This morning, we turn the eyes of our hearts.
Lord, it seems to me that the only clarity we ever gain in this life is when we are beholding Thee. Lord Jesus, that is our salvation: to see Jesus.
And this morning, Lord, I pray as we share out of Your Word that You will open the eyes of our hearts to see Your heart, to see what is really deep within there.
Lord Jesus, we know that we do not deserve such a place of union with Thee, but that is the life You have called us to. And so, Lord, we come back in response to Thee today.
We want to begin our time together saying, “Lord, we love You. Lord, we appreciate You. Lord, we thank You, not only for Calvary, but, Lord, for Who You are.”
Lord, refresh us with Your presence among us. Lord, refresh us with Your life as it pours into us. Lord, we thank You in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, many have gone to take a vacation, I guess—a little rest before the busyness of the fall starts. But this morning, I am thankful that many of you decided to come to the wedding reception that we are going to be talking about.
We are going to be talking about a wedding this morning, and so I am glad you came and decided that you want to get ready for this wedding. You want to know what the Lord has to say about the coming wedding.
So this morning, we would like to begin in Genesis 24. Yesterday, I sent out an email saying that if you could read it ahead of time, it would be good. It is quite a story. How many got an opportunity to read it? Just a few.
All right, that means I am going to have to read it. So it is going to take about ten minutes, all right? Because I pick certain verses, but these verses cannot stand alone. You really have to read the story. So I will.
Now Abraham was old, advanced in age; and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way.
And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, “Place your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom we live; but you shall go to my country, to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”
And the servant said to him, “Suppose the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land. Should I take your son back to the land from where you came?”
And Abraham said to him, “Beware lest you take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, Who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth, Who spoke to me, and Who swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give this land,’ He will send His angel before you; and you will take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from my oath. Only do not take my son back there.”
So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master, and swore to him concerning this matter.
And the servant took ten camels from the camels of his master and set out with a variety of good things of his master’s in his hand; and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor.
And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at evening, the time when women go out to draw water.
And he said, “Lord, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water.”
“Now may it be that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also,’ may she be the one whom Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac; and by this I shall know that Thou hast shown lovingkindness to my master.”
And it came about before he had finished speaking that, behold, Rebekah, who was born of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor, came out with her jar on her shoulder. The girl was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had been with her. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up.
Then the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar.”
And she said, “Drink, my lord.” And she quickly lowered her jar to her hand and gave him a drink.
Now when she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw also for your camels until they have finished drinking.” So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran back to the well, and she drew for all the camels as well.
Meanwhile, the man was gazing at her in silence, to know whether the Lord had made his journey successful or not.
Then it came about, when the camels had finished drinking, that the man took a gold ring weighing half a shekel, and two bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels in gold, and said, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room for us to lodge in your father’s house?”
And she said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” Again she said to him, “We have plenty of both straw and feed, and room to lodge in.”
Then the man bowed low and worshiped the Lord. And he said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, Who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master. As for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers.”
Then the girl ran and told her mother’s household about these things. Now Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban; and Laban ran outside to the man at the spring.
It came about that when he saw the ring and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, “This is what the man said to me,” he went to the man; and behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring.
And he said, “Come in, blessed of the Lord. Why do you stand outside, since I have prepared the house and a place for the camels?” So the man entered the house. Then Laban unloaded the camels, and gave straw and feed to the camels, and water to wash his feet and the feet of the men who were with him.
But when food was set before him to eat, he said, “I will not eat until I have told my business.” And he said, “Speak on.”
So he said, “I am Abraham’s servant. The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become rich; and He has given him flocks and herds and silver and gold, and servants and maids and camels and donkeys. Now Sarah, my master’s wife, bore a son to my master in her old age, and he has given him all that he has.”
“And my master made me swear, saying, ‘You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live; but you shall go to my father’s house and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son.’”
“And I said to my master, ‘Suppose the woman does not follow me.’ And he said to me, ‘The Lord, before Whom I have walked, will send His angel with you to make your journey successful; and you will take a wife for my son from my relatives and from my father’s house.’”
