Well, folks today we’re going to talk about how Abraham let God choose a spouse for his son Isaac, but this young man’s idea was probably not quite what God had in mind. Let’s take a look at the right way to surrender important life choices to God and to be as certain as possible that we are in God’s will. First we see:
I. The Importance of an Oath (vv 1-9)
An oath is a promise, and from the beginning of humanity until today God has made promises to us that are dependable. As we have travelled through the book of Genesis we‘ve seen many oaths, covenants, agreements, whatever you want to call them. Today we see another between Abraham and the servant he trusted more than any other person in the world.
The text says that Abraham had put his oldest servant in charge of all that he had. Now that’s trust because Abraham had a lot. Then we see this rather odd ritual of the time, which goes way beyond shaking hands. Abraham says put your hand under my thigh and swear by the Lord that you will find my son a wife from my own people in my homeland.
Abraham trusts this guy so much he’s willing to let him choose the woman who would become the mother of this multitude of offspring through the promised son Isaac. When he says she must be from my own people, he’s basically saying that this woman must be a follower of God, not a Canaanite woman. The Old Testament forbid marrying non-believing spouses and the New Testament also discourages it in first and second Corinthians.
The servant makes sure he clarifies all the possibilities and details because he wants to make sure he does it right. Abraham tells him if she doesn’t come with you, you’re off the hook, and whatever you do, don’t take Isaac with you.
Not only does Abraham not want Isaac to marry a Canaanite idol worshipper and be lured away from worshipping God, he also wants to ensure that Isaac stays in Canaan, the Promised Land. If he were to go, he might want to stay where the wife lived to make it easier on her. As it turns out, Isaac never leaves Canaan for his entire lifetime.
The servant knew how important this assignment was, the entire future of God’s people was potentially at stake by this choice, and the servant demonstrates:
II. The Importance of Surrender (vv 10-14)
He goes immediately with ten camels, lots of gifts, and probably a few other trustworthy servants, to the town of Nahor. This is where his brother’s family that was listed at the end of chapter 22 lives, and Abraham knew there was a granddaughter there named Rebekah. I have a feeling Abraham may have had a revelation from God about her when he heard about his brother’s family a couple chapters ago. I’m not sure.
Not only is this servant completely surrendered to Abraham’s will, we see here that he’s also surrendered to God. Remember Abraham said God would send his angel before you, and so great was the servant’s faith that he literally believed this.
Notice Abraham doesn’t say angels, but angel. This is probably Christ, the one Abraham met as Melchizedech and again just before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Chances are this old servant had also seen on of these Christophonies at one of those times so he knew what Abraham meant.
The servant arrives at the well in Nahor and the first thing he does is ... pray. He travels over 500 miles on foot and camel, and the first thing he does when he gets there isn’t run to the well to get a drink and splash water on his head, but he prays.
He’s a smart guy and knows by tradition that the women of the city will come at a certain time to draw water. Then he asks very specifically for guidance in terms of who he should choose.
Now why did he ask for such a specific request? First of all he knew that he needed a woman who was strong and had the endurance to make the three week journey back through the desert to Isaac, not to mention she would be mothering a lot of children. Drawing water for ten camels who drank a lot, would have been something that probably few of us men today could have done.
You had to walk down steps to draw the water by hand into a large bucket, carry it back up, dump it, and return to do it over and over again. Rebekah said she would water them until they have finished drinking, and it says she ran again to the well.
Any girl would have given him a drink out of politeness, but to voluntarily offer to water all these camels would have been very improbable. This is up to 40 gallons of water per camel. I think that’s why later the servant gazed in silent amazement as he watched Rebekah voluntarily fulfill his prayer, probably empowered supernaturally.
Some have argued that the servant’s request was tempting God or being presumptuous, but that would be like saying that when Jesus asked the Father for something, he was being presumptuous.
No, this was God’s will and the servant wasn’t interested in his own success, but in the success of his obedience to his master, as we will see by his comments next week. This servant’s sole purpose was for his master to be blessed and glorified, just like that is the sole purpose of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and should be for us as well.
So clearly through the servant’s faith and obedience we witness:
III. The Reward of God (vv 15-21)
And it comes immediately. In fact it says even before he finished his prayer, Rebekah shows up. Two important things here, one is that God is already waiting to answer a prayer that is in line with His will and revealed plan. Sometimes he waits until we pray so that there’s no doubt in our mind that it was Him who answered, not just chance, or our own efforts.
Secondly, Scripture tells us in Isaiah 65:24 that “it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear”. That’s why we should pray God’s will, in the name of Jesus, knowing that God has already answered our prayer in his way.
We just need to open our eyes and see how he’s answering it. Sometimes we miss it because we are not specific, or God chooses to answer in a way we didn’t expect. God promised Abraham that through Isaac many nations would come, and in order for this to happen he needed a great wife, so he was ready to answer.
