1. No Going Back! (1-9)
A wife for Isaac (1-4)
We read in v1 “Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way.”
Yet Abraham is not just sitting back in his old age reminiscing. He is still looking forward and seeking the Lord’s blessing. Surely there is an example for us to follow there. As Abraham reflects on the Lord’s blessings throughout his long life, he thinks of that number one blessing that is still a promise – the promise of the land, and of a great nation to come from him, and of blessing for all the world through his offspring. And so in faith he looks to keep that process going by getting a wife for his son Isaac, the son of promise born to Sarah in her old age.
And
so he makes his head servant “the one in charge of all that he had,” “to swear
by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth,” that he would not get a
wife for Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom he was living,
but would go to his own country and get a wife for my son Isaac.”
Abraham
knows that God is going to take this land from the Canaanites because of their
idolatry and their evil practices, and give it to Abraham’s own descendants.
And so Abraham does not want to marry into these people, people like the
citizens of
No
Going Back! (5,6,8)
Now
the head servant was obviously a high-C type personality. You know, the kind if
you say hey, I’ve got a great idea, let’s do this, can immediately rattle off
five reasons why you can’t! We need those type of people of course, to balance
out those who are eternally optimistic about everything, the inspirational, big
picture, can-do type people, who if allowed always to have their own way and go
off half-cocked will lead us into all sorts of trouble. Abraham says, go get me
a wife from my people’s land where I came from many decades ago. To him it’s a
simple ask. But his servant can immediately perceive a potential flaw in this
plan. And he asks,
“What
if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land?
Now
that’s fair enough from his perspective, isn’t it? It’s okay for Abraham, he
just has to sit there in his tent in
Now
that’s reasonable isn’t it? What are the chances that a respectable woman is
going to just up and leave her family because some old guy walks out of the
wilderness and says, hey how about coming and marring my master’s son who lives
in the desert in a tent but one day will own the whole land of Canaan because
God promised it to his descendants? It’s quite likely that whoever he finds
that is a good match for Isaac will have second thoughts about being a
mail-order bride, sight unseen. If that happens, wouldn’t it be best just to
take Isaac there so the woman can meet him and feel more confident about
marrying him? But Abraham is adamant.
“Make sure that you do not take
my son back there,” he says. There is to be no going back. What his servant
says makes a lot of sense, humanly speaking. But Abraham has learned by bitter
experience to do things God’s way and not rely on his own wisdom, but on God’s
promises.
The
Lord’s Promise (7)
He
says “The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household
and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, ‘To
your offspring I will give this land’—he will send his angel before you so that
you can get a wife for my son from there. If the woman is unwilling to come
back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not
take my son back there.”
Abraham
knows that if Isaac travels back to Haran where his relatives live, and falls
in love with a girl there who doesn’t share his vision for God’s promised land
in Canaan, he will be tempted to stay there, instead of going on in faith to
wait for God for reveal the next step for Abraham’s family in their journey to
blessing. Abraham’s clear headedness at this point is another great example to
us. We must not compromise our faith, or the faith of our family, by giving up
on the best in favour of the good. It would be a good thing for Isaac to find a
wife in
2.
God Answers Prayer (10-27)
The
Servant’s Prayer (10-14)
So the
faithful and loyal servant, sets out on his long journey. Verse 10. Then the
servant took ten of his master’s camels and left, taking with him all kinds of
good things from his master. He set out for Aram Naharaim and made his
way to the town of
And
then we see that this servant is not just one who lives in Abraham’s household,
but that he truly shares the faith of Abraham. He has a living and personal
relationship with the Lord, just as his master does. Verse 12. “Then he prayed,
“O LORD, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to
my master Abraham. 13See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters
of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. 14May it be that when I say to
a girl, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says,
‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for
your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my
master.””
POINT
FORM:
-
[Difference between servant and Gideon]
-
[Yesterday’s prayer meeting]
-
[Are we willing also to trust God to keep his promises?]
God’s
Timing (15-27)
God’s
timing is always perfect. Look at what happens next. “Before he had finished
praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder.” Before he had even
finished asking, God had already answered the prayer. There are other places in
scripture where we see the same experience of those who sincerely pray trusting
God’s promises. Like when Daniel prays in
Well,
we know the rest of the story.
