Genesis chapter 24. This chapter recounts the search of a bride for Isaac. Genesis chapter 24. We're told in the beginning of chapter 23 that Sarah died. She was 127 years old when she died. So if Sarah was 127, I know it's Wednesday night, but see if you can figure this out. If Sarah was 127 years old when she died, how old was Isaac when Sarah died? 37. And Abraham would have been how old? How much older was Abraham than Sarah? 10. So if Sarah was 127, Abraham was 137. There you go. So, so, so that's the timeframe. But then three years later, after three years after the death of Sarah, Abraham seeks a bride for Isaac. Genesis 25, 20 tells us that Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah. By the way, just an aside, I just found this interesting to think about this, Rebekah was Isaac's first cousin once removed. And the interesting thing about that is that would make, so their children, would be Rebecca's children, but technically they'd also be her second cousins. So it's kind of interesting just putting all that together. But anyway, so Isaac is 40 when he married Rebecca. It was 20 years later before they had Jacob and Esau, and so when you think about the time frame, Abraham lived to be 175 years old, so he knew Jacob and Esau until they were 15 years old. They were 15 when Abraham died, so they could have known Abraham, could have had some influence from Abraham in their life. But as we look at this text, Genesis 24, we think about Abraham, and there's a lot of applications, a lot of, messages that could be preached on this text. One that is often preached is on the church and the father's search for the bride for his son, Christ. and how the Lord is adding to the church as he seeks and saves those who are lost and they become part of the bride of Christ. And it's an interesting message. I'm not gonna preach that message tonight, but you can find that out there. There's many people that have preached this text in that way. But as we've been thinking about Abraham's life, we're thinking about Abraham as the father of the faithful. And so as we look at his life, what we're looking for is demonstrations of his faith and principles or lessons about living by faith just as Abraham did. And I think you see that in this account. That's a long chapter and we can't look at every verse, verse by verse. It's like 60 some odd verses, what, 67 verses. But the majority of the story or the things that we need to look at are in the first half of the chapter, so that's where we're gonna focus. But as we look at it, we do see the faith of Abraham. we see that Abraham believed the promises of God, and it was that faith in the promises of God that motivated him to search for a bride for Isaac. What had God promised him, and what were the promises that motivated him to do this? Well, first of all, God had promised him that he'd be the father of a great nation, and Abraham believed that. But Abraham had one son, he's not gonna have any more. That's not a great nation. So if that promise is gonna be fulfilled, Isaac has to have a wife so that the family line can be carried on. So as Abraham seeks a bride for Isaac, he is doing so in order that the promise of God will be fulfilled that he would be the father of a great nation. And so in verse seven of this text, he says, Abraham says, the Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred and which spoken to me and swear to me saying unto thy seed while I give this land, he shall send his angel before thee and thou shall take a wife unto my son from thence. He's talking to his servant that he's sending to find the son. But Abraham says to him, God will provide a wife. God has promised that I'm going to have many descendants. This is the next generation. God will provide a wife for my son. He says to his servant, you can be sure of that because God has promised. You know, we have an example there of acting upon the promises of God. the promises of God should make a difference in our outlook on the future and decisions that we make today should be motivated, driven by specific promises that God would make to us. The second promise that drives this event is the fact that his family would inherit the land of Canaan. that this land in which he was sojourning was the land that God was going to give to them. So in verses five and six, the servant asks, if this woman, I'm gonna go look for a wife for your son, but what if she won't come? Should I take him back? to her place so that they can be married and live back there. And Abraham says, the servant says, verse five, peradventure, the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land. Must I needs bring thy son again into the land from whence thou camest? And Abraham said unto him, beware that thou not bring my son thither again. verse 8, If the woman is not willing to follow thee, thou shalt be clear of this mine oath, only bring not my son thither again. Why? Because this is the promised land. This is where he's supposed to stay. Abraham had learned that lesson the hard way when he went down into Egypt And he lied about Sarah, but this is the land of promise. And so Abraham says to his servant, do not take my son back. He's to stay here because this is the land that God has promised. And we are to stay here unless and until God says otherwise. And then the thirdly, God promised that in Abraham would all nations of the earth be blessed. And that was a promise that the Messiah would come through Abraham. There are other scriptures throughout the Word of God that indicate