THROUGH THE BIBLE - Genesis..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. We're going to continue a corporate reading of the scripture and this evening we arrive almost to the half of the book of Genesis chapter 24. We're getting to the half of the book and we are going to be reading one of the longest narratives that is found in this book in chapter 24.

Probably the reading of the chapter is going to take longer than the explanation. But let's read reverently the words of God. Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, Put your hand under your thigh, that I may make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son, from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred and take a wife for my son Isaac. The servant said to him, perhaps the woman may not be willing to follow me to this land.

Must I then take your son back to the land from which you came? Abraham said to him, see to it 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 kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, to your offspring I will give this land. He will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine.

Only you must not take my son back there. So the servant put his hand under the thigh and Abraham, his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. Then the servant took ten of his master's camels and departed, taking all sorts of joyous gifts from his master. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water.

And he said, Oh, Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water and the daughters of men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, please let down your jar that I may drink and who shall say drink and I will I will water your camels. Let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master."

Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, came out with her water jar on her shoulder. The young woman was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. Then the servant ran to meet her and said, Please, give me a little water to drink from your jar. She said, Drink, my lord.

And she quickly laid down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, I will draw water for your camels also until they had finished drinking. So she quickly emptied her jar into the throw and ran again to the well and draw water. And she drew for all his camels. The men gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not.

When the camels had finished drinking, the men took a gold ring weighing a half shekel and two bracelets for her arms weighing ten gold shekels, and said, Please, tell me whose daughter you are. Is there room in your father's house for us to spend the night? She said to him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milca, whom she bore to Nahor. She added, We have plenty of both straw and fodder and room to spend the night. The man bowed his head and worshipped the Lord and said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master.

As for me, the Lord has led me in the way to the house of my master's kinsman. Then the young woman ran and told her mother's household about these things. Rebecca 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 arm, 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 unhearsened the camels and gave a 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 said 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, 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 from 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, Oh, 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, and 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, Rebekah 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 camel's 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, whom Milcah bore 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 had led me by the right way to take the daughter of my master kinsman for his son. Now, then, if you are going to show a 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. Then Laban and Betheel 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 Rebecca. He also gave to her brother and to her more costly ornaments. And he and the men who were with him ate and drank, and they spent the night there.

When they arose 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 10 days 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 might go to my master. They said, Let us call the young woman and ask her.

And they called Rebecca and said to her, Will you go with this man? She said, I will go. So they sent away Rebecca, their sister and her nurse and Abraham's servant and his men. And they blessed Rebecca 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 men.

Thus the servant took Rebekah and went his way. Now Isaac had returned from Beor-li-haroi, and was dwelling in the negot. 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 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. Then Isaac broke 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. Amen. Beloved, that's the words of God. As I said, we have here in front of us one of the longest chapters of one of the longest narratives that we find in the book of Genesis.

And it's very important. It is not only one of the longest narratives that we have in the book of Genesis, but perhaps it's one of those very beautiful narratives. We have a beautiful story here of an old man trying to find the wife for his son, and he's sending one of his servants to a different land, to the land where he comes from, and saying, please go and find a wife for my son. We will not get a wife for my son from the land where we dwell, but rather I want you to go where I come from and take a woman for my son so that my son will marry this woman. It's not only one of the longest, as I said, narratives that we find in the book of Genesis, but perhaps one of the most beautiful ones with all of these elements.

And because it's one of the most beautiful narratives and we have these stories of love and we have a husband and a wife and all of this story is perhaps one of the most difficult ones to interpret with a Christological and redemptive approach because very easily we can just simply get here the moral teaching of this chapter here or the immediate the immediate teaching of the narrative that we have here, and we may miss the component of Christ found in this particular chapter. It will be very easy for us just to draw moral principles of how a wife should have the blessing of the father of the son when they are getting into marriage, or how we should not be unequally yoke his sending to the people where he comes from so he will not marry a woman that belongs to this strange, to this foreign land. We could draw all of those moral principles, beloved, but we know that scripture has been inspired by the Holy Spirit and that everything that is contained in this book, it is pointing in one way or another to the person of Jesus Christ. So how does chapter 24, this long narrative that we have here, how does this book How does this book fit into the narrative of redemption or this promise of redemption? How are we going to interpret this, not only taking the moral aspects of the book, but rather the redemptive role that it plays in the whole story?