Rebekah
does exactly what the servant had asked God to happen. He asks her only for a
little water for himself, but she generously and spontaneously offers to water
all ten camels too. I don’t know much about camels, but I can’t imagine
watering ten of them after a long journey with a bucket from a well would be a
whole lot of fun! This is not something she undertakes lightly
Rebekah
is one of the great women of faith in the bible. Here we discover that she has
some of the same generous and hospitable spirit that we’ve seen in Abraham. We
also see that she is bold and confident, not afraid to speak to a strange man
at a well.
Now
this is a very long chapter and I’ve left out half of it from today’s reading –
from verses 28 to 60. But I hope you’ll go home and read those verses for
yourself during the week, because we learn more of Rebekah’s godly character,
and also that of the servant, in those verses. We also learn that she was a
determined woman, and able to make clear and courageous decisions.
3.
Rebekah’s Courage (61-67)
Rebekah’s
Character
In
the verses we skip to at the end of this chapter, from verse 61 on, we also see
Rebekah’s courage.
It
is obvious right from the start, and also from later incidents in her life
after she marries Isaac, that she had real spiritual insight. She believes the
servant’s story that he tells her and her brother Laban in the verses we
skipped over, about how God has blessed their relative Abraham and promised
further even greater blessing, and has led him to Rebekah as the one through
whom the promise will continue into the next generation. She is very clear in
her decision, and it is her decision, not something that is forced on her
against her will. What she does in leaving her family and going with Abraham’s
servant to the Promised Land and to Isaac her husband takes every bit as much
faith in God and his promises as it did for Abraham himself to set out from
that very same place many decades before her father Bethuel, who was Abraham’s
nephew, was born. She is literally as well as spiritually, following in
Abraham’s footsteps. In fact perhaps her faith is even more remarkable, since
she has not believed after hearing God’s voice directly as Abraham did, but on
hearing God’s promises second hand through Abraham’s servant. God’s word and
his promises are all we need, we don’t need to hear voices or see miracles.
Rebekah’s
Choice (61)
We
see her choice put into action in verse 61: “Rebekah and her maids got ready
and mounted their camels and went back with the man. So the servant took
Rebekah and left.” She does not make this choice lightly, but once made, like
Abraham and Isaac, for her there is no going back. Like Jesus, who set his face
resolutely towards
Isaac
& Rebekah (62-67)
Well,
the story has a happy ending, which is a happy beginning to a very long and
loving marriage. Arranged marriages can be just as romantic and just as loving
as our laise faire system of free choice you know! Verses 62 to 67 tell us what
happened.
62Now Isaac had come from Beer
Lahai Roi, for he was living in the
Now we’ve heard of this place
before. Do you remember who named the place Beer Lahai Roi? It means “well of
the lving one who sees me.” It was the well in the desert where Hagar, the
mother of Abraham’s other son, Ishmael fled when she was pregnant with her
child after Sarah had mistreated her. God heard her prayer there and she heard
God speak to her, and she went back to Abraham and Sarah and had her child. So
it’s kind of fitting that Isaac and Rebekah both travel from wells in opposite
directions, she from the north, he from the south, for this momentous meeting
at
63He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. 64Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel 65and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?”
“He
is my master,” the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself.
66Then
the servant told Isaac all he had done. 67Isaac brought her into the tent of
his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved
her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
And
that’s where we leave Genesis until next year, when we see what happens to
Isaac the child of promise, and Rebekah, his faithful bride.
Conclusion:
As
we saw last week, the New Testament says that all these people in the stories
from Genesis were still living by faith when they died. Abraham trusted God and
acted on that trust. The servant prayed and trusted God for the results.
Rebekah was willing to leave her home, just like Abraham did so many years
before, and go the land that God had promised, in order to become part of that
promise.
Friends
we are part of the same ongoing story of faith. God’s Word is just as powerful
now as it was then, even more so, since we live on this side of the Cross and
Resurrection. If God’s promise could lead Rebekah to her journey of faith, it
can also lead your friends and family there too. But they need to hear his
promises to us in Jesus Christ. Will you tell it to them, as Abraham’s servant
did to Rebekah, and will you trust him for the results?
For your own part, will you, like Abraham and Rebekah after him, be willing to say, “I’m one a one-way journey to God’s blessing, and there is to be NO TURNING BACK.”