that the fulfillment of that promise, that through Abraham all the nations of the world would be blessed, was a promise that the Messiah would come through Abraham's line and through the Messiah that all nations of the earth would be blessed, that not just the Jewish people would get in on the benefits of Messiah, but that all the nations of the world could be blessed by that. And we're thankful tonight that it didn't just include the nation of Israel, that we too, our benefits, we've gotten in on that part of the promise that God made to Abraham, because in Christ, the Messiah and the Lord Jesus, we too can be saved. And in one of the first messages, we noted the fact that those who are believers, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, are children of Abraham. Father Abraham had many sons. You're one of them and so am I. And we are, if we have trusted Christ as Savior, we are children of Abraham because we are demonstrating, exercising the same faith as Abraham. And so, Abraham believes that it's through his family that the Messiah would come, and so not only is it important that they stay in the land, but it's important that Isaac doesn't marry a woman of Canaan. So he says in verse 3, let's back up and just begin at the beginning, Abraham is old, he's well stricken in age, The Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house that ruled over all that he had." This is the steward who's managing his household much as Joseph did with Potiphar's house. He says, "'Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and I'll make thee swear by the Lord God of heaven, This was some kind of a ritual that was common in that day. It's not something that's done today, but it was common in that day as a way of swearing. But he says, make swear by the Lord God of heaven and the God of the earth that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell. They were idolaters. They were very wicked people. Abraham is concerned. Isaac cannot marry a woman of Canaan because she has no heart for God. Abraham understands the need for the right kind of a woman for Isaac to marry if the promises of God are gonna be fulfilled through his family. And so, what he's doing, he's doing as an act of faith. And in that, he demonstrates, again, the faith that we need to live by to believe the promises of God and act upon them ourselves. And in verse two, then, he gives his steward the task of finding a bride for his son. And so we read, beginning in verse 10, that the servant took 10 camels of the camels of his master and departed. for all the goods of his master were in his hand. And he rose and went to Mesopotamia under the city of Nahor. He goes back to Haran. And in verse 11, he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. He stopped at the well. at the time of day when the women will be coming out to draw water, and then he prays a prayer, and he prays specifically about the woman that he is seeking. You notice in verses 12 through 14, he said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day and show kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water, and let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, let down my pitcher, and I pray thee that I may drink, and she shall say, drink also, And I will give thy camel's drink also. Let the same be she that thou has appointed for thy servant Isaac. And thereby shall I know that thou showed kindness unto my master. Understand, that prayer is very specific. The servant is praying for this woman and kind of putting out a fleece, much like Gideon did, but the things that he's asking are intentional in this way. He's looking for the right woman for Isaac, the right bride for Isaac. And in the way that he asks and what he is looking for, would speak to the character of this woman. She needs to be someone who is considerate and unselfish, that she would, as he asked for a drink of water, that she wouldn't just refuse him, that she would be willing to do that. And not only that, but that she would be self-motivated because you understand 10 camels have just made a journey across the desert, and now they're dry. And how much water would it take to fill up 10 camels? And not only, you know, he doesn't ask her to do that. He prays that she will take the initiative to do that herself. So he's looking for someone who would be considerate and unselfish, who would be self-motivated, and who would be industrious because it's gonna take a lot of water to fill up those camels. And it's a reminder, really what he's looking for is the virtuous woman that we read about later in Proverbs 31. I've noted this before, but let me remind us tonight, the word virtuous in Proverbs 31, that word, the Hebrew word that's translated virtuous there occurs 244 times in the Old Testament. It is most often translated these ways, army, war, valiant, strength, power. So when you think about the virtuous woman, You're thinking about a woman who has strength and power. And when you read about her in Proverbs 31, she is industrious. She is taking that strength, that energy, and she's putting it to work for the good of her family. A virtuous woman is someone who labors for the well-being of her family. That's what you find there. And that's what the servant is looking for in a wife for Isaac. He's looking for a woman who would give of herself, spend her time and energy for the well-being of her family. That's the kind of bride that he's looking for as well as he's back there in Mesopotamia looking for a bride from Abraham's