Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #14 of Genesis, chapter 24, and I am going to read Genesis 24:11-21:

And 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. And he said, O JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew 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 thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master. And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up. And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher. And she said, Drink, my lord: and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking. And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether JEHOVAH had made his journey prosperous or not.

I will stop reading there.  We have been spending some time looking at the spiritual meaning of this passage, and we realize that the spiritual meaning is that the young women that were going out at the time of the evening to draw water are an illustration of those that would go to the “well of salvation” in the day of salvation when God was still actively saving His elect.  Salvation was still possible. 

We now can see how wonderful a thing it was and how glorious a thing it was to just have the “hope of salvation,” from man’s perspective.  Of course, God has always saved only His elect, and His salvation program was always exclusively for His elect, but He was the only one who knew exactly who they were, so we could honestly tell everyone that they could go to the throne of grace; that is, they could go to God directly in prayer or go to the Word of God, and they could beseech Him for mercy and cry out to Him for mercy.  And we would tell all people this, no matter how old they were, what gender they were, whether they were rich or poor, what color they were, or what country they were from. 

All people on earth had that opportunity from man’s perspective, and every person could have said, “I am going to go to God because I might be one of God’s elect.  It is possible that God could save me.  Therefore, I am going to humble myself, fall down and beseech the Lord for mercy, and cry to Him in hope.”  There was wonderful and glorious hope that maybe God would actually save them and bless the Word in hope.  There was that time and it was not that long ago, but it is past.  But there was a time when everyone could read the Bible with hope because, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  Therefore, what a beautiful thing it was to open up the Bible to read it yourself. 

Or, even more beautiful and more glorious and wonderful than anything, if you were a parent you would open up the Bible in your house with your children present.  You could read and pray, “O, Lord, as we read your Word, please bless it to the hearts of my children that they might be saved.”  What a blessing!  What a rich blessing.  It was the greatest of blessings.  There was nothing better than that.  We had everything as long as we had that, and we had tremendous hope.  We could share that hope with our family, our neighbors and strangers on the street, always praying: “Yes, today it appears my family members are unsaved, and they have not been broken before you and you have not saved them.”  But that night before we went to bed, we would go to God and we would pray for them: “O, Father in heaven, O Lord, could it be that you might save my children, my brother, my mother, my sister, or my wife and others that I love?”  And we would feel relief.  We would feel joy.  It was a feeling that we had done all we could do for that day.  Of course, the next day we were called upon to do the same, as we shared the Word and prayed, but for that day we had done our duty and what we should have done.  We shared the Word of God with others, and we prayed for them.  And we hoped, which was what really gave us comfort and that feeling of relief: “Maybe God will save the ones we are praying for.” 

You know, I am afraid that even though that was the most glorious of times, many of us did not appreciate it.  Many of us did not appreciate the fact that it was the day of salvation.  We may have taken it for granted, and just taken God for granted and His mercy and His grace and His goodness and His kindness and His love!  Day, after day, it had been the day of salvation, and year after year, decade after decade, and century after century, even into the second millennium.  It had been the day of salvation in the church age, and even after that, there was the little season of the Great Tribulation, and it was a tremendous day of salvation and the greatest time for people to be saved, as the Lord saved more people in that little season than He had saved in all times past.

So it is certainly true that we have developed a greater appreciation for the fact that salvation was possible.  At this time, now that the door has shut and the light of the Gospel has gone out and the water of the Gospel has dried up, faith can no longer come by hearing the Word of God.  God has now stopped saving people, as far as the first resurrection (of the soul), and He has completed it.  And we go on – day after day – and the days are hard.  The days are difficult, and there is a grievous nature to them, and one of the most grievous things about this time period is the lack of hope that God might translate someone out of darkness and into the light, and that God might cleanse the filthy and make them righteous.  No more.  The righteous are righteous still, and the filthy are filthy still.  Those that are in darkness will remain in darkness, and those that are in the light will remain in the light.  It is sorrowfully true and it is sorrowfully a fact that the day of salvation has past, and the Day of Judgment has come, and that time has moved on into our present time period.

And this time period does have its blessings for God’s elect people, as well as severe trials and testing, but it was absolutely necessary for this time period to come and for us to go through it.  There is great purpose and meaning involved with the suffering that we will experience (and have been experiencing), and we will continue to experience.  And, yet, we cannot help when reading a chapter like this and we see this language that identifies with the day of salvation and the glorious and beautiful thing it was that there was a time for “drawing water” and a time when people (as typified by Rebekah) could fill their pitcher and serve others the water of the Gospel with the hope, “Maybe God will save this one or that one.”

Anyway, it says in Genesis 24:11 that it was “the time that women went out to draw water,” and we discussed in our last study that the word “draw” was used in Isaiah 12, and we are going to read it again.  It says in Isaiah 12:3:

Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.

If you remember, the previous verse spoke of salvation: “…he also is become my salvation. Therefore…”

By the way, one of the few things I learned in the churches and sitting under preachers there for the short period of time I did was that when we see the word “therefore,” we should ask, “What is it there for?”  And the reason the word “therefore” is at the beginning of verse 3 is because it is a consequence or result of the salvation that is mentioned in the previous verse, in verse 2: …he also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”  That is, you became saved in the day of salvation, and instantaneously you became a messenger of the Gospel, and then you would be sent by the Lord Jesus Christ with that same “water,” and you would go forth.  In one way or the other, you certainly would do this as the Lord moved in your heart to will and to do of His good pleasure. 

