Listen now to God's holy word from Genesis chapter 24 beginning in verse 29. Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban. Laban ran out toward the man to the spring. As soon as he saw the ring and the bracelets on his sister's arms and heard the words of Rebekah his sister, thus the man spoke to me, He went to the man, and behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring. He said, Come in, O blessed of the Lord. Why do you stand outside? For I have prepared the house and a place for the camels. So the man came to the house and unharnessed the camels, and gave straw and fodder to the camels, and there was water to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were with him. Then food was set before him to eat, But he said, I will not eat until I have said what I have to say. He said, Speak on. So he said, I am Abraham's servant. The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become great. He has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male servants and female servants, camels and donkeys. And Sarah, my master's wife, bore a son to my master when she was old, and to him he has given all that he has. My master made me swear, saying, you shall not take a wife for my son, the daughters of the Canaanites in whose land I dwell, but you shall go to my father's house and to my clan and take a wife for my son. I said to my master, perhaps the woman will not follow me. But he said to me, the Lord before whom I have walked will send his angel with you and prosper your way. You shall take a wife for my son from my clan and from my father's house. Then you will be free from my oath when you come to my clan, and if they will not give her to you, you will be free from my oath. I came today to the spring and said, O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if now you are prospering the way that I go, behold, I am standing by the spring of water. Let the virgin who comes out to draw water, to whom I shall say, please give me a little water from your jar to drink, and who will say to me, drink, I will draw for your camels also. Let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master's son. Before I had finished speaking in my heart, behold, Rebecca came out with her water jar on her shoulder, and she went down to the spring and drew water. I said to her, Please let me drink. She quickly let down her jar from her shoulder and said, Drink, and I will give your camels drink also. So I drank. and she gave the camel's drink also. Then I asked her, whose daughter are you? She said, the daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, who milked a boar to him. So I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her arms. Then I bowed my head and worshiped the Lord and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has led me by the right way to take the daughter of my master's kinsman for his son. Now then, If you're going to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, tell me. And if not, tell me. Then I may turn to the right hand or to the left. Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing has come from the Lord. We cannot speak to you, bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before you. Take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master's son, as the Lord has spoken. When Abraham's servant heard their words, he bowed himself to the earth before the Lord. And the servant brought out jewelry of silver and of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave to her brother and to her mother costly ornaments. He and the men who were with him ate and drank, and they spent the night there. When they rose in the morning, he said, Send me away to my master. Her brother and her mother said, Let the young woman remain with us a while, at least ten days, and after that she may go. But he said to them, Do not delay me, since the Lord has prospered my way, send me away, that I may go to my master. They said, Let us call the young woman and ask her. And they called Rebekah and said to her, Will you go with this man? She said, I will go. So they sent away Rebekah, their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men. And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, Our sister, may you become thousands of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gait of those who hate him. Then Rebekah and her young women arose and rode on the camels and followed the man. Thus the servant took Rebekah and went his way. Now Isaac had returned from Bir Lahairoi and was dwelling in the Negev. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel and said to the servant, Who is that man walking in the field to meet us? The servant said, It is my master. So she took her veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. And Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah, his mother, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Grass withers, flowers fade, but the word of our God endures forever. And so let us ask his blessing upon our reading of this word, a moment of prayer. Well, Lord, we ask your blessing now. Open our ears and our eyes and soften our heart to your word. May your spirit drive it home to us that we might bring you the greater glory. In Jesus name, amen. The chain of events found in Genesis chapter 24 has all the trappings of a divine appointment. That's what we discovered last week. Nearing the end of his life, Abraham sent his most trusted servant off on a journey to find a wife for his son. If the covenant were to be passed down, it would take some grandchildren. And so the patriarch set about providing a mate for Isaac in the days of arranged marriages. Consequently, Abraham's servant, we saw, set off alone with some other servants. for a matchmaking expedition in Mesopotamia, which is where Abraham had first come from. He did this at Abraham's command so that Isaac might remain in Canaan without being forced to take a wife from Canaan. Both of those things were crucial. Isaac needed to remain but his wife tended to be from somewhere else. And so the servant adopted the agenda that Abraham had set for him and he went off in search of a woman. And what we saw in verses 1 through 28 of this chapter is that God was at work long before the servant ever set out. Everybody in those first 28 verses, they showed up in the right place at the right time saying the right things. indicating that God had prepared not just any woman, but a particular bride for Isaac. There at that well, on the outskirts of the city of Abraham's brother Nahor, the servant met with Rebekah, Nahor's granddaughter, Abraham's great niece. And resembling her uncle Abraham in her actions, Rebekah showed the servant great hospitality, giving water both to the servants and to the camels, which is what he had prayed for, thereby revealing herself to be the answer to his prayers for success. But what we saw, especially in his conversation with Abraham, was that one of the servant's chief fears before he had ever agreed to go on this journey was that he might find a woman who was unwilling to return to Canaan with him. What sort of woman wants to travel hundreds of miles to go back and marry a man who didn't bother to come meet her himself? What then? Abraham had forbade the servant from taking Isaac to Mesopotamia. So what if Rebekah and her family balked, sending him back empty handed? All those questions are answered here in our text. They're answered here in the second half of this chapter where we learn that Rebekah and her family, they are not going to balk. In fact, Rebecca turns out to be something of what I've called here a Lady Abraham. A Lady Abraham. How so? Well, she was willing, like her great-uncle before her, to depart the house of her father in search of the promised land where she would enter the covenant which had been established by God. She was willing to leave Mesopotamia behind and travel to Canaan. entering the covenant of the Lord. So that's what's happening in these verses. We want to work our way through the story and then we'll explore its implications. Now when we pick up in verse 29, there is a swarm of activity going on as we prepare to transition from the scene at the well to the scene which will follow in the home of Rebecca and her family. At the end of last week's text, verse 28, Rebekah was running home to tell her family about her encounter with Abraham's servant at the well. And now, in verse 29, Rebekah's brother Laban is running back to the well, having seen the jewelry worn by sister having heard the report which she gave of the man that she had met in that place. Evidently he wasted no time in going to retrieve the servant of whom she had spoken because Laban found him standing by the well with his camels just as Rebecca had left him. Laban is also quick in noticing that this servant had come from a wealthy household. Seeing him standing there with his camels loaded down with gifts, he pronounces him, blessed of the Lord. He makes this pronouncement evidently on appearance alone. And he invites him to join them back at the house. We're going to see in the book of Genesis, not just here, but also later, that Laban is a man who is very interested in riches. He's a man who's very interested in acquiring possessions. That's going to drive a lot of his actions in regard to Jacob, who is later on going to come back to him looking for wives himself. And so he sees the blessing of the Lord through the material means which this servant had. And so he invites him back and Abraham's servant returns with him where the camels are fed and a meal is prepared for him. The servant is up front with labor. He makes it clear this is not a social call. No doubt he would have been thankful for a home-cooked meal after such a long journey. He announces in verse 33 that he will not eat until he has said what he has come to say. It is time to convince Nahor's descendants to send their daughter off to live with the family of Nahor's brother. Time to make his pitch. And as soon as Laban grants this servant permission to speak, he identifies himself as Abraham's servant, and he launches into a... Don't miss how amazing this is. A lengthy rehearsal of his mission and its execution. Hebrew narrative, Hebrew story, is so sparse on detail. It only tells us what we need to know. It tells us much less than we want to know. And so when we find a lot of detail, it's important. So it's amazing that this