family because he's looking for somebody that's going to have a heart for God and not a heart for the things of this world. And so he prays, and before he finished praying, the Lord answered his prayer. In verse 15, it says, it came to pass, before he had done speaking, before he had even finished that prayer, God knew his heart, knew what he was going to pray. And Rebekah comes out, who was born to Methiel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. Isn't it amazing that the one who came at that moment was exactly who he was looking for? in the providence of God, he's there, and God answers that prayer and sends not just an industrious woman, but one who is of the family of Abraham. I was reminded of that verse, it's Isaiah 65, 24, which says, it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer, and while they're yet speaking, I will hear. And I know that's a promise to Israel, but it's kind of, that's what's happening here. Before he ever, while he's yet speaking, the Lord is hearing his prayer and answering that prayer. And so then in verses 26 and 27, the servant gives thanks to the Lord for answering his prayer. When he understands this is indeed the one, he finds out that she is part of Abraham's family, and she does everything that he had asked God for her to do, to let it be known to him that this was the one. Then he bows his head and worships the Lord. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of my master, Abraham, who had not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth. I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren. He put himself in the way and trusted the Lord to provide, and God did. And so then the bulk of the chapter, beginning of verse 28 down to verse 60, he just, he goes to her home. He recounts everything that's happened. He tells the family about Abraham and how God has blessed him and about his wealth and the promises of God and why he has come and how he prayed and how God answered that prayer when Rebecca came and asks if they would be willing for Rebecca to go back and be Isaac's wife. And they said, well, first of all, the Lord has obviously done this. What can we say but yes? But ask her. And so they ask her, is she willing to go? And she says yes. And so they try to get him to stay for 10 days. But he says, no, I've got to get back on my journey. God has blessed me. He has provided. And I need to return home. And so he takes Rebecca back. And the chapter ends with Isaac taking her and they're married. And the Bible says that Isaac is comforted after the death of his mother, as God has provided him with a wife. And so it's all, it is all an act of faith. Faith on the part of Abraham to send his servant to find this particular woman to be Isaac's wife. Faith on the part of the servant to pray and ask God to lead. And then even faith on Rebecca's part to be willing to go and be part of the fulfillment of the promises of God in being Isaac's wife. Let me just make a couple of applications for us tonight. The main one for us here this evening is a reminder. God has a plan for your life. And he will accomplish that plan. But he does it through your faithfulness to walk in obedience to him. God had a plan for Abraham and his family. God had promised him, I'm gonna make of you a great nation. I'm gonna give you this land. The Messiah's gonna come through your descendants. That's the sovereignty of God. But Abraham had to walk in obedience to God. Abraham had to live a life of faith. It's the balance between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. There are some things that God does in his sovereignty, regardless of what we do, regardless of what men do. But there are things that God wants to do in our life as His children that He will do as part of His plan and purpose for our life, but He does it as we walk in obedience to Him. Abraham was not sinless. We've seen that. He failed. He failed when he went down to Egypt. He failed when he took Hagar to be his wife, and Ishmael was a result of that, and the results of that linger today. He wasn't perfect, and God is not looking for perfection. He wants us to be perfect, but He understands our frailty, and we're not going to do it perfectly, but the bend in the direction of our life must be obedience to God. And as we walk in obedience to God and as we live by faith, believing the promises of God and acting upon them, then God fulfills his plan and purpose for our lives. And so we need to walk with God. We need to get into his word and find his promises and believe those promises and act upon them and see God work in our lives and pour out his blessing upon us and upon our families as we walk in obedience to him. But there's a second truth, and I share this tonight. Normally when I would preach on this passage, I would speak to young people about marriage. And I want to address that this evening. And I realize, you say, we're all already married. And so how does this apply to us? Well, we need to understand these truths so that, number one, we know how to pray for our children or grandchildren who are not married. and as we would have opportunity to influence them in these directions. But understanding that God has a will in the believer's marriage. God is the one that instituted marriage back in the Garden of Eden when he created Adam and said, it's not good that the man should be alone. I'll make him and help meet for him. And he created Eve and brought her to Adam and they were joined together. Marriage is God's plan. And marriage is God's