christians, fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord will try to discourage you
when they see you having great success, when they see God blessing you a hundredfold.
And I feel like New Life Baptist Church has been a blessing to me a hundredfold.
That's how I feel about it. And I love this church. I love the church down in Sydney as well.
But even brethren can come and try to stop you, try to discourage you. And we see the Philistines
aren't happy that, I mean, they should just carry on with their business,
right? They should just carry on. And, you know, let me say to you, because I'm talking about
them to us, but when we see brethren, when we see other believers, you know, doing well,
when we see them profiting, when we see them having great success, when we see them blessed
by God, don't be someone that envies the believer. You've got to learn to rejoice in them. You've
got to learn to rejoice and say, wow, look how God has blessed you. Look how God has been with
you. You know, it's a bad character when you envy other believers. It's the worst. You're the worst
person when you're doing it. God is blessing them. God loves that person. Why can't you jump on board
and bless them? Man, if God is blessing them, don't you think they've done something good?
They've done something worthwhile that God looks upon them and goes, man, you know, you've served
me. I'm going to give you this reward. I'm going to bless you. You're going to get a hundred fold.
If God's able to do that, you should rejoice in the brethren. No routes. We envy sometimes.
We get frustrated at believers. We don't like seeing other people be successful,
but when we're successful, I'm just telling you the reverse. There's going to be those that want
to put us down. There's going to be those that speak bad of us. They're going to complain and
whinge and whatever. It's going to happen. Get ready for it. Okay. Monday always comes after
Sunday. And like I said, like I said, what I've heard taught, right? The devil is going to want
to attack you when you're on that spiritual high. Let's keep reading. We see what happens in verse
number 15. For all the wells, the wells of water, of course, which his father's servants had digged
in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them and filled them with earth.
That's what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen to New Life Baptist Church.
We've had success. You know what's going to happen? Our enemies are going to come
and try to stop us. There it said the Philistines had stopped them. They're going to try to fill
our wells with earth. Okay. The blessings that we're getting, the success that we're getting,
we're going to have people come this year. I promise you this. It's going to happen.
They're going to try to stop us. They're going to try to stop us from drinking from the wells
that we've dug. Okay. They're going to try to discourage us. And you don't need to turn there.
I'll just read to you from Matthew chapter 10, verse 24.
These are the words of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was sinless. He had compassion on the people. He
healed the sick. He made the blind to see, right? He made the lame to walk. He made the dumb to
speak. He did amazing miracles. He controlled the nature. He had no sin. He was a perfect man,
perfect God. You know, he was compassionate. He had great love. They still caught him,
Beelzebub. People still hated him. People still envied him. And Jesus says, look,
it happened to me. It's going to happen to you. If you're a disciple of his and we're following
after his ways, we're going to have people call us Beelzebub. That's the devil. They're going to
call us the devil. They're going to seek to discourage us. And I'm not preaching this sermon
to discourage you. Okay. I'm not preaching this to discourage you. I'm preaching this to prepare you.
I'm preaching this to prepare you for the hardships to come. The little suffering that
we may need to go through to be that perfect church as I preached on Sunday. Let's keep reading
back in Genesis 26 verse 16. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, go from us for thou art much mightier
than we. So they want to get rid of Isaac, right? And that's going to happen. Someone's going to
want to get rid of this church. All right, let's keep going. Verse number 17. And Isaac departed
thence and pitched his tent in the valley of Jerah and dwelt there. And Isaac digged again,
the wells of water. That's the character we need to have. That's the attitude we need to be as
believers. When people try to stop us, when people try to discourage us, when they take over our
wells of water, we dig again. We start again. We keep digging. We keep going. We keep looking for
those wells of water. We keep looking to be productive for God. Right? Isaac digged again
the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines
had stopped them after the death of Abraham. And he called their names after the names by which
his father had called them. And Isaac's servants digged in the valley and found there a well of
springing water. Praise God. They dug again. They have a well. It's not just one of water. It's
springing water. It's gushing out. There's plenty of blessing to have from this well, this new well
that they had dugged. But look at verse number 20. And the herd men of Jireh did strive with
Isaac's herd men saying, the water is ours. And he called the name of the well Isaac because they
strove with him. Now again, we need to keep going, right? We don't give up. We keep digging. But
guess what? When we find that well of springing water, they're going to come again. They're going
to come again and discourage us and say, hey, that's ours. That's not yours. You can't take that.
So what happens? Did Isaac get discouraged? Did he give up? Verse number 21. And they
digged another well. Praise God. And strove for that also. And he called the name of it Sitna.
Man, so he goes, I'm just going to keep going. I'm going to try again. He digs another well.