So in order to do that, we have to set ourselves as the immediate audience would be, and also ask ourselves what is the immediate context of chapter 24? What is the main thing that we spoke about in chapter 23? If you remember, a brother explained to us that in chapter 23, the main thing that happened there is the death of Sarah. Sarah had passed. Now, Sarah had passed and Abraham was now very old.

The Lord had given a promise to Abraham that he was going to make a great nation out of Abraham. And not only that, but that his offspring was going to be like the stars. Many people will come from Abraham and, of course, Sarah. But now Sarah was dead. But now here we have an Abraham that is filled with faith, with experience, and he knows now many things.

He's very old and very experienced in this work of faith. And here we have, if I could summarize for you and give it in a very simple sentence, and then we will just see how that displays in the chapter, I will say something like this. The faith of Abraham, or the belief of Abraham, believing that God was going to provide everything that was needed so that the promise that was given to him in Genesis 12, 13, and 15, confirming 17, will be accomplished. the faith of Abraham. We see an example of the faith of Abraham in believing that God was going to provide everything that he needed so that the promise that was given to him will be fulfilled.

We are not paying much attention to the moral aspect of the chapter, but rather to the Christological aspect of it. Because, beloved, when our brothers and sisters, when the people of Israel were going through these sections of the book, they were seeing themselves as the offspring of Abraham. Now we have tension here because Sarah is dead, but we see the first manifestation of the faith of Abraham, in which he says to his servant, go and get a wife for my son. And if you can see in the beginning of the chapter, the servant doubts a little bit. He says, well, probably this woman, you're sending me to get a woman for your son, but probably she's not going to come.

It's very difficult that a woman, that I will go to a strange land, and I'm going to say to a woman, please come and marry the son of my master. It's very difficult. So then, the servant says that to Abraham. But Abraham is going to answer something very important, and I want you to see it. In verse 6, he says, Abraham said to him, see to it that you do not take my son back there.

Because the servant says to him, if she does not want to come, If she does not want to come with me, then I will come and take Isaac and bring it with him. So that will be easier and they will get married. But then Abraham says to his servant, do not take Isaac to that land. Then the Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred and who spoke to me and swore to me, to your offspring, I will give this land. Beloved, Sending Isaac to find a wife was an act of disbelief on Abraham's part, because the Lord had promised that he was going to make him a great nation in that particular land.

Now, Abraham was very old, and he understood that the Lord was going to bring that promise to completion. So he said, go, because the Lord has promised, and he has swore to me, and he is going to bless your search and then there's a very important word that we find in this chapter and that word it is found in verse 21 and that word is the word prosper abraham promises his servant that the lord god was going to prosper his way we find in verse 21 the men gazed at her in silence to learn whether the lord had prospered his journey or not that is to see if the lord had brought success to this trip and to this journey. Then in verse 40 we have, but he said to me, the Lord before whom I have walked will send his angel with you and prosper your way. And then we have in verse 42, I came today to the offspring and said, oh Lord, the God of my master, of my master Abraham, if now you are prospering the way that I go. And then we have in verse 56, but he said to them, Do not delay me since the Lord has prospered my way."

Abraham had absolute certainty that the Lord was going to provide Beloved, the woman that will replace Sarah in the process of producing or spreading the offspring that was promised to him in Genesis 12. It says in the very end of the chapter in verse 67, then Isaac broke her into the tent of Sarah, his mother, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife. The people of Israel, when they were reading this, now the offspring will be now confirmed. because Abraham was old and his wife was dead, but now the offspring through Isaac now had a wife, Rebekah, and Rebekah was taking the place of Sarah. Beloved, here we have a continuation of this promise that was given to Abraham, that the offspring was going to be preserved, that the people from the loins of Abraham, they were going to be preserved, that it didn't matter the situation or the circumstances in which they were placed.

God was going to provide every time the means by which the offspring of Abraham will be preserved. And then from them, the Messiah will come. We read it and we don't see the tension there. We go through all of these things and we don't see the problematic aspect of it. But the people of Israel, their lives dependent entirely on the preservation of this offspring.

Now, beloved, As I said last week in the sermon, we have not been saved from a set of principles of morality into a better one. We have not been saved from a different type of life into a better type of life. Rather, we have been saved in Jesus Christ from death unto life. And that change from death into life is because The promise that God gave in Genesis 3.15, that from the offspring of the woman, He will crush the offspring of the serpent, evil, that promise was kept.

He kept it all through our history with Israel in the early church, and He kept that in Jesus Christ. And for that reason, because of the keeping of that promise, now we can have certainty that we have life, and not only life, but eternal life. Amen?