plan for most people. today, especially God's people. I realize there are some people who are satisfied to be single. God has made them that way. Sometimes circumstances make marriage unwise. Paul talked about that in 1 Corinthians 7 as he was writing about marriage and he was looking at the difficulty of the times in which they live with the persecution of believers and opposition to Christianity. And he said, you know, it would be better. Evidently, Paul was not married. It's believed that he had been married, probably was a widower. Because to be a Pharisee, one of the requirements was that you had to be married. But at this point, Paul's not married in his missionary journeys, he is not married. And so he says, you know, for the present distress, it's it would be better if those that are single remain single like me. But he said, but if that's not for you, you can't handle that, it's okay to be married. There's just challenges in that situation. When you're facing opposition and persecution, there's gonna be, could be some heartache that you're gonna face. A husband is carted off to jail or is martyred for his faith. And you've got then a widow and you've got orphans because of that or just watching somebody suffer for their faith. So sometimes circumstances make marriage unwise. Sometimes marriage is delayed. I've been reading the life of Oswald Chambers who wrote My Utmost for His Highest. but his wife's sister married for the first time at age 60. It's pretty amazing. Sometimes that's the way God works. And let me say to you tonight too, if you're a second single, it's okay to remarry. or remain single, whatever God has for you, whatever is your inclination. It's okay either way. But marriage is God's plan for most. And so we need to encourage our children, hey, this is what God has for you. Personally, it bothers me. I see all these young people that some of them go off to college, some of them don't, but they're living at home. They're 30 and 35 years old and they're still living at home and don't seem to be thinking about marriage. We need to be preparing our children for marriage because that is God's plan. It will be God's plan for most of them. We need to teach our young men to be Leaders in their home to be spiritual godly leaders in their home. We need to prepare them for that By setting an example for them of that in our homes being a godly leader, being a godly man, setting that example, and just teaching them that this is God's plan, and that God has someone for you, and he's gonna lead you to that one, and that should be the expectation, not that you're gonna live at home for the rest of your life, and sponge off a mom and dad or whatever, but that this is God's plan, and preparing them, preparing our young ladies, our daughters for marriage, to be a helpmeet to some godly man the Lord would bring into their life and preparing them for that so that when the time comes, they're ready. I say they're ready because I don't know if we're ever actually ready for marriage, but we do get married and that should be normal. But secondly, not only is marriage God's plan for most people, but prayer should be made for God's choice in marriage. The servant prayed specifically for the one that was to be the bride for Isaac. Someone had said, God gives his best to those who leave the choice to him. You know, we can pray for our children. We can pray for our grandchildren. that God will bring into their lives the one that he wants them to marry. There is some subjectiveness in choosing a marriage partner. You know, Paul wrote to the widows and widowers in 1 Corinthians 7 that it's okay to remarry to whomever you will, only in the Lord. In other words, you can marry whoever you feel like marrying as long as they're a believer. But, you know, as we pray about it, God will bring that one into our life that he has for us. And that ought to be the prayer that we have for our children, our grandchildren, that God leads them to that one that he desires for them to marry. And then make yourself available to God and the potential mate, teaching our children to be expecting God to provide the one that they are to marry. I don't think it's insignificant. I think it's intentional that this servant went to the well at the time of evening when the women go out to draw water, he is in the place where the women are going to come and he prays expecting God to provide a wife. But he wasn't out in the middle of the desert where there aren't any women coming when he's asking God to provide a wife. He went to where the ladies would be coming and praying that God would lead the one to there that he would have for Isaac. He went to the place expecting to find the right one. I've sometimes illustrated it this way. I've never gone fishing in my bathtub. There's no fish in my bathtub. If I wanna catch fish, I'm gonna go to where there are fish. Well, if a man's looking for a wife, then go to a place where there are some godly women. If a woman is wanting to marry a godly man, go to some place where there can be godly men. You know what an MRS degree is? And that's the young lady who goes off to college, Bible college. She's not really interested in getting a degree. She's interested in finding a husband, but that's a good place to find a husband. And there's nothing wrong with a young lady going off to Bible college and praying that God would lead her to the man that she's to marry and expecting and being there among all these eligible single young men and expecting that maybe one of them