If you take your Bibles, please turn with me to Genesis chapter 24. Genesis chapter 24 is the longest chapter in Genesis, and it is the story of a wedding. Let's pray together as we open God's word. Father, every portion of this word is yours and you give every portion for a purpose. And so as we gaze together upon this portion of your word in which Abraham sends for a bride for his son, the son of promise, We pray, Father, that you would teach us not only of events that happened long ago, but of ways in which we are to take your word and be changed by it today. Give us understanding, we ask, in Jesus' name, amen. A number of years ago, we went through a study in the Song of Solomon. Any of you remember that? It was a while ago now. That came about because I had been preaching at a conference out in Washington State on the subject of the sufficiency of scripture. And through the course of preparation for that talk in which I was putting forth the proposition that of course all scripture is inspired and all scripture is profitable, I laid the challenge down to myself in that process of going to a book that is perhaps the most neglected and certainly one of the most difficult to deal with in all of scripture and preaching through it. And so Song of Solomon was it. And if you remember what we saw in the Song of Solomon, we saw not allegory per se, but we saw parallels as we went through the book. Because Song of Solomon is a love story after all. It is an account of the love between a man and a woman and a husband and a wife. And we saw parallels in that account concerning the relationship of Christ and his church. And we're going to see similar things today as we work our way through this 24th chapter of Genesis. What I want us to see is not only what happened in the life of Isaac and Rebekah, not only what happened as Abraham sent his servant out to find a bride for his son, but I want us to see as well elements of our relationship with Jesus Christ as his bride. We're going to see parallels to Christ, parallels to the church, parallels to those who seek his bride. The historical facts recorded for us here in Genesis 24 are written to teach us valuable spiritual truths. Abraham was an old man. Sarah is dead. Isaac has not yet turned 40 and has not yet married. He has neither wife nor children. And so Abraham calls Eleazar, his servant, and sends him down to Mesopotamia to find a bride for his son. And these 67 verses of scripture give us both a picture of the grace of God in the salvation of his people and a picture of the work of every faithful gospel preacher. Everyone who communicates to others The truth that there is salvation in the grace of God in Christ. Abraham could have gone down to Mesopotamia to get a bride for his son. He chose to send his servant Eliezer. And the search for a bride for Isaac is and is intended to be seen, I believe, as a picture of grace. In this story, Abraham's servant seeks a bride for his son, Isaac. In the gospel story, what's happening? God sends servants to seek a bride for his son, Jesus Christ. In this chapter, the Holy Spirit shows us plainly what God's servants are sent to do and how they are to do it. Throughout the chapter, Eleazar, Abraham's faithful servant, spoke and acted like a man who felt that he must do exactly what his master told him to do, go exactly where his master told him to go, say exactly what his master told him to say. He had work to do. and he was honor bound by his own oath to do it and to do it exactly as the master wanted it done. Now let's look at the story. As we go through the story, I want to call your attention to what will probably end up being about seven different things to be seen and learned here. First, the servant of God is sent for a specific purpose. That's gonna be seen in verses one through four. Secondly, the man who is sent of God cannot accomplish his work by compromise. It's verses five through nine. Thirdly, the man who is sent of God knows that his work is too great for him. Verses 10 through 14. Fourthly, God's servant must seek and wait for and follow God's direction. It's in verses 15 through 28. Fifthly, the servant of God must not get sidetracked. Verses 32 to 51. The servant of God, sixthly, must press upon sinners the claims of Christ, calling for them to make a decision. Verses 52 to 60. And finally, the man who was sent of God always accomplishes the work that God has sent him to perform. Verses 61 to 67. Let's begin with verses one through four. Now Abraham was old, advanced in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way. Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, please place your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live, but you will go to my country and to my relatives and take a wife for my son Isaac. The servant said to him, suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land. Should I take your son back to the land from where you came? And Abraham said to him, beware that you do not take my son back there. Abraham says to his servant, go take a wife for my son, Isaac. Abraham is a wealthy man. He is greatly blessed of God. His son, Isaac, was the heir of all that Abraham possessed. Abraham sends his trusted servant, Eleazar, to find a bride for Isaac from among his own people, a bride who would share with Isaac all of the riches, all of the glory of his father's kingdom. Now get the picture. See the parallel. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten, well-beloved Son of God, is the heir of all things. God the Father has given all things into the hand of his Son. Christ is sovereign Lord and King of all things by eternal decree, by covenant design, by his victorious death as our substitute. There is a people in this world chosen out of every nation, tongue, tribe, and people to be the bride of Christ, to be joint heirs with him of all that he possesses. And just as Abraham sent Eleazar to find a bride for Isaac, God calls and sends his servants out into the world to find his chosen bride for his son. by preaching the gospel. We are sent of God to seek out those who are God's people, to proclaim the gospel to them, to seek out his people from among the fallen sons and daughters of Adam. And the work that we are to do is a joyful work. It is a delightful work. but it is a very grave work. It carries with it great responsibility. Like Eleazar, God's servants get his directions from the master. He has a specific task that they are to accomplish. And like Eleazar, our work is a joyous work. Go, find my son a bride. That's a happy thing to do. I get to arrange a marriage. This is a good thing. There's nothing more joyful than wedding bells. We are sent to find a bride for the Lord Jesus Christ, the heir of all things, nothing more honorable than this. This is the business upon which the master's heart is set. to send forth his gospel through his servants, and by doing so, to gather together his people from the four corners of the earth. And though it's a delightful work, it is an awesome work at the same time. The man who is called of God to seek a bride for his son has a great responsibility. And as we read through this chapter, we can't help but noticing that throughout the whole work, Eleazar carried a great burden upon him. He had to represent and speak for Abraham and Isaac before people who knew neither his master nor his master's son and certainly didn't know him. This is exactly what we are called to do as God's servants. Isaac was an extraordinary man. He was a man born according to promise, not after the flesh, but by the power of God. Isaac was born to fulfill the covenant promise of God. He was the heir of that promise and all others for whom the covenant was made could receive the blessing of that covenant only by virtue of their union with him. Isaac, you'll remember, had been offered as a sacrifice to God upon the mountain. And he was in a figure raised from the dead. Isaac was everything to Abraham. And now Eleazar is given this great responsibility to go find a bride for that special man. And in all these things, Isaac is a type of Christ. We have a great weight of responsibility placed on us as the people of God to go and to carry his gospel to a people who don't know him and don't know his son and don't know us. We are sent of God to find a bride for his son, the fulfillment of that covenant, the heir of the covenant, the crucified substitute, the risen king, the exalted Lord. Who is worthy to be that one's bride? The answer of course is no one. The one whom Eleazar brought to Isaac must at the very least be exceedingly beautiful. be perfectly willing to be Isaac's wife. And this is our responsibility. We're looking for people who are willing to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ, who are worthy to be married to him. But of course, there is no one who is worthy. And there is no one who is willing. There are no such brides among the children of Adam. It's an impossible task. None who are willing, none who are worthy, but we are reminded that with men it may be impossible, but with God nothing is impossible. For God is the one who looks out over people, the children of Adam, and he creates. men and women who are worthy and who are willing. By the power and grace of his spirit, God makes his people willing in the day of his power, the psalm says. And God makes his own elect worthy to be heirs with his son as he justifies them and gives them the righteousness of his son. A servant of God is sent into the world for a specific purpose. It's a delightful purpose, and it is an honorable work, and it is an awesome, demanding, weighty work. We are sent of God out into the world to search out and find a bride for his son. There is no place in this work for the half-hearted. The work demands all that we are, talent and energy and gifts, all of our care, what God does when he creates his bride. Because that's really what he does. God took a fallen race, fallen humanity, and out of fallen humanity, he creates a people for himself. He creates the bride of Christ. And when he does that, as he is building his church, As this one comes in and this one comes in and they come to realize that they are a part of that bride. What does God do in them? He transforms them. He gives them an appreciation for the grace that has transformed them and he puts within them a desire to let other people know what God is capable of doing as well. He places within his people a desire that everyone would come to understand the grace of God. Everyone would come to see the majesty of his son and desire to be that one's bride. Well, in verses five through nine, we see not only the servant being sent, we see that the man who is sent of God to seek a bride for his son can never accomplish this work by compromise. The servant said to him, suppose the woman's not willing to follow me to this land. Should I take your son back to the land from where you came? Then Abraham said to him, beware that you do not take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth and who spoke to me and who swore to me saying, to your descendants I will give this land. He will send his angel before you and you will take a wife for my son from there. But if a woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this my oath. Only do not take my son back there. So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. The promise that was given to Abraham is that he will be given a son, but he will also be given a land, and that son would inherit that land. Therefore, by no means, under no circumstances, Eleazar, are you to take my son away from this land. You will not take him back to where I have come from. You'll go there, you'll find him a wife, and you'll bring her back to him, but you won't take him to her. And if you can't find anybody willing, then come back alone. You're no longer responsible for the oath that you have given. This had to fill Eleazar full of questions about his task. And in these verses, he expresses this reasonable fear and asks a very reasonable question. What if the woman's not willing to come back? Then what do I do? If the woman isn't willing to leave her home, leave her family, leave her country to love and marry and give herself to a man she does not know and has never seen, what if she does not believe the message? If the woman will not come to your son, shall I bring your son down to the woman? And Abraham is very certain on this point, no. Verse seven, God will go with you and prepare the way before you. The Lord, the God of heaven who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth and who spoke to me and swore to me saying to your descendants, I will give this land. He will send his angel before you and you will take a wife for my son from there. Eleazar, you're not going alone. My God who took me from that land will go with you and he will walk before you. He will reward your labors. He will fulfill the covenant. Eleazar's success is a matter of certainty. He will send his angel before you. God's servants don't go out into the world alone. It is not up to us to persuade men and women to trust Christ. to love Christ, to come to Christ by our own powers of logic and persuasion and eloquence. The Spirit of God goes before the messengers of God. He prepares the way. He quickens those whom he will quicken. He goes with his word so that his word goes forth. The Spirit of God is there, doing what He will, bringing people to faith, hardening them in their condemnation. But it is the work of God that is being accomplished. God the Holy Spirit awakens the dead. God the Holy Spirit reveals Christ. He gives men faith. He effectually brings them to Christ by the preaching of the gospel. The work does not depend upon the messenger because God goes before him. Abraham assured Eliezer of this. His labor will not be in vain. You will This last phrase of verse seven, he will send his angel before you and you will take a wife for my son from there. In terms of the gospel, we don't have to worry that the gospel will fail. We don't have to be concerned that there will be no success Christ will save his people from their sin. As the word of God is proclaimed, it will not return void. It will accomplish every purpose for which God sends it. And when as the gospel goes out, it will come to those who are God's people and God will save and he will build his kingdom and he will establish his bride. because the bride has already been chosen. God already knew about Rebekah and God went before Eliezer. God already knows who his people are and he goes before us as we bring his word and that bride As we're told in John chapter 10, we'll hear the voice of the beloved through the gospel that we bring. Jesus says, I have other sheep who are not of this fold. I have to go and I will bring them. They will hear my voice and they will follow me. The bride of Christ is already known to the father. And through the gospel, he brings the bride in. And he makes known to those individuals who will make up the bride that they are, in fact, a part of the bride. And the responsibility of those who take the gospel then is not to manipulate people into faith. It's not to persuade. It's not to convince. It is to proclaim. It is to be faithful. When you get down to the nub of it, the responsibility of the people of God is faithfulness. Everything else falls upon the shoulders of God himself. You can mark this down as a matter of fact. If someone is called and sent of God, God will supply what that person needs. God will protect and preserve us in the work. God will order our steps. God will crown our labor with success as he defines it. And we will endure and overcome all things through the power of God as we are faithful to that which he has called us to. I don't know if he's called you to specifically a ministry of evangelism. Perhaps not. Not all of us are evangelists. Yet we have been called to the work. We have been called in our lives to exhibit the gospel and to share the gospel as we have opportunity. But perhaps he's called you to something else. Your gifts lie elsewhere. Whatever he has called you to, God is the one who is responsible for the fruit You are responsible for the faithfulness. Once we have delivered the message, that's where our responsibility stops. I don't know about you, but there was a time when I was under a great burden when it came to evangelism. Because I was under the impression that it was all my responsibility. And so I'm witnessing to someone, I'm sharing the gospel with them, and they're just, they're not getting it. The veil's over their eyes. They just don't understand. I'd come away from those kind of encounters thinking, well, I failed again. You know, if I said something a little bit differently, if I just had a little bit better of an illustration maybe, it would have gotten through. And