is the longest chapter in the book of Genesis and that we hear a speech from the servant which basically repeats everything we've heard for 30 verses. He's going to reiterate it. That's unusual. But we see here that it provides an important turning point in the book. He tells Laban and his family that he's there on behalf of Abraham, the long lost brother of Nahor who had departed so long ago. And he also tells him that since Abraham's departure many decades prior, the Lord had indeed blessed him. Laban was right about that. The man had grown rich, and he had grown abundant through the benevolence of the Lord, and the Lord had worked miraculously in his life, giving his wife Sarah a son in their old age. This was an important point for the servant to mention in the hearing of Rebecca's family because it implied that the generational difference between Isaac and Rebecca didn't necessarily entail a drastic difference in age. Remember, Abraham and Nahor were brothers. And there's now a marriage being proposed between Abraham's son and Nahor's granddaughter. Generational difference. But he tells the family, this was an unusual boy. And so the drastic, the age difference is not so drastic as might first be thought. Important to note. Anyways. The Lord had given Abraham a son, and that son had become the heir, and that heir needed a wife in order to obtain an heir of his own. And so Abraham had sent his servant to his father's house and to his clan, seeking a wife, assuring him of angelic assistance on his way to success. Now he does conveniently leave out the fact that Abraham had forbidden him from bringing Isaac to Mesopotamia. That might have struck them as somewhat offensive. That Abraham wants one of our daughters to come be the wife of his son, but he thought his son was too good to come back and visit. So the servant leaves that out. He leaves it out, but he does mention that the Lord had been at work. An angel had come. Isaac didn't come, but the angel of the Lord had come, granting him success. And he had received that assistance from the Lord. and he had had success as he explains in verses 42 through 49 where he recounts his meeting with Rebecca at that spring of water. When he arrived at the spring he had prayed to the Lord asking for a sign. The woman who was willing to respond to a request for water by giving water to him and to his camels would be, he hoped and prayed, the woman divinely appointed for Isaac by the Lord. In God's providence, we saw last week, and he recounts here again for us, that Rebecca was the one who appeared there at the well in front of Abraham's servant before he ever stopped praying. And when he asked her for water, she tirelessly watered the servants' camels too. We talked last week about how that would have been no small task, no little offer. It would have been dozens of trips between the well with her jug of water to the trough for the camels. And so this was unusual. It was an answer to prayer. And that's why the servant had jumped into action. asking about her family to verify that she was indeed from Abraham's clan and that's why he placed the jewelry on her. God had sovereignly provided. And thus the servant had worshipped the Lord who according to verse 48 had led him by the right way to take the daughter of his master's kinsman for his son. The servant is seeking to persuade the family that this had been no merely human coincidence. God had identified a wife for Isaac that he approved of, so all that was left was to get the approval of the family. You can see he's presenting this in a somewhat one-sided way. The Lord's approved, what do you think? And so we read something of an emotionally charged and weighted ultimatum in verse 49. Now then, if you are going to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, Tell me, and if not tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left. We might paraphrase Abraham's servant a bit like this. If you're going to do the right thing, let me know. If you're going to do the wrong thing, you can let me know that too, and I'll act accordingly. He is insinuating to Rebekah's family that to deny this request would be to deny God himself and it would be to mistreat their family member, their relative, Abraham. And after listening to this grand narrative, Rebekah's family, pagan as though they have been, cannot deny that Abraham's God Yahweh was up to something. He must be up to something, and so we hear a response from Laban and Bethuel, Rebekah's brother and father. It is somewhat surprising, you might have picked up on this, that Rebekah's father, Bethuel, she plays a very small role in this story. Her brother and her mother do most of the talking for the family for whatever reason. Maybe Bethuel was up there in age, maybe he was infirm, perhaps They followed more, some people insinuate maybe they must have followed a more matriarchal pattern in that family as opposed to patriarchal. Maybe Laban, his whole purpose here is to act as a spokesman for his father. It's hard to know exactly what's going on there. But either way, in this instance we do know that Laban and Bethuel are agreed. I say this, the thing has come from the Lord. We cannot speak to you bad or good. What