This is one of my favorite Bible passages and Bible stories.
I have never had the opportunity to preach on it before.
You're getting it today. So you're getting about, you
know, 25 years worth of energy behind this sermon today.
I'm going to try to keep it under 45 now.
I'll keep it in in good time. But but I, I love this story and
and there doesn't seem to be on the surface a lot happening here
and until we really dig into the context.
So just a little bit of a reminder of where we are in in
Isaac and and Rebecca's life. Abraham and Sarah, I have Sarah,
have both died and they have been buried in the only real
estate that their entire family, their entire clan owns.
Is, is is a burial plot. And that's where Abraham and
Sarah are. Now, Isaac is the patriarch of
the family. He's responsible for the whole
household. He's responsible for providing
every man, woman and child in his entourage in his household
with adequate food, shelter, clothing, safety, all of it.
And they do that primarily by herding animals and growing
crops. The problem is, is that there's
a famine. A famine has come to the whole
region, and God comes to Isaac and says don't leave now.
Famines. Everyone in this community knows
how devastating famines are, particularly for those whose
livelihood is in agriculture. But in those days, it was far
more devastating than anything we would experience today in
this country. I mean, there's no way to
irrigate. There's no way to move vast
amounts of water over large distances.
And even if there were in that region, Isaac didn't own the
land anyway, and he didn't own the rights to the water anyway.
Famine would wipe him out. He's a stranger.
He's a foreigner in the land. He's an alien there and he's got
no place to say this is mine. I claim this, everybody else
stay out and we're going to make our go of it here.
Instead, he has to depend on the willingness of other powers,
other authorities, other kings in the area to say you can stay
here in an environment where there's less and less and less
and less because of the famine. But God says stay.
And so Isaac stays, and he plants crops, and they flourish.
And during the famine, while everyone else is struggling to
feed their animals, feed their families, grow their crops, do
all of those things, Isaac is flourishing and he's getting
wealthier and wealthier and wealthier.
And the people around him resent it and are envious.
They say, get out, we don't want you here anymore.
So he gets out and he digs up. He, he moves to another area
where the wells that his father had dug have been filled up with
earth. He opens those wells and now
suddenly people are fighting over them.
People are filling up his wells with dirt and he he moves on.
He digs more wells and then they fight over that and they take
the well from him and he moves on and they digs another well
and they come in and they take that and claim that well and he
moves on and he digs and it just keeps going and going and going.
Just an incredible story right here.
Easily overlooked where Isaacs, a well in the Judean, in the in
the Philistine area, in that space between the Jordan River
and the Mediterranean Sea, A well is life.
It's life for everyone, particularly for a farmer and a
sheep and a goat herder. A well is you have to have a
well, particularly in a famine. The only way to have water in
that region during a famine is to have a well.
And Isaac's wells keep getting filled with dirt or taken from
him. And the question is, what will
Isaac do in response? But before we talk about that, I
have a question. Well, I tell you, I've got a lot
of excitement and energy around this.
Part of it stems from one of my favorite songs ever is based on
this Bible passage. I don't know if you remember
Paul Overstreet. I don't think he's done a lot
recently in terms of songwriting.
He's had a few big hits that he's written and some that he's
written for others. If you're a country western fan
and know forever and ever, Amen. Paul Overstreet's the guy that
wrote that. And, and he, he is a person of
faith. I got the chance to meet him at
a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade in Mansfield.
OH, pushing, you know, 2530 years ago now.
And he's short. He's like that tall.
He's a really short guy, great musician, very friendly, very
outgoing person of deep faith. He has written a song.
I'm going to I'm I'm going to play the song for you.
I put a little cheesy video behind it so we'd have something
to watch. The lyrics are up there if you
want to follow along. But but the simple fact is, is
if if you listen to this song, you're going to get the whole
sermon anyway. So the rest is just me, you
know, making it longer. All right, here we go.
Well I had a blessing from the Lord up above.
