In this sermon based on Genesis 24, the speaker explores the story of Abraham finding a wife for Isaac. The servant, commissioned by Abraham, prays and seeks God's leading throughout his journey. He meets Rebekah, who exhibits qualities of beauty, service, and purity. The servant recognizes God's hand in orchestrating their meeting and worships Him. The importance of parental involvement, wise counsel, equal yoking, and maintaining purity in relationships is emphasized. The story highlights the purpose of marriage in spreading the gospel from one generation to another.

We'll see Genesis chapter 24, Genesis chapter 24. That was very appropriate opening song. Behold our God seated on his throne controlling everything. Because I want to talk about getting married. I want to talk about wanting to get married, waiting to get married, parents wanting their children to get married, and taking action in an appropriate way.

I was reading Genesis 24, my devotions, and was so struck by it. Of course the story in Genesis 24 tells the story of Abraham finding a wife for Isaac. He's since his most trusted servant who's probably 84 years old at the time. He saddles up maybe a dozen donkeys and provisions for a 400-mile journey that he's going to take according to the specifications that Abraham laid out for him. And he bumps into this girl.

And it was so striking to me what he said when that happened. After traveling so long and having all these seemingly random issues that surrounded the entire situation, he says, the Lord led me. The Lord led me. And he worships God for his leading. You know, what seems to be a random connection, well, there are no random connections.

I was orchestrated by the Lord, and this is how God puts people together in marriage. You can't plan it, you can't figure it out. Bam, God puts things together, And that's pretty much how people get married. They don't get married according to a strategic plan. They know dozens of people, they go dozens of places, they bump into situations, and bam, and God is in control of all of it but I loved I loved I loved reading the Lord led me and I want us to really internalize that And you know the heart that says, Lord, lead me, lead me to her.

Lord, lead me to him. That's a good prayer. It's a right prayer. You should be praying that prayer. And you can be assured that God will lead you.

Absolutely, he will lead you. Maybe not in your own timing, but he will lead you. And I'm just so grateful for that. And I pray for parents who say, Lord, lead us. Lead us to help our children in an appropriate way, to be married.

So in Genesis 24 is this real life example. Abraham, Isaac, and Rebecca, and their family is in the story, so let's pray. Father, we thank you for giving us this wonderful, beautiful story, and that you would use it to instruct us. You know my heart. I so desire to see the young people in this church be joined together in holy matrimony and a holy life.

Oh God, I pray that you would bless these folks in our church, the parents and their children, together as they work together, amen. So this is a real life example. The truth is, marriage looms large in the scheme of God's plan of redemption. He even makes marriage a picture of his own love for the church of the gospel. He makes a husband and a wife teachers of the next generation.

Well, you know, What happens in a home really matters. It's a strategic institution. When the Lord Jesus said, I will build my church, there were lots of facets to it. One of the ways he builds his church is when a husband and wife come together. He intends to build his church through marriages.

Marriage is where the gospel is the center, the word of God is the governor and they teach it from one generation to the next. And it's very important as we think about marriage that we recognize that God actually provides marriage to inject within a husband and a wife a vision that reaches across the generations. Marriage means you're not alone. Marriage means it's not all about you. Marriage means you should come together and if God gives you children, then it's not about you.

It's about their faith. It's about your investment in their lives. And unfortunately, All is not well in the marriage space. People grow up today thinking that marriage is about getting your needs met. There's rampant immorality before marriage.

I read the other day over 90% of American adults have sexual intimacy before marriage. There are seismic shifts going on in our culture, skyrocketing independent female households, independent male households. You have fewer than half of all American households today are made up of married couples. Years of singleness have been dramatically prolonged. I do believe that God is God in His grace prolongs the time of marriage for some people.

I was 28 when I got married. It was a little bit too long for me, but it was just right for God. You have perpetual adolescence in men, particularly young men, that's a tremendous problem. Boys are not growing up. Okay, I'm gonna give you just some facts about marriage before we jump into this text.

The purpose of a marriage is to proclaim the gospel. Secondly, the essence of marriage is to become one. And Third, the mission of marriage is to spread the glory of God across the generations. And fourth, the design of marriage is to have a shared mission with role distinction of male and female. And then finally, the reach of marriage is to spread the gospel from one generation to another.

You know, I'm becoming very well aware of that. All of our kids are married and gone. But the Bible tells me that I'm supposed to teach my children and my grandchildren all the days of my life. So I'm not done as a father to deal with children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren if the Lord gives them to me. So we enter into this family story, and You have a number of really remarkable things.

They're very countercultural. You have a wife that's actually chosen at the design of the parents according to a set of principles. That almost never happens today. You also have a marriage that was very carefully entered into. There was lots of resources, lots of trusted personnel involved.

And then it was a strategic marriage as well. We'll see that from the text. It wasn't a marriage just because two people wanna get married. It was a strategic marriage. So verse one.

The text opens up with a description of Abraham. We're gonna walk through this text. Now Abraham was old, well advanced in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. So the sun is kind of going down on Abraham's life in a way, but God is still working. Then the second thing we see is there's a servant that's commissioned.