does that mean? It's something of a Hebrew saying. We cannot speak to you bad or good. It means this. If God has brought all this together by divine appointment, who are we to say no? Who are we to say yay or nay? It's obviously His working and so we simply stand back and let Him do what He's going to do and therefore what they're doing is they're offering Rebekah up. She may go, she may be the wife of Isaac, and hearing this, a wave of relief, a wave of gratitude washes over Abraham's servant, and he bows down again, pious man that it is, and he worships before the Lord. And then when he rises up, he brings out more jewelry, he brings out more garments for Rebekah, as well as gifts for Laban and Milcah, her mother. See, in God's providence, Everyone seems to be on the same page. What a joyous occasion. Everybody's on the same page, right up until they're not anymore. The shared consensus, which they come to, it's threatened the next morning. You know, sometimes you get excited, you say things, you make promises, and then you sleep on it. You're not so sure if you should have promised that. You're not so sure you'd do it the same way if you could go back again now that you've slept on it. And so after the excitement of this blessed meeting and a welcome night of sleep, Abraham's servant wakes up. He's happy with what happened and so he's ready to go. He has no interest in an extended Mesopotamian holiday. He's ready to get back. He's ready to present the fruit of his labors to Abraham. He's ready to please Abraham in this way. And he's ready to bless Isaac with a wife. But understandably, I think, Rebecca's family's not so eager to get the show on the road. This is an old concept for Abraham's servant. He's been mulling this over for a month or more as he's traveled from one place to the other. But this is new. This is new for Rebecca's family. And so her brother and her mother want her to remain at least 10 more days. They want to be able to come around on this idea like the servant has, and they want time to say goodbye. They're willing to host the servant during this period of time as long as you'll stay, she'll stay, and then they can go. But the servant... It might almost seem rude. He's unwilling to waver from his mission. He has a sense of urgency that surely must have felt inexplicable to Rebecca's family. He says in verse 56, do not delay me since the Lord has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master. So we reach what is really, in this portion of the chapter, the primary point of tension in the text. This is the action point. After so much success, will everything be foiled by Rebekah's family? Will the entanglements of family life keep Rebekah from entering the Abrahamic covenant through marriage to Isaac? You see, two competing visions for her life are clashing in this moment. Servants or families. Fortunately, Rebecca's family is willing to let her cast a tie-breaking vote. They ask Rebecca, will you go with this man? And her whole life and all of history changes because of her simple answer, I will go. Like Abraham before her, she is willing to be called out of Mesopotamia, out of the house of her father, and into the promised land. And with that definitive answer, they grant her wishes. They send her away with her servants, obviously they had some means as well, and they send her away with a blessing. Our sister, may you become thousands of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate him. Those words sound so familiar to us when we compare them to the promises made to Abraham and to Isaac. The Lord had promised Abraham that his offspring would increase, and the Lord had promised Abraham, actually back in Genesis 22, the very specific promise that his children would come to possess the gates of their enemies. And so now, from the lips of his relatives, Rebekah's family, we learn that Rebekah is indeed going to be one of the women who makes that possible. Her vision and the vision for Isaac are aligned. Offspring, blessing, conquering the gates of enemies. At the end of all this, Rebecca travels back to Canaan with the servant, where Isaac is dwelling, we now find in the southern part of the land, which is laid down by the wilderness. And as this chapter comes to a close, we find that he's like his father. He's a godly man. And so he's out meditating in the field, probably praying is what that means, towards evening. And as he is engaging in this activity, he looks up and he sees the caravan coming. The caravan sees Isaac too. Rebecca hops off her camel. And when she learns that she is seeing her future husband for the first time, she veils her face in preparation for their marriage. And interestingly, in this moment, Abraham is nowhere to be found, at least insofar as we are told. As far as the narrative of Genesis is concerned, Abraham's story is drawing to a close. In the next chapter, we're going to read about his death. And Isaac is now taking center stage. And therefore, we read that in the aftermath of his mother's death, he brings Rebekah to his mother's tent and they marry, and Isaac loves her. That's a happy ending as far as the world of arranged marriages go. It was not always guaranteed that the wife