“Then you will be free from my oath when you come to my relatives; and if they do not give her to you, you will be free from this oath.”
“So I came today to the spring and said, ‘Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if now Thou wilt make my journey on which I go successful, behold, I am standing by the spring; and may it be that the maiden who comes out to draw, and to whom I say, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar,” will say to me, “You drink, and I will draw for your camels also.” Let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master’s son.’”
“And before I had finished speaking in my heart, behold, Rebekah came out with her jar, and went down to the spring and drew; and I said to her, ‘Please let me drink.’ And she quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also.’ So I drank, and the camels were watered also.”
“Then I asked her and said, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ And she said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ And I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her wrists.”
“And I bowed low and worshiped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, Who had guided me in the right way to take the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son.”
“And so now, if you are going to deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, let me know, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.”
Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, “The matter comes from the Lord; so we cannot speak to you good or bad. Behold, Rebekah is before you. Take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has spoken.”
And it came about when Abraham’s servant heard these words, he bowed himself to the ground before the Lord. And the servant brought out articles of silver and articles of gold and garments, and gave them to Rebekah; he also gave precious things to her brother and to her mother.
Then he and the men who were with him ate and drank and spent the night. When they arose in the morning, the servant said, “Send me away to my master.”
But her brother and her mother said, “Let the girl stay with us a few days, say ten; afterward she may go.” And he said to them, “Do not delay me, since the Lord has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master.”
And they said, “We will call the girl and consult her wishes.” Then they called Rebekah and said to her, “Will you go with this man?”
“Will you go with this man?”
And she said, “I will go.”
Thus they sent away their sister Rebekah and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant and his men. They blessed Rebekah and said to her, “May you, our sister, become thousands of ten thousands, and may your descendants possess the gate of those who hate them.”
Then Rebekah rose with her maids, and they mounted the camels and followed the man. So the servant took Rebekah and departed.
Now Isaac had come from going to Beer-lahai-roi, for he was living in the Negev. Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, camels were coming.
Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from the camel. She said to the servant, “Who is this man walking in the field to meet us?” And the servant said, “He is my master.” Then she took her veil and covered herself.
The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. Thus Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
That is quite a story. It really shows me how God guides everything in our lives to bring us to His purpose, to bring us to what He wants. And He has something special on His heart.
You know, we have been studying God’s Word. We have been looking into God’s Word that we might know God, that we might know God’s heart, that we might know God’s ways, that we might know Him—and not just know about Him.
I was thinking as I was preparing for this time: you know, for the young people here this morning, when you go to school and learn all the equations, formulas, and reasons why things work the way they do, you have knowledge of that.
Then, at least in college, they have lab classes that you go to afterward so that you can see all the principles you have learned and all the knowledge you have gained. You can see it in operation. You can see it experimentally.
And I think it is very similar when we look in God’s Word. In fact, it is better, because we have the Holy Spirit. When we look into His Word, it is a living Word.
As we are reading His Word and studying His Word, He can operate in our hearts. The Holy Spirit operates and makes us very alive. He is working as we study His Word.
Then, in the everyday life that we have, we have a lab class. It seems like the Lord says, “It is not good enough just to have this inward working. There needs to be the outworking. You need to experience what I have been showing you in your heart, what I have been dealing with in your heart.”
And He does that, and He is faithful. In other words: inward revelation of God and His ways, but outward realization. Inward revelation, outward realization.
The point is, as we study His Word, we want to gain experiential knowledge of our Lord. So this story this morning is more than just a story. It is a beautiful story—one of the most beautiful stories in the Bible. It is a love story, and it is a story about a wedding.
The last time that we shared, I shared out of Genesis 23 and emphasized the point that when Abraham was buying a burial plot for his wife Sarah, who had died, he declared to the men of that area that he was a stranger and a sojourner on this earth.
This characterized the life of Abraham. At that time, he was 137 years old and had been in the land for sixty-two years, but he was still a sojourner. He was still on a mission.
That is what a sojourner is: they have a goal ahead. They are on a mission. Abraham was still a sojourner. He was still in the race. He was still pursuing God and the things of God. He was not just resting in his old age; he was pursuing God.