Abraham's servant is commissioned. Look at verse two. So Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house who ruled over all he had, Okay, he was a trusted servant. Abraham was one of the richest men in the ancient Near East, and this man was his administrator of his wealth. Please put your hand under my thigh, "'and I will make you swear by the Lord God of heaven "'and the 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 you shall go to my country and to my family and take a wife for my son Isaac." And the servant said to him, "'Perhaps the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I take your son back to the land from which you came? But Abraham said, beware that you did not take my son back there. The Lord God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my family, and who spoke to me and swore to me, saying to your descendants, I give this land. He will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son there.

And if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be released from this oath, Only do not take my son back there. So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning the matter." We should take note of the oath. Notice the solemnity of the oath and notice the specificity of the oath. It indicates the high importance of selecting a spouse. Few things are more important, few things are more dangerous than selecting a spouse.

It's dangerous to select a spouse, be careful. Your heart ought to be on holiness because It's very, very dangerous. But notice the specificity. First, it was an oath between God and man. Look at the words.

By the God of heaven and the God of the earth. Second, The oath required that a wife be of a certain kind of woman, not from among the Canaanites. Abraham didn't want his son Isaac to be married to a Canaanite, to a pagan. The Apostle Paul stated it like this, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. And then the wife must be taken from a specific family.

This is another part of the oath from my family. And then also the character of the servant is exemplified here. He was his most trusted servant. Now, let's consider this marriage actually was a matter of obedience because Isaac, Isaac must have a wife because of the generational promise of Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed, that all the families of the earth would be blessed. And the wife should not be taken from the Canaanites and Isaac may not return to the land which Abraham had left.

I think Abraham could not even conceive of his son leaving the land because of the promise that God made him. And so he was operating according to the revealed will of God so far as he knew it, particularly for Abraham himself. And there were promises made to Abraham. Genesis 17, 19, I will establish my covenant with Isaac as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. Abraham is promised that Isaac would have descendants.

So, marriage was very critical. Okay, so look at verse 11. This servant has traveled 400 miles, camels, baggage, gold, all kinds of things. And verse 11, he arrives, He arrives at this destination where he finds the girl that the Lord led him to. And he made his camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water.

Then he said, oh Lord God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day and show kindness to my master Abraham. Behold, here I stand by the well of water and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Now let it be that the young woman to whom I say, please let down your pitcher that I may drink. And she says, drink and I will also give your camels a drink. Let her be the one you've appointed for your servant Isaac.

And by this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master. The first thing a servant does is he prays upon arrival. He prays for success. He's dependent upon God. That's so critical.

Be dependent on God. And there are a number of lessons from this servant on how to deal with this matter of when you want to get married and when you want your children to get married. First, pray. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.

Second, He looked. He didn't just pray, He looked. So look, he looked in a certain place, not just any place. Matthew Henry says, he did not go to the playhouse, the park, and pray that he might meet one there, but to the well of water, expecting to find one there well employed. So pray and look in a good place.

And third, know, know what you're looking for. And fourth, assist, Isaac and Rebekah needed assistance. So then he meets with Rebekah, verse 15. And it happened before he'd finished speaking that behold, Rebecca, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, came out with her pitcher over on her shoulder. Now the young woman was very beautiful to behold, a virgin and no man had known her, And she went down to the well, filled her pitcher, and came up, and the servant ran to meet her and said, please let me drink a little water from your pitcher.

So she said, drink, my lord. Then she quickly let down her pitcher, down from her hand, and gave him a drink. And when she had finished giving him a drink, she said, I will draw water for your camels, also until they have finished drinking. Then she quickly emptied her pitcher into the trough, ran back to the well of water, and drew for all her camels. It was probably a couple of dozen trips with a big pot of water.

So the qualities of Rebecca were revealed. They were observed. She, well, she's beautiful, and she's bent towards service, and she's doing business, She's out doing things, she's having a productive life. And then Abraham's servant, verse 21, sees the hand of God. And he rewards Rebekah and asks to stay.

And the man wondering at her remained silent so as to know whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. So it was when the camels had finished drinking that the man took a golden nose ring weighing a half a shekel and two bracelets for her wrists, weighing 10 shekels of gold, and said, whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room in your father's house for us to lodge? So she said to him, I am the daughter of Bethuel, Melchiah's son, whom she bore to Nahor. Moreover, she said to him, we have both straw and feed enough and room to lodge.

And then verse 26, I love this part. He worships God. He does this throughout the narrative. It's very beautiful. Then the man bowed his head and worshiped the Lord and he said, blessed be the Lord God of my master, Abraham, who has not forsaken his mercy and truth toward my master.

As for me being on the way, the Lord led me. The Lord led me to the house of my master's brother. So he bowed down his head, he worshiped God, he blessed the Lord, and he acknowledged God's faithfulness. But one of the most instructive things about this is his understanding of God, that God is in control, that it was God who led him. He trusted in God.

But he didn't sit on his hands. And then, So then Abraham's servant tells the story to Rebekah's family in verse 29, and it's a really long section, you know, goes all the way, it's for 10 verses, we won't read it, but he retells the story, you know, everybody likes to tell their story, and he does that. And then in verse 50 through 60, Laban and Bethuel affirm the selection. The parents are content with the selection. There was confirmation in the family.

