Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #26 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are going to read Genesis 24:27-33:

And he said, Blessed be JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, JEHOVAH led me to the house of my master's brethren. And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother's house these things. And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban: and Laban ran out unto the man, unto the well. And it came to pass, when he saw the earring and bracelets upon his sister's hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, Thus spake the man unto me; that he came unto the man; and, behold, he stood by the camels at the well. And he said, Come in, thou blessed of JEHOVAH; wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for the camels. And the man came into the house: and he ungirded his camels, and gave straw and provender for the camels, and water to wash his feet, and the men's feet that were with him. And there was set meat before him to eat: but he said, I will not eat, until I have told mine errand. And he said, Speak on.

I will stop reading there.  We are continuing to spend some time in this chapter, carefully thinking about what is written here.  And I have to acknowledge that I have never spent so much time in Genesis 24.  The book of Genesis is a wonderful book, and it has a lot of wonderful historic accounts and stories.  As I read it in the past, I was drawn to the creation chapters, the fall of man and the flood account and, of course, the account of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Later on, there is the story of Joseph that spans several chapters in the book of Genesis.  But as far as a chapter like this, I have read it, but it never struck me as all that important (just to admit my ignorance).  But, as we are being more careful, and thinking about it and praying for wisdom for God’s help in opening our understanding, we can see that it has everything to do with God’s whole Gospel program as it depicts the “bride of Christ.”  So it has been helpful to me – and I hope it has been helpful to you – to go through it in a mindful way, considering what we are reading.  And we do see it has to do with God’s salvation program.

Last time I mentioned that the word “master” is found 23 times.  Remember that we also saw that when Rebekah went down to the well to get the water, she went twice.  It said in Genesis 24:21:

And the man wondering at her held his peace…

I pointed out that in some places this is translated as “silence.”  The man, Eliezer, is a type of Christ, and he was silent.  Then she came back from the well a second time, in Genesis 24:22:

And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking…

So he was “holding his peace” or silence somewhere in a time when these camels are drinking, and the camels are unclean animals, which points to the unsaved and could identify with the Gentiles that were now being administered to with the Gospel water as God sent it forth to the Gentiles.

Anyway, with the word “master” being used 23 times, the number “23” leads us to the idea of the Tribulation, so that makes us think a little bit more.  The servant was coming for the bride of Christ to “take her away,” and that is exactly the scenario or situation that existed during the Great Tribulation when God sent His Word and His servants ministered the Word to the churches, which the land of Haran and Abraham’s family identified with, and within that land was the bride of Christ.  Within the churches and congregations were the elect and they were being called to “come out of her, my people.”  In our last study, we went to Matthew 25 and the parable of the ten virgins, where at midnight a cry was made that the bridegroom cometh, and to “go ye out to meet him.”  The five wise virgins did go out and entered into the marriage to become the bride of Christ, but the five foolish virgins did not.  Instead, they went to “buy” because they were not ready.  They were not prepared at that point when it was the time for the bridegroom to gather His bride.  So we see an element of this.

We should not expect to find every detail of the Great Tribulation and every detail of God’s plan to end the church age and to call His people out, but we can see this overall idea in this chapter as the servant was not coming for the whole house of Abraham’s brethren.  For example, we will read about Laban and Bethuel, Rebekah’s father, and Milcah, her mother, and the servant did not come for them and bring them back to Isaac.  He came only for Rebekah, and he left them where they were, so we can see the outline of this beautiful picture of Christ coming for His bride from within the churches and congregations and bringing them out to Himself where they would be safe in the Day of Judgment.  In Isaiah 26, we see one of the earlier verses that were opened up to our understanding concerning what God did on the Day of Judgment, May 21, 2011.  It says in Isaiah 26:20-21:

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, JEHOVAH cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

God is speaking directly to His people, and He said, “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors…hide thyself…for a little moment.”   We see in the Bible that a “little moment” is a figure of speech that represents Judgment Day. And He said to “hide thyself.”  How do we hide ourselves in these chambers and shut the door until the indignation, which is the wrath of God, is overpast; that is the wrath of God passes us by, so we are not destroyed by it?  How is that done?  How do we hide ourselves?  God defines what He means by “hiding ourselves” in Colossians 3:1-3:

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Life is in Christ and although we are on the earth, we are hid in Him at the moment of salvation when we were lifted up into heavenly places to be seated in Christ Jesus.  Our life is there.  It is an eternal life and we will live forever as a result (of salvation).  So we are protected.  We are safe and secure.  That is our safe “chamber” where we are hidden in the Day of Judgment.  This is the “hiding place” the Bible talks about.  This is the place mentioned in Isaiah 4:4-6:

When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. And JEHVOAH will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.