He gave him a beautiful woman to love, a place to live and some
land farm. 2 good legs and two good arms.
Well the devil came sneaking around one night.
Decided he would do a little eagle to like.
Figured he would hit a like where it hurts so it filled up
all of ox whales with dirt. When I went out for his morning
drink he got a dipper full of dirt and his heart did sink but
he knew it was a devil. So he said with a grin, God
bless me once and he can do it again.
He bless me once and he can do it again.
So when the rays don't fall, and the crops all fail, and the cow
ain't putting any milk in the pail, don't sit around waiting
for a check in the mail. Just pick up the shovel and dig
another well. Pick up the shovel and dig
another well. Now me and old I got a lot in
common. The Lord bless me with a
beautiful woman. He gave me a job, He gave me a
home, He gave me a well to call my own.
Now when I go out for my morning drink and get a dipper full of
dirt and my heart does same but I think of old I can, I have to
grin because God bless me once and he can do it again.
He bless me once and he can do it again.
So when the rains don't fall and the crops all fail and the cows
ain't putting any milk in the pail, don't sit around waiting
for a check in the mail. Just pick up the show.
Dig another well, Dig up the shovel, dig another well.
Well, the good book says I finally won.
Dig up the shovel, dig another well.
The devil got tired and he left him alone.
Pick up the shovel and I know someday I'm going to win too.
Pick up the shovel. The good book tells me what to
do. Pick up the shovel and take
another well. Pick up the shovel and take
another well. Poets are amazing.
They can take, you know, these big concepts and and distill
them down in a few very, very engaging words.
If you want short sermons, hire a poet.
I'm just going to say that Here's a question to start with,
though. What's your well?
You know, for Isaac Farmer, his
well was a literal well, but but that well by any measure was a
source of life, the source of life in a famine.
What is it in your life that you absolutely need in order to
survive for the next day, the next week, the next month?
And I'm not, I'm not talking about, I mean, we're not talking
about wants versus needs here. We're talking about needs.
If you're going to live, you need water.
If Isaac was going to live and support his family in a drought
in that region, he needed a well.
This was not God making water come from a rock.
He needed a well. What is it you need that your
life depends on? Is it a job?
Is it a relationship, a talent OR ability?
Is it a a dream or a plan? Is it something else, something
that you feel like if I can't get that, I'm not going to make
it. If I don't get that, I'm not
going to survive. If I lose that, then then it's
all over. We're done.
What's your well, because this passage is more than just
historical story about Isaac. It's about what we do and how we
respond as followers of God, as heirs of the blessing that God
made to Isaac. I'm going to bless all nations
of the earth through you. That's us.
We're some of that and, and how do we respond when we get up in
the morning and our well is gone?
Whether it's the job, the relationship, the talent, the
ability, the dream, something else.
I one of the people I think of when I think of this is Dave
Durvecki. Do you remember Dave Durvecki?
He was a baseball player for the Padres and Giants back in the
80s. I was a pitcher, very successful
by any measure. Not, you know, not the greatest
pitcher of all time, but very successful.
Made the All Star game one year, pitched very well.
He pitched over 1000 innings I think, or maybe 1000 games, I
don't know. It was a lot.
And then he got cancer in his pitching arm, and to remove the
cancer they had to do surgery and the doctors told him he'd
probably never pitch again, much less pitch at a Major League
level. What do you do when the very
thing you depend on for your life is about to go away or
does, in fact, go away? What's your will?
In order for us to really sort out how this story connects with
our lives, we have to we have to identify what are those things
that I think I that I need, I want to, I keep, I want to make
this something in my brain wants to make this about wants versus
needs. But these are just plain needs.
What is it that you need in order to live?
And then what can you do when your well gets filled with dirt,
when that thing that you need suddenly isn't there?
It's taken away from you. Not, you know, whether the
reason is good or bad, just or unjust.