There should be confirmation in your family. This is one of the things that I've really been thankful for in this church. The weddings that we've had, the parents were very much involved, as they ought to have been. And there was affirmation of the weddings. And the parents were delighted to see their children go into the marriages that were formed.

And I just regard that as a blessing of the Lord in this church. It's the blessing of God on this church that the kids that have got married, they married with the affirmation of their parents and their siblings and it's such a good thing. So there's confirmation in the family And then Abraham's servant responds with worship and gifts in verse 52 and 53. And then in verse 54, there's this remarkable blessing of the brothers, the brothers like this. You want your brother to like the guy, okay.

And so verse 54, and he said to the men who were with him, They ate and drank and stayed all night. They arose in the morning, and he said, "'Send me away to my master.' But her brother and her mother said, "'Let the young woman stay with us a few days, "'at least 10, that she might go.' And he said to them, "'Do not hinder me, since the Lord has prospered my way. Send me a way that I may go to my master. And the blessing of the brothers, they blessed Rebekah and said to her, our sister, may you become the mother of thousands of ten thousands and may your descendants possess the gates of those who hate them. The brothers understood the purpose of marriage.

The purpose of the marriage was to declare the righteousness and the justice of God from one generation to the next in the face of those who hate God's justice. And to have children and to send the gospel from one generation to another. They understood that and the brothers understood that. And then there's the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca in verse 61. So it's a wonderful story.

I'm just gonna bullet point some of the things that I think are important. God provides, that's one thing. God sees, God sees everything, God orchestrates everything. God governs the synapses of every brain in the world. And you've not been forgotten because God is the governor of everything.

And you know, you have a father who loves his son. You have a son who honors his father. You have parents who are involved in the design of the marriage, you have resources brought to bear for finding these mates, in this case, enormous resources that Abraham deployed to send his most trusted servant 400 miles with all kinds of wealth along with him. You have a servant who worships God, his heart is tender toward God all through this. That's maybe one of my favorite parts of the story.

You have prayer, you have worship, you have the glorification of having children, which is really important in the culture that we live in today. So I'm going to give you some of my thoughts about getting married. First of all, If you're going to get married, be sure, be careful that you're honoring the jurisdiction of your parents. Honor the authority that your parents have in your getting married. Listen to them.

I've said this many times. I've said this to probably everyone I've ever married, if your parents are not for this marriage, I'm probably not gonna marry you unless they're wicked parents, and then we'll talk about it. But I wanna see your parents really affirm the marriage. We have to restore a sense of parental authority and jurisdiction. It's been so lost that even Christians are clueless about it, and it's a terrible loss.

And lots of harmful things have happened because of it. Second, counsel. Wise counselors who know the couple should be consulted and should affirm it. You see that in the family here. Next, equal yoking.

There should be a way to see if there's equal yoking. I think that this was covered in this story. There were various points that had to be established. And there was mutuality as well. This was not a forced marriage.

Rebecca didn't have to marry him. And there was, I think there should be a, there ought to be a sense of the maintenance of purity in the process of getting married. We live in a culture of impurity, And so purity has to be protected. If you don't protect it, then there won't be purity. The apostle Paul said, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel and sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also forewarned you and testified for God did not call us to uncleanness but to holiness that's that's first Thessalonians 4 3 through 7.

You know love does no harm to his neighbor and couples who are thinking about getting married and starting to get close needed to protect their purity and weight. So, so there you have it. You have this remarkable story and you have this servant who says, the Lord led me. The Lord led me to her. And My encouragement to all of you who want to get married is to recognize God's sovereign hand.

God is the one who gets people married whenever it's right for them to get married. And you can have all the strategic plans you want in the world, but people don't get married until God has them get married if they're walking with the Lord. And of course I do recognize that people do get antsy and they jump the gun and they do foolish things, but that wouldn't be you. You would seek the Lord, and you would desire to be married for the purpose of holiness in the Lord. So you wouldn't jump the gun, you'd wait, and you would see that things are right.

So what seems to be a random connection is actually orchestrated by God. And I just wanted to say that to you today. It's been on my heart and I I'm so glad that you know as far as I understand it most of you want to get married, it's a good thing, marriage is a good thing. God is the one who will time it. It may be later than you think, it may be earlier than you think.

There's no right time to get married. Was it too late for Isaac? He was 40, but God had a plan that included the marriage of Isaac when he was 40, and it was a good plan. And if God delays marriage for you, it will be a good plan for you and for everyone there are many sanctifying things that happen when you're when you have to wait to be married and you might not like it but God likes it and he's he's using it to bless you in ways that are beyond your own capability. So if you love the Lord, here's what you're gonna say.

The Lord led me to her. The Lord led me to him. And it was a marriage for the glory of God. Would you pray with me? Lord we're so thankful that you've given these narratives to show us various ways that you've orchestrated people's lives.

These things were given for our instruction, that we might not be idolaters but that that we might trust you and we might cast all of our cares upon you, that we might bathe everything in prayer, and that we might recognize that you are the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the one who leads. Amen.