and I'm going to read you a few
verses out of chapter five. It is good to be able to meet
this evening, and it's good to see Brother Bill back with us
over here. He faithfully preached here for,
I don't know, 10 years, 11. And so it's always a joy have
him visiting with us. And it's good to have all of
you here tonight also. And our scripture reading is
Ephesians chapter 5. I'm going to begin at the 22nd
verse. Ephesians 5, 22. Wives, submit
yourselves unto your own husband, as unto the Lord. Or the husband is the head of
the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is
the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject
unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that
he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be a holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives
as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth
himself. For no man ever hath hated his
own flesh, but nourished it and cherished it, even as the Lord
the Church. For we are members of his body. of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let
every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself,
and the wife see that she reverence her husband. We ask God to bless
the reading of his Word. Let's ask for God's blessing
upon the servants. It is with gratitude, our Father,
that we come into this building again and meet to read the Word
of God, to sing of our dearest, dearest friend, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He loved us so much that he laid
down his life for us. We thank you for his love and
kindness to us, and we have We've gathered this evening, Father,
to worship and adore our beloved Redeemer. We're grateful that
He who knew no sin, all of our sins were indeed charged to Him. He was made to be sin. That we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We thank You,
Father, for the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ, for
His blood redemption, for His full accomplishment of the work
that You gave Him to do, even the work that You assigned to
Him before the world began, a work which He readily agreed to do. And He joyfully laid down His
life for His sheep. We come to honor our Shepherd
tonight. And, O Shepherd of the sheep,
would you meet with us as we gather together tonight? We do
so long to worship. We want to hear from our Lord
by your Spirit. And these that have been mentioned
to us who are sick and afflicted, Lord, all of Your children are
the well-beloved of the Lord, and all of our The details of our lives are
like an open book to you, for you have purposed every step
of life's journey for each of us. And may we always remember
whether we are feeling good or feeling bad, whether we're healthy
or whether we're sick, we're always in the loving arms of
our Redeemer. And all things are You're promised
to work out for the good of all of your people. They'll all work
together. And we're thankful that the steps
of a good man are ordered by the Lord. And we're good in Christ
Jesus. the righteousness of our Savior,
and so you have provided for us spiritually, you've provided
for us eternally, and indeed you provide for us temporally
all through our earthly journey. We ask that you would be with
us this evening and minister to each of us, and we'll be careful
to give you the praise and the honor And Lord, bless all of
your servants who speak this evening and who faithfully minister
the Gospel each Lord's Day. Whether we know them or not is
immaterial. You know your servants, and we
ask that you would encourage all who open the Word of God
and set forth the glorious Gospel of your grace. Lord, strengthen
your ministers and bless your people throughout this world.
And may we all be encouraged in Christ Jesus, our Savior. So bless this evening, we ask
for Jesus' sake. Amen. Let's go back to the book
of Genesis this evening, and we'll go to Genesis chapter 24. And this is a lovely portion
of Scripture. It's 67 verses, and so it is
also a lengthy portion of Scripture. And I'm actually going to divide
my message into two parts. And I'll give you part one tonight,
the Lord willing, and the second part next Wednesday night. The subject is, In Search of
a Bride. In Search of a Bride. Now, let
me begin this way. Our Lord Jesus entered into this
world to seek and to save that which was lost. God had given
to him a people before the world began. Indeed, in covenant grace
and love, God arranged all things for the salvation of his elect. God chose to save. He chose the
Savior. He chose the objects of redemption,
the objects of this great salvation. And he ordered all things that
had to do with his children even before he made the world. In fact, the world was made,
as someone said, as the stage upon which God would bring to
pass his great drama of redemption. This is for God's own glory,
and He has set Himself to save His people from their sins. Now, therefore, it was necessary
that the Lord Jesus come into this world, and He did indeed
volunteer to come. He's our surety. He is the surety
of the everlasting covenant, and He is our Savior, and He
covenanted with the Father to take unto Himself a body and
a soul without any sin, of course, no sin like we have. He would be the perfect man,
and He would join this humanity unto His own deity. And in a body like ours, he would
live in this world in perfect obedience to all of the law of
God. And then he would do what none
of us could ever do. Nobody could ever do this. He
himself would satisfy the penalty of God's broken law. He satisfied
it for his people by his death upon the cross of Calvary. We're
thankful for his life. Wouldn't take anything away from
his life. We're grateful for his obedience. But it was by his obedience unto
death That's what put away our sins. That's what brought in
everlasting righteousness for His people. And that's what satisfied
divine justice. And of course, the evidence of
that was that God raised Him from the dead. Our Savior paid
the debt that we owed to the justice of God. And then having
laid down His life, in fulfillment of his own words from John chapter
10, where he said, I have the power to lay my life down. I
have the power to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my Father. When he laid down his life, then
he took it back. He took his life back unto himself. That is, his resurrection. He
arose from the dead. And if there's any question in
anybody's mind here this evening or who's watching on the internet
as to whether He finished the work of redemption that the Father
gave Him to do, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, that is God's
stamp of approval. That says Jesus did indeed pay
it all. He paid all the debt that we
owe. Indeed, sin had left a crimson stain, but our Lord Jesus washed
it white as snow, and he arose." Now, after his resurrection,
he appeared to his 10 disciples. Thomas wasn't there, but he appeared
to 10 of them. And he said to them, peace be
unto you. He said, as my Father hath sent
me, even so send I you. Who sent our Savior? Well, the
Father sent Him. Why did He send Him? To seek
and to save that which was lost. His name is Jesus. He shall save
His people from their sins. Now, He then, He sent out His
disciples. And He sent them out to preach
the gospel. not to entertain sinners on the
way to hell, not to be jokesters, not to act like foolish clowns,
but to tell people the truth about God, the truth about themselves,
and the truth about salvation by our Lord's death upon the
cross of Calvary. And so he commissions these men
to go out. And they go out to preach the
gospel. because God does have an elect
people and they've got to hear the truth. And they will hear
the truth. And the Spirit of God will call
them effectually to the Lord Jesus. And what the Savior said
to Simon Peter, he says to all of his servants, feed my lambs,
feed my sheep, feed my sheep. And this evening, I'm on a mission.
I'm on a mission to feed the Lord's sheep, to feed His tender
lambs, and I'm on a mission of declaring the gospel with the
belief, with the confidence that God will bless this message of
grace, this message of Christ and Him crucified, this message
of successful redemption, Not salvation attempted, but salvation
accomplished. I have absolute confidence in
this message that after I preach to you, After all is said and
done this evening, I don't have to try to coerce you to make
a decision, twist your arm, tell a sad story to get you to make
a choice for Jesus as your Savior. No, we preach the Gospel, we
tell people the truth, and leave it to God to do as He will with
the message. I know that the Lord will bless
His message to the hearts of somebody. He's got some people
out here. He's got some sheep out here.
And we're on the trail of God's lost sheep. And we're on a mission. We're on a mission to preach
the gospel and make known to as many people as we can how
God can be just and justify the ungodly. I'm not required to
be successful in your salvation because I can't save anybody.
My responsibility though is to fulfill my mission. I have a
commission from God. And really, all of us have a
commission from God. First of all, as a body of believers,
we have a commission to stand for the truth. And you're in
this just like I'm in this. We're together. We're laboring
together in the Lord. Our goal is to set forth the
gospel. I preach. You pray. Some teach. You speak to people that I'll
never have an opportunity to speak to. It is our responsibility,
all of us, to be on this mission to seeking a people for our Lord
Jesus and telling them the absolute truth. We can't save them? No.
We can't regenerate them? No. We can't give them a new
heart? No. But I tell you what we can
do. We can tell them the truth. and
then ask God to bless His Word according to His good and sovereign
will. We're on the trail of the Lord's
sheep. Or, to put it another way, we're
in search of a bride. The bride of our Lord Jesus. That's our mission. Now, I can't
identify who the bride of Christ is. I don't know who the elect
are. So I just preached to all men,
telling all men of the character of God, the holiness of God,
the justice of God, the purity of God, the grace of God. I preached
to all men concerning our natural condition. We're fallen in Adam. We died. We died in Adam. In Adam we broke our spiritual
necks. And when Adam sinned, we all
sinned in him. We're in an awful condition.
That's what we've got to tell people. It isn't that you need
just a little bit of help. You need life. But I can't give
life. You can't give life to your neighbor.
You can't give life to your brother that you've talked to, or your
sister that you've talked to, or your neighbor next door that
you've spoken to about the Gospel. We have no ability to convey
grace to anybody, but it is our responsibility as God opens doors
for us to tell people the truth about the Gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that brings me to Genesis
chapter 24. because, and let me give you
the gist of this chapter, and so many of you, you've heard
messages on this before, but if you haven't heard a message
on this, or even if you have, I'm still gonna give you the
gist of the chapter, and then we'll kind of get into this a
little bit tonight. Abraham's an old man, he's 140
years old. Isaac is indeed, he's the promised
heir. and he is a picture of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Isaac at this time is 40 years
old. And so Abraham calls in his oldest,
most trusted servant, Eliezer. And he gives him a mission. Go
and search for a bride for Isaac. And so the old servant faithful
to his commission, he sets out and he goes to Mesopotamia where
Abraham tells him to go in search of a bride for Isaac. And he
will come to a well of water and he will see a beautiful,
beautiful lady. And her name is Rebekah. And she treats him so marvelously
well, feeding his camels, taking care of him, feeding him, and
so forth, that it kind of impresses Eleazar that this is the one. This is the one. And so she introduces
Eleazar to her brother Laban. And in the end, of course, when
Eleazar poses the question to Laban, is your sister going to
come with us or not? And Laban says, well, it's up
to her. And so the question is put to
Rebecca. Wilt thou go with this man? Will you go with this man and
be the wife, be the bride of an individual you've never seen? Will you love somebody that you've
only heard about? Are you willing to marry a man
that you've never laid eyes on? Wilt thou go with this man?"
And she said, I will. And so she goes with Eliezer. And then they see Isaac off in
the field. And of course, the story ends.
They're happily married, happy ever after, you might say. And Isaac takes Rebekah into
his mother's tent. and the marriage is indeed consummated,
and a bride has been found for Isaac. Well, of course, Rebecca
is a picture of every believer. Abraham is a picture of God the
Father. He has purposed a bride for his
son, the Lord Jesus. Isaac is a picture of the Savior. Because Isaac, you see, he's
the promised seed. And Isaac, you see, here's a
beautiful picture. Isaac, just two chapters before
this, he was, as it were, dead. He was dead in Abraham's mind.
When God said, offer up your son, your only son, the son that
you love, offer him up as a burnt offering to Me on a mountain,
I'll show you. Abraham in his mind and in his
heart, he went through with that. He killed him because it says
in Hebrews chapter 11, he believed that God was able to raise him
up. So you see, Isaac is a picture of our Lord Jesus who died for
us. Who arose for us. And he will
have a bride. Now the bride has been picked
out, chosen by God from old eternity. But the bride must be identified
during this lifetime. And the bride has got to hear
about this wonderful, wonderful bridegroom of whom Isaac was
a picture. The bride's got to hear about
the Lord Jesus Christ. How shall they hear without a
preacher? Eliezer, he's a picture of a
preacher. And I wouldn't limit this to
just preachers like Bill and I are preachers, but all of us
should be, as God gives us opportunity to tell folks about Christ. Now, I know ultimately the greater
responsibility falls upon the preacher. How shall they hear
without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? You see, Abraham, he sent Eliezer. He sent him. Eliezer didn't volunteer. Eliezer didn't step forward and
say, you know, I think Isaac needs a bride, and I volunteered
to go find a bride for him. No, no, no, no. He's sent. He's sent by Abraham. Eliezer is. And what we need to have today,
going back to preachers, what we want to have and what we ask
God for is that God would send preachers forth. That God would
call them. Now think of that passage in
John chapter 1. There was a man sent from God
whose name was John. Blessed is that congregation
who has a man sent from God. Blessed is that congregation
who has a man who's been taught by God, gifted by God. Blessed is that congregation
who hears a man faithfully week after week, service after service,
and he's always seeking to honor his Master, seeking to honor
the Lord, seeking His glory. Eliezer is sent out on a mission,
But his mission was not to draw attention to himself, but to
his master's son. And he started telling Rebekah
about the glories of Isaac. All things had been given to
him. And you see, this is our responsibility. It's my responsibility. It's
our responsibility as a congregation to set forth the beauties and
the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Abraham. Abraham, his name
means father of a multitude. He's 140 years old. Like I say,
he pictures God the Father, who chose a multitude which no man
can number to be the recipients of His saving mercies." Do you
believe the Gospel tonight? You say, yes, I do. You love
this message of grace, free and sovereign grace? Yes, I do. I trace it back to the origin,
to God's sovereign choice of you. You are a vessel of mercy,
chosen by the Father Himself. He put you in Christ Jesus. He joined you to his son way
back before, actually forever. Back in the dateless eternity
past. He joined you to Christ Jesus. He joined me to Him. He gave
to His Son a multitude, which while no man can number, God
has numbered them and He knows every name. He knows every last
one of them. They're all His dear children. And our Lord Jesus,
He came to this world to save them. And He did, didn't He? He did. He forgave us of our
sins at the cross. He paid the debt. And because
He justified us, because He brought in righteousness for us unrighteous
people, God raised Him from the dead. And I tell you, we go forth bragging
on our Savior. That's what Eliezer did. He's
not out there to draw attention to himself. He's not out there identifying
all of His glorious characteristics. He's a servant. After all is said and done, we're
just unprofitable servants. That's all we are. Oh, but our
Master. Let me tell you about my Master.
He owns all things. All things are His. They were
already His by virtue of the fact He is the eternal God. But He came into this world joining
Himself to our flesh, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh.
God prepared for Him a body and a human soul. And that man, that
God-man Christ Jesus did everything required of Him to save His people
from their sins. And God has rewarded Him. God
has exalted Him. God has enthroned Him at His
own right hand. And we make our boast in Him. Doesn't matter who's behind the
pulpit. We're just servants. But all
of God's servants tell the same story. of Christ Jesus and Him
crucified. So Abraham, he pictures God the
Father, the Father of a multitude, that's what Abraham's name means.
And Isaac, now 40 years old, he pictures our Lord Jesus, who
for the joy that was set before him, he went to the cross of
Calvary. Isaac's name means laughter,
laughter. Just as Isaac was the promised
son, so was our Lord Jesus. He was the promised Savior. Isaac
was a child of a miraculous birth. When Abraham and Sarah were way
yonder too old for him to father a child or for her to have a
child, a miracle happened. And the miraculous conception
and birth of Isaac is a small picture of our Lord's miraculous
conception and birth. Laughter. And then there's Eliezer. His name means, God is my help. God is my help. And every preacher of the gospel,
that preacher right there, this preacher right here, every preacher
of the gospel knows, here's what we need, God to be our help. I don't wanna ever be up here
without the Lord helping me. Don't wanna ever be up here by
myself. I've faced that a few times, I think. And it's a lonely
place. Oh, God help me. Eliezer's name
means God is my help. And then there's Rebecca. She's
got a really interesting name. I was telling Phyllis before
the service began, if you really trace her name back, it comes
from part of a Hebrew word which means fat. And I think I need
to go on past that. I'm not sure who would name their
daughter fat, but her name means more than that. It really means,
it's the idea of a noose or a rope that is tied, like tied around
an animal. And to get into the meaning of
her name, it's something like this. She was so beautiful. She was so lovely. that when
men saw her, it was like a noose around their neck. They just
couldn't resist her beauty. And yet, she remained a virgin. And I thought about that. She
is indeed a picture of what we are in Christ Jesus. Beautiful. We're beautiful. We're lovely. By nature in Adam, we're ugly. We're filthy. We're ungodly. We're unrighteous. But in our
Lord Jesus, we're made, get it, listen, the very righteousness
of God in Him. We're beautiful in Christ Jesus. Isn't that amazing? See, that's
the gospel. That's the gospel. God calls
us beautiful. I tell you, he or she is beautiful
if God calls them beautiful. I would say something sometimes,
beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When God beholds His people, we're gorgeous. I'm not talking outwardly, I'm
talking inwardly. He sees no iniquity in His people. All He sees is perfection. That's what He sees. He looks
down on us as we look at ourselves and say, oh, I'm such a sinner. The Lord looks on us and He says,
my perfect children and my son. He sees Christ. Well, in the first 14 verses,
here's the mission. Here's the mission. Let me read
the first four verses to begin with. And Abraham was old and
well stricken in age. And the Lord had blessed Abraham
in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest
servant of his house that ruled over all that he had, Put, I
pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and I will make thee to
swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth,
that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters
of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but thou shalt go unto
my country. to Mesopotamia, and to my kindred,
and take a wife unto my son Isaac." Here's the mission. This man, Eliezer, is sent forth
by Abraham to find a bride for Isaac. As I said, this is not
a mission for which Eliezer volunteered. Abraham sent him. He was a faithful servant. Oh God, help us to be faithful
servants. Faithful to our master. To go forth and preach the praises
of one greater than Isaac, even our Lord Jesus Christ. I do think about John the Baptist. I quoted that verse. There was
a man sent from God whose name was John. He had the right message. He
said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the
world. That's the message. That's the message. Not behold
the church. Not behold the preacher. Not
behold the baptismal waters. The message is, behold God's
land that takes away the sin of a world of people, a world
of His elect. And you know what God's promise
to His church is? I will give you, hear Him, I'll
give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed
you with knowledge and understanding. Feed my lambs, the Lord said
to Peter. Feed my sheep. The brother said to me, I'm hungry
tonight. I'm trying to feed the sheep.
That's what we're doing. We come in here to feed the sheep.
Well, what does sheep want to eat? Sheep food. What is sheep
food? The gospel of the free and sovereign
grace of God. That's sheep food. That's food
that will do good for anybody who listens to it. First of all,
it will glorify God. And secondly, it will bless God's
people. Thirdly, it's the only message
God will use to the conversion of those who are lost. It's the
only message we need to preach. And it's well summarized. Paul
said, we preach Christ. He didn't stop there. He said,
we preach Christ crucified. We preach substitution. We're
preaching satisfaction. We're preaching the blood. We're
preaching righteousness. God's preachers sent forth and
called by God, they're not religious hirelings. They served God's cause in this
world. When David saw his brothers and
King Saul and Israel's army, seeing them kind of backing down
from Goliath, he said, what in the world is going on here? Is
there not a cause? And I say to you, is there not
a cause? The cause of God and truth. John
Gill wrote a book on that. Excellent book. We're all about
the cause of God and His truth. You say, well, so and so doesn't
like it. Well, that's too bad. Not going
to change the message. Can't change the truth. Truth
is truth. I know God has preachers of varying
abilities, but they all have the same message. Some are like John the Baptist,
a little unusual. He's a bit of an unusual preacher.
You want to go hear John the Baptist preach? Well, yeah, let's
all get dressed up and go hear John the Baptist preach. Well,
he's not going to be in the synagogue, I can tell you that. He's not
going to be at the temple. Well, where's his church? Out
there in the wilderness. That's where his church is. And
let me tell you, ahead of time, he's kind of got an unusual dress.
And don't bring him fried chicken. He doesn't eat that. He's got
a very simple diet. But he's got the message. He's got the message. And the
Jews, when they thought about John the Baptist, they said,
he's got a devil. He doesn't go to any public functions. He's not the friendliest man
in the world. He's got a devil. And then our
Lord Jesus, He was very open with people. He went to the park
and sat down on a bench, that sort of thing. And He'd go to
weddings, and He was very accessible to people. He's in the synagogue. He's in the temple. And he'd
sit down and eat with you. He'd sit down and drink with
you. They'd say, well, he's a gluttonous man, and he's a wine bebber.
Our Lord said, you can't be satisfied. No matter what kind of preacher
I send you. No preacher's going to make you
happy because it isn't the man himself, it's his message. That's
what you have trouble with. And that's the same thing. It
goes on everywhere. Wherever the gospel preacher,
every once in a while people get upset with the preacher.
Doesn't like the way he ties his necktie, or they get offended
by something happened. I was telling Ron, I guess it
was the other day, we had a lady, she left our church because she
didn't like the way her cake was cut at a fellowship lunch. She had baked a German chocolate
cake and somebody just, you know, didn't cut it delicately. Blew up. I'm never coming back
to this church. They tore my cake all to pieces.
That's not the real problem. I'm smart enough to know that.
I ain't the smartest guy on the block, but I'm pretty smart enough
to know that. Another guy had a new car and
somebody dinged it with their door and didn't tell him who
did it. I'm not going back to that church.
I know your problem. It's not your dinged up door
of that new car. And it's not your cake that got
cut funny. You don't like the message. You
don't like the message. And I tell you what, if you don't
really deep down love the message, you'll find any reason to leave. And then you'll tie it to, well,
I didn't preach the truth. We've seen about all of them,
haven't we, Bill, through the years. We haven't heard all the
excuses, but we've heard a bunch of them, that's for sure. This
is a mission given to Eliezer by Abraham. But you know it was
a joyful mission. It was a joyful mission. Abraham
said, Eliezer, I want you to go out there and find a woman
who will listen to you brag on my son. Okay. And boy, I tell you, he
got to a well of water, and this woman provided for him and his
camels. And then she wanted to hear about
his master's son. Joyful mission. We have such
a joyful mission. Did you know that? To speak of
our victorious Savior. Isn't that one? Triumph, triumphant
redeemer. And it was a mission which must
not involve compromise. Abraham said this to Eliezer. He said, verse 3, he said, Thou
shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites
among whom I dwell. You go into my country, to my
kindred, take a wife unto my son Isaac. And the servant said
to him, Well, peradventure the woman will not be willing to
follow me into this land. Well, should I then come back
and take Isaac to them, to her? And Abraham said, verse 6, Beware
thou that thou bring not my son thither again. Don't you bring
my son down. You're not going to compromise
on this. You can't deal with a woman who then is
going to try to make her look good and make Isaac look not
so good. We can't compromise the message.
We can't make concessions. We're not going to bring Christ
down. We can't belittle Christ. We're not going to humiliate
Him. He's the King. If you don't like it, you'll
have to deal with the King someday. We're not going to bring Him
down. We're not going to compromise the message. I know religion
today seems set upon exalting the Savior and bringing the sinner
down. He needs you. He can't do His
will without you. Bringing the Savior down. Abraham
said, don't you dare do that. The sinner is not more important
than the Savior. Well, we're going to get them
saved at all costs. You can't get anybody saved.
Exalt the Son of God. That's our mission. Abraham gives this servant a
simple but very clear command. Don't you make that prospective
bride more important than my son. Don't compromise the gospel.
And then it was a mission which required faithfulness and not
personal success. Look at verse 8. I'll read verse
7 and 8. "'The Lord God of heaven, which
took me,' Abraham continues, "'from my father's house and
from the land of my kindred, "'in which spake unto me, "'and
that sware unto me, saying, "'Unto thy seed will I give this land.
"'He shall send his angel before thee, "'and thou shalt take a
wife unto my son from thence. "'And if the woman will not be
willing to follow thee, "'then thou shalt be clear from this
my oath, "'only bring not my son thither again.'" In other words, you go out there
and you brag on my son. And if the woman you approach,
she doesn't want to come here, doesn't want to have anything
to do with my son, you've done what I told you to do. That's
the extent of your mission. We can't cause anybody to believe. I can't make you believe. I'll
just tell you the truth. I compel you to believe. I want
you to believe. But I can't change your heart.
God's got to give you a new heart. He's got to give you eyes to
see and ears to hear and a heart to believe and a mind to understand
how God saves sinners. Ours is a mission that requires
faithfulness. Not personal success. Tell you
what, if you're looking for successful preachers, you wouldn't want
Noah to fill out an application for a job as your pastor. He
didn't. He pastored 120 years. Boy, I bet you've got a big church
full, don't you? Well, I've got my family. I've
got my family. I'll tell you, Eleazar did have
this assurance. I'll give this to you quickly.
The last statement of verse 7, And thou shalt take a wife unto
my son from thence. The Lord said, you're going to
find a wife. You're going to find somebody
who's going to be willing to come back with you and marry
my son Isaac. Because He said in verse 7, I'm
going to send the angel ahead of you. He's going to prepare
the way. And He's going to prepare somebody's
heart. I don't know who she is. But
she's out there. And you don't know who she is.
But you go and you be faithful. And I'll tell you this, God will
make His Word effectual. And isn't that a wonderful promise? The Lord said in Isaiah 55, my
word's not going to return unto me void. It'll accomplish exactly
what I intend for it to accomplish. You'll find somebody who wants
to come back. And we just keep on preaching.
Every once in a while, every once in a while, somebody
will say, you know what, preacher? I find myself believing what
you're preaching. What you're writing has happened
to me. I believe God saved you by His
grace. That's what I think. We just be faithful. Keep on
telling the same message. Believing that God goes ahead
of the message to prepare hearts. And I'll tell you this, I'll
give you this, this will be the last thing tonight. This was
a weighty mission. What a tremendous responsibility. Go in search for a bride for
Isaac. The only begotten son of Abraham
and Sarah. Isaac was such an extraordinary
person. And he was the heir of all Abraham's
wealth. And the weighty responsibility
upon the shoulders of Eliezer was, you go out there and brag
on my son. And here's what Eliezer did.
Let me just give you this and we'll go home. Look, verse 10. So the servant took ten camels
of the camels of his master, and he departed. For all the
goods of his master were in his hand, and he arose and went to
Mesopotamia under the city of Nahor. That's Abraham's brother. And he made his camels to kneel
down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening,
even the time that women go out to draw water. And he said, He's
going to pray. We best not speak to people unless
we first speak to God. Let's not do that. I dare not speak to you until
I speak to God. This is what this faithful servant
did. He said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee,
send me good speed this day. I pray something like that just
before every sermon. Send me good speed this day.
And show kindness. Show kindness unto My Master. And He says, Behold, I stand
here by the well of water. Here comes all these women. The daughters of the men of the
city come out to draw water. Is she among those, Lord? I don't know. I don't know. He says, Let it come to pass
that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I
pray thee, that I may drink, and she shall say, Drink! And
I'll give thy camel's drink also. Let the same be she that thou
hast appointed That's a powerful word. The one
you've appointed. Salvation is not by accident.
It's by divine appointment. We're not appointed to wrath.
That's what Paul told the Thessalonians. We're not appointed to wrath.
We're appointed to obtain salvation. And there was a woman there that
don't draw water. All those other women there too.
But only one. was the appointed one. And you know, in your family,
in your house, among your brothers and sisters perhaps, none of
them believe the Gospel. How come you believe? Divine
appointment. That's the reason. Ah, the Lord
had somebody. He had picked somebody out for
Isaac. And our God picked somebody out
for Christ Jesus before the world began. And He appointed all of
His Rebekahs under salvation to be the bride of Isaac. We'll pick back up right there
next Wednesday night, the Lord willing. Let's close in prayer.
Lord, bless the Word. What a privilege it is to preach
and to be part of a congregation that holds forth the truth of
Your Word. Enable us to be faithful. And
You bless Your Word. You make it effectual to whoever
You want to. It's just our honor to stand
and be a part of a congregation loves
and brags on the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, buried, risen
again, and exalted. Encourage your people. Bless
the Word, Father, and glorify Your Son. For Christ's sake,
I pray. Amen.