Remember, in order to obtain that gravesite, he had to pay the full price. That spoke to me of how, when we recognize the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ—when we realize what Calvary has done and accept it—our response is to pay the full price.
And what is that full price? It is that we might become a living sacrifice, a consecrated life to our Lord Jesus Christ.
I mentioned that the Lord recorded Sarah’s age and who she was in a way that He did for no other woman in the Bible. She was a special vessel. She was a vessel that brought in the promised seed.
Today, the church is a vessel through which the coming King will come. Our Lord Jesus Christ will come back because He is coming after the church, which is His bride.
That is the only reason He is going to return: to have His bride. Now, He is returning for you and me, but He is returning for you and me as part of the bride, as being in the bride.
So He is returning for a bride. He is not returning for many brides, but for the bride.
This matter of consecration, in response to what the Lord has done in our lives, causes us not only to give our lives to the Lord, but to give our lives to one another.
Let me say it another way. In the end, it is not an independent life to the Lord that He is receiving. He is receiving that corporate life—the life of the bride.
We need not only to experience the life of the Lord, but the life of the bride. The two lives are the same, as we will see this morning. But it is in the life of the bride that we truly experience the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, we come to Genesis 24. Abraham had done many things in his life of faith. The Lord had brought him along even to the point where he was willing to sacrifice his own son on Mount Moriah as a burnt offering—an offering of consecration to the Lord.
And he was willing to do that. I made the point that the only way he could have such faith was that he had to know God. He had to really know God.
He could never have had such faith if he did not know God. Even if he only had a casual knowledge of God, he would not have been able to do that. It took a man who really knew God to really do this act of offering his life.
But that was a mighty high point in our brother’s life with the Lord. Yet it was not the end. There was more.
At this point in Genesis 24, it is three years after Sarah’s death. Abraham is now 140 years old, and Isaac is forty years old. Abraham still needs to pursue what God wants him to pursue.
He had not yet completed what God was after in his life, even at this old age. We come to Genesis 24, and we see that Abraham gets his servant—probably Eliezer at this point still—and asks him to take this oath and go get a wife for his son.
This is his triumph. If God had simply blessed Abraham, and if Abraham had even gone to the point of willingly offering up his own son before the Lord on that mountain, and it ended there, Abraham would have had a blessed life.
The Lord blessed him greatly, as we see in this chapter. He would have had a great life, a spiritual life before God. But God’s heart would not have been satisfied. That is the thing.
God’s purpose would not have been achieved, because Isaac was the promised seed. If he did not have a wife, there was no way that the promise of God—that they would become a multitude of people—could be fulfilled.
And, as we know today, that includes both the nation of Israel and the Christian world—those who know the Lord Jesus Christ.
So Abraham’s life could have been a satisfactory spiritual life in his own eyes, perhaps, and in the eyes of the world and in our eyes. But God’s purpose would not have been satisfied.
This story reflects, or hints at, what God’s real heart is. And that is what we want to find out today: What is God’s heart?
In the Old Testament, we find hints of what is on God’s heart. The analogy here is pretty clear.
Abraham represents God the Father, Who from the beginning has had a desire to give everything to His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why He created man. That is why He created creation.
It was His good pleasure, it says in the Word, to create. But what was His real pleasure? His pleasure was His Son, Jesus. He wanted everything for Him, and He wanted His Son to have a bride.
Isaac, in this analogy, represents Christ—the One Who is to receive the bride; the One Who was offered up in sacrifice on Mount Calvary, that His life might be poured out, that He might have a bride.
And then we have, of course, the servant. I think it was still Eliezer, the servant who represents the Holy Spirit, Who is doing the work of getting a bride ready and prepared for the Son.
That is the spiritual analogy. As we read this story, I want to share about four basic points.
The first is the importance of the bride. Why was this bride so important? The bride is important because she is important to God.
God is passionate about His Son, Christ. And God is passionate, just as we see in the life of Abraham, about being sure that His Son has His helpmate.
Now, what is the purpose of this helpmate? She is to be a helper to Christ, but more than just a helper like a servant—one in union with Him.
