The last time we were in the book of Genesis went through the events surrounding God’s test of Abraham asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham passed the test, Isaac didn’t have to die, and they both came down from that mountain having grown in their faith.
Soon after this word came to Abraham about his relatives back in his homeland.
[Read Genesis 22:19-24.]
So Abraham now knows about his brother and his kids. This information will become important to Abraham in the coming years when looking he’ll be looking for a bride for his son Isaac. And 15 – 20 years later something happens to provoke Abraham into action – his bride Sarah passes away.
But before we get to that we need to understand something. The next few chapters in the book of Genesis are all about transition and God’s faithfulness through the coming change. Abraham and Sarah couldn’t run the show forever. Their descendants would inevitably take over the leadership of the family and the coming nation. So when we read through these passages let’s understand that change is coming to the landscape – but God faithfully orchestrates things so the outcome of the covenant stays the same.
We’re going to go through chapters 23 and 24 tonight so hold on to your boot straps. In these chapters we see three generations of people:
- Abraham and Sarah, 137 and 127 years old
- Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, 85 years old
- Isaac, 40 years old
Three generations of faithful people, following their faithful God during these years of
transition.
I. The beginning of the end of a generation
[Read Genesis 23:1-2.]
Abraham’s dear wife was gone. They’d been together over 60 years and had been through amazing things. Sarah had been by Abraham’s side through it all – but now she was gone and he tearfully mourned her.
The next part of the passage shows Abraham attempting to by a cave for which to bury his wife. Remember, Abraham is still considered an alien in the land. A well respected one, but still a foreigner who migrated from one area to another throughout the years. So now he needs to buy some property so he can bury his wife. She needs a permanent resting place.
Now when we read of someone saying, “Give me the land” or “I will give you the land”, they’re not saying it will be a free gift. It’s a way of referring to buying or selling something. It was a common way of negotiating in the ancient world.
[Read Genesis 23:3-20.]
After years of nomadic wanderings, Abraham finally owned a small piece of property in the midst of the land promised to him and his descendants. This property also became the family burial place for Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah and Jacob.
With the death of Sarah the beginning of the end was upon Abraham’s family and he knew it. Even though Abraham had many years left in him, about 35, he still needed to make sure his family followed the Lord in faithfulness. So the next stage of the transition we see is:
II. The preparation of the next generation
Chapter 24 is a rather lengthy chapter so we’ll break it down in stages.
Stage 1. The commission
[Read Genesis 24:1.]
Isn’t that something? Abraham is around 140 years old and God has blessed him in every way; Spiritually, his family, financially, his health, his safety. I mean, the Lord really took care of old Abe.
Now as I read Abraham’s commission to his servant, listen to the intensity by which Abraham instructed him. He wanted to make sure things were done right and for a reason.
[Read Genesis 24:2-9.]
Abraham knew that if his son married a woman from the pagan Canaanites there was a good chance he would fall away from the Lord. So He wanted him to gain a wife from his own tribe which was customary back then. But notice that he also didn’t want Isaac to live there with his wife. This was the land in which the Lord promised the blessing and this is where Isaac and his family were to stay.
Eliezer, Abraham’s most trusted servant, made that oath to his master and followed through with the task.
Stage 2. The obedience
[Read Genesis 24:10-14.]
Now this is one specific prayer. But notice what he’s asking for. He’s asking for the Lord to show him a woman of kindness that would be a good woman for Isaac to marry. Think about it, first the woman would give him something to drink, then she would have to water the ten camels with him. That would be going above and beyond every day kindness. But look at what happens next.
[Read Genesis 24:15-21.]
I can almost see Eliezer with a look of astonishment on his face wanting to make sure this girl was the answers to his prayers. She’s beautiful, she’s pure, she’s kind. I wonder if she’s available?
[Read Genesis 24:22-28.]
Eliezer realizes just how faithful the Lord has been and falls to his knees right there in front of Rebekah and has a little worship service. God was to be praised! He didn’t care who was watching, God had answered his prayers and he was grateful.