So the servant opens his eyes and there she is. She was very attractive for one thing, which doesn’t hurt, Isaac would be pleased with this, but more importantly, she does exactly what he had prayed for so there was no doubt that she was the one God is choosing. And like I said what she did by watering all those camels, is pretty much a supernatural feat.
When it says at the end he gazed at her to see whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not, a better translation is probably that he is gazing in amazement that God had prospered his journey so quickly and easily.
The most amazing thing for me in this passage is how both Abraham and Isaac are completely separated from this process. Would you send even your best friend away to find your child a spouse? This is incredible faith. Now some say that Abraham was too old to make this trip at 140, but even so, Isaac is 40 and Abraham could have gone earlier.
But no, I’m certain the point here is that God was in charge and the faith in Abraham’s household had grown to incredible proportions. Abraham just knew with absolutely no reservations that God would provide the appropriate wife and that this was the right time.
We can’t read this story in Genesis and not see the parallels to what God has given his son. This is the longest chapter in Genesis, and it’s a great picture of the Heavenly Father getting a bride for His son. He sent the Holy Spirit who resembles the servant, to call people to be the bride of Jesus.
In both stories it was the Father’s will for his Son to have a perfect bride. This is a love gift for Jesus because he doesn’t need anything. But the bride that Jesus will claim will be God’s people empowered by His Spirit, just as the offspring of the marriage between Isaac and Rebekah would become God’s people, Israel.
Dear people I have had many good and bad experiences throughout my 45 years, achieved many things that some people envy, for the first 30 some years as a non-Christian. I have counseled probably close to a thousand people in all types of life circumstances.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that fighting like crazy to achieve our own selfish, worldly desires is ultimately a supreme waste of time. Even if we do go through the focus and effort to achieve them, overcoming all sorts of obstacles, they often bring with them more trouble than the joy we expected.
A life spent trying to achieve worldly rewards is a life of drudgery and a sort of prison where we never seem to be able to just relax, be content, and experience life and freedom the way it was intended. You may not see this now, but I can pretty much guarantee you will at some point.
But a life of surrender is the way to true freedom and getting what we want, to gain the peace of mind that we all crave. Because when we do this we line up with the will of our maker, which may include some achievements that you would like, and we experience the freedom, and relaxation of being carried by him, and the mental peace of letting him make our decisions. A life surrendered to doing His will, is a life without anxiety no matter what the circumstances or results.
Now just because I’ve learned this doesn’t mean I always live it despite my desire to. But when I do, and when others I have met do, life works really well.
So let me encourage all of you to take this week’s action plan very seriously.
Do we surrender important decisions to God? Could you accept someone else’s (God’s) choice of a marriage partner, career etc. for you? Next time you have an important decision to make, go to God first through prayer and his word, and watch in faith for what he does.
I believe this is what he wants from us, and when we do it, I have seen that he is faithful to act. And this is when life becomes easy even when it’s hard.
Let me close by giving you a real example.
Before we came to Killarney, there was a very small town called Burstall, Saskatchewan where I really wanted to end up pastoring. Denise was unsure and though we had a good experience with the people there, there were a few warning signs that I was willing to ignore. She was submitting to her husband as Scripture commands a wife to do, but she also voiced her concerns.
Because I had learned the lesson I spoke of today, and wanted to be a Godly husband because of her submission, I was leery to push my will and just before we were scheduled to go back and officially candidate in Burstall, Saskatchewan we got a call from one of our pastor’s wives about a position in Winnipeg.
Because we had surrendered our decision to God we postponed our trip to Saskatchewan and went to candidate in Winnipeg saying that if it didn’t work out, we would go to Burstall. We put it in God’s hands.
The candidating went very well though the time spent in Winnipeg was very stressful and we really didn’t want to go a city but agreed we would if we got the call. As we went back home we thought Winnipeg was pretty much a for sure thing, and many of their congregation did too.
Shortly after we got home they called and said they would not be hiring us because of a lack of experience, that they knew about before they brought us all the way out there. So we thought that was God’s way of saying that we would take the Burstall position.
So we phoned them and wouldn’t you know, someone who had moved away and come back to town, and was actually more suitable for that position, got hired while we were in Winnipeg. They actually sounded disappointed that they made that decision and that we were not coming, but the decision had been made based on them misunderstanding what we had told them earlier.
I was very disappointed, but it wasn’t long after that we got a call from Calvary Baptist, and the rest is history.
There is no doubt in my mind that God was in charge of that whole thing, it was somewhat stressful only because I wasn’t getting what I wanted right away and wasn’t completely surrendered, and I could have pushed my desire, my will, and God only knows what would have happened. I’ll tell you what though there is no way it would have been as good as this.
Who would you rather have making decisions for you and your family? Yourself, or the God of the Universe?