Brothers and sisters, the Word of God does not reveal very much to us about future eternity and what will be happening at that time. But our God is a great creative God, and I do not even know if we can imagine what God is going to do with the new heaven and the new earth, and what He will have us doing.
But it will be that we, as the bride of Christ, will be His helpmate, carrying out all the pleasures of God in that day. And that is quite a future.
The bride is important because God wants a bride for His Son. Today’s concept is that God’s main thought, the thing mainly on His heart, is man’s salvation and blessing man.
And that is part of what is on His heart, but it is not His main thought. His main thought is a bride for His Son. Because of that, He did have to offer His Son as a sacrifice on Calvary, that He might gain the material, so to speak, for the bride.
When we look in the Bible, what do we see? The first thing is that the Lord creates Adam. Well, He creates the creation—or refurbishes it, at least—and He takes something out of Adam’s side and builds Eve.
Then He brings Eve to Adam: the first wedding. The Bible begins with a wedding.
Then, when Christ came to this earth, remember John the Baptist. What was his testimony? When he first saw the Lord, he said:
“Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.”
— John 1:29
But when they began to question who he was, and whether he was the Christ, he said, “No.” He said, “I am a friend of the bridegroom.”
John somehow received the revelation that Christ was not only the Lamb of God, but that He was the Bridegroom. John the Baptist was going to introduce this Bridegroom.
The Lord said there had been no greater prophet than John. I thought about this: the Old Testament prophets did see the Messiah. They pointed to the Messiah, even the suffering Messiah, though they did not understand it.
But with John the Baptist, it seems to me that he went a step further. He saw that Christ was the Bridegroom.
Also, remember our Lord’s first miracle, which He called a sign to the nations. The first miracle was at a marriage in the land of Cana. What did He do? He turned the water into wine.
The joy of union life. The joy of union life.
At the Lord’s Supper, remember the Lord was talking with them about the Passover, and He said that He would no longer eat or drink of it until it happened in the kingdom.
Do you all know what the kingdom age is called in the New Testament, in Revelation? The marriage supper of the Lamb. The marriage supper of the Lamb.
Finally, the Bible ends. We see the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, from God, adorned as a bride for her husband.
When you look at the Word of God broadly, you see that throughout the Word of God, this matter of a bride is primary on God’s heart: a bride for His Son.
As we read earlier, Abraham made the servant take an oath. Remember, he put his hand under his thigh and said, “You take an oath. You are not going to take a wife from the Canaanites, nor from this land or from these tribes. You have to go back and take a wife from my relatives.”
He made him take an oath, and he was very definite about it.
Brothers and sisters, the point is that God is committed to this. The Son and the Holy Spirit are committed to this.
Christ was so committed that Ephesians 5 tells us that He gave His life on Calvary for the church, for His bride.
The Holy Spirit has been given to us and is dwelling in us that we might come into this bride life; that we might not only pursue the Lord in our individual lives, but that we would come into the bride life before the Lord.
At times the Holy Spirit is ignored, disbelieved, disobeyed, and grieved. But, brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit is fully committed and rightfully called the hound of heaven. He never gives up.
The Godhead has, so to speak, made a covenant—made a pact—with each other about this matter of the bride.
Secondly, I want to bring out the importance of the bloodline. Let me read Genesis 24:3-4 again:
“I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live; but you shall go to my country, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”
This bride could not just be anyone. This bride could not be out of the world, out of the land, out of the Canaanites. She had to be special. She could only be out of the bloodline of Abraham.
You remember, the Word of God says life is in the blood. In spiritual terms, what that means is that the bride has to have the same life as the Bridegroom. They have to have the same life, the same kind of life.
The bride of Christ must be of the same life.
This morning, I want us to think about how special and unique this life is that we have received.
When God made Adam, He did not make Adam like the rest of the animals. Now, I know today we have been taught that is where we come from, but God did not make man like the rest of the animals.
God simply spoke the other animals into being. He spoke, and they were there. But with Adam, He took the clay of the earth and formed a man in His own image. He breathed into his nostrils, and the Word says that he became a living soul.