So we were looking at this, and we saw how it relates to the young daughters of the men of the city and their evening promenade to the well to fill their pitchers, and there were the strangers and the camels, and they were served water.

We also went to Luke 16, and we ended our last study by reading about the rich man in “hell” and Lazarus the beggar.  I mentioned at that time that it is a picture of Judgment Day, our present time period, when the world has been brought into the condition of hell.  That is where the rich man found himself, but Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom, just as all the elect are hidden in Christ through salvation, according to Colossians.  Our lives are hid with Christ in God, so we are seated in the heavenlies in the Person of Christ, just as Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom, but our physical residence is still on this earth.

When God shut the door of heaven, He brought the world into the condition of “hell,” and He fixed that great gulf that would then exist between those that are righteous still and those that are filthy still, the saved condition and the unsaved condition.  There is no bridging of the gap, and there is no translation from the dark into the light.

However, the rich man had grown accustomed to Lazarus (who typifies God’s elect) as a messenger of the Gospel and a drawer of water, so the rich man made his request.  And this request could have (potentially) been granted at any previous time period, but not at this time.  It says in Luke 16:24-26:

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

I just referred to the language that expresses the desire of Lazarus or the desire of the elect, which says, “so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot.”  There is a desire.  There is a “want to” insofar as bringing the Gospel water like we had always done.  The elect children of God delighted in bringing the Gospel unto salvation.  We delighted in that service of being “drawers of water” and carrying the pitcher to give drink to thirsty strangers.  We have rejoiced and found joy in serving the Lord Jesus Christ through that ministry and, again, through the hope of taking care of the spiritual need of whoever we came in contact with, and we would do it now, if we could.  I know that is the desire of God’s people.  I know it is my desire.  We would pass from hence to you, and we would bring the Word of God.  And, by God’s grace and leading, we would write wonderful tracts like the “Does God Love You?” if we were directed that way by the Holy Spirit through the Bible; if the Bible would allow it and permit it, and if the Bible would just give us a little crack of an opening; that is, if the Bible would reveal that there is still hope for a sinner, we would do everything we could to share that truth.  We would rejoice, once again.  How wonderful, glorious and beautiful it would be to have hope for our loved ones once again – for family, children, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and mother and father.  Of course, we would come running with not just a “drop,” but with a full bucket.  We would come with whatever we could if there were a way and if there were any possibility or path that God would allow.

But wherever we turn in the Bible, there is the shut door, and we knew this prior to May 21, 2011.  It is the shut door, the darkened sun, the dry river bed, the waters turned to blood, the darkened moon, the stars having fallen from heaven, and all the other language that is confirming and strengthening and reaffirming that salvation has come to an end.  There is no more salvation.  This is Judgment Day, the time of the wrath of God and though we would, it is said, “…so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot.”  There is an inability, and only God could send forth His messengers with the Gospel of grace and mercy, the Gospel that could change a heart of stone into a heart of flesh and remove that stony heart and give a heart of flesh.  Only God could produce that “day of salvation” and cause it to come to pass, and only God could stop it.  He is the one who opens doors and shuts doors, and what God has shut, what does the Bible say?  It is not me and not EBible Fellowship, but what does the Bible say?  What God has shut no man can open, and the gulf that God has fixed between heaven and this earth (that has become as “hell”) is established and set.  And it is set not just in stone, which one could possibly break, but it is set in the eternal Word of God, the Bible, and it is a Word that cannot be changed or altered or moved.  God Himself, who is the same yesterday, today and forever and who changes not, He has decreed declared that salvation has come to an end.  It is over with and it is done.

So, for those of us that joyed in being simple “water bearers” and drawing water for others, that task has been completed.  Remember that was the point in Hebrews 10:35-36:

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

We have done the will of God in that matter, and now it is another matter.  We learned in John 21 that after the great catch of fish and after their salvation is complete as the great multitude has come out of great tribulation, there is now another matter and the last task of the elect children of God is to do: “Feed the sheep, feed the sheep, feed the sheep.”  It is the purpose of God for the Day of Judgment.  It is not as glamorous and not as glorious, in the sense that someone who was in the dungeon of sin at one moment can be set free in the next moment.  Oh, I agree – it is not like that, but it is still the work of the servant to obey the Master and to keep His commandments, and to do as He would have us to do and not to do our own desire and will. 

And God Has His reasons and purposes, and we are to trust in JEHOVAH with all our heart and lean not upon our own understanding, so we can thank God that we do have a job to do.  We do have a work to get busy with, and to run not with the Gospel water that can save, but with the same Word of God and the truths of the Word of God, and we run to the same people, all the inhabitants of the earth, sharing the message from God.  But we have to be honest.  We have to tell people, “Look, this is not going to save you because salvation is over and done with, but this is for a very specific reason.”  And then we let them know the reason.

Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, we will continue looking at this chapter in Genesis 24.