This also identifies with the Word God that is a “place of refuge.”  The Bible says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”  We are safe and secure eternally in Christ because He has saved us.  Therefore, no matter what happens when the storm comes and beats upon the house, and the storm is beating on each of our houses in order to find what foundation we have, just as in the parable where the same storm came against the house built upon the sand and the house built upon a rock.  The storm assails both.  And according to Biblical evidence, this present storm will play out over a course of 23 inclusive years (22 actual years) until the year 2033.  It is a prolonged judgment.  It is a prolonged storm beating upon the house and revealing the foundation.  The storm is demolishing the house built upon the sand.  If Christ, who is the foundation, is not the rock you are built upon as a living stone upon that “chief cornerstone,” you will not survive.  You will not survive through the storm.  You will not endure to the end.  You will fall.  This is also related to all the language the Bible uses concerning Judgment Day, like in Revelation 6 where it speaks of the “wrath of the Lamb,” or in Psalm 1:“…the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment.”  It says in Romans 14: “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” Or, it says in Ephesians 6:13: “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day.”  It has the idea of abiding or enduring until the end or until the completion of the storm.  And the storm will not go on forever.  It is not an eternal damnation.  It is a damnation or destruction that will have a time limit because God will not give more than “forty stripes” to the wicked.  He will not exceed that and punish someone in an unlimited way for ever and ever – that is contrary to His Word.  So there is a time of final destruction, and when that time comes, we, the elect people of God, will be left standing, and God gets the glory.  God gets the glory because it really proves that we had the right foundation.  You see, all glory goes to the foundation – Christ is the one who caused us to endure and made us come through.

What about the rest?  They did not have Christ.  He was not their foundation.  And now it is proven.  It is demonstrated.  That is why we are all making an appearance before the judgment seat.  The word “appearance” means to be “made manifest.”  We are manifesting or demonstrating that Christ is our Saviour and that our sins were forgiven in Him at the point of the foundation of the world when He suffered the wrath of God on our behalf.  He rose again to justify us.  And now God is showing this to all the world and to principalities and powers.  He is putting the eternal church (the elect) on display to all, which will glorify His name.  We are just blessed recipients of His grace and mercy that He has worked these things within us to will and to do of His good pleasure, and we will endure faithfully as good stewards of the mystery of God until the end.  And as we are left standing, we can all exclaim with one voice, “To God be the glory!”  And it will be true.  “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.”

Again, it is not shown in fine detail, but in Genesis 24 we see this beautiful picture of God in Abraham the father sending his servant, which would be a type of the Lord Jesus Christ (and the elect children carrying it out) to go find the bride that was in the church and bring her back to Isaac, a very clear type of Christ.  Remember that Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac.  We went through that chapter and we saw how everything about Isaac points to Jesus.  The servant was to go get the bride of Jesus Christ and bring her back.  And that is what is going to happen here.

So let us go back to Genesis 24:27:

And he said, Blessed be JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth…

The word “destitute” is #5800 in Strong’s Concordance, and it is also translated as “forsaken.”  We will not turn there, but it says in Jeremiah 12:7: “I have forsaken mine house.”  You see, God has not left the servant destitute or forsaken of His mercy and His truth.  In Proverbs 3, we read of mercy and truth, in Proverbs 3:1-4:

My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.

The word “forsake” is the same word, #5800.  So, let not mercy and truth make you destitute or forsaken.  Bind them about your neck and write them upon the table of your heart; that is, grab ahold of the Word of God and cleave unto it, as Romans 12:9 tells us to do: “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.”  You know as well as I know that God’s Word is good, and the world is evil.  Do we need any more evidence or any more proof of the world’s evil?  Is anyone in doubt any longer?  Is anyone in doubt that the heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things?  Is anyone in doubt that God is true and every man a liar, given what we have seen and experienced over these last grievous decades as God the Holy Spirit lifted His hand of restraint upon the wicked hearts of men?  He is showing us what has been there all along and, yet, it had been constrained by His Spirit so that man gave some appearance of morality.  But he was never moral because he was dead in trespasses and sins, and he had a heart of stone.  Does anyone really think there is any good in this world and its philosophies and other religions or in any other area?  Is there any goodness?  And if anyone thinks there is, they are still deceived and deluded.  We know that God’s Word is good, so cleave unto that which is good, and abhor that which is evil. So we find this admonition: “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee.”

Also, in Proverbs 6 we find mercy and truth again, and we get a little more definition of what it means in Proverbs 6:20-23:

My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:

Actually, mercy and truth are not mentioned here, but the commandment lets us know what Proverbs 3 was talking about, which is the Word of God, the Bible, and that is what mercy and truth identify with.

So this servant, who was probably Eliezer, was saying, “Blessed be JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute or forsaken my master of his mercy and his truth or of His Word.”  Then he goes on to say at the end of the verse in Genesis 24:27:

… I being in the way, JEHOVAH led me to the house of my master's brethren.

And the “way” would be the way of the Lord Jesus Christ, as Jesus said in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  And Jesus is the Word, and as mercy and truth leads us to the Word of God, so does the reference to “the way.”  Jesus is the way.  The elect children of God follow the way or narrow path, the way of the Bible, and it leads us to the bride.  This is basically what this servant was saying on the spiritual level.

We are going to stop here and, Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will keep going through these verses trying to see what we can find regarding what God will open up to our understanding.