Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #18 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are going to read Genesis 24:16-21:

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.

We have been going through this account and spending a lot of time because God spent a lot of time on this chapter.  As I mentioned before, this chapter is 67 verses, and it is basically the sending of the servant and the meeting with Rebekah at the well.  Then he goes back to her house and he will recount the meeting with Rebekah, so later in this chapter the Lord will go over this same material again, so we have to realize that this must be important.  Why else would God spend so much time with it?  We have looked at this from various vantage points, like the servant Eliezer representing the elect and representing Christ; like Rebekah representing the elect; like the location representing Christ coming to the church; and the camels representing those that receive the Gospel.  So there are all kinds of ways to view the teaching that God is setting before us.  It is like looking at the Gospel declaration to the world from all these different points of view.

We also saw that when Rebekah went down to the well, filled her pitcher and came up, it was a picture of experiencing salvation.  Remember that the Hebrew word translated “well” is much more often translated as “sight” or “eyes” and it has to do with seeing.  On a spiritual level, it makes perfect sense because that is what happened when God would save a sinner and grant him salvation.  The person would receive a new heart and a new spirit, and be given eyes to see and ears to hear.  And after the point of salvation, the person is also commissioned to go forth with the Gospel and to carry the Word of God, which the water typifies.  As Rebekah was serving the servant and the camels, she was portraying that beautiful picture of God’s people going forth with His Word, especially in the day of salvation.

She went down and she came back up, now qualified to minister to others.  And to minister means to serve.  We looked at a couple of places, like Psalm 51, where David asks God, “Create in me a clean heart,” and then it said in verse Psalm 51:13: “Then will I teach transgressors thy ways.”  First, there was a cleansed heart, and then there was the instructing of others in the way of salvation.

Then we saw that was the same pattern with the Apostle Paul when he received his sight after Ananias was sent to him, and he was literally and physically able to see again.  And then we read that “straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues.”  So there was the granting of eye sight, followed by preaching.

And, again, Rebekah went down to the “well,” the place of “sight” or “seeing,” and she came up ready to minister to strangers, which also point to God’s people.  So that is the wonderful picture that God is drawing in these verses.

I want to go to one more place in the book of Acts, chapter 8 where we read of Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch.  It says in Acts 8:26-32:

And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:

Then let us skip down to Acts 8:35-40:

Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea.

Here, we see a baptism, and in the Bible, baptism identifies with the washing away of sin. That is the spiritual meaning.  Of course, when people were baptized in water, that in itself never saved anyone, but God uses water baptism to signify the spiritual reality of the washing away of sin in Christ as He bore the sins of His elect at the point of the foundation of the world.  So we see that Philip and the eunuch both went down into the water, and then they came up again.  The eunuch went his way rejoicing and Philip continued as a minister of the Gospel and a servant of the Lord, and he preached in all the cities until he came to Caesarea.  Again, we have this idea of going down into the water and then coming up and preaching, and this is exactly what Rebekah is acting out in Genesis 24 as she went down to the water, received “sight” and came up to serve water to this stranger that had shown up at the well.

Then it says in Genesis 24:17-21:

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.

Here, we find there is a lot of “running” going on.  And in Acts 8 when the Spirit commanded Philip, he ran.  The angel of the Lord, the Spirit of God, spake unto Philip: “Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia.”  Then in verse 30, it said, “And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias.”  God told Philip to go toward the South and do what he was commanded to do, and Philip ran to carry it out.  He was commanded by God to do a certain thing, and he hastily and quickly carried it out.  It really shows forth the broken nature of Philip.  It shows forth the desire within him, an ongoing desire that God places within all his true elect children which is a desire to do the will of God.  When you have a desire to do something, you do not normally delay and “hem and haw.”  You do not dispute.  It is an entirely different mindset and attitude when you want to do something, and that is what an ongoing desire to do the will of God is all about.  It is a “want to.”  You want to do it God’s way and not your way.  So when we read that people are “running,” it is showing that eagerness and delight in doing the thing they are sent to do.  God’s people have that because it is the nature that God has put within them, so they run to keep His commandments.  Remember, it says that in Psalm 119:32:

I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.

Do you see the connection?  There is a reference to enlarging the heart, where God has made a change in the heart.  Once he has done that, we will “run,” and not just walk.  Yes – it is good if we walk in the way of His commandments.  And the Bible uses both “walking” and “running” after His commandments as the same figure, but “running” has this added element associated with it, in that the person wants to do it and he wants to do it as fast as he possibly can.  So, this Psalm says, “I will run the way,” and Jesus said He is the way, the truth, and the life.  He is also the Word made flesh.  So to “run the way” of God’s commandments is to go the way of the Word of God, the Bible.

We also read in Psalm 147:15:

He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly.

When we read in Genesis 24 that the servant Eliezer (a type of Christ and a type of the elect) was sent by his master Abraham on a mission with a task to find a wife, that was his commandment.  And the servant ran to meet Rebekah. 