They come and strive about it again. They come to discourage him again. They come to take it from
his hands. Verse number 22. And he removed from thence and digged another well. And for that,
they strove not. And he called the name of it Rehoboth. And he said, for now the Lord
has made room for us. And we shall be fruitful in the land. Praise God. Isaac did not give up,
right? They came to stop him. They came to discourage him. He kept digging. Another well
didn't work out. Another well, it didn't work out. By now, I think I would be discouraged.
I think I would be discouraged. But he keeps going. He keeps digging a well. He finally digs
a well. And they give up from persecuting him. They give up from bothering him, right? They
realize that Isaac would just keep going. And they decide to just leave him alone now, man. We're
going to keep fighting this. Just let him be. And Isaac looks at that well. He looks how now they
have peace. And he says that the Lord has made room for us. That's what we need to be striving
for. We need to be looking for where is the Lord going to make room for us? Now, I hope this church
continues to grow. I hope that every seat, I was so excited on Sunday, right? I mean, we almost
barely had any empty seats. And we could have pulled out some other seats as well. But I'm
hoping that as a church, we get to a point where we run out of room here, right? And we're gonna
maybe have to dig another well, okay? And try again and dig again. But at some point, okay,
you need to put the effort in. At some point, God will make room for us, okay? God will open the
doors. If it's another building, it's another building, all right? Praise God. If, you know,
we need to make sure that we allow the Lord to bless us, to multiply the work that we're doing.
But we need to make sure we don't give up. We need to make sure we don't get discouraged.
We need to make sure we keep going, serving the Lord, being in church, you know,
knowing where the blessings are. The blessings are in the house of God. We keep going. We keep
serving the Lord here on the Sunshine Coast. Proverbs 24 16 says, for a just man
falleth seven times, and then he gives up, nope, and riseth up again. The righteous man gets up
again, okay? They say, well, shouldn't the righteous man never fall? No, we're gonna fall.
You're going to fall. You're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna get discouraged from time to time.
You're gonna want to give up. But what does the righteous man do? He gets up again. He tries
again. He doesn't give up, right? He doesn't give up. He riseth up again. And I'm reminded as well
of soul winning. If you guys keep your finger there, go to John chapter four, please. John
chapter four, verse 13. John chapter four, verse 13. And I've kind of thought about this a little
bit with the world, with the Samaritan woman and Jesus Christ. But in John chapter four, verse 13,
it says, John chapter four, verse 13, Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well,
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that
I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Notice what
Jesus says. He says, if I'm able to give water to this person, that person shall be in him a well of
water. You know, every time you win souls, every time you see someone gets saved at the door,
you've dug a new well, a new well by which water can spring out of that person until everlasting
life. Verse number 15, the woman said unto him, sir, give me this water that I thirst not,
neither come hither to draw. So she wants that well of water. She wants that everlasting life,
that everlasting water that she would never thirst again. And as I thought about these
worlds being dug and each safe person representing a well of springing water, you know, on Monday,
on Monday, right, we went to one of the poorer areas in Sydney, Mount Druitt. It's a bit of a
rough area. We had 10 salvations, just the four of us, you know, two teams going out,
each team had five salvations each, praise God, you know, a very receptive area. And then I thought
about the Sunshine Coast, and it's tough. It's a tough area. It's not very receptive at all.
Okay. But do we give up? Do we say, hey, we haven't had a salvation this week? I mean,
what's the last salvation you've had? Maybe you've gone weeks. Maybe you've gone months.
But you're going to keep digging? Are you going to give up? Is that what you're going to do?
Are you going to be like Isaac? Are you going to be like Isaac? And you go, no, I'm going to keep
digging. I'm going to keep serving. I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep going. And you keep
going and you keep going. And at some point, the Lord will make room for you. At some point,
the Lord will show you somebody that needs to be saved. At some point, someone will come and ask
you, what must I do to be saved? But you've done a lot of work. You maybe even got discouraged
because you've not seen someone saved. You got to keep going. You can't give up. You've got to keep
digging those wells. One day, the Lord will open the doors once again for you, make room for you.
And what we saw with those numbers, the 30 fold, the 60 fold, the 100 fold, you can achieve those
numbers. You can achieve those numbers as long as you don't give up. As long as you allow the
Lord to make room for you. You need to keep going. When you're knocking those doors, no one's home.
Knocking those doors, I'm not interested. Knocking, not interested, not interested.
Get off my yard. Get off my lawn. Closes the door. Do you give up? No. The Lord's trying to
make room for you. The Lord's trying to lead you somewhere else. Keep going, the Lord says.
