Hello and welcome to our broadcast. We are in Genesis chapter 24, a very beautiful, refreshing chapter, one of the better chapters in the whole book. Stay tuned for our broadcast. Well, in chapter 24 here we have a beautiful love story, is what we have. I think everybody likes a love story. Some of the chapters in the book of Genesis, there's some sad things happening and failures and some victories, thank the Lord, far more victories than failures, but this chapter is just a beautiful story. And the main characters in this story that we will see are Abraham, his servant, Rebekah, and Isaac. And it's very important to understand that there's types all through the book of Genesis of what was going to happen in the ministry of Christ when he came. And the types that we have here, Abraham is a type of God the Father. And the servant is a type of the Holy Spirit who is sent by God the Father to get a bride, which is Rebecca, a bride for Isaac, who is a representative of Christ. And so we have God the Father represented in Abraham, we have the Holy Spirit represented in the servant, We have the bride of Christ, or the Christian, represented in Rebekah, and we have Christ represented in Isaac. You see that as you go through this, it gives you a tremendous, tremendous story here. Now, the key verse, the verse I like best in this whole chapter, is in verse number 58. when they said to Rebekah, wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go. What a beautiful verse that is. Yes, she made a decision. And it's like the Holy Spirit comes to a person who is unsaved, wilt thou have this man? Now, you remember that when they said that before the crucifixion, oh, we will not have this man to reign over us. And they crucified him. Now, we all have to make the choice. We're either going to accept Christ or we're going to reject Christ. And here we have a beautiful story where she is going to pay quite a price here to leave her family, take a 500 mile trip out of her area, and to go and ride on a rough camel. Camels aren't like riding in a new Honda van. She's made a lot of important decisions here that will change her life. Will thou go with this man? She said, I will go. So Rebekah made a choice here in verse number 58. That choice, with it there was a change. Old things passed away and all things become new. And there was a commitment. There's no turning back. There wasn't, well, this camel ride is too rough, I'm going back. No, she went on, and we have a tremendous story of the life of Isaac and Rebecca as a result of that. Now, we're going to go through this chapter, verse by verse. It is such an exciting chapter, and it may take us a program or two to do that, but we'll look at verse number one, and it starts out by saying that Abraham was old and well stricken in age and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. Abraham was old. That phrase, was old, is in the Bible seven times. It says here first of all in Genesis 24 and 1 Abraham was old. Then we read in 24 and 36, Sarah was old. Then in 27 and 1, we read Isaac was old. Then in Joshua 13 and 1, Joshua was old. And then in Samuel 8 and verse number 1, Samuel was old. And then in 1 Kings 1 and 1, we read David was old. And then in 1 Kings 11 and 4 we read Solomon was old. It's amazing how little chapters, how few chapters there are between people being alive and being old and passing off the scene. So what we have here is life. That's what it's all about. Abraham at this point is about 140 years old. We don't live that long today. He was old. But it seems like it's such a... The Bible says life is a vapor. Life is a vapor. And you need to ask yourself, what kind of vapor trail am I going to leave? If you go into a cemetery, you can look at the tombstones and they all got something in common. There's a short dash between two dates, and that's what your life is. It is simply a short dash between two dates. What are you going to do with that dash? What will you do with Jesus? Neutral you cannot be. Someday your heart will be asking, what will he do with me? Well, we see in verse 1, Abraham was old, he's coming to the end of his life now, and well stricken in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. The Lord had blessed him. That's an interesting word. It has been translated salute five times. A salute is a gesture of recognition. The Lord had recognized Abraham in all things. Now, again, we've studied a lot about the two natures, and Abraham had that old nature, and he had the new nature. And once in a while we find, like back in chapter 12, when he went down into Egypt and he messed up a few times, and so have you and so have I as Christians. We have that old nature, and Paul the Apostle said, oh, the things I want to do I don't do, the things I don't want to do I do. and who deliver me from this old nature is what he was talking about. Well, here we see that God saluted. He had this gesture of recognition for all of the good things that Abraham had done. And all you have to do is read Hebrews chapter 11 in that faith chapter and see how many verses that he gave in recognizing all of the good things that Abraham did. He said that Abraham lived by faith. Well, in verse number 2, it says, 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 son Isaac. And the servant said unto him, Peradventure, the woman will not be willing to follow me into this land. Must thy needs bring thy son again into the land from whence thou camest? And Abraham said unto him, Beware that thou bring not my son thither again. 