Also, the Father gave the Lord Jesus Christ a task as He sent Him forth into the world to perform the demonstration of His atoning work, which also had to do with the obtaining of the bride.  It was a showing forth of the atoning work in order that the Word of God be laid out in a more perfect way.  The ultimate goal was to obtain the elect bride and accomplish the salvation of all those that were predestinated to become saved.

This servant ran to meet her; that is, it was as though the Lord Jesus Christ was eagerly running to the task.  He delighted in that task, and we do know that He endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him.  As He went forth or as the Word went forth, it was as it said in Psalm 147:15: “his word runneth very swiftly.”  So there was Christ running or the Word of God running across the face of the earth to search and find the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and to gather together the elect that would form the eternal bride of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then in response, Rebekah had been commissioned after she went down to the well and she came back up, to be a “water bearer” to give water to strangers, and she delighted in that task, as we read in Genesis 24:20:

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. 

She was not a lazy girl in this.  She was not reluctant.  You know, we encounter some people today and we see the way they do their job.  They may be a checker at a department store, but we encounter them, and it seems like they do not really want to be there, and it is the last thing they want to be doing.  And they let it be known in their attitude and the way they are doing their job.  God does tell us in Ephesians that we, as His people, are not to have that kind of attitude when we do our work in whatever business we are doing.  It says in Ephesians 6:5-7:

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men:

Eliezer was being obedient to Abraham.  You see, God’s people do the will of God from the heart.  God tells us to obey our masters; that is, if you are an employee and you are told, “This is what I want you do to,” you are to run to do it.  You are to do it as well as you possibly can. 

You know, there used to be a reference to a “Calvinistic work ethic.”  You do not hear that much anymore, and that is fine because I do not think it had anything to do with him.  It was only because he was a Reformed theologian that highlighted election and predestination in his teachings, and this became identified as “Calvinism.”  And it was God’s people that believed in election and predestination because it is the truth, and the elect people of God have understood that truth for many centuries.  A large number of elect that believed that particular doctrine during the church age, and it just means they were true believers in the actual sense of the word and, therefore, they had a desire to do things God’s way.  So when they went to work, they worked.  They worked eagerly.  You see, God’s Word and commandments transformed their typical work.  It transforms whatever it is we might do.  If you are a housewife, it would transform your housework.  If you are working on a construction site, it should transform your work there.  Or, if you are working as a checker at a department store, it should transform you work “as unto the Lord.”  We do not work just for money.  Since we do not work to please the earthly boss, in the first instance, it is always working as God would have us to do, working heartily as unto Him and doing service for Him.  And, therefore, we are able to transform our job into a sort of “offering” unto God: “Oh, Lord, I am going to work as hard as I can and as well as I can today, in order to glorify you, because that is what your Word tells me to do.”  It is another way of running the way of God’s commandments, so God’s people have traditionally been excellent workers out of this desire.  We do not shirk our work or go about it in a reluctant way, but to do it as eagerly as we can.

So, here, we see that Eliezer was running to her, and then she is running to get more water and running back to give water to the camels.  By the way, at this point, she does not know anything about this man.  He has not given her anything.  He has not told her his purpose.  He has not explained anything to her.  As far as she knows, this is a stranger.  She will give him drink and give his camels drink, and then he will go on her way and she will never see him again.  So we can see that there is a character about her that does identify with God’s elect people, because that is exactly what God’s elect have done.  As we went forth with the Gospel into the world, we did not look for the great, the mighty and the powerful people, hoping to find favor with anyone.  As we carried the Word of God under extreme conditions at times, we faced constant opposition and many obstacles.  We endured many afflictions and tribulations as we carried the water of the Gospel to those that thirsted after righteousness as they were scattered across the earth in various nations.  God’s elect delighted in fulfilling that task, and we did not want anything from them.  It is why people dedicated their time and resources and their own funds to do so.  Can you imagine it?  People of the world just shake their heads: “You went to a faraway destination on a tract trip?  You went where?  To India, Japan and South America?”  If it were them, they would show you their pictures: “Look, here I am at this bar, and here I am at this tourist attraction.  Here’s the beach.  Where are your pictures?”  We would respond, “Well, I did not really take any pictures.  We handed out tracts on some of the poorest streets in the poorest countries of the world.”  They would say, “What?  Why?”

And I will tell you why.  Those were the best experiences of my life.  There is no comparison to that.  I have also been many places where the entire goal of my trip was to go and have fun and enjoy myself and, normally, they were the most miserable trips.  But when you go to serve the Lord and you want to work and bring the Gospel to people, as we did at that time in the day of salvation, I tell you it brought great joy.  There was great delight and pleasure in doing the will of God.  (Now we have another task, and that is another story.)  It was doing what we should be doing and what was our duty and responsibility to do at that point in time.

We will have to look at this further in our next Bible study.