He became a living soul. In other words, He gave him life. This life animated his soul; it filled his soul. His mind, his will, and his emotions were full of life.
It is what we would call today the natural life—the life you get from your parents. It is a natural life, created life, so to speak.
God breathed into his nostrils, and he became a living soul. We know that man is tripartite in nature, and he also had a spirit. Deep within the soul, there is the spirit.
At this point in the story, Adam is perfect. He has not sinned. Nothing is wrong. But Adam is not yet complete according to what God was after.
You say, “Well, he had life. He was able to do things and serve the Lord with his life.” We think that.
This is what I think is so marvelous, fascinating, and unfathomable to me: God needed to complete Adam.
But in order to complete Adam, He was not just going to do it as He had breathed into him and brought him soul life. In order to complete Adam, He required Adam’s cooperation.
Adam would have to make a choice. So, in order to complete Adam, God put the tree of life in the midst of the garden.
Now, this tree of life, of course, represents Christ. The simple way to say it is that this is the way God chose to make the life of Christ available to Adam. But Adam would have to make that choice. He would have to cooperate with God.
In order to be completed and become the man God was after, he would have to take this next step.
Well, we know that before he did that, the serpent came in and deceived Eve. Then Eve got her husband to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They disobeyed God.
The real premise behind Satan’s argument was, “You can be like God. That is the problem. God does not want you to be on His level. He does not want you to be like Him.”
“He does not want you to be on your own. But with this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, if you eat of that, you can be on your own. You can live your own life. You can be your own god.”
Brothers and sisters, this soul life that we have been given is now in a fallen state because of sin, and we are born with it.
This life can never be the life of God—I mean, the life of the bride—even with Adam. What God was looking for was in the taking of the tree of life.
By taking of the tree of life, he would have had knowledge of good and evil, but he would have had the life that could live it.
Unfortunately, by choosing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he became knowledgeable. We are knowledgeable; we sense it. But we do not have the life that can live it. We do not have the bride life with just our soul.
So there needed to be that next step. But after he fell, God drove him from the garden and protected the tree of life with flaming swords.
It appeared at that point that it was over, that God’s plan for a bride for His Son could not be achieved through man, whom He had designed for this purpose.
But, brothers and sisters, we talked about it this morning at this table. We prayed and worshiped. God came up with an unimaginable plan.
In order to satisfy His own righteousness, to share His love, and to have the bride He intended for His Son from the beginning, He offered Christ on Calvary’s cross to die for our sins.
Through the pouring out of His life, the life of Christ was once again made available to man through the work of Calvary’s cross.
In other words, there is that second tree, and it is the cross of Calvary. Once again, Christ has made Himself available to us through the work of Calvary, that we can have His life: uncreated life, divine life.
Yes, we have soul life. But until we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, until we partake of Christ, we do not have uncreated life. We do not have divine life.
Now, I am not talking about becoming deity, but I am talking about having the life that has the nature and character of God—His bloodline.
If you have accepted Christ, you are in the bloodline of Christ now. He says, “You are a new creation in Christ.”
Oh, what God has done. He so desired man to come and be a part of His purpose, and now that has been made available through Jesus Christ.
You can now, by choice, if you have not already, freely by your own free will that God gave to you, take Jesus Christ as your life.
The life is being offered to you because of Calvary. You can actually partake of uncreated, divine life. That life will come and reside within your spirit.
Up until this point, your spirit has been dead toward God—unable to know God, unable to commune with God. But now you can, because you have the life. You are in the bloodline.
That is the importance of the bloodline. The bride can only be of the proper bloodline.
I do not know how to say it with the force that I know is there, but within you, brothers and sisters, and within me, is a life with the very nature and character of God.
May that life be allowed to live.
We will always have a soul, but that soul life must be coming under the spirit, and we must learn how to live by the Spirit.
Our brother has been sharing on spiritual exercise, because most of our life—even our Christian life—we live out of the flesh. We live by that old soul life.
The third thing we need to see in this chapter is the preparation of the bride—the importance of preparation.