17 And 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 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 unto him concerning that Well, we have an oath, we get together here, Abraham says, with his servant, and they're going to have a very, very extremely important conversation that has to do with a bride for Isaac. And so in verse 3, Abraham, he says, I want you to make an oath by the Lord. Now, he said, notice that. I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven." Now, what is he saying here? He's saying, I want you to do it God's way. I want you to do this right. Okay, and what am I going to do for you, Abraham? I want you to get a wife for Isaac. Now, you remember that we said that we have a picture here of the Bride of Christ And so it's talking about when someone is going to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, and God says, Abraham, who represents God in this whole story, he says, we're going to do this right, we're going to do it right. Now he says in verse number 3 also, there can be no Canaanites allowed, You have to take a bride for Isaac from my country and my kindred. Very, very important. A great lesson here about Christians not marrying unsafe people. Well, in verse 5 he says, what if she is not willing to come with me? Should I take Isaac to her? What if she is not willing? She does not want this relationship with Isaac. What if she's not willing? Should I compromise and take Isaac to her? And the answer to that is a definite beware. No, do not do this. We're going to do it right. When someone gets saved, when someone receives Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, what you have is the Holy Spirit dealing with that person. And there should be no compromise. I'm a little weary of this So then when we have services and then at the end of the service we say now every head bowed and every eye closed and we're not going to offend anybody. Listen, if receiving Jesus Christ is offending you then go out the door and forget it. We are so timid in the fact that, oh, what if she doesn't want to? Let's just close your eyes, let's not offend Jesus. Oh yeah, that's the one we're offending. He said, if that's all I am to you, then forget it. He made it very plain in the Scriptures. But we are, you know, and I think in sincerity, I know I did it for years myself, until one day I went, why can't we just... I heard a preacher preaching the other day, and he said that you need to receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and he didn't even get into the invitation, and a fellow got up in the middle of the congregation and walked down to the front and took his hand, and he said, I want to get saved. Yeah, that's what we're talking about here. And so he says, we're going to do this, and we're going to do it right. And if she doesn't want to come, then she stays there, but you don't take Isaac to her. You see, he says here in verse 7 that he will send his angel before thee. He will send his angel before thee. The Holy Spirit in the whole plan of salvation is either dealing with someone, or he is not dealing with someone. And we don't need to get into some kind of a sales pitch here to make it all happen. All we need to do is preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, let the Holy Spirit work, and if the Holy Spirit's not working, then just get out of the way and give Him time to do whatever He's going to do in the heart of the listener. And so Abraham says, if she won't come, you are free from my oath. Listen, if the unsaved won't listen, you've done everything you can do. You present the gospel to them and that's it. If they won't listen, then you're free from the command of God to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Just do it and leave it with God. Don't take Isaac down there. That was the big thing. There's no compromise in this thing that's happening here when we're seeking a bride. Alright, verse 9, they made an oath concerning the matter, and then off goes the servant. Now what does he do? He says in verse 10 here, the servant took 10 camels of the camels. He took 10 camels of the camels. Camels are mentioned 47 times in the Bible, and 16 of those times is in this chapter. There's something important about these camels here. In any event, I haven't found that out yet, we'll keep looking for it, it took 10 camels of the camels of his master and departed for all the goods of his master were in his hand and he arose and went to Mesopotamia under the city of Nahor. Now he departed and he went 500 miles here to find this bride for Isaac. 500 miles. Not comfortable miles either. Let me ask you a question. How far will you go to reach someone for Jesus Christ? Will you give up your schedule? Certainly this fellow did here, going 500 miles. That's a long trip most days. What's it say? He arose and he went. arose and went. It's the first time you find that in Genesis 24 here in verse number 10. You'll find it 32 times in the Bible, somebody arose and went somewhere. In the New Testament you'll find it three times and it says first of all in Mark chapter 7 in verse number 24 that Jesus arose and went. And he went to meet the needs of someone. Isn't it good that he didn't just come down here, set up an office, and send out everybody else to do his work? He arose and went. Not only that, he arose in heaven and came down to this sin-sick world in the first place. And then the second time you find this phrase, went in the New Testament. We read in Acts chapter 8 and verse 27 that God said to Philip, who was in the middle of a fantastic revival, he says, I want you to go out into the wilderness. There's one man riding along in a chariot. Go talk to him. And he arose And he went. And then in Acts 9 and 39 you have the death of a young girl and they came and they found Peter. They said, can you help us out here? Yeah, that's what I live for. I live for helping people. And he arose and he went. Oh, if we can just get that in our head, that if we can help somebody as we travel along, our living will not be in vain. Let us just arise and go. Let's get out there and do something while we're on this little short dash between two dates. Well, there's that music in the background again, tells me I've got to get out of here. Our time's all gone. We'll pick it up here again in our next broadcast. Be sure and tune in. We'll try to make it plain, and we will try to make it simple. you