So Rebekah runs home and says, “Mom! There’s some man in the driveway…he’s on his knees…he’s praying…he’s praying out loud!
Stage 3. The success
[Read Genesis 24:29-54a.]
Isn’t that beautiful? Even in the midst of Eliezer’s prayer the answer was already on the way. Eliezer recognized God’s hand and wasn’t ashamed to worship him publicly. Even when Rebekah’s father and brother gave him permission to take Rebekah to marry Isaac, down goes Eliezer again on the floor to worship God. He knew it was God that had gone before him just as Abraham had said and God had made all of the events successful. Before he thanked the people through the gifts he had brought, he thanked God for making it all possible.
And this is exactly what Abraham wanted. He was preparing the next generation of his family by making sure Isaac married a virtuous woman.
Well, now it’s time for some goodbyes from Rebekah’s family. She going to marry Isaac some 450 miles away from home. (I hope she had a good long-distance phone service.) But just like Eliezer was obedient to Abraham in this task, she was obedient as well and willingly went. So as Rebekah goes and marries Isaac we see:
III. The next generation of leadership
[Read Genesis 24:54b-67.]
Just as a little side not here, notice how their blessing of Rebekah mirrored the covenant upon Abraham and his family?
- The multitudes that would come through her family line
- Her descendants that would possess the land of their enemies
I doubt they knew about the Abrahamic covenant – but God sure knew.
[Read Genesis 24:61-67.]
What a love story. Look at how Isaac and Rebekah come together in marriage.
- Isaac’s out in the field meditating
- Rebekah realizes it’s him and veils her face
- Eliezer relays all the events to Isaac
- Isaac takes her to be his wife, (even before seeing her face or getting to know her)
- Isaac loves her
- This relationship helps to comfort him after his mother’s death
So much has happened. So much change has taken place. Yet, it was all a part of God’s
plan to continue His will upon the earth.
Now this change seemed to be hard.
- Abraham losing his wife
- Isaac losing his mother
- Eliezer goes on a 450 mile mission to find a wife for his master, no pressure
- Rebekah leaves her family
- Isaac and Rebekah marry
But you know what, we don’t grow unless we’re challenged. And most challenge comes
in the form of change. Change is often God’s agent of growth in our lives. Some change is hard and some is easy. Some change is pleasurable and some is miserable. But when it’s God that’s bringing the change, then that change is always, always good!
Abraham knew change was coming into his life whether he liked it or not. Sarah had died
and he was getting older by the minute. He did live another 35 years, but he knew the transition from him being the patriarch to his son taking the family’s leadership needed to start.
That can be a difficult realization. That can be a hard truth to accept. When we realize that it’s time to hand over the reigns to a younger person and let them steer the ship, we tend to resists the change a little bit. Or sometimes a lot!
Maybe because we feel like they might not do things right. Maybe we feel like we want things to remain the same as long as we’re alive. Maybe we don’t trust the younger generation. Or maybe we might feel like we aren’t needed anymore.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Just like Isaac and the rest of Abraham’s family need him to help them with the transition, people need us in the same way.
Abraham was the best person alive to make sure this transition of family leadership went well – and he did! Abraham could have said, “This is my family, this is my business, and you can’t have it until you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers!” But he didn’t. And look at what God was able to do through this humble, faithful, friend of God.
Whether it’s with our family, whether it’s with our business, or whether it’s with our church, we need to be constantly preparing the next generation of leadership to take our place. And we don’t wait until two weeks before our retirement. We do it every day because we don’t know if tomorrow will be here for us! Listen, if all we do is create a culture for our own life based on our own preferences, all we’ve done is create something that dies with us.
Instead of fighting the coming change, let’s invest in it so God can continue to perform His will in the next generation of leadership.
"We should so live and labor in our time that what came to us as seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and that which came to us as blossom may go to them as fruit.”