In Genesis 24:16, when the servant saw Rebekah, his comment was that she was beautiful. She was beautiful.
I think that says so much. He immediately gave her bracelets and gold ornaments. He adorned her. Later, we see that he adorns her with more gold and with clothing—special clothing, silver and gold.
Well, what does this mean? Brothers and sisters, the life we have received is a beautiful life. It is full of beauty. It is the life of Christ—a beautiful life.
Gold speaks of the nature of God. Silver speaks of His redemptive power. And then there is the clothing. It does not mention what it is, but we have been given that golden robe of righteousness.
There is also this needlework of righteousness being worked out in our lives—the linen robe. Eliezer adorns her with these things. She is beautiful.
When you accept Jesus Christ, He says you have obtained all spiritual blessings in Christ. He adorns you. He adorns you.
Now, most of us do not think of ourselves as being beautiful. I certainly do not. In fact, I was looking at myself last night in the mirror, and I said, “God, this is getting bad.”
The older I get, the more things seem to be there that were not there before. Anyway.
But this life, when we receive it, is like a seed. That seed has to be nurtured by the Word of God, by the life of Christ being manifested. It grows, and it has to grow.
It grows into a beautiful thing, a beautiful being. It is inside you, and it is inside me. But we have to let this old stuff go ahead and die, as it has already been crucified with Christ on the cross.
Well, beautiful. She is beautiful.
Brothers and sisters, this is the work of the Holy Spirit. This is His part of this covenant that the Godhead has made for this bride: He is going to do this work in us.
I think He has a tough job, but that is what He is dedicated to.
It says that she is a virgin: a life of purity.
Now, brothers and sisters, we know that we are only righteous because we have the righteousness of Christ. Thank God. But that righteousness needs to be worked out in our lives, and we need to be pure for our Lord.
A virgin, particularly in today’s world, is one who has decided that she is going to keep herself for her husband, and for him alone.
In other words, her life is dedicated to keeping herself pure for her husband, her future husband. I wonder if that is our own attitude.
Are we really keeping ourselves for the Lord because we want to be pure for Him?
She keeps herself pure. Later, when she sees Isaac, she veils herself. That is the purpose of the veil.
When the bride comes down the aisle, she is veiled. I do not know if you have ever thought about it, but the whole thought is: “I only want my husband to see my face. I only want him to gaze upon me.”
Of course, she lifts the veil, and he sees her. That is what is going on in these days.
One other point on this matter of the work of the Holy Spirit: Ephesians 5:26 speaks of the church, the bride. It says she is being sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water with the Word.
Now listen: Christ does this that He might present the church to Himself in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless.
That is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Revelation 19:8 says the bride will be clothed in fine linen, linen which is the righteousnesses of the saints—not the righteousness of the saint, but the righteousnesses of the saints.
We are clothed with the golden robe of righteousness. It is Christ’s righteousness when we are saved, and because of that, we can come into the presence of God.
But here it speaks of plural righteousnesses. In other words, this righteousness that we have been given needs to be worked out in our lives so that it becomes very real in our lives.
It becomes a work in our lives, and it actually becomes part of our lives. That is the needlework spoken of in Psalms. It is the linen robe.
So the bride will have two robes: the golden robe of righteousness and the righteousnesses that God has worked out in our lives.
I was also prompted, as I read this chapter, concerning the diligence of the Holy Spirit in getting us prepared.
In Genesis 24:33, when food was set before the servant to eat, he said, “No, I will not eat until I have told my business.”
Later, when they tried to delay her going, he said, “No, do not delay.” The Holy Spirit is diligent, and, brothers and sisters, I do not know how to say this, but He does not want to delay.
Now, we do delay Him through our disobedience, through our not listening to the Holy Spirit, and through our not walking in the Spirit. There is delay there.
But the Holy Spirit is saying, “No delay. No delay. I need to be about My business. Do not hold Me up.”
He would not even eat after this journey until he had at least shared his business.
I want to share the importance of response. We look at Rebekah’s response. You probably need to read Genesis 24:53-58. We will not do that now, but remember:
Rebekah’s brother and mother said, “Well, she can go, but we would like for her to remain another ten days.”