picked for you would be pleasing to you and that you would love her. But they have this wonderful privilege of not simply joining together in marriage, but joining into a happy marriage where they love one another. And just like that, The generational expansion of the Abrahamic covenant begins to come into clearer view. God had promised to make of Abraham a great nation. He had promised to Abraham to make him an accountable number of offspring. And he had promised that his blessing would rest upon those offspring And through now Rebekah, the solitary son of Abraham is going to produce children of his own who will receive that blessing, one of whom will come to be called Israel, the father of the 12 tribes. And so the Lord is indeed going to use this marriage, this union, and the children which it produces to fulfill his promises to Abraham. And while this was progressively revealed in history, Abraham didn't know exactly how this was going to work out, God knew that all this was going to happen when he first called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans. In fact, he knew that all of this was going to happen from the foundation of the world. You see, from Abraham's perspective, there were times in which it was not clear how, if at all, God's word could be fulfilled. How is he going to keep his promises? But from God's perspective, the durability of the covenant and the validity of his words, those things were never in doubt. He always knew what was going to happen. He had planned it that way. In the words of Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 5, Paragraph 1, on that chapter on providence, we read this, God, the great creator of all things, does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things from the greatest even to the least by his most wise and holy providence. according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy." And so we see, as we reflect theologically on this text, that the success of the covenant depended not on Abraham's ingenuity, the success of the covenant depended not on the skill of the servant, But ultimately, the success of the covenant depended upon God's sovereign and providential preparation of a wife for Isaac to the praise of his own glory. His promise was not brittle. His promise was not in danger. His promise was being sovereignly and providentially administered. And as we've already noted briefly, the wife that God does prepare for Isaac is presented in Genesis chapter 24 as something of a Lady Abraham. She exhibits those noble characteristics possessed by Abraham in remarkable ways. Like Abraham, she excels in hospitality. She welcomes the servant like Abraham had welcomed the Lord into his camp so long ago. Genesis 18. Like Abraham, she responds to the call which is placed upon her with faith. She believes what she's hearing from the servant. She's willing to act on it. And like Abraham, she chose to depart for Canaan on the basis of this faith, leaving her former life behind for the sake of the covenant. And all of this Abraham-esque activity It opens the door for her to join Abraham's family and receive Abraham's blessings through marriage to his son Isaac. God in his providence, his sovereign plan, he had prepared not just a bride, but the perfect bride for Isaac. And he supernaturally led Abraham's servant to the well in order to find her. Congregation, we observed last week, perhaps you'll recall this, the similarities between Genesis 24 and John chapter 4. We saw in John 4, comparing it to this passage, that Jesus, the one who fulfills the covenant of grace introduced to Abraham, Jesus took an opportunity in the course of his public ministry to act like Abraham's servant, like Jacob, Like Moses before him. Like these three figures, Jesus in John chapter 4. He goes, for those who have eyes to see, in search of a bride. Who could extend the covenant line, and he goes in search for her at a well. Jacob's well in faith. Now in Jesus' case we know, don't misunderstand, he's not looking for a literal bride to marry on this earth. He's not looking for the consummation of some physical union. No, he's looking in that chapter for a spiritual bride that by virtue of faith union with him would be able to inherit eternal life with him in glory. Inheriting the covenant promises. And the great irony of the way in which Jesus played this role and conducted His search is that He did it among the Samaritans. Speaking to an outcast woman with a tainted and sinful past at Jacob's well. And that's instructive to us because it teaches us, it reminds us that Christ's bride, the church, is made up of people, well many people, far less noble than Lady Abraham. Because his messianic work would make possible the profuse proliferation of abundant grace to those who receive him by faith. And so when the church continues the apostle's mission of preaching the gospel to all nations today, it is doing work, like we see in John 4, calling on sinners to receive Christ's grace and to join his bride by faith. But the difficulty of that gospel call, the difficulty of that evangelistic work, the difficulty of that Christ mimicking behavior, is that all who receive the gospel call face the same conundrum faced