is the one that God has chosen for her and praying that God would lead her to him. Or vice versa, for him, though he's probably there to get the degree, but along the way, he might also gain a wife, and going there where there's a lot of single young ladies who are in Bible college, and they're godly young ladies, and he's looking for the right one, and he's in that place, and expecting that God will lead him to the one that he has for him. But there's also, there was something else that we talked about in Bible college, and that's called senior panic. That's when a young lady gets to be a senior, and she hasn't found the right guy, and she's just, I gotta be married before I leave here, and I'm in a panic to find him, and I'll latch onto the first guy that'll ask me. That's not healthy either. It needs to be the right one. And so, Abraham's servant said, I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren. Be in the will of God, We need to encourage our children, our grandchildren, to be in the will of God and expect Him to bring the right person along in His time. It's important they marry the right person. Again, the servant was not looking for just any woman. He was looking for a specific kind of woman. And we need to encourage our children, our grandchildren, as we have opportunity to have some impact in their life, look for a spiritual man, a spiritual young lady to marry, and one who has character. Proverbs 31, 30 reminds us, favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord She shall be praised. Again, the things that he prayed, the things you're looking for, they weren't incidental. They were intentional to demonstrate that this is indeed a woman of character, because it takes character to make a marriage work. In this case, she happened also to be beautiful, but he wasn't looking for the external beauty. He was looking for the strength of character. He was looking for a woman that would be a help to Isaac, to help him to follow God and to see God's will fulfilled in their lives. And that's the direction we should be encouraging our children to go. Certainly they should not marry an unbeliever, be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. The Bible tells us in Corinthians chapter six, a believer should never marry an unbeliever Sometimes it turns out that a believer thinks they're marrying a believer, the person says they're saved, and maybe even seem to be serving the Lord, and then down the road things change and they go back, they never were actually born again, and they turn and walk away from God, and you end up with an unequal yoke, and that's a different situation, but it should never be entered into knowingly. But our children should be looking for someone not just who appeals to them by their outward beauty, but someone who has strength of character and a heart for God that will help them to develop character and to have a heart for God. And that's the kind of woman that the servant found for Isaac as the Lord led him to that one. And so we ought to pray expecting that for our children, for our grandchildren, and we ought to, as we have opportunity, encourage them that this is the direction you need to go, and we need to be setting the example for them. What a wonderful thing a godly Christian marriage can be. And what a difficult thing an ungodly marriage can be, even when you have two Christians, perhaps married to each other, but they lack character, and they don't have a heart for God, and yes, they're saved and on their way to heaven, but they're really not living for God, and it can be a mess. It happens, and when it does, we have to help them to navigate that, and maybe to pick up the pieces if it falls apart. Those things happen, we understand that, that's life. but we want to try to channel them in a direction where they don't get into that mess and pray that God will lead them in the right way and into the one that God has for them. Well, let's stand together for prayer. Our Father, we thank you for this illustration of faith in the life of Abraham, that he believed your promises and as he sought a son, a wife for his son Isaac, that he acted upon the promises that you had made and he looked for the right kind of a woman that would further those promises and further your will for his family. We thank you for this faithful servant who listened to his master and then went out and acted in accordance with his master's desires and had the heart to pray. Thank you, Lord, that you answered his prayer and that it's a testimony to us today that you do answer prayer. And even in the matter of marriage, that for one who is truly seeking your leading and your will and following you, Lord, that you will lead them to that one that you have for them, the one that will be a blessing and a help to them in life. who help them establish a godly family. We pray for our children who are unmarried. We pray for our grandchildren who are unmarried. Father, that they might have a heart for you and a heart to find a spouse that would share their heart of love for you and their desire to serve you and that together they can walk through life encouraging one another, growing in the Lord, establishing a godly family, raising godly children who can continue that line for generations to come. Go with us as we leave here tonight, Father. Give us safety and travel home. Bless the remainder of this week. Lord, may you continue to teach us and to guide us in the way that you would have us to go. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.