And the servant said, “No, no, do not delay me. Do not delay me.”
Her brother and her mother represent other affections in your life besides your affection for Christ. They represent those affections in your life that are delaying you from being ready.
There can be a lot of affections in our lives besides Christ, brothers and sisters. The things of this world, our affections for the things of the world—they draw us away.
Family ties sometimes. I am not against family at all. I think family is of God, and we need to honor our families.
But sometimes those affections can actually keep us from going on in the Lord because we obey them rather than the Lord.
Family affections. Affections for money, things, fame, position. And the big one: the affection for ourselves.
The affection for ourselves is the big delaying factor. I hate to say it, but I love myself. And the more I go on with the Lord, the more I see that I love myself.
But God is faithful. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, He can draw us to Christ. Our affections can be turned. Thank the Lord for that.
But I have to say, I believe the affection for ourselves is what delays us the most.
What was Rebekah’s response? I thought the question was tremendous:
“Will you go with this man?”
That was the question. They said, “Let us bring Rebekah and let her answer whether she is ready to go.”
So the question is asked: “Will you go with this man?”
Now, who was this man? The man was the servant, representing the Holy Spirit. He was going to lead her to her Bridegroom. That was his purpose.
That is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in your life: to bring you to the Bridegroom, to make you ready.
They said, “Will you go with this man?” What does that mean in your life and my life, practically? It means: Are we willing to follow the Holy Spirit?
Are we willing to be attentive to the Holy Spirit, to listen to the Holy Spirit, to obey the Holy Spirit?
If we do, He will lead us to Christ. He will get us ready. But as much as we do not obey, as much as we resist, there is delay.
Will you go with this man?
Her response was, thank the Lord, “I will go.”
I do not think she went with any great thought of what she was going to do. She was simply following the servant. She was following the Holy Spirit, in today’s spiritual terms.
Let Him lead us to Christ.
When the Holy Spirit prompts us, brothers and sisters, about being ready for the Lord’s return, about giving our life to Him, about being joined with brothers and sisters in this pursuit, about body life, about spiritual responsibility, what is our response?
Will you go with this man? Will you go with this man?
Do you really want to know what the bride is about? You cannot just learn about that on an individual basis. There has to be fellowship in Christ. There has to be bride life.
And that bride life is corporate in nature, not individual. Have we yet discovered the life of the bride? Is it important to us?
It is part of being ready for the Lord—being part of the bride. Will you go with this man?
I want to end on this thought: Christ’s response. We need to respond.
But when we look at Isaac, he sees Rebekah, and he falls in love.
He is immediately, deeply, passionately in love with Rebekah. A look. A look. Just a look.
I do not know. Can you even imagine the Lord responding in such a way?
We look at ourselves today and say we are such a mess, individually and corporately. Yet the Lord has promised a bride without spot or wrinkle—a beautiful bride, a virgin for Himself.
That is what we are called to be a part of. Oh, how the Lord is waiting.
Has not the Lord waited long enough? Isaac was forty years old. It was as if the servant was saying, “No, we cannot delay another day. He is already forty years old.”
Now, I know men lived longer in those days, but still, it was not as though he was a teenager, like when my parents got married. He was forty years old.
It was as if the Holy Spirit said, “No. He is already forty years old. He has been waiting long enough.”
I think we are in this ten-day period, unfortunately. The church has not responded as it should, and so we have gone into this ten-day waiting period down through the centuries. The Lord has been waiting.
But the Holy Spirit has been working. That is the positive thing, and the Holy Spirit will not give up.
And I have to ask you once again: Will you go with this man?
Lord, we just come this morning to Thee. We pray that we have just gotten a glimpse of Your own passion for Your bride, and the passion of the Godhead to see that this is accomplished.
Lord, we understand weddings, and they are marvelous. But, Lord, we have no idea what this wedding is really about. We see it; we glimpse it.
Lord Jesus, work in our hearts in these days. Lord, we want to respond. We want to say, “I will go with this man,” that You might have what You want, and that You will not have to continue to delay.
We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.