I needlessly piled all of this pressure and weight upon myself. when the reality is that as I am communicating the gospel, as I am being faithful to share with others the truth that Christ died in the place of sinners and that they can be in relationship with God and escape condemnation and wrath by placing their faith in him. If that's what I'm communicating, that's the gospel and it's up to God after that. Is God going to use that gospel to open their hearts and minds and bring them to understanding? It's not just if I put a little different inflection on this, if I ask this question just this other way. Maybe if I did something, it would have gotten through. The gospel is effective because God is effective. We are responsible for faithfulness and for nothing else. Men and women are dead in sin and you nor I neither one of us have the power to change that. God does however and he does it through the gospel. We are not responsible for the salvation of sinners. We are responsible for the proclamation of the gospel. And note, Eleazar was strictly forbidden to make any concession or any compromise. Whether the woman comes or doesn't come, whether Isaac has a bride or does not have a bride, Isaac's honor must be maintained. Abraham said to him, beware that you do not take my son back there. Verse eight, he repeats it, only do not take my son back there. I take that to mean there is something more important to God than the salvation of sinners, and that is the honor of His name and the glory of His Son. If men will not come to Christ, we dare not bring Christ down to them. We cannot alter the message or even trim off its rough edges. We dare not even alter our methods to suit the world. First and foremost in this world, we are representatives of the Lord of glory. The honor of his name is always paramount. That is the priority. Suppose for a moment that Eleazar were to compromise and bring Isaac down to Rebekah. That would make Rebekah more important than Isaac. Because Isaac is the one who is going to her, not the other way around. That would be a virtual denial of God's covenant and his promise and his power. God's promise is that a great nation will come from Abraham and it will come through Isaac and it will be in that land. But we're gonna forget what God has said and we're gonna drag Isaac up out of the land to Rebekah. It means that Isaac would never have had Rebekah's heart. What's at stake here? What's the question? Remember the question that Eleazar asked? Suppose this woman's not willing to follow me to this land. Now all wrapped up in there, I think, are these questions. What if Rebecca's not willing to leave her family for Isaac? What if she's not willing to give up everything that she now has for Isaac? See, Isaac would never have her whole heart. It would always be divided. Isaac would not be the priority in her life. If she's not willing to give up everything for him, he'd be better off without her. There is no need to make concessions to the world or to compromise with the world. God will save his people and he will save them by the naked truth of his gospel. That is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel preached in the plainest terms. Compromise doesn't save. It only ruins souls. It confuses the gospel. It waters down the gospel. It perverts the gospel. That which the world finds most offensive is that which is key to the gospel. If you take out of the gospel that which offends the world, you no longer have a gospel. So we do not compromise and we do not mold the gospel into what we think the world wants. We do not change the methodology that God has set before us in order to make inroads and to be acceptable and to be liked. The message is what it is. And the methodology is what it is. This is what Paul brings out in 1 Corinthians. Very first chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul puts forth the gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed of it, and I'm not going to twist it. The gospel is what it is, and it is God who makes it effective. In the second chapter of 1 Corinthians, he says, you know what? I'm not going to change the method of proclaiming the gospel either. I'm not gonna try to bring the gospel across in a way that is going to draw attention to me or to make people like it better. I'm going to preach because that is the method by which God has ordained that his gospel will be communicated. Simple person-to-person communication. Well, we see something else here in verses 13 and 14. And that is that the one who is sent knows that the work that he is called to perform is too great for him. Behold, verse 13, I am standing by the spring and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Now may it be that the girl to whom I say, please let down your jar so that I may drink and who answers, drink and I will water your camels also. May she be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. And by this, I will know that you have shown loving kindness to my master. Eleazar prays. This Lord, I can't do this on my own. You need to go before me. You need to work all of this out. He comes to the place where women came to draw water and realizing the weight of responsibility, knowing that humanly speaking, the work is impossible, he sought the help of God by prayer. Remember the situation. He's coming into a land he's never been in. He's coming to Abraham's people, but Abraham's been gone for decades, and he's going to try to find a woman. And what's he going to say to this woman? Here's what I need. I need you to leave everything and everyone you've ever known and come with me to a