Whether, whether you were able, whether, whether, whatever the
source, whatever the reason, whatever the rationale, it's
gone. What do you do when your well
gets filled with dirt? There are a lot of options.
Isaac had a lot of options. We've got a lot of options.
One of the things we can do is quit.
I'm done. I quit.
I give up. I can't do it without that,
without that person, without that thing, without that job,
without my dreams. I can't.
We can quit.
That's one option. Isaac could have quit.
I'm in a famine. God says I have to stay, but I
can't stay without water and the wells keep getting taken or or
or filled in by my enemies. I don't know what guy we got to
go. I'm just going to quit.
God said don't go to Egypt, but I don't see any other options.
I'm leaving. We could quit.
You can run away.
Go to Egypt, move leaving all of this faith business behind.
I'm leaving whatever. We can run away.
We can complain and blame. That's my favorite man.
I'm I'm a I'm a natural born complainer.
It's easy, easy to complain, easy to blame for me anyway.
That's one of mine. That's one of mine.
We can complain and we can blame.
We can fight. Isaac could have fought.
I mean, when Abimelech told Isaac to get out, he said you're
too powerful for us. Remember what Abraham did when
when his nephew Lot and his family were taking his political
prisoners and hostages, he raised his own private army of
his own employees and and went and fought against 5 kings to
get his people back and he won. Isaac had inherited all of that
from Abraham. He could have fought.
You could have fought these, I think.
I think these are the general options.
Quit, run away, complain and blame.
Fight one or all of those things we can do.
Or we can dig another well, which is what Isaac did.
Fill up this well, I'll dig another well.
Fill up that well, I'll dig another well.
You take this one from me, I'll go dig another well.
You know, take that one from me. I'll move on and go.
I'll go dig another well. We can dig another.
Well, the risk here as we think of this story as some sort of
bootstrap theology, you know, you got a problem, just, you
know, fix it yourself or, or some sort of, you know, suck it
up and walk it off kind of theology.
You're down, you're out. I'll just get up and, and, and,
and muscle on, you know, just just work through it, work
through the pain where that's not what this is about.
This business of Isaac digging another well and moving on is
not in the Bible to teach us just to suck it up and bear it
and, and get on with living and, and don't complain.
It's here for for quite another reason.
But to see what that reason is, let's talk about the devil in
this story. Paul Overstreet and his musical
interpretation, lyrical interpretation of the story, he
says the devil, the devil decided the devil was sneaking
around one night and decided to do a little evil to Ike.
And so he filled Ike's wells with dirt.
I'm going to make a confession. I did.
I heard the song before I read the story, and I thought, that's
cool. That sounds like that might
actually be from the Bible. I bet Ike is Isaac.
And I looked it up and I was like, there ain't no devil in
here. Where's the devil in the book?
In the Bible, it's the Philistines.
Those are the that's the land. They were in the land of the
Philistines. Those were the native people in
that land. There was, there was this
Philistines, not the devil. And they were, they were taking
water. They needed water too.
They were water there. It was their land.
They were taking the water. They were filling up Isaac's
wells to move him off of their land.
Where's the devil in this story? Let's take a look at this.
He, that is Isaac, had so many flocks and herds and servants
that the Philistines envied him. So all the wells that his
father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the
Philistines stopped. Philistines stopped up filling
them with earth. The devil's in the envy.
God had blessed Isaac in an in
amazing ways. They're in the middle of the
famine when everyone else is struggling.
Isaac's flourishing on their land with their water.
And they envied that. They were jealous of that.
And in their envy and in their jealousy, they took from Isaac.
They took from Isaac what he had trying to steal his blessing,
steal the good things that he had.
And Isaac, Isaac has it. Envy is one of the most
pernicious tools the devil has and and one of the most
dangerous. It just seeps in so easy when we
look at what other folks have and say, man, why can't I have
that? I should have that.
I think I'm going to take that. And whether we act on that and
actually commit theft or destroy what someone else has out of
envy, the envy is still there and it's like it's spiritual
cancer. Envy sucks the joy out of life.
