I asked you to turn back, if
you will, in your Bible this morning to the book of Genesis
chapter 24. Genesis chapter 24. I'd like to read the first nine
verses before we begin our message this morning. Genesis 24 beginning with verse
1, 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 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
and to my kindred and take a wife unto my servant or unto my son
Isaac. And 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 which thou camest? And Abraham said unto
him, beware thou that thou bring not my son thither again. the
Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house, and
from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and
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. 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
and the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his
master and swear to him concerning that matter. The subject this
morning is no compromise, no compromise. Now the true preacher
of the gospel of Jesus Christ is like this Eleazar of Damascus. He is sent, Eleazar, the servant
of Abraham, the eldest servant of his house, is sent back to
the homeland, back down to the Ur of the Chaldees, to find a
wife for his master's son. Now the preacher of the gospel,
his desire is that many shall be presented unto Christ in the
day of his appearing as the bride, the Lamb's wife. We believe in
the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and we believe that
God is sending out his servants just as Abraham sent his servant
out to find a wife for Isaac, that God has sent his servants
out to find a bride for the Lord Jesus Christ, to find those that
will be linked eternally to the Lord Jesus Christ, will be his
bride forever. Now Eleazar, the faithful servant
of Abraham, before he started, he communed with his master. He had a talk with Abraham. Abraham
talked with him and conveyed to him what he was to do and
the errand that he was to run. Now there's a lesson here, I
believe, for us and certainly there's a lesson here for those
that are the servants of God, those that will go forth to blow
the silver trumpet of the gospel in our day. What is the lesson? Well, before we engage in actual
service unto our God, we ought to see the master's face. I mean,
we ought to commune with him. We ought to spend time in talking
with Him. We ought to visit with our God. We ought to know what it is that
He expects of us, what it is that He wants us to do. We must
hear from Him concerning His going with us, His going forth
with us, and His willingness to bless us in the mission that
He sent us upon. Now we'll never go forth to plead
with men until we have first pleaded with God for men. We're to pray for men before
we preach to them. And I believe there's a good
rule there that we ought to pray for those to whom we preach. The church ought to pray for
those to whom they minister. And you ought to pray for those
that you want to bear a witness or a testimony to. Ask God to
go before you. Ask God to bless the effort that
you're about to make. in presenting the gospel of redeeming
grace unto those around you. Now do not attempt to deliver
a message which you have not first of all yourself received
by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God burns the message
of the gospel into the heart of the preacher. Old Jeremiah
of old talked about the word He talked about the word of God
burning in his soul. The preacher has a message. Every
child of God has a message. They have a word. Now then, Abraham's
servant spoke and acted as one who felt bound to do exactly
what his master had told him to do. His one anxiety was to
know his commission and to do exactly what Abraham wanted him
to do. Well, beloved, this is true with
the church. It's true with the preacher.
Let us get the orders of the day. Let us understand the great
commission that Jesus Christ has given to this church. And
that commission is go into all the world and preach the gospel
unto every creature, making disciples of men and baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Let us know the marching orders.
Let us have the understanding of the commission that God has
set us upon. Now the first thing that I want
to talk to you about here this morning is I want us to talk
a little bit about this joyful and weighty errand that Eleazar
was sent on. And I want to talk a little bit
about because I think it was indeed a joyful errand because
the marriage of the heir should be a joyful event and certainly
Isaac was the heir. He was the heir of everything
that Abraham had and he was the promised seed that God had given
through Abraham and Sarah. And it was an honorable thing
for this servant to be entrusted with the finding of a wife for
his master's son. I say it was an honorable thing.
Just think about it. Here he was, he was going down
there to find here a wife for Isaac and she would be the mother
of a line of men from which even our Lord would descend. And so
what an honorable thing, and what an honorable thing for an
individual to be able to preach a gospel whereby God is privileged
to regenerate souls and God is pleased to regenerate souls and
to bring men and women out of darkness and join them everlastingly
and eternally to His Son. What a privilege, what an honor
is conveyed upon preachers of the gospel. Now this man had
a long journey to make. He had to seek out a family which
he did not know and to find out of that family a woman whom he
did not know who would be the right person to be the wife for
his master's son. That was his errand. Now can
you imagine? Here he was going out. He didn't
know the name of the family. He didn't know the woman. All
he had was the instructions given to him by Abraham. Go and find
a wife for my son. Now then, this was his errand,
and I think we can appreciate the responsibility and task that
he was given to accomplish. Now, notice that this work that
this man undertook was a business upon which his master's heart
was set. Abraham was mightily concerned
about his son Isaac, because Isaac was 40 years old and was
still a single man. Abraham himself was old, he was
well stricken in years, didn't have too much longer to live
in this world, and so he was concerned about his son having
a wife. And it was very naturally, he
wished to see the promise which God had given to him beginning
to be fulfilled that is in Isaac should his seed be called and
so there must be a wife for Isaac and so Abraham this was a work
that was very near his heart. Now this was a very serious business
which he had committed to his servants but brother and sister
This is nothing compared to the responsibility that hangs upon
the preacher of the gospel. All the great Father's heart,
the heart of God, the heart of God the Father, is set on giving
to Christ a church which shall be His beloved forever. The Father will have a people
and the Father will have a family. Christ will have a body. He will
have a temple. He will have a church. And so
the Father's heart is set upon this work. Isaac must not be
alone, and Jesus must not be alone. His church must be his
eternal companion forever. And so the Father's heart is
set on this work. The Father sends his servants
to find a bride for the great bridegroom, a recompense, if
you please, for the Redeemer, a solace for the Savior. And to that end, we tell out
the gospel every time we get up to preach. We tell out the
gospel until hearts are wedded to the Son of God. Now notice
this Aaron was more weighty because of the person for whom a spouse
was sought. This errand was weighty because
of the person here that was going to have this young wife. Now Isaac was somebody, was he
not? He was somebody indeed. He was
a man born according to promise. He was a man that was born of
Abraham and Sarah when they was way past the years in which they
could have children. He was not born after the flesh
merely, but he was born by the power of God. He was born by
the blessing of God and in Jesus Christ. All that are one with
Him in saving faith, the life that they have in their souls,
it comes by promise and the power of God and it springeth not of
the flesh, it springeth not of man. Now Isaac was himself the
fulfillment of a promise and at the same time he was the heir
of the promise. and infinitely glorious, might
I say, is our Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of Man and the Son
of God, and who shall declare His generation. Say what you
want to about Isaac, but a greater than Isaac is here. This one,
the Lord Jesus Christ whom we preach, this one whom God sent,
this one whom God appointed to be the Redeemer, this one is
infinitely more glorious than Isaac. Well, where shall a helpmate
be found for him, for the Lord Jesus Christ? Where shall a soul
be fit to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ? Where will we find
a soul that is worthy, a soul that is fit to be married to
the Son of God? Where shall we find a heart that
is fit to be wedded to Him. How and where can we find men
and women who can worthily recompense love so amazing and so divine
as that of Him who died the death of the cross, who is fit to dwell
in glory with this glorious one, the Son of the Eternal God. What a weighty errand have we
to fulfill to find those who shall be linked forever in holy
union with the heir of promise, even the sacrificial and risen
Lord Jesus Christ. What an errand. What a dignity
will be put upon any of you who are married to Jesus Christ. What a dignity. Now let me say
that salvation is to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is to be one with Christ. Romans 7 and 4 says, Wherefore,
my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is
raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto
God. God's people are married unto
the Lord Jesus Christ. First Corinthians 6, Verse 16
and 7 says, What? Know ye not that he which is
joined to a harlot is one body? For two saith he shall be one
flesh. But he that is joined unto the
Lord is one spirit. Those that are joined unto the
Lord are one spirit. with Jesus Christ. They are in
a spiritual marriage. They are wedded spiritually speaking
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now to what a height of eminence
will you be lifted to by becoming one with the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you take this man Will you
take this God-man to be your husband? Will you do that? Would
you be married to the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you have this man
to be your confidence? Would you have him to be your
salvation? Would you have him to be your
all in all? Well, what must she be to whom
his master's son would be espoused? What must she be? Well, she must
be willing And we're going to talk a little bit more about
that in a few minutes. She must be willing and then
she must be beautiful Where shall we find this willing heart? Well
only where the grace of God has wrought it That's the only place
you're going to find it The only place you're going to find somebody
that be married to Christ is when the Spirit of God has gone
before and made the heart willing well in the day of God's power
the scripture says that His people will be made willing. They'll
be made willing. How may I find beauty too among
the sons of men? Marred as our nature is by sin,
only the Holy Spirit can impart that beauty of holiness which
will enable the Lord Jesus to see comeliness. in His chosen. Because there is an aversion
to Christ, there's an unwillingness to come to Him in the natural
man. And at the same time, there's
a terrible unfitness and unworthiness in man by nature. Now the Spirit
of God in regeneration implants in a man love for the Lord Jesus
Christ, and this is of a heavenly origin. No individual left to
themselves in a state of nature will ever love Christ. But if
the Spirit of God comes down, does a work in your soul, opens
your sin-blinded eyes, and causes you to see Christ, Then, my friend,
you'll love Him, you'll love Him, you will indeed, because
I'm sure that God is pleased to spread abroad His love in
the hearts of His chosen by the Spirit of God. Now, listen to
me. I remind you again of Ezekiel
16 and verse 14. And let me read this to you.
And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for
it was perfect through my comeliness which I put upon thee, saith
the Lord God. And so, beloved, when one is
married to Christ, They're beautiful because his comeliness is put
upon them and they are indeed beautiful even as Rebecca was
beautiful and that one which Isaac would marry. Think also
what she will become who is to be married to Isaac. Now Isaac,
as we said, is somebody indeed. Well, she's to be endowed with
all of his earthly goods. And we're told here in Genesis
chapter 24 that all things had been given to Isaac. Everything had been given to
him. Abraham had been mightily blessed, greatly blessed. And
he was a wealthy man. And so when Isaac was born, Abraham
just said, well, all things are yours, Isaac. I just turn it
all over to you. It's all yours. And remember
this also, I must inject this in John chapter three in verse
35. It says, the father loved the
son and he put all things into his hands. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the heir of all things that God the Father has. Anyone who
is married to Christ is a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ
and everything that God has, he's given to Christ and Christ
says, I'll share them with all those that are married to me.
With all my goods I thee endow. And so it was to be so with Isaac. Everything that he had received
from his father Abraham he said it'll be my spouses because all
my earthly goods I with all these endow thee. And so here she is
to have all of his earthly goods and not only that But she is
to be his delight, his love, and certainly Isaac loved her,
and she was to be his friend, she was to be his companion,
all of this unto Isaac. Now when a sinner is joined to
Christ, Christ makes of him, well, the sinner becomes his
delight. The Lord delights in the sinner
and he receives him and he beautifies him with salvation and this sinner
becomes one who can fellowship with the Son of God, the eternal
Son of God. Christ hears his prayers and
Christ accepts the praise of his wife, those that are married
unto him. And he works in them and with
them and he glorifies himself in them. This is what Christ
does for his people. He makes the believing man, as
we said, a joint heir with him, with himself of all that he has. Now consider in the second place
we've talked about the errand that Eleazar was to go on to
find a bride for Isaac and said a few things there that I think
might help you to appreciate the importance of this errand
and the weight of this errand. Now the second thing I want you
to consider is the fear which is mentioned here in verse 5.
The fear. Now Eliezer said unto Abraham,
he said, peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow
me unto this land. And he goes on to say, must I
needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest.
But here is his fear. He said, peradventure the woman
will not be willing to follow me unto this land. What happens if she's not willing?
Now Eliezer here sounds like an Armenian preacher. He said,
well, what's going to happen here? I mean, maybe she won't
be willing. I go down there and I talk with her and she's not
willing to come. What about that? Well, this is
a very serious and grave and common difficulty. She must be
willing. Force and fraud is out of the
question. There's no way that we can get
a wife for Isaac if she's not willing. Now there must be a
true will or there can be no marriage. Here was the difficulty. Here was a will to deal with. She may not believe my report
or be impressed with that report. Eleazar might be thinking in
the back of his mind. I go down there and I tell this
family and I tell this young lady, I'm Abraham's servant and
I've come down here and she extols Isaac. or he does, he tells this
young lady all about Isaac, his master's son and she says, well
you know there's a lot of fraud about these days and there's
a lot of people that's going out that's not true, true witnesses
and I don't know whether I believe what you're saying or not. Well
would she believe him? Well, we remember this as a very
sad fact. Isaiah stated this. He said,
Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? Well, God sent us and we say
to you this morning, we are God's servants and be ye reconciled
unto God We're labors together with Him, with God, preaching
the gospel to you, telling you to be reconciled to God. But
will you believe the report? Will you believe the report?
Men will not believe our report of Calvary with its wealth of
mercy, its grief, its love, and its merit. It's altogether totally
disregarded by the natural man. He will not receive it. And men
make God a liar, because God said, this is the record that
I give of my Son, and that is eternal life. Eternal life is
in my Son, and he that hath my Son hath life, and he that hath
not the Son of God hath not life. That's God's record. Do you believe
that? Well, Eleazar said, I don't know
whether she's going to believe what I tell her or not about
Abraham and about Isaac. Well, we tell a wonderful story,
and it may seem too good to be true. Here is Eleazar saying,
I'm sent by Abraham. Isaac has all that he has. God's
blessed my servant Abraham, or his servant Abraham, and my master,
and he's a wealthy man. And all of this is going to be
yours. And he said, I don't know if
she's going to believe that story or not. It sounds too good to
be true. Here is a heavenly marriage placed within your reach this
morning. Here is a heavenly marriage placed
within your reach. But with a sneer, men turn aside
and will not have this man. They will not have Christ. They
will not believe Him. They will not believe the report.
Another difficulty that she was expected to feel This woman was
expected to feel a love to one that she had never seen. Here
this servant of Abraham would tell this lady all about Isaac. And she would hear in one sentence
about Isaac, and she must love him enough to leave her family
and go with him. out of her homeland and go yonder
to be with Isaac. Now this could only be if she
did because she recognized the will of God in the matter. God
had to do a work in her heart before she'd be able to do this.
No way she's gonna believe this report and get up and go with
this man, this stranger, away from her house and away from
her family and her kin, unless God had done the work. But you
know what Abraham had told that servant? He said, the angel of
God's going with you. He's going before you. The angel
of God's going with you. And he's going down there to
do something. And he's going down there to make this work
successful and to make it to be that which it ought to be.
Now there is one whom we cannot see as yet, who has won our love
because of what we believe concerning him. Now listen to this scripture. Whom having not seen we love,
in whom though now we see him not, Yet believing, we rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory. We never seen the Lord
Jesus Christ except by faith. And this woman, she never seen
Isaac. But I'll tell you what, she believed
the report and she was willing to go because God had done a
work in her heart. Now men say you ask too much
of us when you ask us to love of Christ that we have never
seen. You ask me to love Jesus? You
want me to love Jesus? You asking too much of me. We don't expect you to believe
Him and the wonderful things that we say about Him unless
God the Holy Ghost has worked a miracle of grace upon your
heart. The man or the woman who will
follow God's servant to be married to so strange a bridegroom is
a rare bird indeed. He is a rare bird indeed. There's
not everybody going to do that. going to believe on Christ and
follow Him. You'll never be persuaded to
quit sin and your old associations and join yourself to our beloved
Lord until God does more in you than He does in the ordinary
man that walks the street. Until God visits your heart and
fingers your heart. Until God touches you. Until
God moves upon your soul. Religion, religion won't do it. God must do something in your
soul, in your heart. And until that happens, you'll
never follow. You'll never follow God's servant
to the beloved one and be joined unto him. Now, Rebecca may refuse
to make so great a change to lead a pilgrim life. And this servant said, peradventure
she won't come. Peradventure she won't be willing
to come. Well, she might say that'll never
do for me. I won't leave a settled home
and farm and kin to settle and to ramble as you want me to over
the fields just wherever the flocks may roam to graze. You
want me to go out here and be a pilgrim? Well, no, she said,
she may not be willing to do that. Well, unless the Lord renews
the heart, men will always prefer the bird in the hand of this
life to the bird in the bush of the life to come. They're
not interested in the things of God, immortal, invisible,
eternal, boundless. These things are of no importance
to the natural man. He's not interested in following
Christ. You could not be induced to go
from the Ur to Canaan for such trifles as eternal life and heaven
and God. Well, even our voice, the voice
of the servants of God, sometimes irritates people and we speak
to very unwilling ears. They don't want to hear anything
about eternity. They don't want to hear anything
about Christ. They don't want to hear anything about the jewels
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the preciousness of His love
and of His mercy and His willingness to join Himself unto them, unworthy
sinners though they be. Well, the third thing I want
you to notice is this. And that is the suggestion of
the servant in the light of the fact that he suspects maybe that
this woman won't be willing to come. And here in verse 5 again,
the last part of the verse, he said, must thy needs bring thy
son again unto the land from whence thou camest? Seeing that
maybe she won't come, should I take Isaac down there? If she
won't come up to Isaac, maybe I should take Isaac down to this
woman. Well, if she'll not come to Isaac,
well then, I'm in the Christian world. Quit telling men and women
they must be converted and come out from among sinners and be
separate from them. Let us just join them. Let us
just join them. If they won't come to Christ,
if they won't love Christ, if they won't come all together
over on His side, then let's just go over on their side. Let us revise our doctrine, severe,
unpopular, and old-fashioned doctrine. Let us drop that doctrine. that is offensive. Let us pare
off the edges of unpleasant truth and moderate the dogmatic tone
of infallible revelation. Let's just cut it all off and
pare it down and undermine the old faith and bring in the new
doubt for the times are changed and the spirit of the age and
the day suggest the abandonment of everything that is too severely
righteous and to surely of God. Let's just pare it down and change
it. Let's go down. Let's go down. Let's just go down. Let Isaac
go down to the woman. Don't insist that she come up
to Isaac. Well, to wait for people to be
born again, for God to do something in them takes too long. We can't make any advancement. The church is not getting big
enough, fast enough, and we can't wait on God to do a work in the
hearts of people. Well, let's forget the difference
between the regenerate and the unregenerate. Come into the church,
all of you, converted or unconverted. It's true you don't believe the
gospel, but maybe we don't either. Just come on in the church. Well, you believe something,
don't you? It reminds me of that church down south that all the
deacons were gathered together, long-bearded deacons, and sitting
up in front, and they were having a meeting. They were going to
take some folks into the church. And so they had people coming
up, telling their experience, telling you know about their
travels with the Lord. And so they had several people
that spoke, and one fellow, he said, well I got up one morning,
he said, to live out in the country, and he said, I put on my clothes,
and he said, I walked out the back door and down through the
barn lot, and he said, I heard a chicken cackle. And then he stopped, and one
of the old deacons said, well, don't you have something else?
Isn't there something else to the story, more than that? And
he said, well, He said, well he just went back over his story
again and that's all he had. And one of the deacons said,
well we can't take that. And the preacher said, well hey,
he said, sure we can take that. He said, we got some people around
here that's not even as much as herded chicken cackle. And
so beloved, it's true that in the churches of our day and time,
what people believe is very little and nothing. They've got into
the church, they're like the mixed multitude that went out
of Egypt with the children of Israel, and they got them and
they went out with them, and in a little while, what they
were interested in doing, finding some way to get rid of them.
Because unconverted people in the church, unregenerate people
in the church, people that don't know anything about the things
of God in the church, that's never had any experience in walking
with God, these people are not going to be any help to you.
They're not going to be of any encouragement to you. Well, you
believe something, don't you? Anything will do. Well, you say
preacher people don't talk that way. Preachers don't talk that
way. Well, they do talk that way. Anything will do. Don't
you have a little something that you can tell us about? Something
that we can accept? Well, how did we get in the mess?
I asked. Well, Rebecca wouldn't come up
to Isaac, and so Isaac went down to her. That's exactly how we
got in the mess that we're in in most churches in our day and
time. But thank God it wasn't left
There, it wasn't left there. Now then, the fourth thing I
want you to notice is what Abraham thought of this proposal that
the servant made. When the servant said, well,
should I take Isaac down to this woman? I want you to hear what
Abraham said about that, and we have that here in verse six. And Abraham said unto him, beware
thou that thou bring not my son thither again. You just don't
take Isaac down there. Don't take him down there. I
don't want my son going back down there again. Now, Jesus
said, you're not of this world even as I am not of the world. We're not of this world by birth
because the spiritual birth is from above. Not of this world
in life, object, or spirit. God's people are not of the world. They're not of the world, they're
of God, and God has called them out of the world. Let not the
people whom the Lord brought up out of the land of Egypt return
to the house of bondage. I'm speaking in a spiritual sense. Bring not my son thither again. Don't take him down where I came
from. In effect, Abraham argues like
this. This would be to forego the divine
order. And look at it in verse seven.
The Lord God of heaven which took me from my father's house
and from the land of my kindred. This is the order. The Lord took
me out of that place. He brought me up out of that
place. Now, if he brought Abraham out,
is Isaac to return? No, this cannot be. This is not
the divine order. This is not the way of God. The
way of God is to sever his elect from the world because there
are people that he will form for himself who will show forth
his praise. God's plan is not altered. He
still goes on calling those whom he has predestinated. God will call his people out
of the land. Don't take my son back down there. God will separate his people
from the world. He separated Abraham and he will
separate all the descendants, the spiritual descendants of
Abraham. If Isaac could do good by going
back, then why did God call Abraham out? of the Ur of the Chaldees
out of that place of idolatry. Why did God call him up out of
that place? If so be that Isaac could do
good by going back down there. If there is no need for the church
to be separate now, then what have we been doing throughout
all the ages? Why has the Lord's church always
been separate from the world if there is any need to do it?
If ours can go back down, then why can't the church just go
back into the world? Brethren, there are two seeds
and that is the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and
the difference must be maintained even unto the end. God's people
are a different and a special people unto the Lord and they
must be a separated people from the world. Isaac must never renounce
his walk with the living God that he might find a wife. Never. Isaac must never lay down his
principles and what God has taught him and his relationship with
the Lord just to have a wife. He cannot go back down to where
Abraham came from. Now to the true man, God is first. So whatever you have or don't
have, turn not aside. Whatever you might gain from
this world, don't turn aside. Stay on the Lord. Count the reproach
of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. Now
the need of the hour is to have Abraham's spirit saying Don't
take my son down to where I came from. The need of the hour is
to have Abraham's spirit and we'll have that spirit when we
have Abraham's faith. When we believe God like Abraham
did, we'll say I don't want no part of going back to the world
and the things of the world. Now the God that took me from
my father's house, Abraham said, he's swearing to me saying unto
thy seed will I give this land. I'm going to give it unto my
seed. This land that I've taken you out here to, I'm going to
give it to your seed. And so Isaac, he's got to stay
here because God, this is a covenant promise. God said, I'll give
it to your seed, Abraham. And Isaac got to stay here. Well, if she won't come out and
up to Isaac, what would she be worth to Isaac? I mean, she's
a poor wife who would not take a journey like this to reach
her husband. No, no. If Isaac is to have a
wife worthy of him, she'll come away from Laban and the rest,
and she'll not mind a journey on a camel's back. She'll be
willing to come. And the converts, those that
are converted truly to the Lord Jesus Christ and those who are
wedded unto the Lord Jesus Christ will separate themselves from
the world and will love the truth and will love the people of God
and the gospel of God. They will. And you won't have
to bribe them to get them to do it. They'll do it. And if
God works in their heart, they will! They'll love the truth,
and they'll love the Word, and they'll love the things of God.
Are you afraid? Are you ever afraid? Do you ever
entertain the idea that the gospel will not prevail, that the gospel
will not win souls? Are you despondent as to the
success of God's way, are you despondent? Listen, Abraham ordered
his servant, saying, you go down now, and he said, the angel of
God's going with you, and God orders his servants, and God
goes before his servants, and the gospel is preached, and men
and women come to believe it. In spite of themselves, they
come to believe it. In spite of the stumbling and
the bungling of the preacher, and in spite of all the so-called
professed hypocrites that you find around, God will save his
people. God will savor the gospel still. Only let it be the gospel that
we preach. There is no need to go down to
Egypt for help. To invite the devil to help Christ
is shameful. Christ can still save his people. He can still save those that
were given to him in the covenant of grace before the foundation
of the world. We want to see prosperity? Well,
we will see it when the Church of God is resolved never to seek
it. except in God's own way and God
will prosper his work just like he prospered the errand that
Eleazar went on whenever he went before and worked it all out
and made this woman willing, Rebekah, willing to go with him,
willing to follow him and to come back up and to be Isaac's
wife. Now the fifth thing and the last
thing is this. Notice here what Abraham said
to his servant his righteous Absolution of his servant here
in verse 8. I want you to see this This is
very important for us to see and if the woman will not be
willing to follow thee Then thou shall be clear from this my oath
Only bring not my son thither again other words if something
happens in the providence of God that she's not willing to
come Then Abraham said, you're going to be clear, you're going
to be clear of the responsibility and the obligation. Now beloved
listen, when we come to die, as I think about death because,
you know, it's not if we die, it's when we die. We're all going
to die, no question about that. So when we come to die, this
will be a consolation to those that preached the gospel and
stayed close to the gospel and did not handle the word of God
deceitfully and did not play the fool or the politician in
order to increase the size of their congregation, the consolation
to them will be that God says that you're clear from the blood
of men if you just do what I told you to do. You stick with the
gospel, you preach the gospel, you be faithful, you don't handle
the word of God deceitfully and go out to try to hook and crook
and get people in any way you can get them in. You just preach
the gospel and you'll be clear. If we've been true to God even
if there be few that have been gathered in, our Master will
give us a full absolution. He will fully absolve us of any
responsibility in the situation. Keep to the gospel. If the people
are not converted by it, you will be clear. You will be clear
if you're faithful in preaching that gospel. The true servant
of God is responsible to be diligent The true servant of God is responsible
to be faithful in preaching the gospel, but he is not responsible
for success or non-success. That's in God's hands. Abraham
said, the angel go before you. He go down there. There'll be
success if God goes before you, and the word of God will not
return void unto him. It will accomplish that where
unto it's sent. God will accomplish his purpose. Now results are in God's hands. That's what I'm trying to say.
Results are in God's hands. If I preach the gospel and men
will not believe, their blood will lie upon their own heads. Upon their own heads. When we
go home to be with the Lord, if I faithfully told out the
message of free grace and dying love, I will be cleared. There was an old preacher by
the name of George Fox that when he died, when he passed away,
elderly preacher, when he died, his last words were, I'm clear. I am clear. And beloved, the
ambition of every preacher. The highest ambition of a true
gospel preacher is to be clear of the blood of those to whom
he has borne witness. If after all men will not have
Christ and his gospel and his rule, it's their own concern. It's their own concern. If Rebecca
had not come to Isaac, she would have lost her place in the Holy
Land. But listen, Isaac's wife would
become the mother of that chosen seed in whom God had ordained
to bless the world throughout all ages, even the Messiah, the
seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent's head. But
listen to me, she will not miss it. She will not miss it. By divine sovereignty, she will
not miss it. And you here today, if God has
chosen you, If God has set his love upon you from old eternity,
God will finish the work. God will finish the work. He
will bring you. Your being here this morning
is part of that. God brought you here this morning
to hear that there is one who is altogether lovely, the Lord
Jesus Christ, to whom you can be joined even today everlastingly
in your soul and be His for all eternity. But my friend, Rebecca
did not miss it. What about you? Will you have
Jesus Christ or not? Will you have him or not? He
came into the world to save sinners and he cast out none. Everybody
that comes to him, he doesn't cast out any, the Bible said.
He doesn't cast out any. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. Will you believe and will you
be baptized? If so, then salvation is yours. If not, he said, he that believeth
not shall be damned. That's what he said. He that
believeth not shall be damned. If you refuse the substitutionary
work of the Lord Jesus Christ, you have refused your own mercies. Your own mercies. The mercies
of God you have refused. Well, God will clear me in that
day of your blood. Your blood be upon your own head.
If you won't come, Abraham said, if she won't come, you're clear.
You're clear. You went on the errand, you told
them everything I told you to tell them. You told them about
me and you told them about my son. And now if she won't come,
you're clear. And it's true with the Church
of the Living God. We preach the gospel, we preach
the message of God's grace, and we preach it faithfully. And
if men and women will not hear it, their blood be on their own
head. How is it with you this morning?
Will you have this man? Will you have this man? Will
you have the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you go with him? Would you
go with him? I mean, would you be willing
to leave your old life of sin and associations and the world
as you know it, leave it and go with this man? Would you be
willing to do that? To go with him? Ah, if you would,
my friend, if you would, God would have you to be a member
of the Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. You'd be in His Bride. You'd be in the Bride of Christ. May the Lord bless this message
to your heart. Let's pray. Father, we thank
Thee that You have permitted us to gather today to hear Your
Word and and together here in Jesus' name and we ask that you
will give a remembrance of this message to the hearts of your
people and encourage them with it. And those that are strangers
to you, bring them to be joined to Jesus. Only you can do this. This is your work. We pray for
these people. Bless them, Lord, and save them. For Jesus' sake, amen.