place you've never heard of and marry someone that you know absolutely nothing about. Good luck. And so he prays, understandably. God's servant always understands the cry of Paul, who is sufficient for these things? And he knows well that his sufficiency is only in God, and so he earnestly seeks God's blessing and God's direction. Only God awakens the dead. I know when I stand up here on a Sunday morning and I open the scripture and I begin to preach, I do so with the firm conviction that I don't know what I'm doing. I can't accomplish anything. I can stand up here and I can speak for 40 minutes, 50 minutes, an hour, two hours. I could speak until I drop. And I wouldn't accomplish anything unless God is involved in the process, unless God is going to work through His word. We proclaim the gospel, but only the living God can effectually instruct people, can change them, can cause them to be born again, understand their need for repentance, their need of a Savior. And so we pray. In everything we do, we do acknowledging that we can do nothing apart from Him working in and through us. In verses 15 through 28, we see God's servant must seek, wait for, and follow God's direction. Look at what happens here. Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebecca, Here's when God's timing is great, right? Before Eleazar is even done praying, there she is, the answer to the prayer. Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor, came out with her jar on her shoulder. The girl was very beautiful, a virgin, and no man had relations with her. And she went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. Then the servant ran to meet her and said, please let me drink a little water from your jar. She said, drink my Lord. And she quickly lowered her jar to her hand and gave him a drink. Now when she had finished giving him a drink, she said, I will draw also for your camels until they have finished drinking. So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran back to the well to draw. And she drew for all his camels. Meanwhile, the man was gazing at her in silence to know whether the Lord had made his journey successful or not. When the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold ring weighing a half shekel and two bracelets for her wrists, weighing 10 shekels in gold, and said, whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room for us to lodge in your father's house? And she said to him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor. Again, she said to him, we have plenty of both straw and feed and room to lodge in. Then the man bowed low and worshiped the Lord. He said, blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his loving kindness and his truth toward my master. As for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master's brothers. Perhaps the most difficult thing in the world for us to do is simply wait on God. and to wait upon him without becoming negligent and irresponsible. Eleazar sought the Lord's direction, but while he was seeking, he was diligent in his own responsibilities. You get the picture of him sitting there praying with his eyes open. Because before he's done praying, there she is. When he saw Rebecca, his heart is filled with an anxious joy. God has brought them together. God's at work here. She certainly seemed to be the right one, but he held his peace until God made his will known. And in preaching to sinners, we need to learn to wait upon God. We can't rush things. Just as we cannot change the heart, we can't change God's timing. There are many of us sitting in this room, I would venture to guess, who heard the gospel more than once before we came to believe it. Who perhaps, over years, God had been dealing with, working things out in our lives to bring us to that place and that time when he would save us. And it doesn't matter what any other human being might have done, God had his time. and it was the right time and it was the best time. We need to remember that and not be impatient, not cease to pray and to work, but to always realize God's timing is the best. In verses 29 through 51, and this is just a huge portion of the text, One of the things that we see is that the servant of God must not get sidetracked. Eleazar is welcomed into the home. Look at verse 32 and 33. We're not going to read the entire section. But the man entered the house. Then Laban unloaded the camels, and he gave straw and feed to the camels, and water to wash his feet. And the feet of the men who were with him But when the food was set before him to eat, he said, I will not eat until I have told my business. I cannot tell you how many ministries have been ruined because men have gotten sidetracked. Some get sidetracked by money, by politics, Trivial issues, personal ambition, the cares of this world. Servants of God are people who don't care for those things, but who are single-minded in fulfilling the mission that God has given to them. It's not that some of these other things don't have a place in our lives and we don't have to concern ourselves with them, but we understand as the people of God, as the bride of Christ, that we have a priority and that priority is faithfulness to that which God is calling us to. The singular purpose in our lives is to make Christ known through our lives and through the gospel. But at every point, our lives are intended to glorify his name. Like Eleazar, we have but one message. We preach Christ and him crucified. He does not come here seeking friendship. He does not come here seeking approval. He does not seek to attract Rebekah to himself in any way. He comes in