Envy sucks the hope out of life. Envy sucks the love out of life.
It's very hard to be in a loving relationship with someone you're
envious of. Envy is a spiritual cancer, and
that's where the devil entered into this story.
He didn't show up with a band of demons and Philip Isaac's wells.
He showed up whispering in the ears of the people around Isaac,
saying, Can you believe that guy?
Look at all he's got. You know what?
The only reason he has so much is because whatever, whatever
the it's not fair. He took it.
It really should be yours anyway.
And out of envy, the Philistines stole Isaac's wells or filled
them with dirt. Isaac, one of the dangers in the
spiritual life and life of faith.
We will always get attacked by the devil in some way or
another. We're followers of Jesus.
Everywhere Jesus went, some people loved him, some people
wanted to kill him. Everywhere Paul and his other
disciples went, people love them or people wanted to kill them.
And, and as we're faithfully following Jesus, we will
encounter opposition. And, and one of the things
that's helpful to remember is when other human beings are
coming at us to remember, you know, what's really behind this
is the devil. And I'm not talking about seeing
a demon behind every Bush. I'm talking about understanding
and remembering and calling to mind that we're part of a
millennial long spiritual war and we've picked sides and we've
been picked for a side. And so we're going to face
opposition. So the flesh and blood people
that we face are not really our enemies.
It's it's the demons that are whispering in their ears.
And leading them astray and leading them down a path.
And that helps us to respond to them in a different way.
Because if we see the people as our enemies, then we run the
risk of falling into the same trap of envy that they're
already in. And Isaac could have done that.
How dare they take those that belonged to me, that belonged to
my family. I need that.
I want that. I dug that well.
My father dug that well. That's mine.
I'm. I'm taking it back.
We'll go to war. We'll go to war.
We'll fight over it. We'll see who wins.
And suddenly, instead of hope in the promised land, there's
violence and there's conflict and there's war and there's no
blessing for anyone in that. But if we remember, it's the
devil and and that that person that's coming after us is, is
they're being hurt by the envy as much as we are being hurt by
their envy. And what can we do?
One of the most extraordinary things here is that Isaac said
in essence, you know what? There's plenty of water.
God, God, he gave me one well. God will give me another well.
He blessed me once with all the water that I needed.
He'll bless me again. I don't need to fight that
person. Let him have it.
Let him. Let him have it.
It's OK, God made me fabulous.
I'm a farmer that God made fabulously wealthy in the midst
of a famine. What am I worried about?
In the end, the devil's attacks
always have to bow to God's sovereignty.
And if we can remember that it's the devil that's coming after us
and not that other person, not really, even though they they
might be doing the devil's work knowingly or unknowingly, and
that it's the devil behind it. What we can also remember is
that God has already defeated the devil.
God's sovereignty always wins over the devil's attacks.
Always. The devil's attacks have to bow
to God's sovereignty. You know, this is not lambs and
bunnies and fluff and Nutter here.
The devil's attacks sometimes lead God's faithful, faithful
people to death. Leave them dead.
But then there's the resurrection.
So God's sovereignty still wins. The devil's attacks always bow
to God's sovereignty. Before.
Let me read that promise again.
Oh, I should have pulled that out.
I mean, I've got it here. Just give me a second.
All I have to do is open what I should have opened before
service started. Oh, that's the wrong scripture.
That's the one Abby read. There we go there, Aubrey.
OK. The Lord appeared to Isaac.
This is before any of this began.
The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, do not go down to Egypt.
Live in the land where I tell you, stay in this land for a
while and I will be with you and will bless you for you and your
servants, for to you and your descendants.
I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to
your father, Abraham. I will make your descendants as
numerous as the stars in the sky.
We'll give them all of these lands.
Through your offspring, all the nations on earth will be
blessed. Because Abraham obeyed me and
did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my
decrees and my instructions. Isaac already had the promise.
