This is a long chapter, I think
there's 67 verses all total in this chapter, so obviously we're
not gonna read every verse in Genesis 24, but it's a beautiful
picture, a beautiful story. It's not just a story though,
it's a historical record that God the Holy Spirit enabled Moses
to write down concerning the man Abraham. sending a servant,
his main servant, to find a bride for his son, Isaac. And it's a beautiful picture,
beautiful story. And you read the whole thing,
but we'll just hit some of the highlights. And most people agree
that this servant is the one named Eleazar, Back in Genesis
chapter 15, you remember Abraham became sort of frustrated that
he and Sarah had not yet had a child, and so he was thinking
that Eleazar, this beloved servant, this head servant that Abraham
had, would be the one to inherit all of his wealth. and all that he had. But God
told him that, no, he said, Abraham, that's not the way it is. Eliezer
is not going to inherit these things. In Isaac, the promises
will be fulfilled in that one son, Isaac. Well, Isaac was born. We talked about that last time. And now Isaac has grown. And
I think at this time, It says in verse one of chapter 24, Abraham
was old, well stricken in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham
in all things. And by this time, Sarah was already
passed away. It says in verse two, Abraham
said unto his eldest servant of his house, which I believe
to be Eliezer, that ruled over all that he had, put I pray thee
thy hand under my thigh, and I will make thee swear by the
Lord, the God of heaven, the God of the earth, that thou shalt
not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites,
those who weren't Abraham's family, among them whom I dwell, but
thou shalt go unto my country and to my kindred and take a
wife unto my son Isaac. So that's the command that Abraham
gave and wanted the servant to swear an oath by putting his
hand under his thigh, and we'll talk about that in just a minute.
But what we see here is a picture of Christ going for his bride. You know, we studied that in
the Song of Solomon over and over again, you know, Christ,
the bridegroom, and the church, the bride of Christ, and how
he took unto himself a bride. And so this is the picture here.
And as most commentators agree, Abraham, for example, he would
represent the Father, God the Father. who sent the servant,
and the servant there would represent gospel preachers, and to find
a bride for his son Isaac, who would represent Christ, and the
bride, who we'll later find out is Rachel, or Rebecca, rather,
and she would represent all true believers, the church. So you
see the picture here. Anytime you deal with types and
pictures, you have to see the limitations of the type. Everything
about that type does not fit the reality of everything that
that type represents. For example, Abraham represents
God the Father. At this time, Abraham did not
know who the bride would be. But that's not like our Heavenly
Father, he knows who the bride of his son, he knew from the
very beginning before the foundation of the world, because he chose
us. The Bible says our names are written in the Lamb's book
of life. And he knows, you know, I love
that passage in, I think I've got it cited here in 2 Timothy,
chapter two, where Paul was telling Timothy how to deal with, I think
a couple of men and some of their followers who had gone away from
the gospel and they had made shipwreck, I think he said, of
the faith of many. In other words, they were exposed
to be false professors and they exposed many others. But he said,
nevertheless, the foundation of God stands sure. The Lord
knoweth them that are his. Let everyone who names the name
of the Lord depart from evil. But God knows his people. He
knows us by name. And I love that picture back
in the Old Testament, the old covenant law of the priest, the
high priest who went into the Holy of Holies, he had the names
of the children of Israel on his breastplate and on his amulets. And that's a picture of Christ
having our names on his heart, on his breastplate and on his
shoulders. He bore our sins. in his own
body on the tree. So don't try to make everything,
Brother Mahan used to say, don't try to make a type stand on all
four legs, because you just won't do it. But Abraham at this time,
he didn't know who the bride was going to be, but now our
Heavenly Father knew from the beginning. He chose us in Christ
before the world began and gave us to Christ. So Abraham is sending
his servant to find a bride for his son. He represents the Father. Isaac represents the Lord Jesus
Christ. The servant represents all ministers
of the true gospel. Sending the servants out. That's
what the gospel witness is. Sending his witnesses out to
spread the good news and by God's grace, the Holy Spirit focuses
in on his people, his sheep, his elect, his bride, collectively
made up of God's individual chosen people, redeemed by the blood
of Christ, justified in him. And so we send out the word of
salvation, just like this Isaac or this Eleazar is going to speak
a word to the house that he's going to. and find the bride
of Christ. And so, as ministers of the gospel,
we're instruments of the Holy Spirit, who empowers the gospel
to the salvation of God's chosen people. And then, as I said,
Rebecca, the bride, represents every true believer, chosen by
the Father, given to the Son, redeemed by His blood, justified
by His righteousness imputed, and then called out, regenerated
and called out by the Holy Spirit. Well, we see here Abraham, he
was very wealthy, and Isaac was the heir of all of Abraham's
wealth. And so we see that our Heavenly
Father is obviously very wealthy with the blessings, and Christ
is the heir of all things. The book of Hebrews tells us
about that in detail. He's the heir of all things.
And that's every benefit and blessing of salvation by the
grace of God. And it was all conditioned on
Christ. That's the gospel message. That
salvation is conditioned on Christ and by himself he fulfilled those
conditions and secured the eternal salvation of all for whom he
lived and died and was buried and rose again the third day.
And so all that God has is the Bible says in Ephesians 1 3 that
we who believe are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. That's an amazing thing. Salvation
given us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world before
the world began. So Jesus Christ the only begotten
son of God's love is the heir of all things. And Isaac represents
him. Isaac was the heir to Abraham.
The father's given all things into Isaac's hands. Well, our
heavenly father has given all things into Christ's hands. And
so it's all on him. So now the father calls, Abraham
calls and sends his servant to go find the bride. And he says
in verse two, I pray thee, put I pray thee thy hand under my
thigh. Now that's a form of an oath And a lot of scholars aren't
really sure exactly what the significance of that is, but
most believe, and I agree with this, that it's related to God's
promise to Abraham that he would have a seed. It was from his
loins that Abraham, the seed would come. So it wasn't Ishmael,
even though Ishmael came from Abraham's loins, but not the
son of promise. but it was Isaac who came through
Sarah, Abraham and Sarah. And so the thigh represents the
loins and that would be that which was related to the promised
seed that Abraham would have. And so notice too that Abraham
said this, he said in verse three, I will make thee swear by the
Lord, the God of heaven, the God of the earth, this is verse
three, 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 my kindred, and take a wife unto
my son Isaac. And we see in that that God has
a people that he gave to the son, and we are his people, we
are his family. Christ called him his brethren. That's what he calls us. He's not ashamed to call us brethren. He calls us his church, he calls
us his sheep. his redeemed ones, all of these
titles, that's who Christ came to save. So Isaac is not just
going out there willy-nilly trying to find a bride amongst everybody.
No, he's going specifically to Abraham's house, Abraham's family. And that's what Christ did when
he came to die for his people. He came to save a particular
people who were related to him by the election of grace given
to him as he is our surety, our substitute, our redeemer, his
brethren. And I love that passage in Hebrews
2 that talks about he was made like unto his brethren. Who are
his brethren? Well, that's God's elect. That's
the church, that's his bride. Remember he said, who is my mother? Who is my brethren? Those who
do the will of my Father. So as sinners saved by God's
grace, we don't make ourselves the bride of Christ, but we're
given, we're made so by the Father, given to the Son. Just like this. Now in these next verses, look
at verse five. The servant said unto him, peradventure
the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land. Must I needs bring thy son again
unto the land from whence thou camest? In other words, if I
go and I find a woman and she won't come, do you want me to
go get Isaac and bring him back to that land? And Abraham said
unto him, verse six, beware thou that thou bring not my son thither
again. No, don't take my son into the
land that I left. He says, the Lord God of heaven,
verse seven, which took me from my father's house and from the
land of my kindred, and which spoke unto men that swear 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. So as the servant expressed concern
that the woman would be unwilling to leave her family, Abraham
tells him, he says, Now, this thing's already been prepared.
This thing's already been planned out. This thing's already been
solidified in the mind and purpose of Almighty God. In other words,
he's telling the servant, now look, the success of this mission
is not conditioned on you. The success of this mission is
not in your hands or your power or based upon your persuasion
or anything like that. The success of this is dependent
upon the Lord God who swore by himself. And I think that's a
good lesson for preachers. The success of the ministry is
not dependent upon us. It's not on our powers of persuasion
or logic or our charismatic personalities or anything like that. And now
we go out and we preach to anybody who will listen, but it's God
who brings the increase. It's God who makes it successful
for the salvation of his people. And that's what the Lord said,
all that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that
cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. This is the Father's
will, the will of him that sent me that of all which he hath
given me, I should lose nothing. So we know God's people, his
bride, they're gonna hear his truth. They're gonna believe
it by the power of God. And so the bride will come willingly
and believing the word of God delivered by the servant because
the bride will be made willing in the day of his power. You
know, the Bible tells us that all whom God chose and all whom
God justified shall be called. Those whom he called, they shall
be justified. In other words, those who are
justified, their sins are forgiven by the blood of Christ. They
stand before God righteous in Christ. They're gonna be called
because righteousness demands life. They must be born again. They must believe the gift of
faith is included in the gifts that God has given his people
for their salvation. And so the servant goes out and
look at verse 10. The servant took 10 camels, 10
camels of the camels of his master. He took all these things. Verse
11, he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well
of water. He came to the city of Nahor
and he came to a well of water and he made his camels lay down.
This is even the time that women go out to draw water. Notice
how this works. He said, now the first thing
he did in verse 12, he prays to God. And I think that's a
good, I know it's a good lesson for us. We go out prayerfully. We seek his sheep. We preach
the gospel prayerfully. He said, oh Lord God of my master
Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day and show
kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by a well
of water, and the daughters of the men of the city come out
to draw, and 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 so
he's showing all this, how he's going to identify her, and she
shall say, drink, and I will give thy camels drink also, let
same be she, Thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac. Let that
be the one that you've determined is going to be for Isaac. And thereby shall I know that
thou has shown kindness to my master. And it says in verse
15, it came to pass before he had done speaking that behold,
Rebecca came out. Before he even, see this was
all purpose. This is the purpose of God. Verse
16 says, the damsel, Rebecca, was very fair to look upon, a
virgin. Neither had any man known her,
and she went down to the well and filled her pitcher and came
up. So this is the woman, a beautiful woman. Now, we know, the Bible
tells us that Eleazar was seeking the bride for Isaac whom God
had appointed. And she had to be worthy. She
had to be qualified. She had to be one who was fit
for his master, for his master's son. And she had to be willing. And so we know that Rebecca was
both. But I thought about this. Now,
the Bible teaches us that by nature, the bride of Christ is
neither worthy nor willing. And I thought about that passage
back in the Song of Solomon, chapter one, where the bride
says, I am black, but beautiful, you know. Well, what is that
talking about? It's talking about the difference
between the bride of Christ, what she is in the fall of Adam
by nature, and what she is in Christ. And so Christ's bride
is both unworthy and unwilling until he makes her so. And she's
unworthy because she's in need of a righteousness that she cannot
produce. She's got to be justified. She's
got to be washed clean from all her sins by the blood of Christ.
She's got to be justified by His righteousness imputed. She's
got to put on the robe, the robe of Christ, as spoken of in Isaiah
61. You know, the righteous robe
that we wear. benefits and the blessings of
Christ's obedience unto death, the worthiness. And then she's
got to be regenerated. She's got to be born again to
be made willing. And that's what the Bible teaches,
how we're drawn with cords of love through the preaching of
the gospel. A salvation is totally by the grace of God, conditioned
on Christ, based on his righteousness alone. We don't have anything
to offer the bridegroom. We don't have anything. But we
have no dowry. All we have by nature is debt.
But he paid our debt by his sacrifice on the cross, paid it to justice
and secured our eternal life and well-being and makes us willing
in the day of his power. And that's what Rachel represents,
a very beautiful woman, a virgin. You know, over in 2 Corinthians
chapter 11, when Paul was warning the Corinthian church, about
false preachers who would come in to try to get them to commit
spiritual adultery with other gods through false preachers.
And he says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 here, he says, verse
two, for I'm jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have
espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste
virgin to Christ. By nature, we're not chaste virgins,
we're sinners. But because of what Christ accomplished
on Calvary, we are washed clean from all our sins and made spiritually
chaste. And so he says, but I fear this
by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so
your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ. And that's descriptive of the
union between Christ and his bride, the bridegroom and the
bride. The bridegroom's focus is on one, his bride. And that's who he came to save,
that's who he keeps, that's who he protects, that's who he brings
to glory. And the bride's focus is to be
on the bridegroom, singly on him. She's not to prostitute
herself unto other men, other gods. but singly on him, that's
the simplicity that's in Christ. Our whole focus, our whole heart,
our whole mind is to be squarely on Christ as our whole salvation. And I think about what Paul said,
for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Now
what have I committed unto him? My whole life, my whole salvation,
all spiritual blessing, in him, that's what's committed to him.
And so our focus is to be on him alone. Now, from the rest
of this chapter, beginning, you can look right at verse 32, I've
got listed here. From verse 32, it tells us the
story about how Eleazar went into the house and talked to
Rebecca's father, and I think there was an uncle there too,
and how it all came about. and how it all was worked out
by the power and the providence of God. But one thing you can
notice about that, you read these verses, like from verse 32 to
51, what Eleazar did when he went into the house, they wanted
to feed him, for example. And he was hungry, but he said,
no, he said, I'm not gonna partake of anything in the house until
I've done what I'm sent to do. His whole focus was on doing
his master's bidding. Fulfilling that oath that he
had made when he put his hand under Abraham's thigh. I'm not
gonna do anything. This is what I'm here for. I'm
here, I'm on a mission. And I'm not gonna eat or sleep
or anything until that mission is done. And that's the way we
ought to be as a church. That's the way I ought to be
as a minister of the gospel. My first and foremost issue here
is to preach the gospel. That's why Paul told the Corinthian
church when they were dividing over preachers and personalities,
he said, look, he said, Christ didn't send me here to rack up
numbers and baptisms and all that, but to preach the gospel. I've got one message, Christ
crucified. And if I say anything else, it's
in light of Christ crucified, which is the main message, the
only message we have. We're here to preach the gospel.
We're not here to entertain. We're not here just to keep people
socially together who have the same common interest. We're here
to preach Christ, lift him up. And then Eleazar, he began to
show the beauties and the glories and the positive things about
Isaac. He talked about Isaac. In other
words, he wasn't pointing to himself. And anytime I go into
something like that, I think about John the Baptist. And right
after I was converted, I went to the preacher school at 13th
Street Baptist Church that Brother Mahan started back in the early
80s. And we went through bodies of divinity and studied the scriptures
and things like that. And somebody asked me one time
if I would ever consider starting a preacher school. Well, I told him back then, no. I said,
I don't know how many pupils I would have. But anyway, if
I were to do that, I would call it the John the Baptist Preacher
School. If you look at John the Baptist
throughout his ministry, how he started and how it ended,
And when he first came upon the scene, you know, his message
was basically, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the
sins of the world, pointing sinners to Christ. And then he told them,
he said, I'm not the Christ. You know, when he was questioned,
he said, I'm not the Messiah. I'm not the Savior. I can baptize
you in water, he said, but there's one coming after me who baptizes
with the Holy Spirit. In other words, he can give life
to the dead. I can't do that, but he can. He's life, he is life, he is
light. And then John the Baptist said
this, he said, I'm not even worthy to stoop down and untie his shoes. Why do you want to look to me?
And then he said this, he said, I must decrease, Christ must
increase. And that's what I see in Eliezer
in these verses here when he's talking to the family. And he's,
don't look to me now. I'm just the messenger boy. I
must decrease, Christ, Isaac must increase, well Christ must
increase. And I love that passage in John
three where it talks about that John's disciples, they followed
John the Baptist, and it says they heard John speak, but they
followed Jesus. And that's what we want. Here
they're hearing Eliezer speak, but Isaac is the one who's the
focus here. Isaac is the one who's brought
to the light the beauty of Isaac, the wealth of Isaac. And that's
what we preach. We preach not our own righteousness.
We preach the righteousness of Christ. We preach Christ crucified. Our purpose is to make Christ
known. The bride was not to be attracted
to the servant Eleazar, but to Isaac. And the bride of Christ
is not to be attracted to the preacher, but to the one to whom
the preacher points, Christ himself, the bridegroom. So our task is
to set forth the beauties and the glories of the person and
finished work of Christ, the glory of God revealed in his
face. And then the rest of the chapter here, if you'll, Yeah, the rest of it, Genesis
24, I think I ended there at verse 56 and 58, but it goes
all the way to verse 67, but it shows, I may have misprinted
that, so, but anyway, but go on to the, read the rest of the
chapter. Finally, the case has been fully
stated by Eleazar, and here comes Rachel, Rebecca, I keep saying
Rachel, it's Rebecca, and The father, Rebecca's father, he's
willing that she should go, yeah, and all that. And so finally
the question's put to Rebecca. Will you go with this man? And
Rebecca said, I will go. She came willingly. And so that's
indicative of faith in Christ. God makes his people willing
in the day of his power. And that's something that we
need to make sure people understand. You know, I heard a so-called
biblical scholar Preaching against the irresistible call what we
call the irresistible call or the invincible call you know
the irresistible call the invincible call is the power of God by the
Holy Spirit To convict us of sin and of righteousness and
of judgment which we will not refuse Because he gives us a
new heart New mind new affections new will he changes us and He
makes us willing. And this preacher was preaching
against the irresistible call, and he was making the case that
God would not force his people against their will to come to
Christ. And I wanted to, he was on television,
so I couldn't reach through and talk to the fella. But I said,
have you read the Bible? And here's what the Bible teaches,
that we start out unwilling. That's what we are. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. Neither
can he know. But when God enters in the picture, when Christ sends
his Spirit through the Word, what does he do? He changes our
will. He makes us willing in the day
of his power. He gives us a new heart. And
that's what he has to do. That's why Christ said you must
be born again. And that's what we see here.
Rachel was willing to go with Isaac, or to go with Eleazar
to find her bride. And the last part of the verse,
it says that Isaac saw Rebekah, did I say Rachel again? Isaac
saw, I'm not trying to make Isaac an adulterer, believe me. But
anyway, Isaac saw Rebecca far off, and then Rebecca saw him,
and she got off the camel, I guess she was on, and ran to him. And
they were together the rest of their lives.