the name of Abraham, He comes with Abraham's message and that's all he has to say. That's his purpose. That's why he's there and he's not going to let anything get him off track. The sumptuous feast that is no doubt being brought before him is not going to distract him from his purpose. The bride must not be attracted to the servant or to anything he has to offer, but only to Christ. Now, verses 52 through 60, we see that the servants must press upon the sinners the claims of Christ, calling for them to make immediate decisions. After he lays out his case, he tells them in the previous passage what he's there for and what he's doing. What happens? Pick up with verse 52, when Abram's servant heard their words, he bowed himself to the ground before the Lord. The servant brought out articles of silver and articles of gold and garments and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave precious things to her brother and to her mother. Then he and the men who were with him ate and drank and spent the night. When they arose in the morning, he said, send me away to my master. But her brother and her mother said, let the girl stay with us a few days, say 10, afterwards she may go. And 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. And they said, we will call the girl and consult her wishes. Then they called Rebekah and said to her, will you go with this man? And she said, I will go. Thus they sent away their sister Rebekah and her nurse with Abraham's servant and his men. They blessed Rebecca and said to her, may you, our sister, become thousands of ten thousands, and may your descendants possess the gait of those who hate them. So Eliezer plainly states his errand, and the question is put directly to Rebecca herself. Will you go? And she will. Her family wanted to delay things. They didn't want to be wholehearted in this commitment yet. And yet Eleazar presses the issue. I need an answer. Either you're coming or you're not. And isn't that the question of the gospel? Either you're coming to Christ or you're not. There are no halfway measures. Faith in Christ, salvation in Christ, and true saving interest in Christ is an individual, personal, and total commitment. Children cannot be sprinkled into the covenant of grace. People cannot be educated into the kingdom. Young people are not saved because they've been raised by godly parents. Salvation is not a family affair. It is an individual issue. Salvation is a heart knowledge of the living God and of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That saving knowledge comes from personal experience as God is pleased to reveal himself to people. And as we're sharing the gospel with people, what we need to be doing is calling people to a decision. Which will it be? Yes or no? Will you come to Christ or will you reject him? We do people no favors when we leave things fuzzy and blurry. We allow people to, well, yeah, I love Jesus, but no. You either belong to Christ or you don't. You've either given everything you are to him or you've given nothing. The question needs to be put forth today. I don't know where you are. I don't know about every individual here this morning. Will you or will you not come to Christ? Have you or have you not? What decision have you made? I'm commissioned. to go back to my master with an answer. This passage concludes in verses 61 to 67. The man who is sent, at least the man who is sent of God, always accomplishes the work that God sent him to perform. Isaac had come from going to Bir Lahairoi, for he was living in the Negev. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening, and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, camels were coming. Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel. She said to the servant, who is that man walking in the field to meet us? And the servant said, he is my master. Then she took her veil and covered herself. The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent and he took Rebekah and she became his wife and he loved her. Thus Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. Here comes Eleazar back to Abraham and Rebekah is with him. And when she sees Isaac, she is brought to him and she goes to him and they are husband and wife. And there is a picture in this too. Before an absolutely holy, pure, just, and sovereign God, we come as a bride to his son. And as we look up upon this son, the groom, what is our response to him? This comes on the heels of what we have just said. Is our attitude toward Jesus Christ one of indifference? Yeah, I hear the words you say when you preach the gospel, and okay, you know, if Jesus is gonna get me out of hell, all right, I'll say that I'm a follower of his. I'll commit myself to him to a certain extent. Is that our response to Christ? Or is our response to Christ that when we see Him, we love Him? We love Him with all that we are. And we seek to be with Him, in relationship with Him. He is ours and we are His. If we look upon Christ, we leap into His arms. If that's not descriptive of your relationship with Jesus Christ, then you have to ask yourself whether you are really part of the Bride. Do you really belong to Him? It all comes to this. Will you trust in the Son? In the air? He demands that you forsake everything and follow him. Will you or will you not? It's just that simple and just that serious. If you trust in the Son of God, you will have everlasting life. If you will not trust Christ, you may, you must be forever lost and your blood will be upon your own head. May God graciously give you faith in his son. May God make you a part of his bride. Let's pray.