He had nothing to worry about. He had nothing to fear.
He's looking around. OK.
They stole my well again. They filled up my well again.
But God has already promised that all of this land will
belong to my descendants. God has already promised to
bless me now and my descendants forever.
What do I need to worry about? My hope is in God, and however
the devil wants to attack me, however my neighbors want to
attack me, eventually God's sovereignty, God's will will win
and we'll triumph. At the end of this story, God
renews the promise. God says this.
That night after all of this had happened, and finally Isaac had
dug a well and no one was taking it from him.
That night the Lord appeared to him and said, I am the God of
your father, Abraham, do not be afraid, for I am with you.
I will bless you, and I will increase the number of your
descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.
The sandwich, the bread on this sandwich.
Here is God's sovereignty, God's will, God's promise.
And Isaac had learned from his father and his mother to trust
in that and to believe in that and depend on that.
And so when someone fills up his well, he can dig another well.
Not as inactive well. Just going to grin and bear it.
But it's because I need water. What else am I going to do?
I'm going to dig a well. Someone stole your well.
You know, there's plenty. God's got enough.
I'll dig another well. Well, they stole your well.
That's God's got enough. I'll dig another well.
He's not acting out of desperation.
He's not acting out of self-reliance.
He's acting out of a of a deep faith in the God who can and
will keep his promises and provide all that he needs.
And then Isaac did this at the very end of it.
Isaac built an altar. Isaac worshipped after all of
this and he had the well and no one was taking it.
It's like, all right, things are got what I need.
I got my well back and he worshipped.
He bowed his knees to God, and he worshipped.
And there he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug
another well. He worshipped and he dug another
well, trusting in God doing what he needed to do, and trusting
that God would keep his promises.
Dave Durvecki, it was like that, David.
He had the cancer. He had surgery.
Doctors told him you're not going to pitch again.
Dave decided he was going to pitch again and he rehabbed and
he worked and he worked and he worked and he got back not just
to be able to pitch a baseball, but to pitch a baseball at Major
League level. And he was pitching in a Major
League Baseball again. I think it was a year after the
surgery, maybe 2 years. It took him a little while to
get the rehab done. He was back in the major
leagues. He moved from the Padres to the
Giants. Now he's playing for the Giants.
And he went out to play in his first Major League game since
his surgery. Got a standing ovation from the
crowd. It was a wonderful thing.
And something like 5 pitches in his arms snapped.
Pop caught on national television.
You can probably find it on YouTube today.
I remember seeing that. I didn't see the game itself,
but I saw the replays back when it happened.
There was no coming back. There's no coming back.
The cancer had returned. More surgery.
Dave Durvecki never pitched again, not after that.
But he dug another well and he shared his story.
He shared his faith, he shared his hope.
And and I think his words capture a lot of what I'm trying
to say here today to Becky says this.
I used to depend on myself. Now I depend more on God through
my own suffering. I've become more aware of his
and I love him more as a result. I realized my life wasn't in my
hands anymore. My life was in God's hands.
It was in his hands all along. That's what drove Isaac to dig
another well, realizing his life wasn't in his hands, never was
in his hands. He learned that when he was a
kid, lying on an altar with his stamp, Father standing above him
with a knife, and God saved him. My life does not belong to me.
My life belongs to God, and God will give me all I need.
I have work to do. I got to dig.
The wells require digging. I'll dig another well, but I'm
going to dig it in faith, knowing that God's going to give
me everything I need. When the devil fills your well
with dirt, and he will, he will at some point along the way, the
devil's going to fill your well with dirt.
And I suspect we got testimonies of that from multiple folks in
this room having had their wells filled with dirt at some point
in their life. When that happens, let's
remember Isaac, you can listen to the song on Spotify, YouTube,
anytime you want. And we we pick up the shovel, we
dig another well, we bow down and worship our God who is
faithful and will provide in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen.