Well, hello, everyone, and welcome back. This is our Daily Devotional for Monday, January 13th, 2025, and I'm delighted to be with you. I hope that everybody had a marvelous weekend and a wonderful Lord's Day yesterday, and it is my prayer, my hope, that it found you in a Bible-believing church. where you could worship the Lord. Thankfully, we have some very good deacons who worked really hard to get our parking lot opened back up. Several people reached out. I know some people watched whose churches or church services were canceled due to the snow. Still quite a bit out there. Got another bit of snow the other night. But our deacons worked hard, and so we were open regular time. But we had some visitors who couldn't go to their own church, and it's my hope that no matter what the circumstances, you found yourself in a Bible-believing church yesterday. If not, well then, you've got all week to plan. And if you're local, we would absolutely love to have you. So keep that in mind. Sorry, I got a little tag scratching my neck here. Forgive my distractions. Now, where we find ourselves as we go through is, by the way, if you're brand new here, what we're doing is not complicated. Chapter by chapter, verse by verse. We're just going through God's Word. Just so happens we're going through the book of Genesis and we find ourselves at the end of 23 and time to start chapter 24. And why Genesis? Well, there's a lot of good reasons. I mean, Genesis is so foundational. It's Ganesis. It's the beginning of all things. We find so many institutions, so many wonderful theological principles, but practically speaking, y'all, so many things that are the building blocks of life and society as we know it. We learn so much about who God is and who he calls us to be. And sometimes we learn that through the example of others. Sometimes we learn it by observing other people's priorities. Now, that's what we're doing today. That's what we're observing. We kind of did that last week as we made our way through chapter 23, didn't we? And chapter 22 as well, when God called Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham trusted in the Lord. He kept that as his priority. Chapter 23, when Sarah died and he had to buy this plot of land in order to bury her. He did so at this place with two names, one of which is Hebron. He did so so that she would be buried in the land of her people. And that sounds odd to say because it's the Hittites. It's not the land of her people yet. Ah, but it's gonna be, you see. Abraham was trusting in the providence of God, trusting in God's promises even. And so we learn a lesson on priorities there. But today we learn another valuable lesson on priorities, on what we ought to have at the forefront of our thought and our vision. And we see this as Abraham's life progresses. Now, I don't want to give any more away. We're about to read in a second, but let's go to the Lord now and pray for help because we need it before we get started in chapter 24, verse 1. Let's pray. Father, would you be with us now? Would you guide us? Not only so that we can gather information, glean knowledge from what we're about to read, but Father, may it never just be anecdotal. Instead, let us be convicted by the power and the truth of your Word. We're not going to understand this on our own. We certainly won't be convicted on our own. You made us, not us. So please, as our Creator, as our God, as our Father, please convict our hearts and minds of the truth of your Word and let us have the priorities that we should. Let us keep moving forward as we should. And I pray it all in Christ's name, amen. All right, so what are these priorities I'm talking about? What's this business about moving forward? Well, we know that in terms of the timeline of Abraham's life, well, I don't know how else to say it. He's getting up there, y'all. I mean, he's really getting up there. We know from chapter 23 that Sarah lived to be 127 years old. Abraham is substantially older than she is. Here's the thing, we don't know exactly how much time progresses from the end of chapter 23 to chapter 24. All we get is verse one, Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed him in every way. All right, that's all we get. We don't get some kind of timeline, like it was X amount of years between Abraham purchasing this land at Hebron and burying Sarah and mourning for her, and then we get chapter 24. Doesn't matter. He's getting up there, okay? He's getting up there. And not only is he getting old, he's been incredibly blessed. We've seen this all along, haven't we? How the Lord has increased his crops, or excuse me, his livestock, his holdings, his servants. I mean, really rewind to what we saw the last time we were together. The Hittites call him a prince among men, okay? He's a man of means but it's all because the lord had blessed him tremendously But there is still this thing and that's a kind of a resounding refrain throughout abraham's life where we see these things happen But there's always this thing isn't there? Chapter 12 god comes to him says i'm going to do this for you chapter 15 god comes back And then abraham says yeah lord, but how can you do this? Because there's this thing He talks about the fact that Eleazar, who we kind of leave in chapter 15, but we come back to in chapter 24, but he says, Eleazar of Damascus, my oldest servant, he's the one that's going to get everything. I don't have a son. How are you going to do this? All right. Fast forward, he gets Isaac. There's always a thing. Well, there's a thing now too. There's this thing that Abraham is concerned over. He's not worried about it. Instead, what he's doing is he's planning, he's working, he's pushing forward, driving forward in the Lord's grace, driving forward in faithfulness, trying to do what the Lord wants him to do. But the thing is this, y'all. As we just read in verse 1, the Lord had blessed him in every way. Verse 2, chapter 24, says he, talking about Abraham, he said to the chief servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, put your hand under, excuse me, Sorry, I'm trying not to joke here. Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I am living. All right, time out right there. Couple of things. First off, who is this that he's dealing with? The name is not given at this point. We believe it's Eleazar of Damascus, the same one that Abraham talked about back in chapter 15. Okay, Eliezer, his oldest servant, a wonderful servant, very faithful servant. And Abraham knows that he's getting pretty close to death here. In fact, Abraham knows that he can't go back. He knows that he's advanced enough in years that he has got to pass off this responsibility to Eliezer of Damascus. All right, that's just where he's at. But it's fascinating what he does here. You might say, okay, I get it, he wants Eliezer, he's his main servant, most trusted, been with him all along. He's given Eliezer the task of finding a wife for Isaac. First off, let's just go ahead and deal with something. Not an uncommon thing. Remember that marriage was just as much, in fact, in some ways, it was really more of a financial contract than anything else. The post-Shakespeare idea of marrying for love and that kind of thing, y'all, in terms of world history, that is a relatively new concept. It just is. And speaking of new concept, we're going to deal with another reality in just a minute here. I don't want to spoil it, but let's deal with something else first. You might say, OK, I get it. Eliezer, oldest, most trusted servant. If anybody's going to be given the task, it seems like Eliezer should be the guy that gets the task. Get that. Abraham wants him to promise not to get a wife for Isaac from amongst the Canaanites. Why might he do that? Well, we know that he would do that because Abraham was a stranger in a strange land. Also, we know that there is immense wickedness there. Abraham doesn't want his son corrupted. Also, the biggest thing is, God is gonna make a line out of Abraham, or make a people out of Abraham, and so whoever Isaac marries is of vast importance. And you might even get all that stuff. But what on earth is up with this promise? Not the promise itself. The... Ritual? Maybe? Is that a term I could use for this? The, uh, practice? The whole, take your hand and put it under my thigh and make me this promise. what is up with that okay weird things happen y'all and i remember we're a few thousand years back in ancient near east right or middle east um they did things differently than we do things and i'm not trying to be crude i know it's monday if you're watching this first thing in the morning you don't want to have this in your mind but here's the reality y'all i'm trying I'm really trying not to be gross or nasty, and I know there's a mixed audience here, so don't send the kids away. But it all comes down to the word testimony or testify. T-E-S-T-I. Testi is the root word of that. That's what we get from the Latin. It's what we get from the Greek. It's the same principle, right? Promise is the same thing. And this really links back to the sign of everything from the sign of circumcision to God passing through the smoking firepot. When you made a promise as a man, You made a promise that was supposed to have very strong repercussions if you didn't keep it. And before you say, that's just crazy. What in the world? I'm glad that I live in the modern age. Really? You ever said, cross your heart, hope to die, stick a needle in your eye? That's a promise based on severe repercussions if you break it. And it involves a body part. Ever heard of a pinky promise? I've always discouraged my dog from doing things like that. I think that that really gets along the way of swearing kind of things. Different time, Jesus had not given that command yet. But nevertheless, pinky promise. The idea of the pinky promise is if I break my promise, then I forfeit my pinky, may my pinky be cut off, you know, kind of thing. God passing through the smoking fire pot, or as the smoking fire pot passing through the animal house, that's God saying, if I break my promise, let it be done to me what's been done to these animals. The rainbow. Right after Noah's Ark, the rainbow, the bow that is strung and pointed to the sky if God breaks his promise, it's a weapon of war. All of these things are promises made with a sign that has repercussions. The term testimony or testify, with the root word testi, if you're wondering why Abraham had a servant stick his hand under his thigh, it's a promise given with a sign that there are serious repercussions if this promise is broken. That may seem crude, It may seem gross, it may seem all kinds of things, but y'all, we're talking about the ancient Near East thousands of years ago. We're talking about a different time and place, and do not make the mistake of judging people from the past in light of standards of today. And the reason I'm making that such a firm point is because of what Abraham says next, okay? He says, promise me you won't get him away from amongst these Canaanites. verse 4, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac. Like all again, don't judge people from the past based on principles of today. Also realize that Look, the idea of the small family, that was just a non-thing then, okay? The idea of many hands make light work, it was really the truth, okay? In terms of, you had a family, you had as many children as possible, as many sons as possible. They have children, they have children. Y'all, the diversity of the gene pool would have been vast, okay? So it's not... It's not the same connotation today as we get from inbreeding, okay? Does Abraham say, hey, go find a wife for Isaac from amongst my relatives? Yes, absolutely. Is he worried about Jacob, who we know his son is going to be, and Esau? Is he worried about them, you know, being born with gills or something like that? No, he's not, okay? Webbed feet, all that kind of stuff. The gene pool was vast. This was normal, okay? There's nothing wrong with this whatsoever. In fact, everything is right with it in these circumstances. I'm not, as I said before, don't go to a family reunion to pick up somebody, to find your next spouse, all right? Don't do that. Different time, different place, different world. But back then, when you consider the alternative, And the alternative, of course, was Abraham marrying his son Isaac, the one who would carry the line, the one who was the basis of God's promise to him. The idea of Isaac marrying one of these Canaanites, take your pick, y'all. I mean, that worship these horrible gods and goddesses that were guilty of these detestable things. God forbid it. It would have ruined the line of Abraham immediately. And so Abraham has his servant make this promise. But it's interesting what we find next. It says, the servant asked him, what if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land? Shall I take your son back to the country you came from? Now, pausing, we hear this, and we say, yeah. All right, Eleazar. That's a reasonable question. I mean, you think about it. Yeah, think about the setup. Eliezer, Abraham's servant, is supposed to go all the way back to Ur of the Chaldees, where Abraham is from. He's supposed to find a woman and say, hey, come back. You're going to marry my master's son. I mean, that's pretty crazy, right? And so he asks, well, what if she doesn't come back? Should I load up Isaac, and then take Isaac, and then maybe they can meet, and maybe it'll be a love connection, and you know. Reasonable. Reasonable. However, listen to how Abraham responded. This is why I was talking about priorities a minute ago. It said, verse 9, "'Make sure that you do not take my son back there,' Abraham said. The Lord, the God of heavens, who brought me out of my father's household and my native land, and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, to your offspring I will give this land, He will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there. If the woman is unwilling to come back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there." Verse nine, so the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore on oath to him concerning this matter. Y'all, this is one of those spots where you have to say, what's the big deal? Why is Abraham freaking out over this? And no, no, no, no, no, whatever you do, don't take him back, don't take him back, don't take him back. Well, y'all, this is where the New Testament comes in really handy. It's kind of like what we were dealing with in chapter 22. We don't know what's going through Abraham's mind based on chapter 22. You gotta go to Hebrews 11 to figure out what's on Abraham's mind when he faces the reality of sacrificing Isaac. What's going through his mind, as we read, is that when God tested him in Hebrews 11, starting in verse 17, Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead. And so it's also in Hebrews chapter 11 that we see Abraham's rationale here. Now, y'all, Hebrews chapter 11, again, has been called many things. The hall of faith, that kind of thing. But it talks about Abraham. Really, it talks about Enoch, talks about Abel, talks about, no. But then Abraham gets several sections of this. Excuse me, Hebrews chapter 11, look at verse eight. It says, By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. Why? for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. You know, the reason why Abraham is so insistent here in chapter 24, the reason why he has his servant make this oath to him is because Abraham is not stopping. That's what it is. You wanna know what it is? That's what it is. He is not stopping his pursuit of this promise of God. He is so dedicated to trusting the Lord. Abraham is so dedicated in his faith to what God has said that he said, no, no, no, nope. God said this would be our land. We're not leaving it again. And there's a lot of reasons for that, y'all. His faith grew, but also we've seen what happened when he left, haven't we? Remember when famine came to Canaan, he decided to go down to Egypt, that whole business with Sarai? Yeah, problems. Is this showing that maybe now Abraham has learned his lesson? I don't know. I think it's plausible. But what I think is probable is that instead Abraham has just grown in his faith. He is committed to God's promise and he said, I ain't leaving. We're not going back, we're going forward. There's lots of different ways to say it. And y'all, this is tough. This is tough stuff. It's really tough stuff if you're hurt. The reality is this, we face lots of temptations in this life. One of the biggest ones is to live in the past, to be hurt by the past, to hurt ourselves in light of the past. There's a great song out there, and I'm not gonna tell you what it is, because you'd probably judge me for my musical taste, but one of the lyrics goes, there's no yes in yesterday. And then the next line is, who knows what tomorrow brings or takes away. But it's this idea that you gotta keep pushing. You gotta keep going forward. Even when you're scraping and clawing. Even when the nails break off. Even when you feel like you've got nothing to hang on to. You've got to keep going. That's what Abraham is doing here. That's why he's taking this so seriously. And he's also confident. Confident of what? Confident that the Lord will provide. Confident that the Lord doesn't have it for Isaac to marry some Canaanite woman. Confident that the Lord is going to keep his promises. Now, we're going to continue on with this and we're going to see this beautiful story unfold. But for today, we're out of time. But what are you confident in? Are you willing to keep on going, to keep pushing forward, even if it feels like it's gonna kill you to go forward? Are you gonna choose to trust the Lord? Y'all, it's tough. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's really tough. But as it was with Abraham, so it will be with you. And I have to tell myself, so it will be with me, that the Lord will not disappoint. And in those circumstances where things don't work out like we think they're going to work out, even in those circumstances, God gives grace upon grace. So let me encourage you to live by faith. Don't look back. Keep on going forward. Let's pray. Father, we pray that we would do that very thing. Let us keep our eyes on you and keep pushing. Keep going. We know we'll never be disappointed by you. And we pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we'll be back tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Again, these are available all day. You probably know that by now, but nevertheless, we'll be back tomorrow morning, Lord willing. Until then, I hope you all have a fantastic Monday or whatever day it happens to be. Take care.