Keep going. You're going to find that person. I once used to get bothered by it. I used to get
discouraged by it, you know, when it's the dry spells. But now I'm excited because I know every
time someone's not interested, I'm a little closer now to that person that's going to get saved.
A little closer to that well of everlasting life where somebody can call upon Jesus Christ to be
saved. Genesis 26. Genesis 26 verse 23. Genesis 26 23. And he went up from thence to Beersheba.
And the Lord appeared unto him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham, thy father.
Fear not. Remember? Isaac had fears. God says fear not for I am with thee and I will bless thee
and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. I love God's patience. I love his mercy.
He already told Isaac, I'll be with you. He already told Isaac, I'll bless you. But Isaac's
gone for a tough time. And God knows our nature. God knows we struggle and fail. God comes back
and says, look, just a reminder, I'm with you. I'll bless you, right? Verse number 25. And he
built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there
Isaac's servants digged a well. Then Abimelech went to him from Jireh and Ahusaz, one of his
friends, and Pithole, the chief captain of his army. And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come
ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you? And they said, We saw certainly
that the Lord was with thee. And we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us
in thee, and let us make a covenant with thee, that thou would do us no hurt, as we have not
touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in
peace. Thou art now the blessed of the Lord. I love that, you know, it comes full circle.
They're trying to upset Isaac. They're trying to persecute him. They're trying to take him
off the land. But everywhere they lead him, they see the Lord just keeps blessing Isaac.
But they just see Isaac doesn't give up. He keeps digging those wells, right? And
that's what we need to wait for. When our enemies start to hate us, when our enemies try to
discourage us, at some point, they're going to give in, as long as we don't give up. At some point,
they're going to give in and go, you know what, let's just make peace between the two of us.
You know, I can see the Lord is working with you. I can see the Lord is working with New Life Baptist
Church. Don't hurt us, right? At some point, the fear of the Lord is going to fall upon them.
They're going to realize, man, we've been persecuting God's people. God keeps blessing
them. God's going to be angry with us. Let's try to make some peace here. That's what's going on.
We have been like, right? Again, he has that fear of God. He realizes, man, we've done wrong.
Let's just sort this out so God doesn't come and punish us. Verse number 30.
And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink. And they rose up beat times in the morning.
And I love that about Isaac again. Just stop there. He forgives them. He celebrates with
them. He eats with them. They eat, they drink, they have a feast. They sort it out. That's how
it should be. That's how it should be when your enemies have attacked you, have persecuted you.
But if they want to come and sort it out with you, you can't turn around and say, well,
you've been bothering me all these times. You've taken all these worlds from me.
Look, if they come and they want to sort it out with you, sort it out.
Praise God. The Lord's allowed you to go through this process. You've probably learned a lot of
things. Just sort it out. And we see Isaac, man. He's got reason to destroy these people.
He's got a mighty group of people. He's got a lot of people, a lot of servants. He's got the
Lord inside. I'm sure he could wipe out these people. All right? But rather, he's encouraged
by the Lord. The enemies finally give up and they make peace. Verse number 31.
And they rose up beat times in the morning and swear one to another and Isaac sent them away
and they departed from him in peace. And it came to pass the same day that Isaac's servants came
and told him concerning the world, which they had digged and said unto him, we have found water.
And he called it Sheba because therefore, sorry, therefore the name of the city is
Beisheba unto this day. And that's kind of the end of that story. And then we pick up a kind
of slightly different thing that leads into the next chapter. Verse number 34. And Esau was 40
years old when he took to wife, Judith, the daughter of Birai the Hittite and Beishemath,
the daughter of Elon the Hittite. So Esau, we didn't hear about Jacob in this chapter,
but his brother Esau takes two wives. Number one, mistake number one, he took on multiple wives.
Mistake number two, he took ungodly wives, wives that were Hittites, ungodly wives. And look at
verse number 35, which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah. A grief of mind unto Isaac
and Rebekah. Esau's made some mistakes. And this is why in Hebrews chapter 12, we don't need to
turn there, verse number 16, it says, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau,
who for one morsel of meat sowed his birthright. It's not just that he took multiple wives at this
point at the age of 40. This guy has been fornicating most of his life. And he takes
women from the land of Canaan. Okay. From the land of Canaan. We saw how desperately Abraham
wanted Isaac to marry, to not marry a woman from the land of Canaan. Another mistake Isaac makes
here. He should have done what he could have to find a wife for Esau. Okay. Instead Esau's
being a fornicator, right. And he takes on multiple wives. I don't want to go into that
too much. We get this, this really leads us into the next couple of chapters as we see
this issue here with Esau. Let's pray.