by Rebecca. When you hear the gospel, when you hear Jesus' call upon your life, you come to a fork in the road. And there are many entanglements in this life which threaten to crowd out the sound of the gospel call. People and places and pleasures, they all fight for our allegiance. But Jesus is not willing to play second fiddle. He will not play backup in the band. Like Abraham's servant, he does not want his bride to enjoy her past life for ten more days. No, when Jesus calls, the only right answer is an immediate, yes Lord, I will go. I will follow you. That's the motto of Christ's bride, the church, and all of the disciples within her walls. And we learn as much in that passage from Luke chapter 9 which we read earlier in the service. There we read of Jesus traveling along the road and as he travels along the road he encounters three individuals who are faced with the decision of whether to follow him or not. One wants to follow him, but he must face the fact that he will no longer have an earthly home. The second is commanded to follow him, but he wants to go home and bury his father first. The third agrees to follow him, but he wants to go home and say goodbye to his family first. And we don't necessarily know what happens to the first. We know that Jesus warns him. But we do know that Jesus rebukes the second and the third, saying, Leave the dead to bury their own dead. And as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. And no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. You see, the call of discipleship, which is the call placed upon all who would join Christ's bride, forces us to shake off the entanglements of this life which would keep us from Christ, whatever they are. When we believe on Christ and come to repent of our sins, the world, the flesh, and the devil must be denounced, and many good things in this life, many valuable, noble, worthwhile things must be deprioritized. in order to give Jesus the ultimate authority over us as Lord. And so the question that we must ask ourselves when we consider the way in which Genesis 24 points forward to the decision that we face, whether to enter the covenant through marriage to Christ or not, the question we must all ask ourselves is, how will I and how am I responding to the gospel call? Is my life marked by repentance and belief? Have I joined Christ's bride? Am I following like Rebecca, willing to say, I will go, wherever you want to go, I will go. Or are we tempted, like Rebecca's family tried to tempt her, tempted to wait around in hopes of a more opportune time, in hopes of a more convenient way to follow the Lord, if it ever comes. Folks, the proper response to the Gospel call for all of us, each and every day, is, I believe, I repent, I will follow. Each and every day, we must be willing to say, Jesus died for me, Jesus lives for me, and by faith I will go. As maybe you know the hymn expresses it, from heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride. With his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died. That is the good news of the gospel. That is the precious gift which we cannot earn. That is the salvation which we receive by faith alone. But when we do receive it by faith, that ought to bring with it, that ought to stir in us, if we have indeed understood, that ought to bring with it a wholehearted devotion to Christ. Here's how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 20. The proper response to learning that you have been bought with a price, he uses that language there in 1 Corinthians 6, the proper response to learning that you have been bought with a price is to glorify God with your body. Setting sin aside and serving Him. And so if you would tonight count yourself, and I hope you do, if you would tonight count yourself among Christ's disciples, If you profess to have joined Christ's Bride of the Church, ask yourself, assess yourself, think about this in light of Scripture, are you actively following Him? Is He your chief delight? Is He your top priority? Does everything else take a backseat to the demands which He places upon you? It must be so. And if it's not, then you need to repent and ask the Lord to sanctify you and to set your loves in the right order. To set your priorities in the right order. Your bridegroom Jesus Christ, if He is indeed yours, He deserves, He demands the most tender love of your heart and your absolute submission. The sort of submission that says, I will go, no question about it. And so when Christ calls us in the gospel, we respond with faith, and having responded with faith, we pick up our cross and we follow Him, wherever He calls us to go. And in this way, we do come to resemble Rebecca. And in this way, we come to resemble Paul, who said in the Epistle to the Philippians, Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss. because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. Have you counted everything else as loss? Have you counted it all else as rubbish? For the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus your Lord, in whom, by faith, you find your righteousness in standing before God." Consider that, and make it so, as you say, yes Lord, I believe, I will follow you. Let's pray.